DOOCY: On Prince Andrew, do you think American associates of Jeffrey Epstein will wind up in handcuffs too?
TRUMP: I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated. That's very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it's a shame. I did nothing.
DOOCY: On Prince Andrew, do you think American associates of Jeffrey Epstein will wind up in handcuffs too?
TRUMP: I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated. That's very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it's a shame. I did nothing.
I went through Boston Logan the day before Christmas Eve and have to say it was the quickest I’ve been through immigration control in nearly any country ever. I was one of 2 people in the foreigners line while there was a massive queue in the US Citizens line because people were coming home for Christmas. Took about 3 minutes.
I’m not going to rise to replying to the uninformed, unChristian warmonger bile you are continually posting.
I am an atheist. Could not care less about being unChristian.
Wanting the liberation of Iranians from their brutal dictatorship is not bile.
I would like to see the Iranian people free from such barbaric masochistic women hating bastards. But that’s not the purpose of the latest round of bombing, is it?
Well arm yourself with the facts. The Iranian population is one of the best educated in the region and there is no educational discrimination against women. I think you might be confusing Iran with some of the Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq where prejudice against women is severe. There are more Iranian female graduates than male ones.
Some other facts - the regieme in Iran imposes the “Islamic” rules on women such as their evidence in a law court is worth less than a man’s.
There are non-stop conflicts between the religious police and women who want to dress how they want and behave as they wish.
I don't know whether you are Jewish. I somehow thought you might be. if you think women are prejudiced against in Islam it's but nothing compared to judaism. Try getting a Get (a Jewish divorce ) if you are a woman. Or the male morning prayer "Thank you for not making me a woman " Or the womens one "Thank you for making me according to your will"
These Muslims........
I’m commenting on the actual behaviour of the assholes in question. Every religion has its “we’ve got excuses for being assholes” section.
In Iran, the mullahs have enthusiastically and entirely of their own volition decided to be assholes.
The very Islam does not apparently 'require' such behaviour makes it, and places like Afhanistan, so much worse, as they choose to pick an interpretation of faith to justify mysogyny when alternatives exist.
Hatred of women is a powerful motivator.
A classic of the genre is what Imperial Japan manager with Buddhism.
Now, on the face of it, Buddhism sounds a terrible fit for genocidal, racist, fascist Imperialism.
But with the enthusiasm that would later make Japanese motorcycles and whisky world beating, the Japanese masters of Buddhism were nothing daunted.
They declared that various races, they had discovered, such as the Chinese, were “lower than lice”. So it was religiously AOK to slaughter them, for Japanese Buddhists. Indeed it was virtuous.
I went through Boston Logan the day before Christmas Eve and have to say it was the quickest I’ve been through immigration control in nearly any country ever. I was one of 2 people in the foreigners line while there was a massive queue in the US Citizens line because people were coming home for Christmas. Took about 3 minutes.
The arbitrariness of stuff is of course a feature of tyranny.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
How often do the police arrest and charge someone the same day? They arrest so that they can gather evidence and statements and allow themselves certain abilities that they cannot get with a friendly conversation and then build evidence to charge from info taken from interviews and examination of evidence received during and after arrest.
They’re hardly likely to find a smoking gun this many years on in his residence that isn’t already available to them. His solicitor will be top notch and won’t be allowing any Pizza Hut or sweating based answers. So if the don’t already have the evidence they needed from the Epstein papers an other witnesses, it seems unlikely they’re going to be able to build a successful case.
We’re not talking here about a run of the mill arrest for Joe Bloggs here but something that’s not happened in barely half a millennium. Just extraordinary to me they’d have made this move without robust evidence to charge him.
You don't understand the legal process in this country do you?
She was bailed not baled
.unless she was tied up.with twine in straw or hay?
I believe "baled" was my error not TSEs, although in a subsequent post I mentioned "police bail" so it was simply a mistake ignored by anyone except the PB pedants.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
How often do the police arrest and charge someone the same day? They arrest so that they can gather evidence and statements and allow themselves certain abilities that they cannot get with a friendly conversation and then build evidence to charge from info taken from interviews and examination of evidence received during and after arrest.
They’re hardly likely to find a smoking gun this many years on in his residence that isn’t already available to them. His solicitor will be top notch and won’t be allowing any Pizza Hut or sweating based answers. So if the don’t already have the evidence they needed from the Epstein papers an other witnesses, it seems unlikely they’re going to be able to build a successful case.
We’re not talking here about a run of the mill arrest for Joe Bloggs here but something that’s not happened in barely half a millennium. Just extraordinary to me they’d have made this move without robust evidence to charge him.
You don't understand the legal process in this country do you?
24 hours to charge or release. Build a case, put forward to the cps to obtain permission to charge. But this is not an ordinary case. The key witness to the accusation in question is dead. There are historic messages they already have. It all seems pretty flimsy to me and comes across as a bit of a stunt. And I say this as someone that thinks he’s most likely a pretty unpleasant man and quite possibly worse
You are confused
Andrew was arrested on malfeasance in public office and certainly Gordon Brown is very much alive and very angry
He was not arrested for what you seem to think
Rather the opposite I am afraid. Brown’s line of attack seems to largely be centred on trafficking of girls. The key witness for the accusation of sharing privileged info is Epstein, based on the emails released. Or potentially Rowland if you follow the threads from last weekend’s Sundays.
DOOCY: On Prince Andrew, do you think American associates of Jeffrey Epstein will wind up in handcuffs too?
TRUMP: I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated. That's very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it's a shame. I did nothing.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
Lucy Letby was baled twice over two years before she was charged/ fitted up.*
* Delete as appropriate or if you are David Davis.
Do we have any Letby Truthers here ?
Peter Hitchens seems obsessed with her case.
One of the strangest online communities I've seen were the McCann Truthers. Some high-profile crimes seem to attract them.
I think I can top that. There are people who are convinced that Meghan Markle faked her pregnancies and the “children” we’ve seen are actually robots.
I am reliably informed that: the moon landing was faked, the TwinTowers was not caused by planes, they killed their own daughter by mistake and Markle faked the pregnancies.
I’m not going to rise to replying to the uninformed, unChristian warmonger bile you are continually posting.
I am an atheist. Could not care less about being unChristian.
Wanting the liberation of Iranians from their brutal dictatorship is not bile.
I would like to see the Iranian people free from such barbaric masochistic women hating bastards. But that’s not the purpose of the latest round of bombing, is it?
Well arm yourself with the facts. The Iranian population is one of the best educated in the region and there is no educational discrimination against women. I think you might be confusing Iran with some of the Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq where prejudice against women is severe. There are more Iranian female graduates than male ones.
Some other facts - the regieme in Iran imposes the “Islamic” rules on women such as their evidence in a law court is worth less than a man’s.
There are non-stop conflicts between the religious police and women who want to dress how they want and behave as they wish.
I don't know whether you are Jewish. I somehow thought you might be. if you think women are prejudiced against in Islam it's but nothing compared to judaism. Try getting a Get (a Jewish divorce ) if you are a woman. Or the male morning prayer "Thank you for not making me a woman " Or the womens one "Thank you for making me according to your will"
These Muslims........
I’m commenting on the actual behaviour of the assholes in question. Every religion has its “we’ve got excuses for being assholes” section.
In Iran, the mullahs have enthusiastically and entirely of their own volition decided to be assholes.
The very Islam does not apparently 'require' such behaviour makes it, and places like Afhanistan, so much worse, as they choose to pick an interpretation of faith to justify mysogyny when alternatives exist.
Hatred of women is a powerful motivator.
It's also very odd as most people, as far as I know, are born of women. It's is some complaint about being born in the first place?
Wyatt Earp: "What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?"
Doc Holliday: "A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it."
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
Lucy Letby was baled twice over two years before she was charged/ fitted up.*
* Delete as appropriate or if you are David Davis.
Do we have any Letby Truthers here ?
Peter Hitchens seems obsessed with her case.
One of the strangest online communities I've seen were the McCann Truthers. Some high-profile crimes seem to attract them.
I think I can top that. There are people who are convinced that Meghan Markle faked her pregnancies and the “children” we’ve seen are actually robots.
I am reliably informed that: the moon landing was faked, the TwinTowers was not caused by planes, they killed their own daughter by mistake and Markle faked the pregnancies.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
How often do the police arrest and charge someone the same day? They arrest so that they can gather evidence and statements and allow themselves certain abilities that they cannot get with a friendly conversation and then build evidence to charge from info taken from interviews and examination of evidence received during and after arrest.
They’re hardly likely to find a smoking gun this many years on in his residence that isn’t already available to them. His solicitor will be top notch and won’t be allowing any Pizza Hut or sweating based answers. So if the don’t already have the evidence they needed from the Epstein papers an other witnesses, it seems unlikely they’re going to be able to build a successful case.
We’re not talking here about a run of the mill arrest for Joe Bloggs here but something that’s not happened in barely half a millennium. Just extraordinary to me they’d have made this move without robust evidence to charge him.
You don't understand the legal process in this country do you?
24 hours to charge or release. Build a case, put forward to the cps to obtain permission to charge. But this is not an ordinary case. The key witness to the accusation in question is dead. There are historic messages they already have. It all seems pretty flimsy to me and comes across as a bit of a stunt. And I say this as someone that thinks he’s most likely a pretty unpleasant man and quite possibly worse
You are confused
Andrew was arrested on malfeasance in public office and certainly Gordon Brown is very much alive and very angry
He was not arrested for what you seem to think
Rather the opposite I am afraid. Brown’s line of attack seems to largely be centred on trafficking of girls. The key witness for the accusation of sharing privileged info is Epstein, based on the emails released. Or potentially Rowland if you follow the threads from last weekend’s Sundays.
No
You are missing the point
The alleged malfeasance and trafficking girls happened when Brown was in government and he is calling out both
It's not even corruption anymore with Trump. It's grand theft in broad daylight.
It's rather remarkable how accepting they are of it. He was already a billionaire, but not at the level of the modern day super billionaires, and 50% of voters are happy for him to leverage the presidency to change that.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
How often do the police arrest and charge someone the same day? They arrest so that they can gather evidence and statements and allow themselves certain abilities that they cannot get with a friendly conversation and then build evidence to charge from info taken from interviews and examination of evidence received during and after arrest.
They’re hardly likely to find a smoking gun this many years on in his residence that isn’t already available to them. His solicitor will be top notch and won’t be allowing any Pizza Hut or sweating based answers. So if the don’t already have the evidence they needed from the Epstein papers an other witnesses, it seems unlikely they’re going to be able to build a successful case.
We’re not talking here about a run of the mill arrest for Joe Bloggs here but something that’s not happened in barely half a millennium. Just extraordinary to me they’d have made this move without robust evidence to charge him.
You don't understand the legal process in this country do you?
24 hours to charge or release. Build a case, put forward to the cps to obtain permission to charge. But this is not an ordinary case. The key witness to the accusation in question is dead. There are historic messages they already have. It all seems pretty flimsy to me and comes across as a bit of a stunt. And I say this as someone that thinks he’s most likely a pretty unpleasant man and quite possibly worse
You are confused
Andrew was arrested on malfeasance in public office and certainly Gordon Brown is very much alive and very angry
He was not arrested for what you seem to think
Rather the opposite I am afraid. Brown’s line of attack seems to largely be centred on trafficking of girls. The key witness for the accusation of sharing privileged info is Epstein, based on the emails released. Or potentially Rowland if you follow the threads from last weekend’s Sundays.
