You'd like to think (although I can easily see me being disappointed on the downside) that the US has a mass of evidence it can produce in court to show that Maduro is an election-stealing piece of scum who is happy to skim a billion or two off drugs going into the US as he turns a blind eye. So far so good on the US seizing him to face justice.
The intelligence, planning and execution were flawless. Hats off to the CIA and the US military on that. It was everything that Putin's 3 day SMO was not.
Left at that, the world would largely have shrugged and suggest the guy had it coming (although not so sure the charges against his wife will stand up).
But then Trump has to say he's now in charge of Venezuela and it was all about grabbing their oil. Thereby playing himself offside with those having no respect for his "might is right" new world order. If I were advising Kemi, I'd have given him kudos for the first part - but called him out on the oil grab. It comes across as no better than Putin grabbing Ukraine - because he could.
(As an aside, the grounds for deposing Maduro are no better than those for toppling Lukashenko in Belarus. Another malignant sore on the face of democracy.)
To be fair to the US, their purchased oil rights and significant investment in Venezuela were confiscated by Maduro.
Comparisons between Trump in Venezuela and Putin in Ukraine are totally unfounded. One was a mission to get two people, over in hours, the other is a war of four years that’s cost a million lives.
People often misunderstand "might makes right" to be an endorsement of aggression, but Putin's actions are wrong in part precisely because he doesn't have might on his side.
I am intrigued to see how well this defence works in court.
By definition, if you find yourself being put on trial, then you are lacking in the power department.
If Putin’s lacking in the might department, why’s your boy Trump so consistently terrified of him?
It's not a binary question. Putin does have some power but he's just not on the same level as the US President. Part of the problem is that Putin doesn't accept this.
Trump doesn’t seem to accept this either. That’s the only rational explanation for his craven behaviour towards Putin.
You'd like to think (although I can easily see me being disappointed on the downside) that the US has a mass of evidence it can produce in court to show that Maduro is an election-stealing piece of scum who is happy to skim a billion or two off drugs going into the US as he turns a blind eye. So far so good on the US seizing him to face justice.
The intelligence, planning and execution were flawless. Hats off to the CIA and the US military on that. It was everything that Putin's 3 day SMO was not.
Left at that, the world would largely have shrugged and suggest the guy had it coming (although not so sure the charges against his wife will stand up).
But then Trump has to say he's now in charge of Venezuela and it was all about grabbing their oil. Thereby playing himself offside with those having no respect for his "might is right" new world order. If I were advising Kemi, I'd have given him kudos for the first part - but called him out on the oil grab. It comes across as no better than Putin grabbing Ukraine - because he could.
(As an aside, the grounds for deposing Maduro are no better than those for toppling Lukashenko in Belarus. Another malignant sore on the face of democracy.)
To be fair to the US, their purchased oil rights and significant investment in Venezuela were confiscated by Maduro.
Comparisons between Trump in Venezuela and Putin in Ukraine are totally unfounded. One was a mission to get two people, over in hours, the other is a war of four years that’s cost a million lives.
People often misunderstand "might makes right" to be an endorsement of aggression, but Putin's actions are wrong in part precisely because he doesn't have might on his side.
I am intrigued to see how well this defence works in court.
By definition, if you find yourself being put on trial, then you are lacking in the power department.
If Putin’s lacking in the might department, why’s your boy Trump so consistently terrified of him?
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Do you think it would be ok for a country like Saudi Arabia to abduct, put on trial and execute a UK citizen who had gay sex in the UK?
Just admit that you adhere to the "might is right" principle. It would explain almost all your posts and positions on PB.
No, I would not, as I do not think it is reasonable to put people on trial for gay sex.
I do think it is reasonable to put people on trial for stealing elections and the plethora of other crimes Maduro has committed.
The difference is the crimes, not the involvement of third parties.
Might is not right, law is not right either. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
If might is abused, then that is bad. If law is abused, then that is bad too.
I adhere to the principle that might is real - and the way to prevent other people abusing their might is by investing in Defence, not a comfort blanket of 'law' that is a utopian fantasy.
The Saudis would disagree.
Which is why we should ensure we are never in a position to let them exert power over us.
If we fail, and they can, no law will protect us.
Neither law nor might are right. Right is right, and we need to determine for ourselves right from wrong.
We can use either law, or might, for good or ill. That's on our ethics, we can't outsource ethics to either soldiers or lawyers.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
Um. Who has Trump replaced this "bad person" by, supposedly in the American national interest? Now return to your points 1 and 2 and decide if they still apply, even if you are still disregarding the rule of law issue.
Address your question not to PBers but to Badenoch's audience who pay no attention. You are asking them to go beyond their attention span.
You said "in defence of Badenoch" so I thought you meant defence of the principle. But if it's just headline perceptions it's "mad dictator sending armies to foreign countries to change governments they don't like" versus "bad man arrested". The problem with the second one is that no-one has given a moment's thought to Maduro previously - they hadn't even heard of him - so they don't have a view on whether he's bad or not
I noticed that Kemi Badenoch, in her comments about Maduro etc., referenced her personal experience of living under a dictatorship in Nigeria. Through that lens, I guess, things look a little different. I wonder how important that personal background is in the formation of her politics.
None whatsoever. I suspect her comment was performative. "Starmer can't make his mind up and I can. Oops, perhaps I should have kept quiet".
Here's the crack logic of Trump foreign policy so far:
Trump: We will subjugate the world w/tariffs. China: No rare earths for you! No markets for soy farmers! Trump: We must subjugate Venezuela for rare earths! Oil companies will pay! Exxon: Um, no we won't! Trump: We must pay the oil companies to occupy Venezuela for their rare earths! Soy farmers: ?? https://x.com/emptywheel/status/2008509016729636932
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Off her tits:
The Chavez regime is bad, lets remove it US abducts Maduro US declares it has freed Venezuela from the regime The regime installs the deputy as acting leader and continues to oppress people
Its an oil heist.
Yeah. So far, the US action has put two bad people in jail, killed 80 people who probably didn't deserve to die, and made no difference to the human rights situation in Venezuela. The ignore-international-law/"moral" argument falls down because it's not clear what the US has meaningfully achieved.
It doesn't fall down when that's precisely what many of us have said.
Removing Maduro had the potential to be a good thing.
Banging on about oil and ensuring the Chavista regime survived has destroyed all the good removing Maduro did.
The problem is the banging on about oil and the survival of the Chavista regime, not the fact international law was violated.
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
Can you assume that the Lib Dem vote will always be efficient? In 2010 they got 23% for fewer seats than they have now.
There are two factors at work:
(1) How concentrated is your vote? The regional parties clearly have very concentrated votes, and -in recent times- the same has been true of the LibDems. They've done very well in prosperous Remainia, and very poorly in poorer Leavestan. If their vote were to equalize between the two it would become significantly less efficient. However, I don't think we've seen any sign of that yet.
(2) How well are your opponents scoring? In 2010, the LibDems may have got 23%, but the Conservative Party (with whom they compete most for seats) was 13 percentage points above them. On that YouGov poll, there's only 10 percentage points between the LibDems and Reform... and Reform is likely doing besrt in Leavestan.
That suggests to me that, if the YouGov shares hold, then the LDs will do reasonably well: not challening for government or anything, but probably piking up a few more seats, simply because their vote share is up, while the Conservative one is down. (And yes, they will of course lose some seats to Reform, but they are lucky that their main opposition is the Conservative Party.)
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Do you think it would be ok for a country like Saudi Arabia to abduct, put on trial and execute a UK citizen who had gay sex in the UK?
Just admit that you adhere to the "might is right" principle. It would explain almost all your posts and positions on PB.
No, I would not, as I do not think it is reasonable to put people on trial for gay sex.
I do think it is reasonable to put people on trial for stealing elections and the plethora of other crimes Maduro has committed.
The difference is the crimes, not the involvement of third parties.
Might is not right, law is not right either. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
If might is abused, then that is bad. If law is abused, then that is bad too.
I adhere to the principle that might is real - and the way to prevent other people abusing their might is by investing in Defence, not a comfort blanket of 'law' that is a utopian fantasy.
The Saudis would disagree.
Which is why we should ensure we are never in a position to let them exert power over us.
If we fail, and they can, no law will protect us.
Neither law nor might are right. Right is right, and we need to determine for ourselves right from wrong.
We can use either law, or might, for good or ill. That's on our ethics, we can't outsource ethics to either soldiers or lawyers.
Is that what you'd advise the Venezuelans to do too to prevent the US meddling in their affairs?
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Remind me again about the meaning of the word "jurisdiction"
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Do you think it would be ok for a country like Saudi Arabia to abduct, put on trial and execute a UK citizen who had gay sex in the UK?
Just admit that you adhere to the "might is right" principle. It would explain almost all your posts and positions on PB.
No, I would not, as I do not think it is reasonable to put people on trial for gay sex.
I do think it is reasonable to put people on trial for stealing elections and the plethora of other crimes Maduro has committed.
The difference is the crimes, not the involvement of third parties.
Might is not right, law is not right either. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
If might is abused, then that is bad. If law is abused, then that is bad too.
I adhere to the principle that might is real - and the way to prevent other people abusing their might is by investing in Defence, not a comfort blanket of 'law' that is a utopian fantasy.
The Saudis would disagree.
Which is why we should ensure we are never in a position to let them exert power over us.
If we fail, and they can, no law will protect us.
Neither law nor might are right. Right is right, and we need to determine for ourselves right from wrong.
We can use either law, or might, for good or ill. That's on our ethics, we can't outsource ethics to either soldiers or lawyers.
Is that what you'd advise the Venezuelans to do too to prevent the US meddling in their affairs?
If you don't want others meddling in your affairs you need to invest in Defence, yes.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Remind me again about the meaning of the word "jurisdiction"
Barty is a pirate at heart, as his moniker suggests.
You'd like to think (although I can easily see me being disappointed on the downside) that the US has a mass of evidence it can produce in court to show that Maduro is an election-stealing piece of scum who is happy to skim a billion or two off drugs going into the US as he turns a blind eye. So far so good on the US seizing him to face justice.
The intelligence, planning and execution were flawless. Hats off to the CIA and the US military on that. It was everything that Putin's 3 day SMO was not.
Left at that, the world would largely have shrugged and suggest the guy had it coming (although not so sure the charges against his wife will stand up).
But then Trump has to say he's now in charge of Venezuela and it was all about grabbing their oil. Thereby playing himself offside with those having no respect for his "might is right" new world order. If I were advising Kemi, I'd have given him kudos for the first part - but called him out on the oil grab. It comes across as no better than Putin grabbing Ukraine - because he could.
(As an aside, the grounds for deposing Maduro are no better than those for toppling Lukashenko in Belarus. Another malignant sore on the face of democracy.)
To be fair to the US, their purchased oil rights and significant investment in Venezuela were confiscated by Maduro.
Comparisons between Trump in Venezuela and Putin in Ukraine are totally unfounded. One was a mission to get two people, over in hours, the other is a war of four years that’s cost a million lives.
But that's not what Trump says is the mission. He claims to be in charge of Venezuela and that he'll get their oil and land. He's not in charge of Venezuela, so he's either lying/stupid, or he will have to send the military back to make his claim true.
You'd like to think (although I can easily see me being disappointed on the downside) that the US has a mass of evidence it can produce in court to show that Maduro is an election-stealing piece of scum who is happy to skim a billion or two off drugs going into the US as he turns a blind eye. So far so good on the US seizing him to face justice.
