The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
Utterly disgusting.
Forced repatriation from their homeland.
Why is this happening
NETANYAHU
Maybe it's time to move the Jewish State to a more suitable location.
Ethiopia might suit.
The industry and work ethic of Jewish people could revitalise Africa.
Leaving Palestine to the Palestinians.
Should Constantinople be given back to the Greeks?
Should we have acquiesced to the German occupation of Paris?
Are irrelevant analogies ever helpful?
I don't think it's irrelevant. The reason that people think there is somthing fundamentally illegitimate about Israel is that it's on 'Arab' land, but you could make a similar argument about European Turkey.
There's a five hundred year difference, which is why it's irrelevant.
A better analogy might be the Windrush generation, which of course many on the right that you're fans of do want to send home.
But even then, there are loads of differences that make that analogy irrelevant. Analogy as a form of argument is like trying to dig a trench with a teaspoon - it might look like it has the right form, but it's wholly unequal to the task.
Yes analogies are overused. Rather like an old sweater that you can't bring yourself to discard.
Kemi is getting hammered on Ch4. She's hopeless under pressure. HYUFD knows what he's on about.
You say you're coming back. You're on 17% is that what you call 'coming back?'
It is a pity as Kemi has done some good work on policy reviews and shoring up party finances and she would have made a good party chairman.
Was she overpromoted becoming party leader? Clearly you and some voters think so. Cleverly would at least have the weight and gravitas of a holder of 2 Great Offices of State behind him as LOTO, having been Foreign and Home Secretary
Kemi upsetting @Roger and others on the left who would have no interest voting conservative no matter who the leader is, is not something she will lose a moments sleep for
Normally that would be correct and she or any other Tory leader would not be bothered what leftwingers thought of her but we are not in normal circumstances. The Conservatives are polling third in most polls and Conservatives will need some leftwingers to have some respect for their leader so they are willing to hold their noses if they live in a Conservative held seat and vote for an incumbent Conservative councillor or MP to beat Reform
Kemi will close in on Reform given time and is far and away the popular leader in the party, as difficult as you find this
Look where your so called white knight is on this list
There are other more popular candidates than your new hero anyway
That is a survey of Tory members, who we know love Kemi but that is not enough if voters overall are not willing to vote for her party over Labour and Reform. Cleverly is still +31% in that survey with Tory members but is voters as a whole a leader needs to appeal to not just party members as Truss, Corbyn and IDS discovered
First, would the relegation of Tottenham Hotspur to the Championship be the most significant event to occur in Europe since the Ottomans stormed Constantinople in 1453?
Second, is it true 400,000 KitKat bars have been stolen? Police are going to need a break to solve this crime.
No. As they were relegated in 1977 we are all getting used to this phenomenon.
However, if relegated that would leave only Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool and Man U as the teams never so far relegated from the Premier League.
But Arsenal have not been relegated from top football since 1913, repromoted 1919, WWI intervening, and are decades ahead of anyone else, Everton are next, promoted 1954.
The most significant event in Europe since 1453 was the Ashes series of 2005.
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
Utterly disgusting.
Forced repatriation from their homeland.
Why is this happening
NETANYAHU
Maybe it's time to move the Jewish State to a more suitable location.
Ethiopia might suit.
The industry and work ethic of Jewish people could revitalise Africa.
Leaving Palestine to the Palestinians.
Should Constantinople be given back to the Greeks?
First, would the relegation of Tottenham Hotspur to the Championship be the most significant event to occur in Europe since the Ottomans stormed Constantinople in 1453?
Second, is it true 400,000 KitKat bars have been stolen? Police are going to need a break to solve this crime.
I presume the owner of the kitkat bars has been told to just jot down the crime number and that's the end of the investigation?
Perhaps Nestlé will announce that there is a bounty for the successful recovery of the KitKats?
I hope the police have got some real Smarties working on the case.
Oh God what have I started????
Punfests are one of the regular Revels here.
So many brands of ket* to choose from. This could turn into a Marathon punfest.
*Ket is a term for sweets used in the north east. Nowt to do with ketamine.
Anyone else making terrible confectionary related puns should be exiled as far away as possible. Like Mars.
Not far enough. How about the Milky Way?
Any more Galaxy related puns?
I need to breakaway from this ridiculous conversation.
Kemi is getting hammered on Ch4. She's hopeless under pressure. HYUFD knows what he's on about.
You say you're coming back. You're on 17% is that what you call 'coming back?'
It is a pity as Kemi has done some good work on policy reviews and shoring up party finances and she would have made a good party chairman.
Was she overpromoted becoming party leader? Clearly you and some voters think so. Cleverly would at least have the weight and gravitas of a holder of 2 Great Offices of State behind him as LOTO, having been Foreign and Home Secretary
Kemi upsetting @Roger and others on the left who would have no interest voting conservative no matter who the leader is, is not something she will lose a moments sleep for
Normally that would be correct and she or any other Tory leader would not be bothered what leftwingers thought of her but we are not in normal circumstances. The Conservatives are polling third in most polls and Conservatives will need some leftwingers to have some respect for their leader so they are willing to hold their noses if they live in a Conservative held seat and vote for an incumbent Conservative councillor or MP to beat Reform
Kemi is getting hammered on Ch4. She's hopeless under pressure. HYUFD knows what he's on about.
You say you're coming back. You're on 17% is that what you call 'coming back?'