No
You are missing the point
The alleged malfeasance and trafficking girls happened when Brown was in government and he is calling out both
Today was about the malfeasance
Hard to see how Brown is a witness to the malfeasance, unless he is willing / able to testify that Mi5 bugged the Prince and he can backup that Andy emailed Epstein market sensitive info for financial gain. Brown is talking about the girls. And Andy has not been arrested for that. As I say, it’s hard to see how a raid of his house would lead to any new evidence of either alleged crime.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
How often do the police arrest and charge someone the same day? They arrest so that they can gather evidence and statements and allow themselves certain abilities that they cannot get with a friendly conversation and then build evidence to charge from info taken from interviews and examination of evidence received during and after arrest.
They’re hardly likely to find a smoking gun this many years on in his residence that isn’t already available to them. His solicitor will be top notch and won’t be allowing any Pizza Hut or sweating based answers. So if the don’t already have the evidence they needed from the Epstein papers an other witnesses, it seems unlikely they’re going to be able to build a successful case.
We’re not talking here about a run of the mill arrest for Joe Bloggs here but something that’s not happened in barely half a millennium. Just extraordinary to me they’d have made this move without robust evidence to charge him.
You don't understand the legal process in this country do you?
She was bailed not baled
.unless she was tied up.with twine in straw or hay?
I believe "baled" was my error not TSEs, although in a subsequent post I mentioned "police bail" so it was simply a mistake ignored by anyone except the PB pedants.
Glad being picked up on it irked you. Like you, I am not infallible but then again I don't post from a left wing perspective so my errors are excusable.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
How often do the police arrest and charge someone the same day? They arrest so that they can gather evidence and statements and allow themselves certain abilities that they cannot get with a friendly conversation and then build evidence to charge from info taken from interviews and examination of evidence received during and after arrest.
They’re hardly likely to find a smoking gun this many years on in his residence that isn’t already available to them. His solicitor will be top notch and won’t be allowing any Pizza Hut or sweating based answers. So if the don’t already have the evidence they needed from the Epstein papers an other witnesses, it seems unlikely they’re going to be able to build a successful case.
We’re not talking here about a run of the mill arrest for Joe Bloggs here but something that’s not happened in barely half a millennium. Just extraordinary to me they’d have made this move without robust evidence to charge him.
You don't understand the legal process in this country do you?
24 hours to charge or release. Build a case, put forward to the cps to obtain permission to charge. But this is not an ordinary case. The key witness to the accusation in question is dead. There are historic messages they already have. It all seems pretty flimsy to me and comes across as a bit of a stunt. And I say this as someone that thinks he’s most likely a pretty unpleasant man and quite possibly worse
You are confused
Andrew was arrested on malfeasance in public office and certainly Gordon Brown is very much alive and very angry
He was not arrested for what you seem to think
Rather the opposite I am afraid. Brown’s line of attack seems to largely be centred on trafficking of girls. The key witness for the accusation of sharing privileged info is Epstein, based on the emails released. Or potentially Rowland if you follow the threads from last weekend’s Sundays.
No
You are missing the point
The alleged malfeasance and trafficking girls happened when Brown was in government and he is calling out both
Today was about the malfeasance
Hard to see how Brown is a witness to the malfeasance, unless he is willing / able to testify that Mi5 bugged the Prince and he can backup that Andy emailed Epstein market sensitive info for financial gain. Brown is talking about the girls. And Andy has not been arrested for that. As I say, it’s hard to see how a raid of his house would lead to any new evidence of either alleged crime.
My guess is that they are a bit nervous about the standing of the emails found on the Epstein dump and would very much like to find evidence of the same emails on Andrew's laptop.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
Lucy Letby was baled twice over two years before she was charged/ fitted up.*
* Delete as appropriate or if you are David Davis.
Do we have any Letby Truthers here ?
Peter Hitchens seems obsessed with her case.
One of the strangest online communities I've seen were the McCann Truthers. Some high-profile crimes seem to attract them.
I think I can top that. There are people who are convinced that Meghan Markle faked her pregnancies and the “children” we’ve seen are actually robots.
I am reliably informed that: the moon landing was faked, the TwinTowers was not caused by planes, they killed their own daughter by mistake and Markle faked the pregnancies.
And God created the universe?
No but Jesus was married and had a daughter called Sara. Epstein is still alive.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
How often do the police arrest and charge someone the same day? They arrest so that they can gather evidence and statements and allow themselves certain abilities that they cannot get with a friendly conversation and then build evidence to charge from info taken from interviews and examination of evidence received during and after arrest.
They’re hardly likely to find a smoking gun this many years on in his residence that isn’t already available to them. His solicitor will be top notch and won’t be allowing any Pizza Hut or sweating based answers. So if the don’t already have the evidence they needed from the Epstein papers an other witnesses, it seems unlikely they’re going to be able to build a successful case.
We’re not talking here about a run of the mill arrest for Joe Bloggs here but something that’s not happened in barely half a millennium. Just extraordinary to me they’d have made this move without robust evidence to charge him.
You don't understand the legal process in this country do you?
24 hours to charge or release. Build a case, put forward to the cps to obtain permission to charge. But this is not an ordinary case. The key witness to the accusation in question is dead. There are historic messages they already have. It all seems pretty flimsy to me and comes across as a bit of a stunt. And I say this as someone that thinks he’s most likely a pretty unpleasant man and quite possibly worse
You are confused
Andrew was arrested on malfeasance in public office and certainly Gordon Brown is very much alive and very angry
He was not arrested for what you seem to think
Rather the opposite I am afraid. Brown’s line of attack seems to largely be centred on trafficking of girls. The key witness for the accusation of sharing privileged info is Epstein, based on the emails released. Or potentially Rowland if you follow the threads from last weekend’s Sundays.
No
You are missing the point
The alleged malfeasance and trafficking girls happened when Brown was in government and he is calling out both
Today was about the malfeasance
Hard to see how Brown is a witness to the malfeasance, unless he is willing / able to testify that Mi5 bugged the Prince and he can backup that Andy emailed Epstein market sensitive info for financial gain. Brown is talking about the girls. And Andy has not been arrested for that. As I say, it’s hard to see how a raid of his house would lead to any new evidence of either alleged crime.
My guess is that they are a bit nervous about the standing of the emails found on the Epstein dump and would very much like to find evidence of the same emails on Andrew's laptop.
Indeed. We see so many people claim rightly or wrongly that their email/twitter was hacked, a staffer posted on truth social etc that just having screen dumps looking like they were sent by AMW isn’t acceptable evidence. Surely in court they have to show that those emails are genuine and from the actual accused or approved by etc.
Kaitlan Collins @kaitlancollins President Trump comments for the first time on Andrew's arrest, telling reporters on Air Force One, “I think it's a shame. I think it's very sad. I think it's so bad for the royal family. It’s very, very sad. To me, it’s a very sad thing." Trump said King Charles is a fantastic person “who’s obviously coming to our country very soon."
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
How often do the police arrest and charge someone the same day? They arrest so that they can gather evidence and statements and allow themselves certain abilities that they cannot get with a friendly conversation and then build evidence to charge from info taken from interviews and examination of evidence received during and after arrest.
They’re hardly likely to find a smoking gun this many years on in his residence that isn’t already available to them. His solicitor will be top notch and won’t be allowing any Pizza Hut or sweating based answers. So if the don’t already have the evidence they needed from the Epstein papers an other witnesses, it seems unlikely they’re going to be able to build a successful case.
We’re not talking here about a run of the mill arrest for Joe Bloggs here but something that’s not happened in barely half a millennium. Just extraordinary to me they’d have made this move without robust evidence to charge him.
You don't understand the legal process in this country do you?
She was bailed not baled
.unless she was tied up.with twine in straw or hay?
I believe "baled" was my error not TSEs, although in a subsequent post I mentioned "police bail" so it was simply a mistake ignored by anyone except the PB pedants.
Glad being picked up on it irked you. Like you, I am not infallible but then again I don't post from a left wing perspective so my errors are excusable.
Fair point.
Although you foolishly pointed the finger at TSE not the guilty commie scumbag. Tut, tut.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
How often do the police arrest and charge someone the same day? They arrest so that they can gather evidence and statements and allow themselves certain abilities that they cannot get with a friendly conversation and then build evidence to charge from info taken from interviews and examination of evidence received during and after arrest.
They’re hardly likely to find a smoking gun this many years on in his residence that isn’t already available to them. His solicitor will be top notch and won’t be allowing any Pizza Hut or sweating based answers. So if the don’t already have the evidence they needed from the Epstein papers an other witnesses, it seems unlikely they’re going to be able to build a successful case.
We’re not talking here about a run of the mill arrest for Joe Bloggs here but something that’s not happened in barely half a millennium. Just extraordinary to me they’d have made this move without robust evidence to charge him.
You don't understand the legal process in this country do you?
24 hours to charge or release. Build a case, put forward to the cps to obtain permission to charge. But this is not an ordinary case. The key witness to the accusation in question is dead. There are historic messages they already have. It all seems pretty flimsy to me and comes across as a bit of a stunt. And I say this as someone that thinks he’s most likely a pretty unpleasant man and quite possibly worse
You are confused
Andrew was arrested on malfeasance in public office and certainly Gordon Brown is very much alive and very angry
He was not arrested for what you seem to think
Rather the opposite I am afraid. Brown’s line of attack seems to largely be centred on trafficking of girls. The key witness for the accusation of sharing privileged info is Epstein, based on the emails released. Or potentially Rowland if you follow the threads from last weekend’s Sundays.
No
You are missing the point
The alleged malfeasance and trafficking girls happened when Brown was in government and he is calling out both
Today was about the malfeasance
Hard to see how Brown is a witness to the malfeasance, unless he is willing / able to testify that Mi5 bugged the Prince and he can backup that Andy emailed Epstein market sensitive info for financial gain. Brown is talking about the girls. And Andy has not been arrested for that. As I say, it’s hard to see how a raid of his house would lead to any new evidence of either alleged crime.
Not house - multiple homes and I doubt the police would be going on a goose chase
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
How often do the police arrest and charge someone the same day? They arrest so that they can gather evidence and statements and allow themselves certain abilities that they cannot get with a friendly conversation and then build evidence to charge from info taken from interviews and examination of evidence received during and after arrest.
They’re hardly likely to find a smoking gun this many years on in his residence that isn’t already available to them. His solicitor will be top notch and won’t be allowing any Pizza Hut or sweating based answers. So if the don’t already have the evidence they needed from the Epstein papers an other witnesses, it seems unlikely they’re going to be able to build a successful case.
We’re not talking here about a run of the mill arrest for Joe Bloggs here but something that’s not happened in barely half a millennium. Just extraordinary to me they’d have made this move without robust evidence to charge him.
You don't understand the legal process in this country do you?
24 hours to charge or release. Build a case, put forward to the cps to obtain permission to charge. But this is not an ordinary case. The key witness to the accusation in question is dead. There are historic messages they already have. It all seems pretty flimsy to me and comes across as a bit of a stunt. And I say this as someone that thinks he’s most likely a pretty unpleasant man and quite possibly worse
You are confused
Andrew was arrested on malfeasance in public office and certainly Gordon Brown is very much alive and very angry
He was not arrested for what you seem to think
Rather the opposite I am afraid. Brown’s line of attack seems to largely be centred on trafficking of girls. The key witness for the accusation of sharing privileged info is Epstein, based on the emails released. Or potentially Rowland if you follow the threads from last weekend’s Sundays.