The intelligence, planning and execution were flawless. Hats off to the CIA and the US military on that. It was everything that Putin's 3 day SMO was not.
Left at that, the world would largely have shrugged and suggest the guy had it coming (although not so sure the charges against his wife will stand up).
But then Trump has to say he's now in charge of Venezuela and it was all about grabbing their oil. Thereby playing himself offside with those having no respect for his "might is right" new world order. If I were advising Kemi, I'd have given him kudos for the first part - but called him out on the oil grab. It comes across as no better than Putin grabbing Ukraine - because he could.
(As an aside, the grounds for deposing Maduro are no better than those for toppling Lukashenko in Belarus. Another malignant sore on the face of democracy.)
To be fair to the US, their purchased oil rights and significant investment in Venezuela were confiscated by Maduro.
Comparisons between Trump in Venezuela and Putin in Ukraine are totally unfounded. One was a mission to get two people, over in hours, the other is a war of four years that’s cost a million lives.
Isn't that just a difference of competence of planning and execution? Putin didn't imagine he was getting into a four year war, he thought he was going to do a quick military op, topple the existing government and install a suitably compliant puppet regime. Also, we haven't yet had time to see the consequences unfold in Venezuela: if taking out Maduro upsets a power balance and results in civil war, for example, I think we should hold that on the negative side of the ledger when evaluating the costs of Trump's actions here.
Previous US overseas adventures have fallen into that trap, but it does appear that this particular mission was very limited and executed brilliantly.
A small number of special forces put themselves in danger, but did what they were very well trained to do and the mission came off.
I don't suppose the US is going to get themselves into the same quagmire, but the apparent lack of any coherent plan for the "and now what?" future that follows the brilliantly executed military operation is rather reminiscent of Iraq...
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
Can you assume that the Lib Dem vote will always be efficient? In 2010 they got 23% for fewer seats than they have now.
For a reasonable time, yes.
Their 2010 map was extensive, but a bit of a mess. Celtic seats going back to Jo Grimond and before, some university towns and lots of random places that happened to have had a by-election.
Their current map, Nice England with a cathedral, a Gail's or a Waitrose (ideally all three) is much more coherent and stable. Nobody else is really going for those voters, either.
It's hard for the Lib Dems to extend beyond 100 seats or so, but they will be blooming hard to shift from those.
What strikes me is that Reform are not running away with it and relatively modest swings could make things look quite different. Guardian is leading on Tories overtaking Labour but, really, seems just a bit of churn. The election (due 2029) seems far more open than the commentary seems to suggest. A lot could, and undoubtedly will, happen between now and then.
Many people on the left were saying 18 months ago that Reform would struggle to ever go higher than 15%.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Do you think it would be ok for a country like Saudi Arabia to abduct, put on trial and execute a UK citizen who had gay sex in the UK?
Just admit that you adhere to the "might is right" principle. It would explain almost all your posts and positions on PB.
No, I would not, as I do not think it is reasonable to put people on trial for gay sex.
I do think it is reasonable to put people on trial for stealing elections and the plethora of other crimes Maduro has committed.
The difference is the crimes, not the involvement of third parties.
Might is not right, law is not right either. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
If might is abused, then that is bad. If law is abused, then that is bad too.
I adhere to the principle that might is real - and the way to prevent other people abusing their might is by investing in Defence, not a comfort blanket of 'law' that is a utopian fantasy.
The Saudis would disagree.
Which is why we should ensure we are never in a position to let them exert power over us.
If we fail, and they can, no law will protect us.
Neither law nor might are right. Right is right, and we need to determine for ourselves right from wrong.
We can use either law, or might, for good or ill. That's on our ethics, we can't outsource ethics to either soldiers or lawyers.
Is that what you'd advise the Venezuelans to do too to prevent the US meddling in their affairs?
If you don't want others meddling in your affairs you need to invest in Defence, yes.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Do you think it would be ok for a country like Saudi Arabia to abduct, put on trial and execute a UK citizen who had gay sex in the UK?
Just admit that you adhere to the "might is right" principle. It would explain almost all your posts and positions on PB.
No, I would not, as I do not think it is reasonable to put people on trial for gay sex.
I do think it is reasonable to put people on trial for stealing elections and the plethora of other crimes Maduro has committed.
The difference is the crimes, not the involvement of third parties.
Might is not right, law is not right either. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
If might is abused, then that is bad. If law is abused, then that is bad too.
I adhere to the principle that might is real - and the way to prevent other people abusing their might is by investing in Defence, not a comfort blanket of 'law' that is a utopian fantasy.
The Saudis would disagree.
Which is why we should ensure we are never in a position to let them exert power over us.
If we fail, and they can, no law will protect us.
Neither law nor might are right. Right is right, and we need to determine for ourselves right from wrong.
We can use either law, or might, for good or ill. That's on our ethics, we can't outsource ethics to either soldiers or lawyers.
Is that what you'd advise the Venezuelans to do too to prevent the US meddling in their affairs?
If you don't want others meddling in your affairs you need to invest in Defence, yes.
That's always been true and always will be.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Do you think it would be ok for a country like Saudi Arabia to abduct, put on trial and execute a UK citizen who had gay sex in the UK?
Just admit that you adhere to the "might is right" principle. It would explain almost all your posts and positions on PB.
No, I would not, as I do not think it is reasonable to put people on trial for gay sex.
I do think it is reasonable to put people on trial for stealing elections and the plethora of other crimes Maduro has committed.
The difference is the crimes, not the involvement of third parties.
Might is not right, law is not right either. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
If might is abused, then that is bad. If law is abused, then that is bad too.
I adhere to the principle that might is real - and the way to prevent other people abusing their might is by investing in Defence, not a comfort blanket of 'law' that is a utopian fantasy.
The Saudis would disagree.
Which is why we should ensure we are never in a position to let them exert power over us.
If we fail, and they can, no law will protect us.
Neither law nor might are right. Right is right, and we need to determine for ourselves right from wrong.
We can use either law, or might, for good or ill. That's on our ethics, we can't outsource ethics to either soldiers or lawyers.
Is that what you'd advise the Venezuelans to do too to prevent the US meddling in their affairs?
If you don't want others meddling in your affairs you need to invest in Defence, yes.
That's always been true and always will be.
That would be small comfort to the gay man about to be executed by the Saudis.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Remind me again about the meaning of the word "jurisdiction"
Countries with power have long claimed jurisdiction over crimes by other nations leaders, for a variety of reasons. Have done for centuries.
Those with the power to implement said claims are able to do so, for good or ill, while those who don't can't.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Do you think it would be ok for a country like Saudi Arabia to abduct, put on trial and execute a UK citizen who had gay sex in the UK?
Just admit that you adhere to the "might is right" principle. It would explain almost all your posts and positions on PB.
No, I would not, as I do not think it is reasonable to put people on trial for gay sex.
I do think it is reasonable to put people on trial for stealing elections and the plethora of other crimes Maduro has committed.
The difference is the crimes, not the involvement of third parties.
Might is not right, law is not right either. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
If might is abused, then that is bad. If law is abused, then that is bad too.
I adhere to the principle that might is real - and the way to prevent other people abusing their might is by investing in Defence, not a comfort blanket of 'law' that is a utopian fantasy.
The Saudis would disagree.
Which is why we should ensure we are never in a position to let them exert power over us.
If we fail, and they can, no law will protect us.
Neither law nor might are right. Right is right, and we need to determine for ourselves right from wrong.
We can use either law, or might, for good or ill. That's on our ethics, we can't outsource ethics to either soldiers or lawyers.
Is that what you'd advise the Venezuelans to do too to prevent the US meddling in their affairs?
If you don't want others meddling in your affairs you need to invest in Defence, yes.
That's always been true and always will be.
That would be small comfort to the gay man about to be executed by the Saudis.
No shit Sherlock, which is why we need to invest in Defence, to prevent that happening. Your own argument is proving my point.
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
Can you assume that the Lib Dem vote will always be efficient? In 2010 they got 23% for fewer seats than they have now.
For a reasonable time, yes.
Their 2010 map was extensive, but a bit of a mess. Celtic seats going back to Jo Grimond and before, some university towns and lots of random places that happened to have had a by-election.
Their current map, Nice England with a cathedral, a Gail's or a Waitrose (ideally all three) is much more coherent and stable. Nobody else is really going for those voters, either.
It's hard for the Lib Dems to extend beyond 100 seats or so, but they will be blooming hard to shift from those.
There is a northern amendment to the rule. Kendal, the Samarkand of Farron's empire has no cathedral and no Gail's and no Waitrose. In parts of the far NW for 'Waitrose' you have to substitute 'Booths', for cathedral you have to substitute 'red squirrels' and for Gail's you have to substitute 'independently owned butcher and pie shop of outstanding quality'.
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
Can you assume that the Lib Dem vote will always be efficient? In 2010 they got 23% for fewer seats than they have now.
For a reasonable time, yes.
Their 2010 map was extensive, but a bit of a mess. Celtic seats going back to Jo Grimond and before, some university towns and lots of random places that happened to have had a by-election.
Their current map, Nice England with a cathedral, a Gail's or a Waitrose (ideally all three) is much more coherent and stable. Nobody else is really going for those voters, either.
It's hard for the Lib Dems to extend beyond 100 seats or so, but they will be blooming hard to shift from those.
Lib Dems dig in.
While that's true, it didn't really help them much in 2015. People assumed that popular local MPs (like Ed Davey) would be able to hold on despite the LibDem vote dropping two-thirds, and it simply didn't happen.
It took a combination of Brexit and a sharp drop in the Conservative vote for them to have a very strong 2024. If the right wing vote were to reunite, then the LibDems on 16% would not have a great time - sure they do better than 2015, but you could easily see them drop back into the 30s as far as seat numbers go. On the other hand, if the right is split, then the LibDems will likely have another good election result ahead of them.
You'd like to think (although I can easily see me being disappointed on the downside) that the US has a mass of evidence it can produce in court to show that Maduro is an election-stealing piece of scum who is happy to skim a billion or two off drugs going into the US as he turns a blind eye. So far so good on the US seizing him to face justice.
The intelligence, planning and execution were flawless. Hats off to the CIA and the US military on that. It was everything that Putin's 3 day SMO was not.
Left at that, the world would largely have shrugged and suggest the guy had it coming (although not so sure the charges against his wife will stand up).
But then Trump has to say he's now in charge of Venezuela and it was all about grabbing their oil. Thereby playing himself offside with those having no respect for his "might is right" new world order. If I were advising Kemi, I'd have given him kudos for the first part - but called him out on the oil grab. It comes across as no better than Putin grabbing Ukraine - because he could.
(As an aside, the grounds for deposing Maduro are no better than those for toppling Lukashenko in Belarus. Another malignant sore on the face of democracy.)
To be fair to the US, their purchased oil rights and significant investment in Venezuela were confiscated by Maduro.
Comparisons between Trump in Venezuela and Putin in Ukraine are totally unfounded. One was a mission to get two people, over in hours, the other is a war of four years that’s cost a million lives.
Isn't that just a difference of competence of planning and execution? Putin didn't imagine he was getting into a four year war, he thought he was going to do a quick military op, topple the existing government and install a suitably compliant puppet regime. Also, we haven't yet had time to see the consequences unfold in Venezuela: if taking out Maduro upsets a power balance and results in civil war, for example, I think we should hold that on the negative side of the ledger when evaluating the costs of Trump's actions here.