No
You are missing the point
The alleged malfeasance and trafficking girls happened when Brown was in government and he is calling out both
Today was about the malfeasance
Hard to see how Brown is a witness to the malfeasance, unless he is willing / able to testify that Mi5 bugged the Prince and he can backup that Andy emailed Epstein market sensitive info for financial gain. Brown is talking about the girls. And Andy has not been arrested for that. As I say, it’s hard to see how a raid of his house would lead to any new evidence of either alleged crime.
My guess is that they are a bit nervous about the standing of the emails found on the Epstein dump and would very much like to find evidence of the same emails on Andrew's laptop.
The emails on the server which Andrew uses would be less easy to fiddle - commercial email servers are generally designed with lots of logging, access control as standard.
Once again - email is nearly public domain. It is sent round the world, almost in the hope that it finds the recipient’s in box. Completely in the clear.
Multiple copies of any emails will exist. And not just on a laptop.
I am delighted to announce the 'Mogg Unbuttoned' tour - a series of live events that will take me from the green benches of Westminster to theatres across the country.
Tour Dates & Venues:
📅 18 Apr – Hereford 📅 08 May – Worcester 📅 15 May – Shrewsbury 📅 19 May – Lincoln 📅 24 May – Winchester
DOOCY: On Prince Andrew, do you think American associates of Jeffrey Epstein will wind up in handcuffs too?
TRUMP: I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated. That's very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it's a shame. I did nothing.
DOOCY: On Prince Andrew, do you think American associates of Jeffrey Epstein will wind up in handcuffs too?
TRUMP: I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated. That's very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it's a shame. I did nothing.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
Lucy Letby was baled twice over two years before she was charged/ fitted up.*
* Delete as appropriate or if you are David Davis.
Do we have any Letby Truthers here ?
Peter Hitchens seems obsessed with her case.
One of the strangest online communities I've seen were the McCann Truthers. Some high-profile crimes seem to attract them.
I think I can top that. There are people who are convinced that Meghan Markle faked her pregnancies and the “children” we’ve seen are actually robots.
I am reliably informed that: the moon landing was faked, the TwinTowers was not caused by planes, they killed their own daughter by mistake and Markle faked the pregnancies.
And God created the universe?
No but Jesus was married and had a daughter called Sara. Epstein is still alive.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
How often do the police arrest and charge someone the same day? They arrest so that they can gather evidence and statements and allow themselves certain abilities that they cannot get with a friendly conversation and then build evidence to charge from info taken from interviews and examination of evidence received during and after arrest.
They’re hardly likely to find a smoking gun this many years on in his residence that isn’t already available to them. His solicitor will be top notch and won’t be allowing any Pizza Hut or sweating based answers. So if the don’t already have the evidence they needed from the Epstein papers an other witnesses, it seems unlikely they’re going to be able to build a successful case.
We’re not talking here about a run of the mill arrest for Joe Bloggs here but something that’s not happened in barely half a millennium. Just extraordinary to me they’d have made this move without robust evidence to charge him.
You don't understand the legal process in this country do you?
She was bailed not baled
.unless she was tied up.with twine in straw or hay?
I believe "baled" was my error not TSEs, although in a subsequent post I mentioned "police bail" so it was simply a mistake ignored by anyone except the PB pedants.
Glad being picked up on it irked you. Like you, I am not infallible but then again I don't post from a left wing perspective so my errors are excusable.
Fair point.
Although you foolishly pointed the finger at TSE not the guilty commie scumbag. Tut, tut.
Indeed tut tut. Mea culpa.. but at least you know in which direction it was actually pointed at.
DOOCY: On Prince Andrew, do you think American associates of Jeffrey Epstein will wind up in handcuffs too?
TRUMP: I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated. That's very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it's a shame. I did nothing.
One hopes his tombstone has the words 'I did nothing' on it.
They'll have to build a bloody great fence to keep the crowds off of his grave.
Donald Trump will be buried in the world's largest man made lake, well it will be when everybody's done pissing on his grave.
Isn’t there the apocryphal story where Enoch Powell was being heckled and someone shouted “ when you die we will dance on your grave” and he replied “ then I shall be buried at sea.”
Whilst Enoch was questionable Trump is a different class.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
Lucy Letby was baled twice over two years before she was charged/ fitted up.*
* Delete as appropriate or if you are David Davis.
Do we have any Letby Truthers here ?
Peter Hitchens seems obsessed with her case.
One of the strangest online communities I've seen were the McCann Truthers. Some high-profile crimes seem to attract them.
I think I can top that. There are people who are convinced that Meghan Markle faked her pregnancies and the “children” we’ve seen are actually robots.
I am reliably informed that: the moon landing was faked, the TwinTowers was not caused by planes, they killed their own daughter by mistake and Markle faked the pregnancies.
And God created the universe?
No but Jesus was married and had a daughter called Sara. Epstein is still alive.
I have spent a lot of time online trying to find episode 5 of Strangers and Brothers by C P Snow a 70s BBC production....but my searches cannot find episode 5. I know I can buy the series for a tenner or so.. but I wondered if there is an easier way to check if its actually online ? I think.there might be one other episode missing but will have to check.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
Lucy Letby was baled twice over two years before she was charged/ fitted up.*
* Delete as appropriate or if you are David Davis.
Do we have any Letby Truthers here ?
Peter Hitchens seems obsessed with her case.
One of the strangest online communities I've seen were the McCann Truthers. Some high-profile crimes seem to attract them.
I think I can top that. There are people who are convinced that Meghan Markle faked her pregnancies and the “children” we’ve seen are actually robots.
I am reliably informed that: the moon landing was faked, the TwinTowers was not caused by planes, they killed their own daughter by mistake and Markle faked the pregnancies.
And God created the universe?
No but Jesus was married and had a daughter called Sara. Epstein is still alive.
I am delighted to announce the 'Mogg Unbuttoned' tour - a series of live events that will take me from the green benches of Westminster to theatres across the country.
Tour Dates & Venues:
📅 18 Apr – Hereford 📅 08 May – Worcester 📅 15 May – Shrewsbury 📅 19 May – Lincoln 📅 24 May – Winchester
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
How often do the police arrest and charge someone the same day? They arrest so that they can gather evidence and statements and allow themselves certain abilities that they cannot get with a friendly conversation and then build evidence to charge from info taken from interviews and examination of evidence received during and after arrest.
They’re hardly likely to find a smoking gun this many years on in his residence that isn’t already available to them. His solicitor will be top notch and won’t be allowing any Pizza Hut or sweating based answers. So if the don’t already have the evidence they needed from the Epstein papers an other witnesses, it seems unlikely they’re going to be able to build a successful case.
We’re not talking here about a run of the mill arrest for Joe Bloggs here but something that’s not happened in barely half a millennium. Just extraordinary to me they’d have made this move without robust evidence to charge him.
You don't understand the legal process in this country do you?
24 hours to charge or release. Build a case, put forward to the cps to obtain permission to charge. But this is not an ordinary case. The key witness to the accusation in question is dead. There are historic messages they already have. It all seems pretty flimsy to me and comes across as a bit of a stunt. And I say this as someone that thinks he’s most likely a pretty unpleasant man and quite possibly worse
You are confused
Andrew was arrested on malfeasance in public office and certainly Gordon Brown is very much alive and very angry
He was not arrested for what you seem to think
Rather the opposite I am afraid. Brown’s line of attack seems to largely be centred on trafficking of girls. The key witness for the accusation of sharing privileged info is Epstein, based on the emails released. Or potentially Rowland if you follow the threads from last weekend’s Sundays.
No
You are missing the point
The alleged malfeasance and trafficking girls happened when Brown was in government and he is calling out both
Today was about the malfeasance
Hard to see how Brown is a witness to the malfeasance, unless he is willing / able to testify that Mi5 bugged the Prince and he can backup that Andy emailed Epstein market sensitive info for financial gain. Brown is talking about the girls. And Andy has not been arrested for that. As I say, it’s hard to see how a raid of his house would lead to any new evidence of either alleged crime.
My guess is that they are a bit nervous about the standing of the emails found on the Epstein dump and would very much like to find evidence of the same emails on Andrew's laptop.
The emails on the server which Andrew uses would be less easy to fiddle - commercial email servers are generally designed with lots of logging, access control as standard.
Once again - email is nearly public domain. It is sent round the world, almost in the hope that it finds the recipient’s in box. Completely in the clear.
Multiple copies of any emails will exist. And not just on a laptop.
I am assuming that emails by a member of the Royal family and a trade envoy would be reasonably secure and very probably encrypted. Perhaps I am being naïve.
DOOCY: On Prince Andrew, do you think American associates of Jeffrey Epstein will wind up in handcuffs too?
TRUMP: I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated. That's very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it's a shame. I did nothing.
One hopes his tombstone has the words 'I did nothing' on it.
They'll have to build a bloody great fence to keep the crowds off of his grave.
Donald Trump will be buried in the world's largest man made lake, well it will be when everybody's done pissing on his grave.
Isn’t there the apocryphal story where Enoch Powell was being heckled and someone shouted “ when you die we will dance on your grave” and he replied “ then I shall be buried at sea.”
Whilst Enoch was questionable Trump is a different class.
Enoch's comedy was quite laconic. His racism less so.
I have spent a lot of time online trying to find episode 5 of Strangers and Brothers by C P Snow a 70s BBC production....but my searches cannot find episode 5. I know I can buy the series for a tenner or so.. but I wondered if there is an easier way to check if its actually online ? I think.there might be one other episode missing but will have to check.
I think there is a grave danger of the insinuations being made by the media causing a lot of trouble. I am not a lawyer but I am concerned that justice must be done and presumption of guilt is not justice. The media should take note imho.
It’s very very risky from Starmer. Hard to believe he said no.
It is a very big moment in UK US special relationship I think. Does anyone have any example of such a request turned down before? I think for Vietnam US never asked Labour government to use an RAF base at any point?
If Kemi says she would have given a different answer, straight away a huge and explosive differential between Conservative and Labour. Because, if any US plane goes down, with U’S service lives lost, anywhere in the battle space, Trump will blame the British Labour government for their deaths.
Yes - I have such an example.
The Conservative Government in 2012 rebuffed any attempt to use Diego-Garcia for a pre-emptive attack on Iran in advance, because they had official legal advice that could be against international law.
The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories. .. The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran," said a senior Whitehall source. "It is explicit. The government has been using this to push back against the Americans." .. "I think the US has been surprised that ministers have been reluctant to provide assurances about this kind of upfront assistance," said one source. "They'd expect resistance from senior Liberal Democrats, but it's Tories as well. That has come as a bit of a surprise." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/25/uk-reject-us-request-bases-iran
It will be fun if SKS finds that, given that the Shadow Def Sec is jumping up and down demanding the Govt do the opposite.
From The Times. “Under the terms of long-standing agreements with Washington, these bases {Times includes Diego Garcia} can only be used for military operations that have been agreed in advance with the government.