Previous US overseas adventures have fallen into that trap, but it does appear that this particular mission was very limited and executed brilliantly.
A small number of special forces put themselves in danger, but did what they were very well trained to do and the mission came off.
I don't suppose the US is going to get themselves into the same quagmire, but the apparent lack of any coherent plan for the "and now what?" future that follows the brilliantly executed military operation is rather reminiscent of Iraq...
The difference being that there’s currently no American troops in Venezuela.
(Okay, probably a few spooks and very special forces, but they’re in every country).
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
Can you assume that the Lib Dem vote will always be efficient? In 2010 they got 23% for fewer seats than they have now.
For a reasonable time, yes.
Their 2010 map was extensive, but a bit of a mess. Celtic seats going back to Jo Grimond and before, some university towns and lots of random places that happened to have had a by-election.
Their current map, Nice England with a cathedral, a Gail's or a Waitrose (ideally all three) is much more coherent and stable. Nobody else is really going for those voters, either.
It's hard for the Lib Dems to extend beyond 100 seats or so, but they will be blooming hard to shift from those.
Lib Dems dig in.
Tell me about it.
Interesting by-election test case coming up in Gosport (klaxon!) next week. Bridgemary (mainly a 1940s council estate, with pockets of more recent private housing) was Labour for ages, went Conservative in the Corbyn years, then Lib Dem when the Conservatives fell apart nationally. One of those bits of the Red Wall that fell off and got stuck on the Solent coast, basically.
Reform are going for it noisily and aggressively; it will be grimly fascinating to see how well they do.
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
Can you assume that the Lib Dem vote will always be efficient? In 2010 they got 23% for fewer seats than they have now.
For a reasonable time, yes.
Their 2010 map was extensive, but a bit of a mess. Celtic seats going back to Jo Grimond and before, some university towns and lots of random places that happened to have had a by-election.
Their current map, Nice England with a cathedral, a Gail's or a Waitrose (ideally all three) is much more coherent and stable. Nobody else is really going for those voters, either.
It's hard for the Lib Dems to extend beyond 100 seats or so, but they will be blooming hard to shift from those.
There is a northern amendment to the rule. Kendal, the Samarkand of Farron's empire has no cathedral and no Gail's and no Waitrose. In parts of the far NW for 'Waitrose' you have to substitute 'Booths', for cathedral you have to substitute 'red squirrels' and for Gail's you have to substitute 'independently owned butcher and pie shop of outstanding quality'.
Doesn't mostly work for Scotland, where they have to make do with sheep, sea and/or students (but may still not win). Mind there is a waitrose in suburban Edinburgh but it is in Red Morningside (prop: I. Murray).
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Off her tits:
The Chavez regime is bad, lets remove it US abducts Maduro US declares it has freed Venezuela from the regime The regime installs the deputy as acting leader and continues to oppress people
Its an oil heist.
Yeah. So far, the US action has put two bad people in jail, killed 80 people who probably didn't deserve to die, and made no difference to the human rights situation in Venezuela. The ignore-international-law/"moral" argument falls down because it's not clear what the US has meaningfully achieved.
It doesn't fall down when that's precisely what many of us have said.
Removing Maduro had the potential to be a good thing.
Banging on about oil and ensuring the Chavista regime survived has destroyed all the good removing Maduro did.
The problem is the banging on about oil and the survival of the Chavista regime, not the fact international law was violated.
So, you're saying that if something else had happened, it would've been good. But it hasn't, so I'm not certain where that gets us...?
Let us imagine your neighbour was a wrong 'un and the police came and arrested him. That would be good. Now, let's imagine that the police come and try to arrest your neighbour, but there's a shoot-out and the police shoot your wife. She's dead now. Is that OK? Mistakes happen? Or would you have a complaint about that? Maybe the police could have acted differently.
The US killed 80 people in getting to Maduro and his wife. Is 80 deaths acceptable collateral damage to arrest 2 people? Forget debates about international law. What about domestic law? Are you fine with 80 people being killed by law enforcement for 2 arrests?
If 80 deaths had been the price for overthrowing an authoritarian regime, maybe that would be different, but the US hasn't overthrown an authoritarian regime. (Trump doesn't want to work with Machado because she got the Nobel Peace Prize instead of him.)
➖Destroy NATO ➖Create a EU-US trade war ➖Compel the US to militarily rule a reluctant Greenlandic population ➖Encourage a Russian attack on the Baltics ➖Destroy a range of US commercial interests: from the lock-out of (all/some) US defence, energy and tech companies as well as investors from EU markets ➖Create a political backlash in the US probably affecting the midterms
Fees like a long list of bad things. Are the supposed benefits really so great that they outweigh all those downsides?
I think the EU and UK need to make clear, privately, the consequences of annexing Greenland, for example:
- Closing all US bases on European soil. This would lose the US more in terms of military projection than it would gain from getting Greenland where they have large bases.
- The end of NATO and it's replacement with a ETO. Turkey is welcome to remain a part of the new organisation.
- Nuclear umbrella covers all of ETO. Or at least the UK and EU.
As the US has says, it's obvious the defending Greenland militarily is likely a non starter. So focus on other consequences that are in our control.
Do you really think Poland would send the Americans home over Greenland?
Do you really think the US would help to defend Poland?
At a certain point you need to recognise that having US troops in Europe is a bigger threat than it is a benefit. The point at which the US takes European territory by force is a good time to enforce that.
In any case, we don't need to close every base to hurt the US.
As I keep repeating. Cut off US access to the data from Fylingdales. It is still a key part of their ballistic missile early warning system along with Thule and Clear, but is an RAF station. It would seem particularly apt given Thule is in Greenland.
Don't be silly. They'd build another and lock us out of all their systems.
Where? It is about geography. Go look at a map of the interlinked BMEWS stations. They need the UK to plug a gap.
Plus, in case you missed it, Fylingdales is the bit of the system that protects the UK. Cutting us out of the rest of it would make bugger all difference.
Menwith Hill would have to go too. They'll have to control their satellites and other spying operations from elsewhere.
Everytime I go past there seems to be a new golf ball.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Do you think it would be ok for a country like Saudi Arabia to abduct, put on trial and execute a UK citizen who had gay sex in the UK?
Just admit that you adhere to the "might is right" principle. It would explain almost all your posts and positions on PB.
No, I would not, as I do not think it is reasonable to put people on trial for gay sex.
I do think it is reasonable to put people on trial for stealing elections and the plethora of other crimes Maduro has committed.
The difference is the crimes, not the involvement of third parties.
Might is not right, law is not right either. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
If might is abused, then that is bad. If law is abused, then that is bad too.
I adhere to the principle that might is real - and the way to prevent other people abusing their might is by investing in Defence, not a comfort blanket of 'law' that is a utopian fantasy.
The Saudis would disagree.
Which is why we should ensure we are never in a position to let them exert power over us.
If we fail, and they can, no law will protect us.
Neither law nor might are right. Right is right, and we need to determine for ourselves right from wrong.
We can use either law, or might, for good or ill. That's on our ethics, we can't outsource ethics to either soldiers or lawyers.
Is that what you'd advise the Venezuelans to do too to prevent the US meddling in their affairs?
If you don't want others meddling in your affairs you need to invest in Defence, yes.
That's always been true and always will be.
That would be small comfort to the gay man about to be executed by the Saudis.
No shit Sherlock, which is why we need to invest in Defence, to prevent that happening. Your own argument is proving my point.
Is this getting through your skull yet?
This is what you said: "Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice."
The problem is the Saudis might say the same: " This gay man ending up before our court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice."
If you can defend the former then I don't see how you can't defend the latter.
What strikes me is that Reform are not running away with it and relatively modest swings could make things look quite different. Guardian is leading on Tories overtaking Labour but, really, seems just a bit of churn. The election (due 2029) seems far more open than the commentary seems to suggest. A lot could, and undoubtedly will, happen between now and then.
What strikes me is that we have a government on 17% - yes, 17% - in the opinion polls, eighteenth months after winning a huge landslide victory.
We've got used to that in the last year, and they are a bunch of clueless cretins who entirely deserve it, but it's still worth taking a step back to realise how utterly bizarre and perhaps dangerous to legitimacy it could be.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Do you think it would be ok for a country like Saudi Arabia to abduct, put on trial and execute a UK citizen who had gay sex in the UK?
Just admit that you adhere to the "might is right" principle. It would explain almost all your posts and positions on PB.
No, I would not, as I do not think it is reasonable to put people on trial for gay sex.
I do think it is reasonable to put people on trial for stealing elections and the plethora of other crimes Maduro has committed.
The difference is the crimes, not the involvement of third parties.
Might is not right, law is not right either. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
If might is abused, then that is bad. If law is abused, then that is bad too.
I adhere to the principle that might is real - and the way to prevent other people abusing their might is by investing in Defence, not a comfort blanket of 'law' that is a utopian fantasy.
The Saudis would disagree.
Which is why we should ensure we are never in a position to let them exert power over us.
If we fail, and they can, no law will protect us.
Neither law nor might are right. Right is right, and we need to determine for ourselves right from wrong.
We can use either law, or might, for good or ill. That's on our ethics, we can't outsource ethics to either soldiers or lawyers.
Is that what you'd advise the Venezuelans to do too to prevent the US meddling in their affairs?
If you don't want others meddling in your affairs you need to invest in Defence, yes.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Do you think it would be ok for a country like Saudi Arabia to abduct, put on trial and execute a UK citizen who had gay sex in the UK?
Just admit that you adhere to the "might is right" principle. It would explain almost all your posts and positions on PB.
No, I would not, as I do not think it is reasonable to put people on trial for gay sex.
I do think it is reasonable to put people on trial for stealing elections and the plethora of other crimes Maduro has committed.
The difference is the crimes, not the involvement of third parties.
Might is not right, law is not right either. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
If might is abused, then that is bad. If law is abused, then that is bad too.
I adhere to the principle that might is real - and the way to prevent other people abusing their might is by investing in Defence, not a comfort blanket of 'law' that is a utopian fantasy.
The Saudis would disagree.
Which is why we should ensure we are never in a position to let them exert power over us.
If we fail, and they can, no law will protect us.
Neither law nor might are right. Right is right, and we need to determine for ourselves right from wrong.
We can use either law, or might, for good or ill. That's on our ethics, we can't outsource ethics to either soldiers or lawyers.
Is that what you'd advise the Venezuelans to do too to prevent the US meddling in their affairs?
If you don't want others meddling in your affairs you need to invest in Defence, yes.
That's always been true and always will be.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
Had not known that poem - complete with a geological pun in every verse, apparently. Must read it. Thanks.
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
Can you assume that the Lib Dem vote will always be efficient? In 2010 they got 23% for fewer seats than they have now.
For a reasonable time, yes.
Their 2010 map was extensive, but a bit of a mess. Celtic seats going back to Jo Grimond and before, some university towns and lots of random places that happened to have had a by-election.
Their current map, Nice England with a cathedral, a Gail's or a Waitrose (ideally all three) is much more coherent and stable. Nobody else is really going for those voters, either.
It's hard for the Lib Dems to extend beyond 100 seats or so, but they will be blooming hard to shift from those.
Lib Dems dig in.
While that's true, it didn't really help them much in 2015. People assumed that popular local MPs (like Ed Davey) would be able to hold on despite the LibDem vote dropping two-thirds, and it simply didn't happen.
It took a combination of Brexit and a sharp drop in the Conservative vote for them to have a very strong 2024. If the right wing vote were to reunite, then the LibDems on 16% would not have a great time - sure they do better than 2015, but you could easily see them drop back into the 30s as far as seat numbers go. On the other hand, if the right is split, then the LibDems will likely have another good election result ahead of them.
Historically Lib Dem seat count is most strongly negatively correlated with Tory vote share. More so than with Lib Dem vote share or indeed Labour performance.
A few years ago I ran some numbers and the statistical relationship was very strong, even accounting for relatively few datapoints.
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
Can you assume that the Lib Dem vote will always be efficient? In 2010 they got 23% for fewer seats than they have now.
For a reasonable time, yes.
Their 2010 map was extensive, but a bit of a mess. Celtic seats going back to Jo Grimond and before, some university towns and lots of random places that happened to have had a by-election.
Their current map, Nice England with a cathedral, a Gail's or a Waitrose (ideally all three) is much more coherent and stable. Nobody else is really going for those voters, either.
It's hard for the Lib Dems to extend beyond 100 seats or so, but they will be blooming hard to shift from those.
Lib Dems dig in.
While that's true, it didn't really help them much in 2015. People assumed that popular local MPs (like Ed Davey) would be able to hold on despite the LibDem vote dropping two-thirds, and it simply didn't happen.
It took a combination of Brexit and a sharp drop in the Conservative vote for them to have a very strong 2024. If the right wing vote were to reunite, then the LibDems on 16% would not have a great time - sure they do better than 2015, but you could easily see them drop back into the 30s as far as seat numbers go. On the other hand, if the right is split, then the LibDems will likely have another good election result ahead of them.
The MRPs show the Libs losing seats: dramatically in some cases. They are being way too complacent
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
Can you assume that the Lib Dem vote will always be efficient? In 2010 they got 23% for fewer seats than they have now.
There are two factors at work:
(1) How concentrated is your vote? The regional parties clearly have very concentrated votes, and -in recent times- the same has been true of the LibDems. They've done very well in prosperous Remainia, and very poorly in poorer Leavestan. If their vote were to equalize between the two it would become significantly less efficient. However, I don't think we've seen any sign of that yet.
(2) How well are your opponents scoring? In 2010, the LibDems may have got 23%, but the Conservative Party (with whom they compete most for seats) was 13 percentage points above them. On that YouGov poll, there's only 10 percentage points between the LibDems and Reform... and Reform is likely doing besrt in Leavestan.
That suggests to me that, if the YouGov shares hold, then the LDs will do reasonably well: not challening for government or anything, but probably piking up a few more seats, simply because their vote share is up, while the Conservative one is down. (And yes, they will of course lose some seats to Reform, but they are lucky that their main opposition is the Conservative Party.)
I know it's three years away, but my snapshot today, based on the current EMA of vote shares and my personal switching model with some tactical voting is as follows:
LDs retain all current 72 seats except Newton Abbot which they lose to Reform. LDs gain one seat from Labour - Sheffield Hallam LDs gain six seats from the Tories - E Hants, Farnham, Godalming, N Cotswolds, N Dorset and Romsey ending up with 78 seats.
Green gain one seat from the Tories - Tonbridge, and dozens more from Labour ending up with 58 seats.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Remind me again about the meaning of the word "jurisdiction"
Countries with power have long claimed jurisdiction over crimes by other nations leaders, for a variety of reasons. Have done for centuries.
Those with the power to implement said claims are able to do so, for good or ill, while those who don't can't.
Again, realpolitik matters here.
Jurisdiction also matters, when it comes to courts.
Reasons for courts to possibly free Maduro.
Sovereign Immunity: Maduro’s lawyers are expected to argue that as a sovereign head of state, he is immune from prosecution under international and U.S. law.
Legality of Capture: Defense attorneys may contest the legality of the military operation that brought him to the U.S., arguing it was conducted without congressional authorization and violated international law.
I keep thinking how Comey and James charges were dropped due to mistakes by the DOJ, and I’m thinking kidnapping a foreign leader without the express approval of Congress could very well derail the prosecution of Maduro.
The difference between this case and Noriega is that they had a ton of evidence against Noriega and my guess is the evidence against Maduro won’t hold up in court.
The illegal act of kidnapping Noriega is an international crime and the actions here at home appear to be unconstitutional if a court wants to see it that way.
The Ker-Frisbie Doctrine is not a guarantee in this case. This doctrine assumes the court doesn’t care how they got there and they are free to assume jurisdiction over Maduro. The fact that Trump sent this case to SDNY suggests they don’t care about the outcome. It’s just another show to buy time for Trump to make a deal with him and grant him a very expensive pardon. https://x.com/PrezLives2022/status/2007994740948500745
Hard to predict how the 92 year old judge (yes, really) will deal with this.
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
Antifa? Who are these people, where is their headquarters? Are they a bit like SMERSH or SPECTRE?
You'd like to think (although I can easily see me being disappointed on the downside) that the US has a mass of evidence it can produce in court to show that Maduro is an election-stealing piece of scum who is happy to skim a billion or two off drugs going into the US as he turns a blind eye. So far so good on the US seizing him to face justice.
The intelligence, planning and execution were flawless. Hats off to the CIA and the US military on that. It was everything that Putin's 3 day SMO was not.
Left at that, the world would largely have shrugged and suggest the guy had it coming (although not so sure the charges against his wife will stand up).
But then Trump has to say he's now in charge of Venezuela and it was all about grabbing their oil. Thereby playing himself offside with those having no respect for his "might is right" new world order. If I were advising Kemi, I'd have given him kudos for the first part - but called him out on the oil grab. It comes across as no better than Putin grabbing Ukraine - because he could.
(As an aside, the grounds for deposing Maduro are no better than those for toppling Lukashenko in Belarus. Another malignant sore on the face of democracy.)
To be fair to the US, their purchased oil rights and significant investment in Venezuela were confiscated by Maduro.
Comparisons between Trump in Venezuela and Putin in Ukraine are totally unfounded. One was a mission to get two people, over in hours, the other is a war of four years that’s cost a million lives.
Except, it is not now a mission to get two people. It is a mission to extract Venezuela's riches. Which puts it in the same frame as Putin's plans to grab Ukraine and extract its riches. The only difference is thatthe Venezuelans haven't started violently objecting. Yet.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Remind me again about the meaning of the word "jurisdiction"
Countries with power have long claimed jurisdiction over crimes by other nations leaders, for a variety of reasons. Have done for centuries.
Those with the power to implement said claims are able to do so, for good or ill, while those who don't can't.
Again, realpolitik matters here.
Jurisdiction also matters, when it comes to courts.
Reasons for courts to possibly free Maduro.
Sovereign Immunity: Maduro’s lawyers are expected to argue that as a sovereign head of state, he is immune from prosecution under international and U.S. law.
Legality of Capture: Defense attorneys may contest the legality of the military operation that brought him to the U.S., arguing it was conducted without congressional authorization and violated international law.
I keep thinking how Comey and James charges were dropped due to mistakes by the DOJ, and I’m thinking kidnapping a foreign leader without the express approval of Congress could very well derail the prosecution of Maduro.
The difference between this case and Noriega is that they had a ton of evidence against Noriega and my guess is the evidence against Maduro won’t hold up in court.
The illegal act of kidnapping Noriega is an international crime and the actions here at home appear to be unconstitutional if a court wants to see it that way.
The Ker-Frisbie Doctrine is not a guarantee in this case. This doctrine assumes the court doesn’t care how they got there and they are free to assume jurisdiction over Maduro. The fact that Trump sent this case to SDNY suggests they don’t care about the outcome. It’s just another show to buy time for Trump to make a deal with him and grant him a very expensive pardon. https://x.com/PrezLives2022/status/2007994740948500745
Hard to predict how the 92 year old judge (yes, really) will deal with this.
92 is bonkers. What an odd country. (No offence to some PBers).
What's the plan though if this judge just dismisses all the charges immediately? Surely Maduro doesn't go free because there is no leverage for a pardon then.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
Um. Who has Trump replaced this "bad person" by, supposedly in the American national interest? Now return to your points 1 and 2 and decide if they still apply, even if you are still disregarding the rule of law issue.
Address your question not to PBers but to Badenoch's audience who pay no attention. You are asking them to go beyond their attention span.
You said "in defence of Badenoch" so I thought you meant defence of the principle. But if it's just headline perceptions it's "mad dictator sending armies to foreign countries to change governments they don't like" versus "bad man arrested". The problem with the second one is that no-one has given a moment's thought to Maduro previously - they hadn't even heard of him - so they don't have a view on whether he's bad or not
I noticed that Kemi Badenoch, in her comments about Maduro etc., referenced her personal experience of living under a dictatorship in Nigeria. Through that lens, I guess, things look a little different. I wonder how important that personal background is in the formation of her politics.
I think Badenoch is simply wrong. Wrong on the moral principle. Wrong about the international realities. And wrong if she thinks her interventions boost perceptions of her as prime minister in waiting.
But I don't think she is taking advantage of the luxury of opposition to adopt cynical and irresponsible positions. She would take exactly the same wrong positions as prime minister.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Remind me again about the meaning of the word "jurisdiction"
Countries with power have long claimed jurisdiction over crimes by other nations leaders, for a variety of reasons. Have done for centuries.
Those with the power to implement said claims are able to do so, for good or ill, while those who don't can't.
Again, realpolitik matters here.
Jurisdiction also matters, when it comes to courts.
Reasons for courts to possibly free Maduro.
Sovereign Immunity: Maduro’s lawyers are expected to argue that as a sovereign head of state, he is immune from prosecution under international and U.S. law.
Legality of Capture: Defense attorneys may contest the legality of the military operation that brought him to the U.S., arguing it was conducted without congressional authorization and violated international law.
I keep thinking how Comey and James charges were dropped due to mistakes by the DOJ, and I’m thinking kidnapping a foreign leader without the express approval of Congress could very well derail the prosecution of Maduro.
The difference between this case and Noriega is that they had a ton of evidence against Noriega and my guess is the evidence against Maduro won’t hold up in court.
The illegal act of kidnapping Noriega is an international crime and the actions here at home appear to be unconstitutional if a court wants to see it that way.
The Ker-Frisbie Doctrine is not a guarantee in this case. This doctrine assumes the court doesn’t care how they got there and they are free to assume jurisdiction over Maduro. The fact that Trump sent this case to SDNY suggests they don’t care about the outcome. It’s just another show to buy time for Trump to make a deal with him and grant him a very expensive pardon. https://x.com/PrezLives2022/status/2007994740948500745
Hard to predict how the 92 year old judge (yes, really) will deal with this.
92 is bonkers. What an odd country. (No offence to some PBers).
What's the plan though if this judge just dismisses all the charges immediately? Surely Maduro doesn't go free.
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
Antifa? Who are these people, where is their headquarters? Are they a bit like SMERSH or SPECTRE?
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
Antifa? Who are these people, where is their headquarters? Are they a bit like SMERSH or SPECTRE?
Sandpit's link doesn't mention Antifa.
I would have thought a lot of people are Antifa, or anti fascist
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
Antifa? Who are these people, where is their headquarters? Are they a bit like SMERSH or SPECTRE?
Sandpit's link doesn't mention Antifa.