I suspect The Times journalism is wrong, and no such agreement applies to Diego Garcia. It’s not an RAF base, it’s not even a joint base, it’s a US base. It seems very odd to me, based on the whole history of UK involvement with the US in Chagos, where UK have been so subservient, the US would allow such a clause on use of their own base.
As for 2012 and all that, the UK government would try to bundle DG in with the others to aid their pushback - but they were likely wrong. Technically UK island, but not UK base.
Seems very in keeping with the whole arrangement if it was technically a UK base even if in every way that matters it was not. Maintaining such legal ties long beyond practical reality is pretty common in our way of working.
I don’t think it’s ever in any technicality been a UK base, we are just Landlord, with a very token presence in the base. UK is not really a user of the base, as online pages saying “joint UK US base” could fool you into thinking.
It’s starts with the US wanting this base in Indian Ocean - it does both aircraft and submarines - and UK wasn’t the first country they approached with their pitch, that was France. Key part of the pitch for hosting the US base was a knockdown deal on US nuclear weaponry. The French would have to explain for themselves why they said no - maybe something about them does such things for themselves not joint ventures, they didn’t want such a degree of trans Atlantic special relationship they could get tied into, and lose some degree of freedom. Maybe it’s true De Gaulle was just plain unstable. But UK governments in 1960’s, both Conservative and Labour, saw the pitch from the US as a bargain. They embraced it.
I don’t believe there was any predecessor the base was built on, not an RAF airfield or anything. It’s also interesting, as they approached France first, US may have had a particular site already in mind.
I don't think 'technically' means what you think it does in this context - all you say could be true for all I know, and would not prevent it in a technical sense still being a UK base, even if it was basically a polite fiction.
I think technically UK would have to be users of the base ourselves, for it technically to be a UK or even joint base. If all we, MOD, do there is act as the base Security contractor - mop up the Sri Lankan fishing junks straying too close, and confiscating the Chinese listening equipment from them, then back to base and top up the sun tans - like Death in Paradise, only with no deaths just Piña Coladas - it’s technically not the UK base the UK politicians and media are trying to fool us into believing it is, this evening. Is it?
We currently get “something” from it so it’s a benefit to the UK. Now that might be at the whims of the US but it’s a benefit.
The current plan would be like us giving Gibraltar to Morocco because in a different time they had administration over it then paying Morocco for the privilege of letting France have a military base there. It’s absolutely nuts.
I don’t like it either. But that’s what the Indian and US governments cooked up for us to sign up to.
The actual pressure on us came from India, the rising super power in the region. Not UN. India said Mauritius. So it is.
Mauritius sees itself being a sort of African East Coast Singapore, accordingly has a bit of trade deal with China, but military and security deals with India.
When Patel and Reform and US Senators say “China’s friend Mauritius” and don’t mention India, never mention India, they are just utterly embarrassing themselves really. Stretching fantasy they want to believe over it all, not sticking to the facts - in some sort of echo chamber where they don’t even want to listen and accept the facts.
But that can only last for so long now 🙂
Citations please for this "India" business?
Okay. 🙂
if Mauritius is aligned with any country, that country is India, from which the majority of Mauritius’ population trace their ancestry! a product of the British Empire’s practice of importing indentured labourers from India to ensure its sugar plantations continued to function after its abolition of slavery. And also strong is the modern connection between Mauritius and India. From 2013 to 2021, some $231 million of foreign direct investment came to India from Mauritius, with $151 million going the other way. These same investment flows for China are $89.2 million and $22.5 million, respectively. In total, 3.8 per cent of Mauritius’ trade is with China, compared to 12.2 per cent with India. India has constructed a military facility on the Mauritian island of Agaléga, which recent reports state is now ready to receive naval and air assets.
We can all read something different in citations, but I read enough that wanting to be Singapore of East Coast Africa, Mauritius has trade arrangements with China - as we do too - but its defence and security arrangements are with India, its spiritual heritage lies with India, who indeed pushed for Mauritius to take Chagos ownership. So it is a little more nuanced than we have been led to believe, isn’t it. Yes openly embracing China for trade while maintaining close-knit security collaboration with the United States and India. For example, the 99 year lease idea was a Mauritius pitch, not to the UK, but to the US, who accepted the idea perhaps before UK had even heard of it.
Any further questions? 🙂
Well yes, from me, does Badenoch and Patel know all this, but happy to spin it away from the factual need for change in a changing Indian Ocean? Or do they not actually understand all this?
I think there is a grave danger of the insinuations being made by the media causing a lot of trouble. I am not a lawyer but I am concerned that justice must be done and presumption of guilt is not justice. The media should take note imho.
Unless we're called to serve on the jury I don't think there's much concern, but even with that I'm content to say just with the disclosed facts he is clearly a grade A shit and his behaviour, personal and professional, reprehensible even if not criminal.
If Keir Starmer’s real obsession with getting rid of the Chagos Islands is to destroy our strong defence relationship with America, then his government must go.
Even if the Chagos deal or no deal damages Starmer, Farage still looks like Trump's cuck, b1tch.
He's referring to the reports about Starmer blocking its use to attack Iran, so the question was more about whether supporting a US attack on Iran is a vote winner for Farage.
My answer doesn't change. No one wants Trump to bomb the shit out of Tehran on Bibi's whim.?
Really !!
How long you been here ?
My mistake.
Except on PB, no one wants Trump to bomb the Shiite out of Tehran on Bibi's whim.
I am delighted to announce the 'Mogg Unbuttoned' tour - a series of live events that will take me from the green benches of Westminster to theatres across the country.
Tour Dates & Venues:
📅 18 Apr – Hereford 📅 08 May – Worcester 📅 15 May – Shrewsbury 📅 19 May – Lincoln 📅 24 May – Winchester
It’s very very risky from Starmer. Hard to believe he said no.
It is a very big moment in UK US special relationship I think. Does anyone have any example of such a request turned down before? I think for Vietnam US never asked Labour government to use an RAF base at any point?
If Kemi says she would have given a different answer, straight away a huge and explosive differential between Conservative and Labour. Because, if any US plane goes down, with U’S service lives lost, anywhere in the battle space, Trump will blame the British Labour government for their deaths.
Yes - I have such an example.
The Conservative Government in 2012 rebuffed any attempt to use Diego-Garcia for a pre-emptive attack on Iran in advance, because they had official legal advice that could be against international law.
The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories. .. The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran," said a senior Whitehall source. "It is explicit. The government has been using this to push back against the Americans." .. "I think the US has been surprised that ministers have been reluctant to provide assurances about this kind of upfront assistance," said one source. "They'd expect resistance from senior Liberal Democrats, but it's Tories as well. That has come as a bit of a surprise." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/25/uk-reject-us-request-bases-iran
It will be fun if SKS finds that, given that the Shadow Def Sec is jumping up and down demanding the Govt do the opposite.
From The Times. “Under the terms of long-standing agreements with Washington, these bases {Times includes Diego Garcia} can only be used for military operations that have been agreed in advance with the government.
I suspect The Times journalism is wrong, and no such agreement applies to Diego Garcia. It’s not an RAF base, it’s not even a joint base, it’s a US base. It seems very odd to me, based on the whole history of UK involvement with the US in Chagos, where UK have been so subservient, the US would allow such a clause on use of their own base.
As for 2012 and all that, the UK government would try to bundle DG in with the others to aid their pushback - but they were likely wrong. Technically UK island, but not UK base.
Seems very in keeping with the whole arrangement if it was technically a UK base even if in every way that matters it was not. Maintaining such legal ties long beyond practical reality is pretty common in our way of working.
I don’t think it’s ever in any technicality been a UK base, we are just Landlord, with a very token presence in the base. UK is not really a user of the base, as online pages saying “joint UK US base” could fool you into thinking.
It’s starts with the US wanting this base in Indian Ocean - it does both aircraft and submarines - and UK wasn’t the first country they approached with their pitch, that was France. Key part of the pitch for hosting the US base was a knockdown deal on US nuclear weaponry. The French would have to explain for themselves why they said no - maybe something about them does such things for themselves not joint ventures, they didn’t want such a degree of trans Atlantic special relationship they could get tied into, and lose some degree of freedom. Maybe it’s true De Gaulle was just plain unstable. But UK governments in 1960’s, both Conservative and Labour, saw the pitch from the US as a bargain. They embraced it.
I don’t believe there was any predecessor the base was built on, not an RAF airfield or anything. It’s also interesting, as they approached France first, US may have had a particular site already in mind.
I don't think 'technically' means what you think it does in this context - all you say could be true for all I know, and would not prevent it in a technical sense still being a UK base, even if it was basically a polite fiction.
I think technically UK would have to be users of the base ourselves, for it technically to be a UK or even joint base. If all we, MOD, do there is act as the base Security contractor - mop up the Sri Lankan fishing junks straying too close, and confiscating the Chinese listening equipment from them, then back to base and top up the sun tans - like Death in Paradise, only with no deaths just Piña Coladas - it’s technically not the UK base the UK politicians and media are trying to fool us into believing it is, this evening. Is it?
We currently get “something” from it so it’s a benefit to the UK. Now that might be at the whims of the US but it’s a benefit.
The current plan would be like us giving Gibraltar to Morocco because in a different time they had administration over it then paying Morocco for the privilege of letting France have a military base there. It’s absolutely nuts.
I don’t like it either. But that’s what the Indian and US governments cooked up for us to sign up to.
The actual pressure on us came from India, the rising super power in the region. Not UN. India said Mauritius. So it is.
Mauritius sees itself being a sort of African East Coast Singapore, accordingly has a bit of trade deal with China, but military and security deals with India.
When Patel and Reform and US Senators say “China’s friend Mauritius” and don’t mention India, never mention India, they are just utterly embarrassing themselves really. Stretching fantasy they want to believe over it all, not sticking to the facts - in some sort of echo chamber where they don’t even want to listen and accept the facts.
But that can only last for so long now 🙂
Citations please for this "India" business?
Okay. 🙂
if Mauritius is aligned with any country, that country is India, from which the majority of Mauritius’ population trace their ancestry! a product of the British Empire’s practice of importing indentured labourers from India to ensure its sugar plantations continued to function after its abolition of slavery. And also strong is the modern connection between Mauritius and India. From 2013 to 2021, some $231 million of foreign direct investment came to India from Mauritius, with $151 million going the other way. These same investment flows for China are $89.2 million and $22.5 million, respectively. In total, 3.8 per cent of Mauritius’ trade is with China, compared to 12.2 per cent with India. India has constructed a military facility on the Mauritian island of Agaléga, which recent reports state is now ready to receive naval and air assets.
We can all read something different in citations, but I read enough that wanting to be Singapore of East Coast Africa, Mauritius has trade arrangements with China - as we do too - but its defence and security arrangements are with India, its spiritual heritage lies with India, who indeed pushed for Mauritius to take Chagos ownership. So it is a little more nuanced than we have been led to believe, isn’t it. Yes openly embracing China for trade while maintaining close-knit security collaboration with the United States and India. For example, the 99 year lease idea was a Mauritius pitch, not to the UK, but to the US, who accepted the idea perhaps before UK had even heard of it.
Any further questions? 🙂
Well yes, from me, does Badenoch and Patel know all this, but happy to spin it away from the factual need for change in a changing Indian Ocean? Or do they not actually understand all this?
Whilst your wordy weirdness is often questionable I agree with you that India has a lot more to do with this than China. There will be elements of this between them in tandem as it’s in both their interests to try and remove the US from there but India has infinitely more of a relationship so with Mauritius and it’s very much their “sphere of influence”.
Hold on. Released without charge? They arrested the king’s brother, at a royal estate, without the king’s foreknowledge. And they didn’t even have any evidence to charge him?
How often do the police arrest and charge someone the same day? They arrest so that they can gather evidence and statements and allow themselves certain abilities that they cannot get with a friendly conversation and then build evidence to charge from info taken from interviews and examination of evidence received during and after arrest.
They’re hardly likely to find a smoking gun this many years on in his residence that isn’t already available to them. His solicitor will be top notch and won’t be allowing any Pizza Hut or sweating based answers. So if the don’t already have the evidence they needed from the Epstein papers an other witnesses, it seems unlikely they’re going to be able to build a successful case.
We’re not talking here about a run of the mill arrest for Joe Bloggs here but something that’s not happened in barely half a millennium. Just extraordinary to me they’d have made this move without robust evidence to charge him.
You don't understand the legal process in this country do you?
24 hours to charge or release. Build a case, put forward to the cps to obtain permission to charge. But this is not an ordinary case. The key witness to the accusation in question is dead. There are historic messages they already have. It all seems pretty flimsy to me and comes across as a bit of a stunt. And I say this as someone that thinks he’s most likely a pretty unpleasant man and quite possibly worse
You are confused
Andrew was arrested on malfeasance in public office and certainly Gordon Brown is very much alive and very angry
He was not arrested for what you seem to think
Rather the opposite I am afraid. Brown’s line of attack seems to largely be centred on trafficking of girls. The key witness for the accusation of sharing privileged info is Epstein, based on the emails released. Or potentially Rowland if you follow the threads from last weekend’s Sundays.
No
You are missing the point
The alleged malfeasance and trafficking girls happened when Brown was in government and he is calling out both
Today was about the malfeasance
Hard to see how Brown is a witness to the malfeasance, unless he is willing / able to testify that Mi5 bugged the Prince and he can backup that Andy emailed Epstein market sensitive info for financial gain. Brown is talking about the girls. And Andy has not been arrested for that. As I say, it’s hard to see how a raid of his house would lead to any new evidence of either alleged crime.
My guess is that they are a bit nervous about the standing of the emails found on the Epstein dump and would very much like to find evidence of the same emails on Andrew's laptop.
The emails on the server which Andrew uses would be less easy to fiddle - commercial email servers are generally designed with lots of logging, access control as standard.
Once again - email is nearly public domain. It is sent round the world, almost in the hope that it finds the recipient’s in box. Completely in the clear.
Multiple copies of any emails will exist. And not just on a laptop.
I am assuming that emails by a member of the Royal family and a trade envoy would be reasonably secure and very probably encrypted. Perhaps I am being naïve.
Encrypted email wasn’t used by Epstein or any of his chums. Mandy was sending stuff in the clear.
Most people have zero idea of security.
A party piece I did a few times, at Home House, back in the day, was showing A listers how you could log into their voice messages on mobile. Long before The Phone Hacking Scandal. I think no one changed their passcode - even after hearing their messages accessed!
The late Queen of course paid for Andrew's civil settlement with Giuffre but this was a seperate matter related to his leaking confidential information to Epstein leading to his arrest for misconduct in public office, an offence Mandelson is also being investigated for.
Though one also needs to ask what are the Americans doing? Most of the wealthy and powerful people in the Epstein files are American but not a single one of them has been arrested
Because it starts at the top and it’s just to hypocritical to charge any of the minions. And everyone knows that
I have spent a lot of time online trying to find episode 5 of Strangers and Brothers by C P Snow a 70s BBC production....but my searches cannot find episode 5. I know I can buy the series for a tenner or so.. but I wondered if there is an easier way to check if its actually online ? I think.there might be one other episode missing but will have to check.
I think there is a grave danger of the insinuations being made by the media causing a lot of trouble. I am not a lawyer but I am concerned that justice must be done and presumption of guilt is not justice. The media should take note imho.
Unless we're called to serve on the jury I don't think there's much concern, but even with that I'm content to say just with the disclosed facts he is clearly a grade A shit and his behaviour, personal and professional, reprehensible even if not criminal.
It’s very very risky from Starmer. Hard to believe he said no.
It is a very big moment in UK US special relationship I think. Does anyone have any example of such a request turned down before? I think for Vietnam US never asked Labour government to use an RAF base at any point?
If Kemi says she would have given a different answer, straight away a huge and explosive differential between Conservative and Labour. Because, if any US plane goes down, with U’S service lives lost, anywhere in the battle space, Trump will blame the British Labour government for their deaths.
Yes - I have such an example.
The Conservative Government in 2012 rebuffed any attempt to use Diego-Garcia for a pre-emptive attack on Iran in advance, because they had official legal advice that could be against international law.
The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories. .. The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran," said a senior Whitehall source. "It is explicit. The government has been using this to push back against the Americans." .. "I think the US has been surprised that ministers have been reluctant to provide assurances about this kind of upfront assistance," said one source. "They'd expect resistance from senior Liberal Democrats, but it's Tories as well. That has come as a bit of a surprise." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/25/uk-reject-us-request-bases-iran
It will be fun if SKS finds that, given that the Shadow Def Sec is jumping up and down demanding the Govt do the opposite.
From The Times. “Under the terms of long-standing agreements with Washington, these bases {Times includes Diego Garcia} can only be used for military operations that have been agreed in advance with the government.
I suspect The Times journalism is wrong, and no such agreement applies to Diego Garcia. It’s not an RAF base, it’s not even a joint base, it’s a US base. It seems very odd to me, based on the whole history of UK involvement with the US in Chagos, where UK have been so subservient, the US would allow such a clause on use of their own base.
As for 2012 and all that, the UK government would try to bundle DG in with the others to aid their pushback - but they were likely wrong. Technically UK island, but not UK base.
Seems very in keeping with the whole arrangement if it was technically a UK base even if in every way that matters it was not. Maintaining such legal ties long beyond practical reality is pretty common in our way of working.
I don’t think it’s ever in any technicality been a UK base, we are just Landlord, with a very token presence in the base. UK is not really a user of the base, as online pages saying “joint UK US base” could fool you into thinking.
It’s starts with the US wanting this base in Indian Ocean - it does both aircraft and submarines - and UK wasn’t the first country they approached with their pitch, that was France. Key part of the pitch for hosting the US base was a knockdown deal on US nuclear weaponry. The French would have to explain for themselves why they said no - maybe something about them does such things for themselves not joint ventures, they didn’t want such a degree of trans Atlantic special relationship they could get tied into, and lose some degree of freedom. Maybe it’s true De Gaulle was just plain unstable. But UK governments in 1960’s, both Conservative and Labour, saw the pitch from the US as a bargain. They embraced it.
I don’t believe there was any predecessor the base was built on, not an RAF airfield or anything. It’s also interesting, as they approached France first, US may have had a particular site already in mind.
I don't think 'technically' means what you think it does in this context - all you say could be true for all I know, and would not prevent it in a technical sense still being a UK base, even if it was basically a polite fiction.
I think technically UK would have to be users of the base ourselves, for it technically to be a UK or even joint base. If all we, MOD, do there is act as the base Security contractor - mop up the Sri Lankan fishing junks straying too close, and confiscating the Chinese listening equipment from them, then back to base and top up the sun tans - like Death in Paradise, only with no deaths just Piña Coladas - it’s technically not the UK base the UK politicians and media are trying to fool us into believing it is, this evening. Is it?
We currently get “something” from it so it’s a benefit to the UK. Now that might be at the whims of the US but it’s a benefit.
The current plan would be like us giving Gibraltar to Morocco because in a different time they had administration over it then paying Morocco for the privilege of letting France have a military base there. It’s absolutely nuts.
I don’t like it either. But that’s what the Indian and US governments cooked up for us to sign up to.
The actual pressure on us came from India, the rising super power in the region. Not UN. India said Mauritius. So it is.
Mauritius sees itself being a sort of African East Coast Singapore, accordingly has a bit of trade deal with China, but military and security deals with India.
When Patel and Reform and US Senators say “China’s friend Mauritius” and don’t mention India, never mention India, they are just utterly embarrassing themselves really. Stretching fantasy they want to believe over it all, not sticking to the facts - in some sort of echo chamber where they don’t even want to listen and accept the facts.
But that can only last for so long now 🙂
Citations please for this "India" business?
Okay. 🙂
if Mauritius is aligned with any country, that country is India, from which the majority of Mauritius’ population trace their ancestry! a product of the British Empire’s practice of importing indentured labourers from India to ensure its sugar plantations continued to function after its abolition of slavery. And also strong is the modern connection between Mauritius and India. From 2013 to 2021, some $231 million of foreign direct investment came to India from Mauritius, with $151 million going the other way. These same investment flows for China are $89.2 million and $22.5 million, respectively. In total, 3.8 per cent of Mauritius’ trade is with China, compared to 12.2 per cent with India. India has constructed a military facility on the Mauritian island of Agaléga, which recent reports state is now ready to receive naval and air assets.
We can all read something different in citations, but I read enough that wanting to be Singapore of East Coast Africa, Mauritius has trade arrangements with China - as we do too - but its defence and security arrangements are with India, its spiritual heritage lies with India, who indeed pushed for Mauritius to take Chagos ownership. So it is a little more nuanced than we have been led to believe, isn’t it. Yes openly embracing China for trade while maintaining close-knit security collaboration with the United States and India. For example, the 99 year lease idea was a Mauritius pitch, not to the UK, but to the US, who accepted the idea perhaps before UK had even heard of it.
Any further questions? 🙂
Well yes, from me, does Badenoch and Patel know all this, but happy to spin it away from the factual need for change in a changing Indian Ocean? Or do they not actually understand all this?
Whilst your wordy weirdness is often questionable I agree with you that India has a lot more to do with this than China. There will be elements of this between them in tandem as it’s in both their interests to try and remove the US from there but India has infinitely more of a relationship so with Mauritius and it’s very much their “sphere of influence”.
I actually had a request for my “ wordy weirdness” 😮
Just watched a recent Storyville, the darkest web, a story of child abuse. Unremittingly grim but incredibly moving and with some good threads through it. Its not an easy watch and those that are vulnerable, for whatever reason, probably should not go near it. But wow, absolutely mind blowing. Some of the stuff I have to deal with is bad but this is a whole other level. I honestly don't know how a normal human can do this kind of work and not find themselves profoundly changed.
I have a friend who is a police detective who works on that, without saying too much he seriously has to let off steam to deal with what he sees. I have so much respect for those who have to deal with the evidence.
I was listening to a podcast about two FBI chaps who managed to find a girl being abused from a photo of her where they needed up tracing the bricks in the background and they saved her. Remarkable investigation but tragic it has to happen. They had already saved a child by working out from clues that the photo was of a Dutch child and got interpol, the Dutch police and press to find the child.
He was wearing an orange jump and clutching a soft toy made in Holland…
I have spent a lot of time online trying to find episode 5 of Strangers and Brothers by C P Snow a 70s BBC production....but my searches cannot find episode 5. I know I can buy the series for a tenner or so.. but I wondered if there is an easier way to check if its actually online ? I think.there might be one other episode missing but will have to check.