I would have thought a lot of people are Antifa, or anti fascist
"Fun fact for the RADICAL LEFT LUNATICS: the distance from Nuuk, Greenland to the GREAT CITY of Washington D,C. is 2,035 miles. The distance from Nuuk, Greenland to Denmark's capital Copenhagen is 2,200 miles. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"
You'd like to think (although I can easily see me being disappointed on the downside) that the US has a mass of evidence it can produce in court to show that Maduro is an election-stealing piece of scum who is happy to skim a billion or two off drugs going into the US as he turns a blind eye. So far so good on the US seizing him to face justice.
The intelligence, planning and execution were flawless. Hats off to the CIA and the US military on that. It was everything that Putin's 3 day SMO was not.
Left at that, the world would largely have shrugged and suggest the guy had it coming (although not so sure the charges against his wife will stand up).
But then Trump has to say he's now in charge of Venezuela and it was all about grabbing their oil. Thereby playing himself offside with those having no respect for his "might is right" new world order. If I were advising Kemi, I'd have given him kudos for the first part - but called him out on the oil grab. It comes across as no better than Putin grabbing Ukraine - because he could.
(As an aside, the grounds for deposing Maduro are no better than those for toppling Lukashenko in Belarus. Another malignant sore on the face of democracy.)
To be fair to the US, their purchased oil rights and significant investment in Venezuela were confiscated by Maduro.
Comparisons between Trump in Venezuela and Putin in Ukraine are totally unfounded. One was a mission to get two people, over in hours, the other is a war of four years that’s cost a million lives.
Except, it is not now a mission to get two people. It is a mission to extract Venezuela's riches. Which puts it in the same frame as Putin's plans to grab Ukraine and extract its riches. The only difference is thatthe Venezuelans haven't started violently objecting. Yet.
Kemi says the annexation is legit, so I don't believe you can argue it is akin to the invasion of Ukraine. I believe she could reasonably argue it is a different circumstance and Maduro is a bad guy and Zelenskyy isn't.
My fear is that cheerleading the running roughshod over diplomatic norms and etiquette is a bad example to bad people like Putin and Xi, oh and Stephen Miller.
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
Antifa? Who are these people, where is their headquarters? Are they a bit like SMERSH or SPECTRE?
Sandpit's link doesn't mention Antifa.
I would have thought a lot of people are Antifa, or anti fascist
I'm anti-Antifa as well as anti fascist (in the proper meaning of the word, not theirs).
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
Antifa? Who are these people, where is their headquarters? Are they a bit like SMERSH or SPECTRE?
Sandpit's link doesn't mention Antifa.
I would have thought a lot of people are Antifa, or anti fascist
Unfortunately not as many as we would like, hence the header.
(Vulkangruppe do publish letters on various left wing and anarchist sites, but seem to have no known membership or structure. Whether they truly exist is even questionable)
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
Can you assume that the Lib Dem vote will always be efficient? In 2010 they got 23% for fewer seats than they have now.
There are two factors at work:
(1) How concentrated is your vote? The regional parties clearly have very concentrated votes, and -in recent times- the same has been true of the LibDems. They've done very well in prosperous Remainia, and very poorly in poorer Leavestan. If their vote were to equalize between the two it would become significantly less efficient. However, I don't think we've seen any sign of that yet.
(2) How well are your opponents scoring? In 2010, the LibDems may have got 23%, but the Conservative Party (with whom they compete most for seats) was 13 percentage points above them. On that YouGov poll, there's only 10 percentage points between the LibDems and Reform... and Reform is likely doing besrt in Leavestan.
That suggests to me that, if the YouGov shares hold, then the LDs will do reasonably well: not challening for government or anything, but probably piking up a few more seats, simply because their vote share is up, while the Conservative one is down. (And yes, they will of course lose some seats to Reform, but they are lucky that their main opposition is the Conservative Party.)
I know it's three years away, but my snapshot today, based on the current EMA of vote shares and my personal switching model with some tactical voting is as follows:
LDs retain all current 72 seats except Newton Abbot which they lose to Reform. LDs gain one seat from Labour - Sheffield Hallam LDs gain six seats from the Tories - E Hants, Farnham, Godalming, N Cotswolds, N Dorset and Romsey ending up with 78 seats.
Green gain one seat from the Tories - Tonbridge, and dozens more from Labour ending up with 58 seats.
LDs are alternative non-Tories in posher areas. They do well when the Tories are out of office, and less well when there's a mood for a change.
FWIW, I think the LDs would have dropped to c.40 seats in GE2010 were it not for the Cleggasm.
What strikes me is that Reform are not running away with it and relatively modest swings could make things look quite different. Guardian is leading on Tories overtaking Labour but, really, seems just a bit of churn. The election (due 2029) seems far more open than the commentary seems to suggest. A lot could, and undoubtedly will, happen between now and then.
What strikes me is that we have a government on 17% - yes, 17% - in the opinion polls, eighteenth months after winning a huge landslide victory.
We've got used to that in the last year, and they are a bunch of clueless cretins who entirely deserve it, but it's still worth taking a step back to realise how utterly bizarre and perhaps dangerous to legitimacy it could be.
If you stand for nothing, you will fall for nothing.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
Um. Who has Trump replaced this "bad person" by, supposedly in the American national interest? Now return to your points 1 and 2 and decide if they still apply, even if you are still disregarding the rule of law issue.
Address your question not to PBers but to Badenoch's audience who pay no attention. You are asking them to go beyond their attention span.
You said "in defence of Badenoch" so I thought you meant defence of the principle. But if it's just headline perceptions it's "mad dictator sending armies to foreign countries to change governments they don't like" versus "bad man arrested". The problem with the second one is that no-one has given a moment's thought to Maduro previously - they hadn't even heard of him - so they don't have a view on whether he's bad or not
I noticed that Kemi Badenoch, in her comments about Maduro etc., referenced her personal experience of living under a dictatorship in Nigeria. Through that lens, I guess, things look a little different. I wonder how important that personal background is in the formation of her politics.
I think Badenoch is simply wrong. Wrong on the moral principle. Wrong about the international realities. And wrong if she thinks her interventions boost perceptions of her as prime minister in waiting.
But I don't think she is taking advantage of the luxury of opposition to adopt cynical and irresponsible positions. She would take exactly the same wrong positions as prime minister.
I agree. Above all, since I am sure it is the one thing she cares about more than most, I think it is bad politics. She givs the im[pression that she would support Trump no matter what he did. There was no need for this intervention. If she felt the need to say anything she could have couched it in a far more circumspect manner. Outright support is not going to win her many admirers and may well lose her a few more of the few she has left.
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
Antifa? Who are these people, where is their headquarters? Are they a bit like SMERSH or SPECTRE?
Sandpit's link doesn't mention Antifa.
I would have thought a lot of people are Antifa, or anti fascist
It's a kind of weird shorthand for the right, though. A bit like the blob, or the deep state, or the swamp, etc.
Something amorphous and threatening, which defies close analysis and needs no explanation.
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
Antifa? Who are these people, where is their headquarters? Are they a bit like SMERSH or SPECTRE?
You'd like to think (although I can easily see me being disappointed on the downside) that the US has a mass of evidence it can produce in court to show that Maduro is an election-stealing piece of scum who is happy to skim a billion or two off drugs going into the US as he turns a blind eye. So far so good on the US seizing him to face justice.
The intelligence, planning and execution were flawless. Hats off to the CIA and the US military on that. It was everything that Putin's 3 day SMO was not.
Left at that, the world would largely have shrugged and suggest the guy had it coming (although not so sure the charges against his wife will stand up).
But then Trump has to say he's now in charge of Venezuela and it was all about grabbing their oil. Thereby playing himself offside with those having no respect for his "might is right" new world order. If I were advising Kemi, I'd have given him kudos for the first part - but called him out on the oil grab. It comes across as no better than Putin grabbing Ukraine - because he could.
(As an aside, the grounds for deposing Maduro are no better than those for toppling Lukashenko in Belarus. Another malignant sore on the face of democracy.)
To be fair to the US, their purchased oil rights and significant investment in Venezuela were confiscated by Maduro.
Comparisons between Trump in Venezuela and Putin in Ukraine are totally unfounded. One was a mission to get two people, over in hours, the other is a war of four years that’s cost a million lives.
Isn't that just a difference of competence of planning and execution? Putin didn't imagine he was getting into a four year war, he thought he was going to do a quick military op, topple the existing government and install a suitably compliant puppet regime. Also, we haven't yet had time to see the consequences unfold in Venezuela: if taking out Maduro upsets a power balance and results in civil war, for example, I think we should hold that on the negative side of the ledger when evaluating the costs of Trump's actions here.
Previous US overseas adventures have fallen into that trap, but it does appear that this particular mission was very limited and executed brilliantly.
A small number of special forces put themselves in danger, but did what they were very well trained to do and the mission came off.
I don't suppose the US is going to get themselves into the same quagmire, but the apparent lack of any coherent plan for the "and now what?" future that follows the brilliantly executed military operation is rather reminiscent of Iraq...
The difference being that there’s currently no American troops in Venezuela.
(Okay, probably a few spooks and very special forces, but they’re in every country).
There are other kinds of bad geopolitical outcome for the US than "troops get killed". We won't be able to properly evaluate whether the US has made things worse for itself with this action for some years yet; but we can already say that they were doing it for a bunch of incoherent short term reasons without a coherent long term strategy or thought about the consequences -- which seems to me to be evidence of the side of the scales for predicting "net negative outcome".
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
The “special relationship” is dead and our future is with Europe. That is very clear.
Our future is no more with Europe than it was a year ago or 5 years ago. We have always worked closely with Europe on security matters and that will continue as before.
The main change I would suggest is cutting the US out of 5-Eyes and replacing them with one of the European nations or a combination of them. France is the obvious choice.
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
Antifa? Who are these people, where is their headquarters? Are they a bit like SMERSH or SPECTRE?
Sandpit's link doesn't mention Antifa.
I would have thought a lot of people are Antifa, or anti fascist
I'm anti-Antifa as well as anti fascist (in the proper meaning of the word, not theirs).
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
'Clear' would be about the last word to use about international law. As the mighty David Allen Green points out:
Some even doubt international law exists.
(BTW he refers here to international public law, not international private law, which exists and functions quite well)
I was having a similar online discussion about medieval succession disputes. Such disputes appealed to precedents, which were often vague, confused and contradictory.
It's handy to be able to cite precedents that favour your cause, because people don't like to be ruled simply by brute force. And, more scrupulous rulers don't like to have their rule depend upon nothing but force.
But, when it comes down to it, if you cannot enforce your will, it does not matter how much law is on your side. And the kingdom's/world's bad actors are not going to be swayed by appeals to law.
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
If they're seen as Santa's little helper in the affluent areas of the country, whilst Labour hammers the economy, then I expect their vote to drift away.
The Tories are out now (that job is done) so it all comes down to how sticky their remaining vote is when the winds change.
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
Antifa? Who are these people, where is their headquarters? Are they a bit like SMERSH or SPECTRE?
Sandpit's link doesn't mention Antifa.
I would have thought a lot of people are Antifa, or anti fascist
It's a kind of weird shorthand for the right, though. A bit like the blob, or the deep state, or the swamp, etc.
Something amorphous and threatening, which defies close analysis and needs no explanation.
When these things are subject to forced analysis (ie when they hit the courts), they essentially disappear.
Justice Dept. Drops Claim That Venezuela’s ‘Cartel de los Soles’ Is an Actual Group
Last year, before capturing Maduro, Trump admin designated a Venezuelan slang term for drug corruption in the military as a terrorist organization & said he led it. https://x.com/charlie_savage/status/2008328179245518875
Note that they can't really designate Maduro's regime itself as a terrorist group, since they're now supporting its continuation under Maduro's deputy.
The blurring of rhetoric and reality is a dangerous one for the rule of law. So far, the latter is more or less clinging on in the US.
What strikes me is that Reform are not running away with it and relatively modest swings could make things look quite different. Guardian is leading on Tories overtaking Labour but, really, seems just a bit of churn. The election (due 2029) seems far more open than the commentary seems to suggest. A lot could, and undoubtedly will, happen between now and then.
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
Antifa? Who are these people, where is their headquarters? Are they a bit like SMERSH or SPECTRE?
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
Can you assume that the Lib Dem vote will always be efficient? In 2010 they got 23% for fewer seats than they have now.
There are two factors at work:
(1) How concentrated is your vote? The regional parties clearly have very concentrated votes, and -in recent times- the same has been true of the LibDems. They've done very well in prosperous Remainia, and very poorly in poorer Leavestan. If their vote were to equalize between the two it would become significantly less efficient. However, I don't think we've seen any sign of that yet.
(2) How well are your opponents scoring? In 2010, the LibDems may have got 23%, but the Conservative Party (with whom they compete most for seats) was 13 percentage points above them. On that YouGov poll, there's only 10 percentage points between the LibDems and Reform... and Reform is likely doing besrt in Leavestan.
That suggests to me that, if the YouGov shares hold, then the LDs will do reasonably well: not challening for government or anything, but probably piking up a few more seats, simply because their vote share is up, while the Conservative one is down. (And yes, they will of course lose some seats to Reform, but they are lucky that their main opposition is the Conservative Party.)
I know it's three years away, but my snapshot today, based on the current EMA of vote shares and my personal switching model with some tactical voting is as follows:
LDs retain all current 72 seats except Newton Abbot which they lose to Reform. LDs gain one seat from Labour - Sheffield Hallam LDs gain six seats from the Tories - E Hants, Farnham, Godalming, N Cotswolds, N Dorset and Romsey ending up with 78 seats.
Green gain one seat from the Tories - Tonbridge, and dozens more from Labour ending up with 58 seats.
LDs are alternative non-Tories in posher areas. They do well when the Tories are out of office, and less well when there's a mood for a change.
FWIW, I think the LDs would have dropped to c.40 seats in GE2010 were it not for the Cleggasm.
There is mood for change, but it isn't "bring back the Tories", a party polling significantly below its worst election result in 2 centuries. On current polling Tories lose rather than gain seats.
That is why Farage is in the lead (though possibly plateaued or even on a downward slope) and Polanski is polling well. People wanted change in July 2024, but the reason that Starmer is polling so poorly is there is no perceived change from the failures of the last Tory government.
The GE is over 3 years away, so much can change, and almost certainly will.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
Um. Who has Trump replaced this "bad person" by, supposedly in the American national interest? Now return to your points 1 and 2 and decide if they still apply, even if you are still disregarding the rule of law issue.
Address your question not to PBers but to Badenoch's audience who pay no attention. You are asking them to go beyond their attention span.
You said "in defence of Badenoch" so I thought you meant defence of the principle. But if it's just headline perceptions it's "mad dictator sending armies to foreign countries to change governments they don't like" versus "bad man arrested". The problem with the second one is that no-one has given a moment's thought to Maduro previously - they hadn't even heard of him - so they don't have a view on whether he's bad or not
I noticed that Kemi Badenoch, in her comments about Maduro etc., referenced her personal experience of living under a dictatorship in Nigeria. Through that lens, I guess, things look a little different. I wonder how important that personal background is in the formation of her politics.
I did read one Venezuelan exile saying "International law didn't give a f*ck about Maduro murdering and torturing us. But now, international law wants to protect him." That is hard to contest.
What strikes me is that Reform are not running away with it and relatively modest swings could make things look quite different. Guardian is leading on Tories overtaking Labour but, really, seems just a bit of churn. The election (due 2029) seems far more open than the commentary seems to suggest. A lot could, and undoubtedly will, happen between now and then.
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
Antifa? Who are these people, where is their headquarters? Are they a bit like SMERSH or SPECTRE?
Sandpit's link doesn't mention Antifa.
I would have thought a lot of people are Antifa, or anti fascist
I'm anti-Antifa as well as anti fascist (in the proper meaning of the word, not theirs).
Which word, Antifa or anti-fascist?
Antifa's definition of fascist is anyone who doesn't support their take on cultural marxism or, at times, their sheer nihilism.
They seem to enjoy being violent, and so have far more in common with actual fascists than they seem to realise - they just want an excuse.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
Um. Who has Trump replaced this "bad person" by, supposedly in the American national interest? Now return to your points 1 and 2 and decide if they still apply, even if you are still disregarding the rule of law issue.
Address your question not to PBers but to Badenoch's audience who pay no attention. You are asking them to go beyond their attention span.
You said "in defence of Badenoch" so I thought you meant defence of the principle. But if it's just headline perceptions it's "mad dictator sending armies to foreign countries to change governments they don't like" versus "bad man arrested". The problem with the second one is that no-one has given a moment's thought to Maduro previously - they hadn't even heard of him - so they don't have a view on whether he's bad or not
I noticed that Kemi Badenoch, in her comments about Maduro etc., referenced her personal experience of living under a dictatorship in Nigeria. Through that lens, I guess, things look a little different. I wonder how important that personal background is in the formation of her politics.
I think Badenoch is simply wrong. Wrong on the moral principle. Wrong about the international realities. And wrong if she thinks her interventions boost perceptions of her as prime minister in waiting.
But I don't think she is taking advantage of the luxury of opposition to adopt cynical and irresponsible positions. She would take exactly the same wrong positions as prime minister.
I agree. Above all, since I am sure it is the one thing she cares about more than most, I think it is bad politics. She givs the im[pression that she would support Trump no matter what he did. There was no need for this intervention. If she felt the need to say anything she could have couched it in a far more circumspect manner. Outright support is not going to win her many admirers and may well lose her a few more of the few she has left.
Comes back to her version of "character equals destiny"; for top-rank politicians that equates to what causes them to fail.
Things that (I think) are accepted about Kemi B;
1 She likes an argument. 2 She is far too plugged into an online-right information pipe.
The first means that she wouldn't want to be circumspect, even if she were capable of it. The second means that she probably has a distorted view of how her views would go down with the normies who are most of the electorate.
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
Antifa? Who are these people, where is their headquarters? Are they a bit like SMERSH or SPECTRE?
Sandpit's link doesn't mention Antifa.
I would have thought a lot of people are Antifa, or anti fascist
I'm anti-Antifa as well as anti fascist (in the proper meaning of the word, not theirs).
Which word, Antifa or anti-fascist?
Antifa's definition of fascist is anyone who doesn't support their take on cultural marxism or, at times, their sheer nihilism.
They seem to enjoy being violent, and so have far more in common with actual fascists than they seem to realise - they just want an excuse.
Sounds scary - pray tell who is in charge of this band of nihilists?
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Do you think it would be ok for a country like Saudi Arabia to abduct, put on trial and execute a UK citizen who had gay sex in the UK?
Just admit that you adhere to the "might is right" principle. It would explain almost all your posts and positions on PB.
No, I would not, as I do not think it is reasonable to put people on trial for gay sex.
I do think it is reasonable to put people on trial for stealing elections and the plethora of other crimes Maduro has committed.
The difference is the crimes, not the involvement of third parties.
Might is not right, law is not right either. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
If might is abused, then that is bad. If law is abused, then that is bad too.
I adhere to the principle that might is real - and the way to prevent other people abusing their might is by investing in Defence, not a comfort blanket of 'law' that is a utopian fantasy.
The Saudis would disagree.
Which is why we should ensure we are never in a position to let them exert power over us.
If we fail, and they can, no law will protect us.
Neither law nor might are right. Right is right, and we need to determine for ourselves right from wrong.
We can use either law, or might, for good or ill. That's on our ethics, we can't outsource ethics to either soldiers or lawyers.
Is that what you'd advise the Venezuelans to do too to prevent the US meddling in their affairs?
If you don't want others meddling in your affairs you need to invest in Defence, yes.
That's always been true and always will be.
That would be small comfort to the gay man about to be executed by the Saudis.
No shit Sherlock, which is why we need to invest in Defence, to prevent that happening. Your own argument is proving my point.
Is this getting through your skull yet?
This is what you said: "Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice."
The problem is the Saudis might say the same: " This gay man ending up before our court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice."
If you can defend the former then I don't see how you can't defend the latter.
See also laws passed by the Third Reich, to go all Fascist on the issue.
What strikes me is that Reform are not running away with it and relatively modest swings could make things look quite different. Guardian is leading on Tories overtaking Labour but, really, seems just a bit of churn. The election (due 2029) seems far more open than the commentary seems to suggest. A lot could, and undoubtedly will, happen between now and then.
What strikes me is that we have a government on 17% - yes, 17% - in the opinion polls, eighteenth months after winning a huge landslide victory.
We've got used to that in the last year, and they are a bunch of clueless cretins who entirely deserve it, but it's still worth taking a step back to realise how utterly bizarre and perhaps dangerous to legitimacy it could be.
Perhaps during the fourteen years it had in power the Conservative governments should have given some attention to the introduction of some fairer electoral system that would have reduced the risk of such a plainly anomalous situation.
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
Can you assume that the Lib Dem vote will always be efficient? In 2010 they got 23% for fewer seats than they have now.
There are two factors at work:
(1) How concentrated is your vote? The regional parties clearly have very concentrated votes, and -in recent times- the same has been true of the LibDems. They've done very well in prosperous Remainia, and very poorly in poorer Leavestan. If their vote were to equalize between the two it would become significantly less efficient. However, I don't think we've seen any sign of that yet.
(2) How well are your opponents scoring? In 2010, the LibDems may have got 23%, but the Conservative Party (with whom they compete most for seats) was 13 percentage points above them. On that YouGov poll, there's only 10 percentage points between the LibDems and Reform... and Reform is likely doing besrt in Leavestan.
That suggests to me that, if the YouGov shares hold, then the LDs will do reasonably well: not challening for government or anything, but probably piking up a few more seats, simply because their vote share is up, while the Conservative one is down. (And yes, they will of course lose some seats to Reform, but they are lucky that their main opposition is the Conservative Party.)
I know it's three years away, but my snapshot today, based on the current EMA of vote shares and my personal switching model with some tactical voting is as follows:
LDs retain all current 72 seats except Newton Abbot which they lose to Reform. LDs gain one seat from Labour - Sheffield Hallam LDs gain six seats from the Tories - E Hants, Farnham, Godalming, N Cotswolds, N Dorset and Romsey ending up with 78 seats.
Green gain one seat from the Tories - Tonbridge, and dozens more from Labour ending up with 58 seats.
"Green gain one seat from the Tories - Tonbridge"
Held by Tom Tugendhat who is 13,000 ahead of the Greens, who are in third place. Hmm.
What strikes me is that Reform are not running away with it and relatively modest swings could make things look quite different. Guardian is leading on Tories overtaking Labour but, really, seems just a bit of churn. The election (due 2029) seems far more open than the commentary seems to suggest. A lot could, and undoubtedly will, happen between now and then.