It’s very very risky from Starmer. Hard to believe he said no.
It is a very big moment in UK US special relationship I think. Does anyone have any example of such a request turned down before? I think for Vietnam US never asked Labour government to use an RAF base at any point?
If Kemi says she would have given a different answer, straight away a huge and explosive differential between Conservative and Labour. Because, if any US plane goes down, with U’S service lives lost, anywhere in the battle space, Trump will blame the British Labour government for their deaths.
Yes - I have such an example.
The Conservative Government in 2012 rebuffed any attempt to use Diego-Garcia for a pre-emptive attack on Iran in advance, because they had official legal advice that could be against international law.
The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories. .. The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran," said a senior Whitehall source. "It is explicit. The government has been using this to push back against the Americans." .. "I think the US has been surprised that ministers have been reluctant to provide assurances about this kind of upfront assistance," said one source. "They'd expect resistance from senior Liberal Democrats, but it's Tories as well. That has come as a bit of a surprise." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/25/uk-reject-us-request-bases-iran
It will be fun if SKS finds that, given that the Shadow Def Sec is jumping up and down demanding the Govt do the opposite.
From The Times. “Under the terms of long-standing agreements with Washington, these bases {Times includes Diego Garcia} can only be used for military operations that have been agreed in advance with the government.
I suspect The Times journalism is wrong, and no such agreement applies to Diego Garcia. It’s not an RAF base, it’s not even a joint base, it’s a US base. It seems very odd to me, based on the whole history of UK involvement with the US in Chagos, where UK have been so subservient, the US would allow such a clause on use of their own base.
As for 2012 and all that, the UK government would try to bundle DG in with the others to aid their pushback - but they were likely wrong. Technically UK island, but not UK base.
Seems very in keeping with the whole arrangement if it was technically a UK base even if in every way that matters it was not. Maintaining such legal ties long beyond practical reality is pretty common in our way of working.
I don’t think it’s ever in any technicality been a UK base, we are just Landlord, with a very token presence in the base. UK is not really a user of the base, as online pages saying “joint UK US base” could fool you into thinking.
It’s starts with the US wanting this base in Indian Ocean - it does both aircraft and submarines - and UK wasn’t the first country they approached with their pitch, that was France. Key part of the pitch for hosting the US base was a knockdown deal on US nuclear weaponry. The French would have to explain for themselves why they said no - maybe something about them does such things for themselves not joint ventures, they didn’t want such a degree of trans Atlantic special relationship they could get tied into, and lose some degree of freedom. Maybe it’s true De Gaulle was just plain unstable. But UK governments in 1960’s, both Conservative and Labour, saw the pitch from the US as a bargain. They embraced it.
I don’t believe there was any predecessor the base was built on, not an RAF airfield or anything. It’s also interesting, as they approached France first, US may have had a particular site already in mind.
I don't think 'technically' means what you think it does in this context - all you say could be true for all I know, and would not prevent it in a technical sense still being a UK base, even if it was basically a polite fiction.
I think technically UK would have to be users of the base ourselves, for it technically to be a UK or even joint base. If all we, MOD, do there is act as the base Security contractor - mop up the Sri Lankan fishing junks straying too close, and confiscating the Chinese listening equipment from them, then back to base and top up the sun tans - like Death in Paradise, only with no deaths just Piña Coladas - it’s technically not the UK base the UK politicians and media are trying to fool us into believing it is, this evening. Is it?
We currently get “something” from it so it’s a benefit to the UK. Now that might be at the whims of the US but it’s a benefit.
The current plan would be like us giving Gibraltar to Morocco because in a different time they had administration over it then paying Morocco for the privilege of letting France have a military base there. It’s absolutely nuts.
I don’t like it either. But that’s what the Indian and US governments cooked up for us to sign up to.
The actual pressure on us came from India, the rising super power in the region. Not UN. India said Mauritius. So it is.
Mauritius sees itself being a sort of African East Coast Singapore, accordingly has a bit of trade deal with China, but military and security deals with India.
When Patel and Reform and US Senators say “China’s friend Mauritius” and don’t mention India, never mention India, they are just utterly embarrassing themselves really. Stretching fantasy they want to believe over it all, not sticking to the facts - in some sort of echo chamber where they don’t even want to listen and accept the facts.
But that can only last for so long now 🙂
Citations please for this "India" business?
Okay. 🙂
if Mauritius is aligned with any country, that country is India, from which the majority of Mauritius’ population trace their ancestry! a product of the British Empire’s practice of importing indentured labourers from India to ensure its sugar plantations continued to function after its abolition of slavery. And also strong is the modern connection between Mauritius and India. From 2013 to 2021, some $231 million of foreign direct investment came to India from Mauritius, with $151 million going the other way. These same investment flows for China are $89.2 million and $22.5 million, respectively. In total, 3.8 per cent of Mauritius’ trade is with China, compared to 12.2 per cent with India. India has constructed a military facility on the Mauritian island of Agaléga, which recent reports state is now ready to receive naval and air assets.
We can all read something different in citations, but I read enough that wanting to be Singapore of East Coast Africa, Mauritius has trade arrangements with China - as we do too - but its defence and security arrangements are with India, its spiritual heritage lies with India, who indeed pushed for Mauritius to take Chagos ownership. So it is a little more nuanced than we have been led to believe, isn’t it. Yes openly embracing China for trade while maintaining close-knit security collaboration with the United States and India. For example, the 99 year lease idea was a Mauritius pitch, not to the UK, but to the US, who accepted the idea perhaps before UK had even heard of it.
Any further questions? 🙂
Well yes, from me, does Badenoch and Patel know all this, but happy to spin it away from the factual need for change in a changing Indian Ocean? Or do they not actually understand all this?
Whilst your wordy weirdness is often questionable I agree with you that India has a lot more to do with this than China. There will be elements of this between them in tandem as it’s in both their interests to try and remove the US from there but India has infinitely more of a relationship so with Mauritius and it’s very much their “sphere of influence”.
I actually had a request for my “ wordy weirdness” 😮
I have spent a lot of time online trying to find episode 5 of Strangers and Brothers by C P Snow a 70s BBC production....but my searches cannot find episode 5. I know I can buy the series for a tenner or so.. but I wondered if there is an easier way to check if its actually online ? I think.there might be one other episode missing but will have to check.
Just watched a recent Storyville, the darkest web, a story of child abuse. Unremittingly grim but incredibly moving and with some good threads through it. Its not an easy watch and those that are vulnerable, for whatever reason, probably should not go near it. But wow, absolutely mind blowing. Some of the stuff I have to deal with is bad but this is a whole other level. I honestly don't know how a normal human can do this kind of work and not find themselves profoundly changed.
I have a friend who is a police detective who works on that, without saying too much he seriously has to let off steam to deal with what he sees. I have so much respect for those who have to deal with the evidence.
I was listening to a podcast about two FBI chaps who managed to find a girl being abused from a photo of her where they needed up tracing the bricks in the background and they saved her. Remarkable investigation but tragic it has to happen. They had already saved a child by working out from clues that the photo was of a Dutch child and got interpol, the Dutch police and press to find the child.
He was wearing an orange jump and clutching a soft toy made in Holland…
It’s such a hard listen because they are real children but my god the dedication to finding these evil people is so uplifting.
I think that, even now, people underestimate how much Trump is motivated by simple corruption.
It's overlooked so often as a motivating force when people try to anticipate what he will do next, but it appears to be way more important to him than any ideology, or geological strategy.
It's hard not to feel a twinge of pity for someone as effortlessly dislikable as AMW. Most of us haven't been surrounded by a coterie of fawning creeps and sycophants our whole lives and are happier for it. His arrest mirrors a sad truth: compared to the rest of us he's been a prisoner since the day he was born. The best argument for the abolition of the monarchy is humanitarian.
I think that, even now, people underestimate how much Trump is motivated by simple corruption.
It's overlooked so often as a motivating force when people try to anticipate what he will do next, but it appears to be way more important to him than any ideology, or geological strategy.
It's a kleptocratic cult dedicated to keeping it's members out of jail as long as they remain loyal. Basically a mafia government.
I think that, even now, people underestimate how much Trump is motivated by simple corruption.
It's overlooked so often as a motivating force when people try to anticipate what he will do next, but it appears to be way more important to him than any ideology, or geological strategy.
It's a kleptocratic cult dedicated to keeping it's members out of jail as long as they remain loyal. Basically a mafia government.
We're long past the point where we should be having nowt to do with them.
DOOCY: On Prince Andrew, do you think American associates of Jeffrey Epstein will wind up in handcuffs too?
TRUMP: I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated. That's very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it's a shame. I did nothing.
It's fucking bizarre to me that we loose our shit over Starmer being a bit crap, and half the time ignore the fact that the president of the US is quite likely a child rapist and/or a Russian asset.
I think that, even now, people underestimate how much Trump is motivated by simple corruption.
It's overlooked so often as a motivating force when people try to anticipate what he will do next, but it appears to be way more important to him than any ideology, or geological strategy.
It's a kleptocratic cult dedicated to keeping it's members out of jail as long as they remain loyal. Basically a mafia government.
We're long past the point where we should be having nowt to do with them.
Europe's median reaction can be summed up as willing themselves to wake up from a nightmare.
Not happening folks. Deal with the awful reality.
46% of Irish corporation tax receipts are from three US companies (Apple, Microsoft and Eli Lilly). That's very vulnerable to the whim of a guy in the White House who would love a share of those billions.
It’s very very risky from Starmer. Hard to believe he said no.
It is a very big moment in UK US special relationship I think. Does anyone have any example of such a request turned down before? I think for Vietnam US never asked Labour government to use an RAF base at any point?
If Kemi says she would have given a different answer, straight away a huge and explosive differential between Conservative and Labour. Because, if any US plane goes down, with U’S service lives lost, anywhere in the battle space, Trump will blame the British Labour government for their deaths.
Yes - I have such an example.
The Conservative Government in 2012 rebuffed any attempt to use Diego-Garcia for a pre-emptive attack on Iran in advance, because they had official legal advice that could be against international law.
The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories. .. The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran," said a senior Whitehall source. "It is explicit. The government has been using this to push back against the Americans." .. "I think the US has been surprised that ministers have been reluctant to provide assurances about this kind of upfront assistance," said one source. "They'd expect resistance from senior Liberal Democrats, but it's Tories as well. That has come as a bit of a surprise." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/25/uk-reject-us-request-bases-iran
It will be fun if SKS finds that, given that the Shadow Def Sec is jumping up and down demanding the Govt do the opposite.
From The Times. “Under the terms of long-standing agreements with Washington, these bases {Times includes Diego Garcia} can only be used for military operations that have been agreed in advance with the government.
I suspect The Times journalism is wrong, and no such agreement applies to Diego Garcia. It’s not an RAF base, it’s not even a joint base, it’s a US base. It seems very odd to me, based on the whole history of UK involvement with the US in Chagos, where UK have been so subservient, the US would allow such a clause on use of their own base.
As for 2012 and all that, the UK government would try to bundle DG in with the others to aid their pushback - but they were likely wrong. Technically UK island, but not UK base.
Seems very in keeping with the whole arrangement if it was technically a UK base even if in every way that matters it was not. Maintaining such legal ties long beyond practical reality is pretty common in our way of working.