What strikes me is that we have a government on 17% - yes, 17% - in the opinion polls, eighteenth months after winning a huge landslide victory.
We've got used to that in the last year, and they are a bunch of clueless cretins who entirely deserve it, but it's still worth taking a step back to realise how utterly bizarre and perhaps dangerous to legitimacy it could be.
If you stand for nothing, you will fall for nothing.
"To me consensus seems to be—the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes, but to which no-one objects." - M. Thatcher, 1981.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
"...Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable no respect to law and justice..."
FTFY
Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice.
The idea that criminals should be left free to run wild is a perversion of law and justice.
Trump making it all about oil instead of the proper election winner getting power and deciding how to proceed, is also a perversion of law and justice and contemptible.
Do you think it would be ok for a country like Saudi Arabia to abduct, put on trial and execute a UK citizen who had gay sex in the UK?
Just admit that you adhere to the "might is right" principle. It would explain almost all your posts and positions on PB.
No, I would not, as I do not think it is reasonable to put people on trial for gay sex.
I do think it is reasonable to put people on trial for stealing elections and the plethora of other crimes Maduro has committed.
The difference is the crimes, not the involvement of third parties.
Might is not right, law is not right either. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
If might is abused, then that is bad. If law is abused, then that is bad too.
I adhere to the principle that might is real - and the way to prevent other people abusing their might is by investing in Defence, not a comfort blanket of 'law' that is a utopian fantasy.
The Saudis would disagree.
Which is why we should ensure we are never in a position to let them exert power over us.
If we fail, and they can, no law will protect us.
Neither law nor might are right. Right is right, and we need to determine for ourselves right from wrong.
We can use either law, or might, for good or ill. That's on our ethics, we can't outsource ethics to either soldiers or lawyers.
Is that what you'd advise the Venezuelans to do too to prevent the US meddling in their affairs?
If you don't want others meddling in your affairs you need to invest in Defence, yes.
That's always been true and always will be.
That would be small comfort to the gay man about to be executed by the Saudis.
No shit Sherlock, which is why we need to invest in Defence, to prevent that happening. Your own argument is proving my point.
Is this getting through your skull yet?
This is what you said: "Maduro ending up before a court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice."
The problem is the Saudis might say the same: " This gay man ending up before our court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice."
If you can defend the former then I don't see how you can't defend the latter.
See also laws passed by the Third Reich, to go all Fascist on the issue.
Absolutely. Those that arrested Anne Frank were acting legally, those hiding her were acting illegally.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says US action in Venezuela was 'morally' the right thing to do.
She tells @bbcnickrobinson nations 'go through the motions' of rules-based order, but 'the world has changed'.
Dangerous and very cynical. Grovelling to Trump is bad politics and bad strategy.
Dangerous and cynical would be Ed Davey's approach of threatening the special relationship, which is music to Putin's ears.
International Law is very clear. Davey is not being cynical in defending it. The only special relationship Trump believes in is the degree of humiliation he intends to inflict on democratic governments. Putin's cuck - a treacherous friend- is far more dangerous than Putin himself.
There are three camps:
The Putin Trump Farage camp The spineless worms camp The International Law camp
Starmer is a worm, but at leat he recognises that the axis is doing bad things. I remain baffled by the people who shill for the Putin Trump Farage axis.
Lets be very clear here. Venezuela is the Rhineland. Listen to Miller. "Our back yard". "Our interests". Hitler instructed his generals to withdraw if the French stood up to them. France did not, Hitler thought ok who is next. Trumpler is of the same mindset, a gambler. And the more he gambles and wins, the higher the stakes he will risk.
Banhammers like Miller think they are king shit, and can do over anyone they like and we will not only do nothing, we will literally grovel for scraps. We will let them seize Greenland and perhaps Canada and will reward them by buying military hardware from them.
Are we going to equip the Starmer worm with a spine or what? There is an awful lot we can do to resist Trumpler's next moves, but we have to declare our intentions to do so. The US regime declared us their enemy in their new defence posture, they moved. We either respond or join the axis as some people clearly want us to do...
In partial defence of Starmer and other European leaders their approach is motivated by keeping Trump doing at least some things that benefit Ukraine: intelligence sharing; allowing weapons to be transferred to Ukraine; sanctions on Russia. All of which are put at risk in a complete ruptured with Trump.
But you're right, there's no excuse for Badenoch actually supporting Trump on the principle.
In defence of Badenoch, she has the luxury of opposition, and has to use it. Those who pay little attention - most people - will perhaps have noticed this:
1) A very bad person they never heard of has been toppled and brought to justice 2) Every liberal and internationalist is queueing up to say "He is a very bad person and he should not have been toppled and should not have been brought to justice. It's an outrage."
And concluded this does not make sense as they think bad people should be brought to justice.
Badenoch is addressing those people, who are not entirely wrong, and doing so with reasonable respect to law and justice.
Um. Who has Trump replaced this "bad person" by, supposedly in the American national interest? Now return to your points 1 and 2 and decide if they still apply, even if you are still disregarding the rule of law issue.
Address your question not to PBers but to Badenoch's audience who pay no attention. You are asking them to go beyond their attention span.
You said "in defence of Badenoch" so I thought you meant defence of the principle. But if it's just headline perceptions it's "mad dictator sending armies to foreign countries to change governments they don't like" versus "bad man arrested". The problem with the second one is that no-one has given a moment's thought to Maduro previously - they hadn't even heard of him - so they don't have a view on whether he's bad or not
I noticed that Kemi Badenoch, in her comments about Maduro etc., referenced her personal experience of living under a dictatorship in Nigeria. Through that lens, I guess, things look a little different. I wonder how important that personal background is in the formation of her politics.
I think Badenoch is simply wrong. Wrong on the moral principle. Wrong about the international realities. And wrong if she thinks her interventions boost perceptions of her as prime minister in waiting.
But I don't think she is taking advantage of the luxury of opposition to adopt cynical and irresponsible positions. She would take exactly the same wrong positions as prime minister.
I agree. Above all, since I am sure it is the one thing she cares about more than most, I think it is bad politics. She givs the im[pression that she would support Trump no matter what he did. There was no need for this intervention. If she felt the need to say anything she could have couched it in a far more circumspect manner. Outright support is not going to win her many admirers and may well lose her a few more of the few she has left.
Comes back to her version of "character equals destiny"; for top-rank politicians that equates to what causes them to fail.
Things that (I think) are accepted about Kemi B;
1 She likes an argument. 2 She is far too plugged into an online-right information pipe.
The first means that she wouldn't want to be circumspect, even if she were capable of it. The second means that she probably has a distorted view of how her views would go down with the normies who are most of the electorate.
At the same time, it means that she likely "gets" Farage and his appeal. And may be quite effective in a one-to-one with him, if that transpires.
At the moment she seems to be focused on making the Conservatives seem reasonably acceptable to Tory-Reform defectors who are getting cold feet, without going full-Jenrick, which is a blessing. As Reform are the existential threat that's probably not unreasonable for the time being.
What strikes me is that Reform are not running away with it and relatively modest swings could make things look quite different. Guardian is leading on Tories overtaking Labour but, really, seems just a bit of churn. The election (due 2029) seems far more open than the commentary seems to suggest. A lot could, and undoubtedly will, happen between now and then.
What strikes me is that we have a government on 17% - yes, 17% - in the opinion polls, eighteenth months after winning a huge landslide victory.
We've got used to that in the last year, and they are a bunch of clueless cretins who entirely deserve it, but it's still worth taking a step back to realise how utterly bizarre and perhaps dangerous to legitimacy it could be.
Perhaps during the fourteen years it had in power the Conservative governments should have given some attention to the introduction of some fairer electoral system that would have reduced the risk of such a plainly anomalous situation.
The anomaly was winning a humungous megamajority on 34% of the popular vote. Which was FPTP doing its job.
(Governments losing a quarter to a third of their support mid-term is pretty normal. One of the differences now is how easy it is for a new party to come along and hoover up support with little more than a leader and some vibes. BXP/Reform did for the Conservatives under May and Sunak, now the Greens are doing the same to Starmer.)
I don't think Reform are polling well enough or broadly enough across a wide enough range of issues, or that Nigel Farage is favourable enough, for them to win.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
The YouGov vote shares are a nightmare for bettors, because hundreds of seats are going to be won on very low vote shares, and by very small margins.
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
Yes, I think so - but I'm not quite as bullish on the LDs as you are.
I'm just playing with the YouGov numbers: if they get 16%, then given they get close to zero in half the country, they'll be getting a decent number of seats mathematically.
Can you assume that the Lib Dem vote will always be efficient? In 2010 they got 23% for fewer seats than they have now.
For a reasonable time, yes.
Their 2010 map was extensive, but a bit of a mess. Celtic seats going back to Jo Grimond and before, some university towns and lots of random places that happened to have had a by-election.
Their current map, Nice England with a cathedral, a Gail's or a Waitrose (ideally all three) is much more coherent and stable. Nobody else is really going for those voters, either.
It's hard for the Lib Dems to extend beyond 100 seats or so, but they will be blooming hard to shift from those.
Lib Dems dig in.
While that's true, it didn't really help them much in 2015. People assumed that popular local MPs (like Ed Davey) would be able to hold on despite the LibDem vote dropping two-thirds, and it simply didn't happen.
It took a combination of Brexit and a sharp drop in the Conservative vote for them to have a very strong 2024. If the right wing vote were to reunite, then the LibDems on 16% would not have a great time - sure they do better than 2015, but you could easily see them drop back into the 30s as far as seat numbers go. On the other hand, if the right is split, then the LibDems will likely have another good election result ahead of them.
The MRPs show the Libs losing seats: dramatically in some cases. They are being way too complacent
If you look at the MRPs, they are all suggesting that the LD vote is well down in their strongest areas (despite a slight rise in share of the vote) and up by a couple of points everywhere else. Recent local council by-elections generally don't support the MRPs. Also, the Tory vote is down, so even if the LD vote is down in their stronger areas, the Tory vote is down more. In general Reform don't threaten the LDs even with massive swings - I looked into it and I think only Newton Abbot, Brecon and one other (I forget which - Torbay?) were even remotely vulnerable. So I suspect the modelling is not coping with the fact that certain demographics vote LD or Labour (still) depending on which seat they are in. I reckon the guy who runs Election Maps has a better model than the opinion pollsters. On current polling I reckon a few seats change either way is about right.
(They’d used hilton.com email to suggest government workers were unwelcome at their property).
Specifically the ICE goon squads.
They’re still government workers.
They’re at the FO stage now.
Funnily enough Hilton corporate don’t want to lose every federal government contract they have for hotel rooms, because of one woke front office manager at a small franchisee in rural Minnesota who happens to have a Hilton.com email address.
@stephenM to @jaketapper , arguing why the US running Venezuela: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” Adds: "For them to do commerce, they need our permission. For them to run their economy, they need our permission." https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/2008516586064204249
"Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and part of the European Union..."
Except it isn't. Greenland had a referendum in 1982 to leave the EEC and officially left in 1985.
It's bad journalism to make lazy assumptions like that.
The Sky presenter when US raided Venezuela presumed the Vice President was male....its like google doesn't exist. Kept saying it until they got on a Venezualan journalist who immediately said you know its a women right.
"Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and part of the European Union..."
Except it isn't. Greenland had a referendum in 1982 to leave the EEC and officially left in 1985.