I don’t think it’s ever in any technicality been a UK base, we are just Landlord, with a very token presence in the base. UK is not really a user of the base, as online pages saying “joint UK US base” could fool you into thinking.
It’s starts with the US wanting this base in Indian Ocean - it does both aircraft and submarines - and UK wasn’t the first country they approached with their pitch, that was France. Key part of the pitch for hosting the US base was a knockdown deal on US nuclear weaponry. The French would have to explain for themselves why they said no - maybe something about them does such things for themselves not joint ventures, they didn’t want such a degree of trans Atlantic special relationship they could get tied into, and lose some degree of freedom. Maybe it’s true De Gaulle was just plain unstable. But UK governments in 1960’s, both Conservative and Labour, saw the pitch from the US as a bargain. They embraced it.
I don’t believe there was any predecessor the base was built on, not an RAF airfield or anything. It’s also interesting, as they approached France first, US may have had a particular site already in mind.
I don't think 'technically' means what you think it does in this context - all you say could be true for all I know, and would not prevent it in a technical sense still being a UK base, even if it was basically a polite fiction.
I think technically UK would have to be users of the base ourselves, for it technically to be a UK or even joint base. If all we, MOD, do there is act as the base Security contractor - mop up the Sri Lankan fishing junks straying too close, and confiscating the Chinese listening equipment from them, then back to base and top up the sun tans - like Death in Paradise, only with no deaths just Piña Coladas - it’s technically not the UK base the UK politicians and media are trying to fool us into believing it is, this evening. Is it?
We currently get “something” from it so it’s a benefit to the UK. Now that might be at the whims of the US but it’s a benefit.
The current plan would be like us giving Gibraltar to Morocco because in a different time they had administration over it then paying Morocco for the privilege of letting France have a military base there. It’s absolutely nuts.
I don’t like it either. But that’s what the Indian and US governments cooked up for us to sign up to.
The actual pressure on us came from India, the rising super power in the region. Not UN. India said Mauritius. So it is.
Mauritius sees itself being a sort of African East Coast Singapore, accordingly has a bit of trade deal with China, but military and security deals with India.
When Patel and Reform and US Senators say “China’s friend Mauritius” and don’t mention India, never mention India, they are just utterly embarrassing themselves really. Stretching fantasy they want to believe over it all, not sticking to the facts - in some sort of echo chamber where they don’t even want to listen and accept the facts.
But that can only last for so long now 🙂
Citations please for this "India" business?
Okay. 🙂
if Mauritius is aligned with any country, that country is India, from which the majority of Mauritius’ population trace their ancestry! a product of the British Empire’s practice of importing indentured labourers from India to ensure its sugar plantations continued to function after its abolition of slavery. And also strong is the modern connection between Mauritius and India. From 2013 to 2021, some $231 million of foreign direct investment came to India from Mauritius, with $151 million going the other way. These same investment flows for China are $89.2 million and $22.5 million, respectively. In total, 3.8 per cent of Mauritius’ trade is with China, compared to 12.2 per cent with India. India has constructed a military facility on the Mauritian island of Agaléga, which recent reports state is now ready to receive naval and air assets.
We can all read something different in citations, but I read enough that wanting to be Singapore of East Coast Africa, Mauritius has trade arrangements with China - as we do too - but its defence and security arrangements are with India, its spiritual heritage lies with India, who indeed pushed for Mauritius to take Chagos ownership. So it is a little more nuanced than we have been led to believe, isn’t it. Yes openly embracing China for trade while maintaining close-knit security collaboration with the United States and India. For example, the 99 year lease idea was a Mauritius pitch, not to the UK, but to the US, who accepted the idea perhaps before UK had even heard of it.
Any further questions? 🙂
Well yes, from me, does Badenoch and Patel know all this, but happy to spin it away from the factual need for change in a changing Indian Ocean? Or do they not actually understand all this?
Whilst your wordy weirdness is often questionable I agree with you that India has a lot more to do with this than China. There will be elements of this between them in tandem as it’s in both their interests to try and remove the US from there but India has infinitely more of a relationship so with Mauritius and it’s very much their “sphere of influence”.
Pah! The Indians can't even do public toilets properly
DOOCY: On Prince Andrew, do you think American associates of Jeffrey Epstein will wind up in handcuffs too?
TRUMP: I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated. That's very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it's a shame. I did nothing.
It's fucking bizarre to me that we loose our shit over Starmer being a bit crap, and half the time ignore the fact that the president of the US is quite likely a child rapist and/or a Russian asset.
Well they fought their way out of the British Empire so it's kinda on them now.
It’s very very risky from Starmer. Hard to believe he said no.
It is a very big moment in UK US special relationship I think. Does anyone have any example of such a request turned down before? I think for Vietnam US never asked Labour government to use an RAF base at any point?
If Kemi says she would have given a different answer, straight away a huge and explosive differential between Conservative and Labour. Because, if any US plane goes down, with U’S service lives lost, anywhere in the battle space, Trump will blame the British Labour government for their deaths.
Yes - I have such an example.
The Conservative Government in 2012 rebuffed any attempt to use Diego-Garcia for a pre-emptive attack on Iran in advance, because they had official legal advice that could be against international law.
The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories. .. The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran," said a senior Whitehall source. "It is explicit. The government has been using this to push back against the Americans." .. "I think the US has been surprised that ministers have been reluctant to provide assurances about this kind of upfront assistance," said one source. "They'd expect resistance from senior Liberal Democrats, but it's Tories as well. That has come as a bit of a surprise." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/25/uk-reject-us-request-bases-iran
It will be fun if SKS finds that, given that the Shadow Def Sec is jumping up and down demanding the Govt do the opposite.
From The Times. “Under the terms of long-standing agreements with Washington, these bases {Times includes Diego Garcia} can only be used for military operations that have been agreed in advance with the government.
I suspect The Times journalism is wrong, and no such agreement applies to Diego Garcia. It’s not an RAF base, it’s not even a joint base, it’s a US base. It seems very odd to me, based on the whole history of UK involvement with the US in Chagos, where UK have been so subservient, the US would allow such a clause on use of their own base.
As for 2012 and all that, the UK government would try to bundle DG in with the others to aid their pushback - but they were likely wrong. Technically UK island, but not UK base.
Seems very in keeping with the whole arrangement if it was technically a UK base even if in every way that matters it was not. Maintaining such legal ties long beyond practical reality is pretty common in our way of working.
I don’t think it’s ever in any technicality been a UK base, we are just Landlord, with a very token presence in the base. UK is not really a user of the base, as online pages saying “joint UK US base” could fool you into thinking.
It’s starts with the US wanting this base in Indian Ocean - it does both aircraft and submarines - and UK wasn’t the first country they approached with their pitch, that was France. Key part of the pitch for hosting the US base was a knockdown deal on US nuclear weaponry. The French would have to explain for themselves why they said no - maybe something about them does such things for themselves not joint ventures, they didn’t want such a degree of trans Atlantic special relationship they could get tied into, and lose some degree of freedom. Maybe it’s true De Gaulle was just plain unstable. But UK governments in 1960’s, both Conservative and Labour, saw the pitch from the US as a bargain. They embraced it.
I don’t believe there was any predecessor the base was built on, not an RAF airfield or anything. It’s also interesting, as they approached France first, US may have had a particular site already in mind.
I don't think 'technically' means what you think it does in this context - all you say could be true for all I know, and would not prevent it in a technical sense still being a UK base, even if it was basically a polite fiction.
I think technically UK would have to be users of the base ourselves, for it technically to be a UK or even joint base. If all we, MOD, do there is act as the base Security contractor - mop up the Sri Lankan fishing junks straying too close, and confiscating the Chinese listening equipment from them, then back to base and top up the sun tans - like Death in Paradise, only with no deaths just Piña Coladas - it’s technically not the UK base the UK politicians and media are trying to fool us into believing it is, this evening. Is it?
We currently get “something” from it so it’s a benefit to the UK. Now that might be at the whims of the US but it’s a benefit.
The current plan would be like us giving Gibraltar to Morocco because in a different time they had administration over it then paying Morocco for the privilege of letting France have a military base there. It’s absolutely nuts.
I don’t like it either. But that’s what the Indian and US governments cooked up for us to sign up to.
The actual pressure on us came from India, the rising super power in the region. Not UN. India said Mauritius. So it is.
Mauritius sees itself being a sort of African East Coast Singapore, accordingly has a bit of trade deal with China, but military and security deals with India.
When Patel and Reform and US Senators say “China’s friend Mauritius” and don’t mention India, never mention India, they are just utterly embarrassing themselves really. Stretching fantasy they want to believe over it all, not sticking to the facts - in some sort of echo chamber where they don’t even want to listen and accept the facts.
But that can only last for so long now 🙂
Citations please for this "India" business?
Okay. 🙂
if Mauritius is aligned with any country, that country is India, from which the majority of Mauritius’ population trace their ancestry! a product of the British Empire’s practice of importing indentured labourers from India to ensure its sugar plantations continued to function after its abolition of slavery. And also strong is the modern connection between Mauritius and India. From 2013 to 2021, some $231 million of foreign direct investment came to India from Mauritius, with $151 million going the other way. These same investment flows for China are $89.2 million and $22.5 million, respectively. In total, 3.8 per cent of Mauritius’ trade is with China, compared to 12.2 per cent with India. India has constructed a military facility on the Mauritian island of Agaléga, which recent reports state is now ready to receive naval and air assets.
We can all read something different in citations, but I read enough that wanting to be Singapore of East Coast Africa, Mauritius has trade arrangements with China - as we do too - but its defence and security arrangements are with India, its spiritual heritage lies with India, who indeed pushed for Mauritius to take Chagos ownership. So it is a little more nuanced than we have been led to believe, isn’t it. Yes openly embracing China for trade while maintaining close-knit security collaboration with the United States and India. For example, the 99 year lease idea was a Mauritius pitch, not to the UK, but to the US, who accepted the idea perhaps before UK had even heard of it.
Any further questions? 🙂
Well yes, from me, does Badenoch and Patel know all this, but happy to spin it away from the factual need for change in a changing Indian Ocean? Or do they not actually understand all this?
Whilst your wordy weirdness is often questionable I agree with you that India has a lot more to do with this than China. There will be elements of this between them in tandem as it’s in both their interests to try and remove the US from there but India has infinitely more of a relationship so with Mauritius and it’s very much their “sphere of influence”.
Pah! The Indians can't even do public toilets properly
I dunno. Toileting arrangements in parts of India seem to be a lot more public than in Britain.
It’s very very risky from Starmer. Hard to believe he said no.
It is a very big moment in UK US special relationship I think. Does anyone have any example of such a request turned down before? I think for Vietnam US never asked Labour government to use an RAF base at any point?
If Kemi says she would have given a different answer, straight away a huge and explosive differential between Conservative and Labour. Because, if any US plane goes down, with U’S service lives lost, anywhere in the battle space, Trump will blame the British Labour government for their deaths.
Yes - I have such an example.
The Conservative Government in 2012 rebuffed any attempt to use Diego-Garcia for a pre-emptive attack on Iran in advance, because they had official legal advice that could be against international law.
The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories. .. The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran," said a senior Whitehall source. "It is explicit. The government has been using this to push back against the Americans." .. "I think the US has been surprised that ministers have been reluctant to provide assurances about this kind of upfront assistance," said one source. "They'd expect resistance from senior Liberal Democrats, but it's Tories as well. That has come as a bit of a surprise." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/25/uk-reject-us-request-bases-iran
It will be fun if SKS finds that, given that the Shadow Def Sec is jumping up and down demanding the Govt do the opposite.