It's bad journalism to make lazy assumptions like that.
The Sky presenter when US raided Venezuela presumed the Vice President was male....its like google doesn't exist. Kept saying it until they got on a Venezualan journalist who immediately said you know its a women right.
The BBC had a reporter pronouncing Maria Machado's name with a hard k sound this morning, as if she were Italian.
"Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and part of the European Union..."
Except it isn't. Greenland had a referendum in 1982 to leave the EEC and officially left in 1985.
It's bad journalism to make lazy assumptions like that.
The Sky presenter when US raided Venezuela presumed the Vice President was male....its like google doesn't exist. Kept saying it until they got on a Venezualan journalist who immediately said you know its a women right.
The BBC had a reporter pronouncing her name with a hard k sound this morning, as if she were Italian.
You're thinking of Maria Machado!
The former VP and current leader is Delcy Rodriguez.
Comments
If we fail, and they can, no law will protect us.
Neither law nor might are right. Right is right, and we need to determine for ourselves right from wrong.
We can use either law, or might, for good or ill. That's on our ethics, we can't outsource ethics to either soldiers or lawyers.
Trump: We will subjugate the world w/tariffs.
China: No rare earths for you! No markets for soy farmers!
Trump: We must subjugate Venezuela for rare earths! Oil companies will pay!
Exxon: Um, no we won't!
Trump: We must pay the oil companies to occupy Venezuela for their rare earths!
Soy farmers: ??
https://x.com/emptywheel/status/2008509016729636932
Removing Maduro had the potential to be a good thing.
Banging on about oil and ensuring the Chavista regime survived has destroyed all the good removing Maduro did.
The problem is the banging on about oil and the survival of the Chavista regime, not the fact international law was violated.
(1) How concentrated is your vote? The regional parties clearly have very concentrated votes, and -in recent times- the same has been true of the LibDems. They've done very well in prosperous Remainia, and very poorly in poorer Leavestan. If their vote were to equalize between the two it would become significantly less efficient. However, I don't think we've seen any sign of that yet.
(2) How well are your opponents scoring? In 2010, the LibDems may have got 23%, but the Conservative Party (with whom they compete most for seats) was 13 percentage points above them. On that YouGov poll, there's only 10 percentage points between the LibDems and Reform... and Reform is likely doing besrt in Leavestan.
That suggests to me that, if the YouGov shares hold, then the LDs will do reasonably well: not challening for government or anything, but probably piking up a few more seats, simply because their vote share is up, while the Conservative one is down. (And yes, they will of course lose some seats to Reform, but they are lucky that their main opposition is the Conservative Party.)
That's always been true and always will be.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
Those with the power to implement said claims are able to do so, for good or ill, while those who don't can't.
Again, realpolitik matters here.
Is this getting through your skull yet?
https://x.com/tendar/status/2008523745967608173
However, people analyzing the manifesto found peculiar wording, grammar errors and spelling errors indicating that the original text was not German, but originated in Russian.
It took a combination of Brexit and a sharp drop in the Conservative vote for them to have a very strong 2024. If the right wing vote were to reunite, then the LibDems on 16% would not have a great time - sure they do better than 2015, but you could easily see them drop back into the 30s as far as seat numbers go. On the other hand, if the right is split, then the LibDems will likely have another good election result ahead of them.
(Okay, probably a few spooks and very special forces, but they’re in every country).
https://x.com/RazorOil/status/2008519551437467950
Interesting by-election test case coming up in Gosport (klaxon!) next week. Bridgemary (mainly a 1940s council estate, with pockets of more recent private housing) was Labour for ages, went Conservative in the Corbyn years, then Lib Dem when the Conservatives fell apart nationally. One of those bits of the Red Wall that fell off and got stuck on the Solent coast, basically.
Reform are going for it noisily and aggressively; it will be grimly fascinating to see how well they do.
"Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and part of the European Union..."
Except it isn't. Greenland had a referendum in 1982 to leave the EEC and officially left in 1985.
Let us imagine your neighbour was a wrong 'un and the police came and arrested him. That would be good. Now, let's imagine that the police come and try to arrest your neighbour, but there's a shoot-out and the police shoot your wife. She's dead now. Is that OK? Mistakes happen? Or would you have a complaint about that? Maybe the police could have acted differently.
The US killed 80 people in getting to Maduro and his wife. Is 80 deaths acceptable collateral damage to arrest 2 people? Forget debates about international law. What about domestic law? Are you fine with 80 people being killed by law enforcement for 2 arrests?
If 80 deaths had been the price for overthrowing an authoritarian regime, maybe that would be different, but the US hasn't overthrown an authoritarian regime. (Trump doesn't want to work with Machado because she got the Nobel Peace Prize instead of him.)
Everytime I go past there seems to be a new golf ball.
The problem is the Saudis might say the same: " This gay man ending up before our court is absolutely reasonable with respect to law and justice."
If you can defend the former then I don't see how you can't defend the latter.
We've got used to that in the last year, and they are a bunch of clueless cretins who entirely deserve it, but it's still worth taking a step back to realise how utterly bizarre and perhaps dangerous to legitimacy it could be.
A few years ago I ran some numbers and the statistical relationship was very strong, even accounting for relatively few datapoints.
MRP suggests Reform landslide
➡️ REF: 381 (+376)
🔴 LAB: 85 (-326)
🔵 CON: 70 (-51)
🟡 SNP: 40 (+31)
🟠 LD: 35 (-37)
🟢 GRN: 9 (+5)
Reform MAJORITY of 115 seats. Via @Moreincommon_, 27 Nov-16 Dec (+/- vs GE24)
https://x.com/maxtempers/status/2008498014500086016
LDs retain all current 72 seats except Newton Abbot which they lose to Reform.
LDs gain one seat from Labour - Sheffield Hallam
LDs gain six seats from the Tories - E Hants, Farnham, Godalming, N Cotswolds, N Dorset and Romsey ending up with 78 seats.
Green gain one seat from the Tories - Tonbridge, and dozens more from Labour ending up with 58 seats.
Reasons for courts to possibly free Maduro.
Sovereign Immunity: Maduro’s lawyers are expected to argue that as a sovereign head of state, he is immune from prosecution under international and U.S. law.
Legality of Capture: Defense attorneys may contest the legality of the military operation that brought him to the U.S., arguing it was conducted without congressional authorization and violated international law.
I keep thinking how Comey and James charges were dropped due to mistakes by the DOJ, and I’m thinking kidnapping a foreign leader without the express approval of Congress could very well derail the prosecution of Maduro.
The difference between this case and Noriega is that they had a ton of evidence against Noriega and my guess is the evidence against Maduro won’t hold up in court.
The illegal act of kidnapping Noriega is an international crime and the actions here at home appear to be unconstitutional if a court wants to see it that way.
The Ker-Frisbie Doctrine is not a guarantee in this case. This doctrine assumes the court doesn’t care how they got there and they are free to assume jurisdiction over Maduro. The fact that Trump sent this case to SDNY suggests they don’t care about the outcome. It’s just another show to buy time for Trump to make a deal with him and grant him a very expensive pardon.
https://x.com/PrezLives2022/status/2007994740948500745
Hard to predict how the 92 year old judge (yes, really) will deal with this.
What's the plan though if this judge just dismisses all the charges immediately? Surely Maduro doesn't go free because there is no leverage for a pardon then.
But I don't think she is taking advantage of the luxury of opposition to adopt cynical and irresponsible positions. She would take exactly the same wrong positions as prime minister.
"Influencers and OnlyFans models dominate US ‘extraordinary’ artist visas"
https://x.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/2008286658748150146
My fear is that cheerleading the running roughshod over diplomatic norms and etiquette is a bad example to bad people like Putin and Xi, oh and Stephen Miller.
Do they still have Remoaners in Nuuk 40 years on who still aren't happy about it?
(Vulkangruppe do publish letters on various left wing and anarchist sites, but seem to have no known membership or structure. Whether they truly exist is even questionable)
FWIW, I think the LDs would have dropped to c.40 seats in GE2010 were it not for the Cleggasm.
A bit like the blob, or the deep state, or the swamp, etc.
Something amorphous and threatening, which defies close analysis and needs no explanation.
I trust the Poles.
It's handy to be able to cite precedents that favour your cause, because people don't like to be ruled simply by brute force. And, more scrupulous rulers don't like to have their rule depend upon nothing but force.
But, when it comes down to it, if you cannot enforce your will, it does not matter how much law is on your side. And the kingdom's/world's bad actors are not going to be swayed by appeals to law.
The Tories are out now (that job is done) so it all comes down to how sticky their remaining vote is when the winds change.
Justice Dept. Drops Claim That Venezuela’s ‘Cartel de los Soles’ Is an Actual Group
Last year, before capturing Maduro, Trump admin designated a Venezuelan slang term for drug corruption in the military as a terrorist organization & said he led it.
https://x.com/charlie_savage/status/2008328179245518875
Note that they can't really designate Maduro's regime itself as a terrorist group, since they're now supporting its continuation under Maduro's deputy.
The blurring of rhetoric and reality is a dangerous one for the rule of law.
So far, the latter is more or less clinging on in the US.
That is why Farage is in the lead (though possibly plateaued or even on a downward slope) and Polanski is polling well. People wanted change in July 2024, but the reason that Starmer is polling so poorly is there is no perceived change from the failures of the last Tory government.
The GE is over 3 years away, so much can change, and almost certainly will.
They seem to enjoy being violent, and so have far more in common with actual fascists than they seem to realise - they just want an excuse.
Ref 26.8%
Con 19.4%
Lab 16.9%
Grn 15.2%
LD 14.8%
SNP 3.6%
https://electionmaps.uk/polling/vi
Things that (I think) are accepted about Kemi B;
1 She likes an argument.
2 She is far too plugged into an online-right information pipe.
The first means that she wouldn't want to be circumspect, even if she were capable of it. The second means that she probably has a distorted view of how her views would go down with the normies who are most of the electorate.
https://prospect.org/2026/01/06/trump-maduro-venezuela-oil-imperialism/
Held by Tom Tugendhat who is 13,000 ahead of the Greens, who are in third place. Hmm.
https://x.com/billackman/status/2008519287464755249
(They’d used hilton.com email to suggest government workers were unwelcome at their property).
At the moment she seems to be focused on making the Conservatives seem reasonably acceptable to Tory-Reform defectors who are getting cold feet, without going full-Jenrick, which is a blessing. As Reform are the existential threat that's probably not unreasonable for the time being.
(Governments losing a quarter to a third of their support mid-term is pretty normal. One of the differences now is how easy it is for a new party to come along and hoover up support with little more than a leader and some vibes. BXP/Reform did for the Conservatives under May and Sunak, now the Greens are doing the same to Starmer.)
🚨BREAKING NEWS
CALIFORNIA GOP REP. DOUG LAMALFA has passed away at 65.
LAMALFA represented a northern California district and chaired the Congressional Western Caucus.
The House will be 218-213.
Two-vote margin. One-vote margin with Massie mostly against the House Republican leadership.
Also: 80-year-old Indiana Rep. Jim Baird is in the hospital after a car crash.
So House Republican attendance is a massive, massive problem right now.
https://x.com/JakeSherman/status/2008548947191833042?s=20
They’re at the FO stage now.
https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/2008516586064204249
Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown.
https://bsky.app/profile/mayfaircynic.bsky.social/post/3mbr6j3jegc2r
The former VP and current leader is Delcy Rodriguez.