From The Times. “Under the terms of long-standing agreements with Washington, these bases {Times includes Diego Garcia} can only be used for military operations that have been agreed in advance with the government.
I suspect The Times journalism is wrong, and no such agreement applies to Diego Garcia. It’s not an RAF base, it’s not even a joint base, it’s a US base. It seems very odd to me, based on the whole history of UK involvement with the US in Chagos, where UK have been so subservient, the US would allow such a clause on use of their own base.
As for 2012 and all that, the UK government would try to bundle DG in with the others to aid their pushback - but they were likely wrong. Technically UK island, but not UK base.
Seems very in keeping with the whole arrangement if it was technically a UK base even if in every way that matters it was not. Maintaining such legal ties long beyond practical reality is pretty common in our way of working.
I don’t think it’s ever in any technicality been a UK base, we are just Landlord, with a very token presence in the base. UK is not really a user of the base, as online pages saying “joint UK US base” could fool you into thinking.
It’s starts with the US wanting this base in Indian Ocean - it does both aircraft and submarines - and UK wasn’t the first country they approached with their pitch, that was France. Key part of the pitch for hosting the US base was a knockdown deal on US nuclear weaponry. The French would have to explain for themselves why they said no - maybe something about them does such things for themselves not joint ventures, they didn’t want such a degree of trans Atlantic special relationship they could get tied into, and lose some degree of freedom. Maybe it’s true De Gaulle was just plain unstable. But UK governments in 1960’s, both Conservative and Labour, saw the pitch from the US as a bargain. They embraced it.
I don’t believe there was any predecessor the base was built on, not an RAF airfield or anything. It’s also interesting, as they approached France first, US may have had a particular site already in mind.
I don't think 'technically' means what you think it does in this context - all you say could be true for all I know, and would not prevent it in a technical sense still being a UK base, even if it was basically a polite fiction.
I think technically UK would have to be users of the base ourselves, for it technically to be a UK or even joint base. If all we, MOD, do there is act as the base Security contractor - mop up the Sri Lankan fishing junks straying too close, and confiscating the Chinese listening equipment from them, then back to base and top up the sun tans - like Death in Paradise, only with no deaths just Piña Coladas - it’s technically not the UK base the UK politicians and media are trying to fool us into believing it is, this evening. Is it?
We currently get “something” from it so it’s a benefit to the UK. Now that might be at the whims of the US but it’s a benefit.
The current plan would be like us giving Gibraltar to Morocco because in a different time they had administration over it then paying Morocco for the privilege of letting France have a military base there. It’s absolutely nuts.
I don’t like it either. But that’s what the Indian and US governments cooked up for us to sign up to.
The actual pressure on us came from India, the rising super power in the region. Not UN. India said Mauritius. So it is.
Mauritius sees itself being a sort of African East Coast Singapore, accordingly has a bit of trade deal with China, but military and security deals with India.
When Patel and Reform and US Senators say “China’s friend Mauritius” and don’t mention India, never mention India, they are just utterly embarrassing themselves really. Stretching fantasy they want to believe over it all, not sticking to the facts - in some sort of echo chamber where they don’t even want to listen and accept the facts.
But that can only last for so long now 🙂
Citations please for this "India" business?
Okay. 🙂
if Mauritius is aligned with any country, that country is India, from which the majority of Mauritius’ population trace their ancestry! a product of the British Empire’s practice of importing indentured labourers from India to ensure its sugar plantations continued to function after its abolition of slavery. And also strong is the modern connection between Mauritius and India. From 2013 to 2021, some $231 million of foreign direct investment came to India from Mauritius, with $151 million going the other way. These same investment flows for China are $89.2 million and $22.5 million, respectively. In total, 3.8 per cent of Mauritius’ trade is with China, compared to 12.2 per cent with India. India has constructed a military facility on the Mauritian island of Agaléga, which recent reports state is now ready to receive naval and air assets.
We can all read something different in citations, but I read enough that wanting to be Singapore of East Coast Africa, Mauritius has trade arrangements with China - as we do too - but its defence and security arrangements are with India, its spiritual heritage lies with India, who indeed pushed for Mauritius to take Chagos ownership. So it is a little more nuanced than we have been led to believe, isn’t it. Yes openly embracing China for trade while maintaining close-knit security collaboration with the United States and India. For example, the 99 year lease idea was a Mauritius pitch, not to the UK, but to the US, who accepted the idea perhaps before UK had even heard of it.
Any further questions? 🙂
Well yes, from me, does Badenoch and Patel know all this, but happy to spin it away from the factual need for change in a changing Indian Ocean? Or do they not actually understand all this?
Whilst your wordy weirdness is often questionable I agree with you that India has a lot more to do with this than China. There will be elements of this between them in tandem as it’s in both their interests to try and remove the US from there but India has infinitely more of a relationship so with Mauritius and it’s very much their “sphere of influence”.
Pah! The Indians can't even do public toilets properly
I dunno. Toileting arrangements in parts of India seem to be a lot more public than in Britain.
I remember my first time in Delhi going past the street side open urinals wondering why they didn’t get that they were for a piss not a dirty great shit. And then riding past a paddy field and watching a woman hitching up her skirts and shitting in the rice. Thank god you wash and boil it.
I think that, even now, people underestimate how much Trump is motivated by simple corruption.
It's overlooked so often as a motivating force when people try to anticipate what he will do next, but it appears to be way more important to him than any ideology, or geological strategy.
It's a kleptocratic cult dedicated to keeping it's members out of jail as long as they remain loyal. Basically a mafia government.
We're long past the point where we should be having nowt to do with them.
Europe's median reaction can be summed up as willing themselves to wake up from a nightmare.
Not happening folks. Deal with the awful reality.
46% of Irish corporation tax receipts are from three US companies (Apple, Microsoft and Eli Lilly). That's very vulnerable to the whim of a guy in the White House who would love a share of those billions.
Most of the US is in a state of denial. Decades of propaganda about the superiority of their Constitution and shining city on the hill bollocks prevents them from recognising and naming what is in plain sight.
Comments
@atrupar
DOOCY: On Prince Andrew, do you think American associates of Jeffrey Epstein will wind up in handcuffs too?
TRUMP: I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated. That's very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it's a shame. I did nothing.
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2024576037477027958
Now, on the face of it, Buddhism sounds a terrible fit for genocidal, racist, fascist Imperialism.
But with the enthusiasm that would later make Japanese motorcycles and whisky world beating, the Japanese masters of Buddhism were nothing daunted.
They declared that various races, they had discovered, such as the Chinese, were “lower than lice”. So it was religiously AOK to slaughter them, for Japanese Buddhists. Indeed it was virtuous.
Hilarity ensued.
https://x.com/malonebarry/status/2024567536390484067?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Doc Holliday: "A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it."
Wyatt Earp: "What does he need?"
Doc Holliday: "Revenge."
Wyatt Earp: "For what?"
Doc Holliday: "Bein' born."
TRUMP: I don't know if they're real or not.
You are missing the point
The alleged malfeasance and trafficking girls happened when Brown was in government and he is calling out both
Today was about the malfeasance
Although you foolishly pointed the finger at TSE not the guilty commie scumbag. Tut, tut.
Once again - email is nearly public domain. It is sent round the world, almost in the hope that it finds the recipient’s in box. Completely in the clear.
Multiple copies of any emails will exist. And not just on a laptop.
Whilst Enoch was questionable Trump is a different class.
The Swiss helped GB to get into the semi-final by beating Italy and then get knocked out by GB !
Any help gratefully received.
GoldBronze...I mean, sorry, oooh, matron!
@squareroot2
This is one of the accounts I follow for old TV
Episode 5 is on the list
I am not a lawyer but I am concerned that justice must be done and presumption of guilt is not justice. The media should take note imho.
if Mauritius is aligned with any country, that country is India, from which the majority of Mauritius’ population trace their ancestry! a product of the British Empire’s practice of importing indentured labourers from India to ensure its sugar plantations continued to function after its abolition of slavery. And also strong is the modern connection between Mauritius and India. From 2013 to 2021, some $231 million of foreign direct investment came to India from Mauritius, with $151 million going the other way. These same investment flows for China are $89.2 million and $22.5 million, respectively. In total, 3.8 per cent of Mauritius’ trade is with China, compared to 12.2 per cent with India. India has constructed a military facility on the Mauritian island of Agaléga, which recent reports state is now ready to receive naval and air assets.
https://warontherocks.com/2021/07/overcoming-the-diego-garcia-stalemate/
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/10/uk-must-focus-how-chagos-decision-implemented-gain-its-benefits-and-minimize-risks
We can all read something different in citations, but I read enough that wanting to be Singapore of East Coast Africa, Mauritius has trade arrangements with China - as we do too - but its defence and security arrangements are with India, its spiritual heritage lies with India, who indeed pushed for Mauritius to take Chagos ownership. So it is a little more nuanced than we have been led to believe, isn’t it. Yes openly embracing China for trade while maintaining close-knit security collaboration with the United States and India. For example, the 99 year lease idea was a Mauritius pitch, not to the UK, but to the US, who accepted the idea perhaps before UK had even heard of it.
Any further questions? 🙂
Well yes, from me, does Badenoch and Patel know all this, but happy to spin it away from the factual need for change in a changing Indian Ocean? Or do they not actually understand all this?
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2022-11-03/hcws354
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2023-03-17/hcws645
Start with a plane taking off
Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Then a bit louder, touch faster
URRRRRRRRRRR
and then launch into it
MAAAAAAAAAAAAAYTRUN
Most people have zero idea of security.
A party piece I did a few times, at Home House, back in the day, was showing A listers how you could log into their voice messages on mobile. Long before The Phone Hacking Scandal. I think no one changed their passcode - even after hearing their messages accessed!
Next. Frost in May BBC 1982?
SHE DID IT! WORLD RECORD! 1:54.87!
KEELY HODGKINSON SMASHES THE INDOOR 800M WORLD RECORD!
https://bsky.app/profile/chrischavez.bsky.social/post/3mfak63mf4k2r
I will try i F I M.Not seen it b4..but it looks to be a treasure trovee of old stuff.
https://x.com/JamesManning/status/2024599988039262580?s=20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_d2TMzptb0
Ah, shoot, it was Chloe,Franks who acted with Christopher Lee in an Amicus portmanteau.
Hull KR 30 Brisbane 24.
Rovers are world champions.
It's overlooked so often as a motivating force when people try to anticipate what he will do next, but it appears to be way more important to him than any ideology, or geological strategy.
Basically a mafia government.
'detained at your brother's (and nephews) pleasure'
Not happening folks. Deal with the awful reality.
46% of Irish corporation tax receipts are from three US companies (Apple, Microsoft and Eli Lilly). That's very vulnerable to the whim of a guy in the White House who would love a share of those billions.
USA: We'll get back to you on that one. There's crypto to consider you know.
- £40m for mosques and Muslim schools
- £28.4m for Jewish faith sites and schools
- £5m for other faith sites'
https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/2024512760969560221?s=20
Decades of propaganda about the superiority of their Constitution and shining city on the hill bollocks prevents them from recognising and naming what is in plain sight.