It is a pity as Kemi has done some good work on policy reviews and shoring up party finances and she would have made a good party chairman.
Was she overpromoted becoming party leader? Clearly you and some voters think so. Cleverly would at least have the weight and gravitas of a holder of 2 Great Offices of State behind him as LOTO, having been Foreign and Home Secretary
Kemi upsetting @Roger and others on the left who would have no interest voting conservative no matter who the leader is, is not something she will lose a moments sleep for
Normally that would be correct and she or any other Tory leader would not be bothered what leftwingers thought of her but we are not in normal circumstances. The Conservatives are polling third in most polls and Conservatives will need some leftwingers to have some respect for their leader so they are willing to hold their noses if they live in a Conservative held seat and vote for an incumbent Conservative councillor or MP to beat Reform
Kemi will close in on Reform given time and is far and away the popular leader in the party, as difficult as you find this
Look where your so called white knight is on this list
There are other more popular candidates than your new hero anyway
That is a survey of Tory members, who we know love Kemi but that is not enough if voters overall are not willing to vote for her party over Labour and Reform. Cleverly is still +31% in that survey with Tory members but is voters as a whole a leader needs to appeal to not just party members as Truss, Corbyn and IDS discovered
Show me any poll Cleverly beats Kemi and 2024 is past it's sell by date
And you think 31+ for Cleverly by the menbership is a vote winner - really
Israel is set to invite the United States to relocate some of its bases in the region to Israel — and to establish new bases in the country — after the current war is over, Channel 12 reports, citing unnamed security sources.
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
Utterly disgusting.
Forced repatriation from their homeland.
Why is this happening
NETANYAHU
Maybe it's time to move the Jewish State to a more suitable location.
Ethiopia might suit.
The industry and work ethic of Jewish people could revitalise Africa.
Leaving Palestine to the Palestinians.
Should Constantinople be given back to the Greeks?
Should we have acquiesced to the German occupation of Paris?
Are irrelevant analogies ever helpful?
I don't think it's irrelevant. The reason that people think there is somthing fundamentally illegitimate about Israel is that it's on 'Arab' land, but you could make a similar argument about European Turkey.
There's a five hundred year difference, which is why it's irrelevant.
A better analogy might be the Windrush generation, which of course many on the right that you're fans of do want to send home.
But even then, there are loads of differences that make that analogy irrelevant. Analogy as a form of argument is like trying to dig a trench with a teaspoon - it might look like it has the right form, but it's wholly unequal to the task.
Yes analogies are overused. Rather like an old sweater that you can't bring yourself to discard.
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
Utterly disgusting.
Forced repatriation from their homeland.
Why is this happening
NETANYAHU
Maybe it's time to move the Jewish State to a more suitable location.
Ethiopia might suit.
The industry and work ethic of Jewish people could revitalise Africa.
Leaving Palestine to the Palestinians.
Should Constantinople be given back to the Greeks?
Should we have acquiesced to the German occupation of Paris?
Are irrelevant analogies ever helpful?
I don't think it's irrelevant. The reason that people think there is somthing fundamentally illegitimate about Israel is that it's on 'Arab' land, but you could make a similar argument about European Turkey.
Personally I think Turkey (Erdogan's Turkey) should get a massive kick in the bollocks. They need to be shown firmly that the days of The Ottoman Empire are passed.
Kemi is getting hammered on Ch4. She's hopeless under pressure. HYUFD knows what he's on about.
You say you're coming back. You're on 17% is that what you call 'coming back?'
It is a pity as Kemi has done some good work on policy reviews and shoring up party finances and she would have made a good party chairman.
Was she overpromoted becoming party leader? Clearly you and some voters think so. Cleverly would at least have the weight and gravitas of a holder of 2 Great Offices of State behind him as LOTO, having been Foreign and Home Secretary
Kemi upsetting @Roger and others on the left who would have no interest voting conservative no matter who the leader is, is not something she will lose a moments sleep for
Normally that would be correct and she or any other Tory leader would not be bothered what leftwingers thought of her but we are not in normal circumstances. The Conservatives are polling third in most polls and Conservatives will need some leftwingers to have some respect for their leader so they are willing to hold their noses if they live in a Conservative held seat and vote for an incumbent Conservative councillor or MP to beat Reform
Kemi will close in on Reform given time and is far and away the popular leader in the party, as difficult as you find this
Look where your so called white knight is on this list
There are other more popular candidates than your new hero anyway
That is a survey of Tory members, who we know love Kemi but that is not enough if voters overall are not willing to vote for her party over Labour and Reform. Cleverly is still +31% in that survey with Tory members but is voters as a whole a leader needs to appeal to not just party members as Truss, Corbyn and IDS discovered
Show me any poll Cleverly beats Kemi and 2024 is past it's sell by date
And you think 31+ for Cleverly by the menbership is a vote winner - really
The vast majority of voters in Tory held seats are not Tory members.
James Cleverly was the most popular choice to be Tory leader amongst the public as a whole at the time of the leadership election in polling and I doubt much has changed since. If it had Kemi would be seeing the Tories lead the polls by now.
As they showed when they replaced IDS with Michael Howard and Truss with Rishi Sunak if a leader elected by party members fails to perform in the polls Tory MPs have been willing to replace them before a general election
Kemi is getting hammered on Ch4. She's hopeless under pressure. HYUFD knows what he's on about.
You say you're coming back. You're on 17% is that what you call 'coming back?'
It is a pity as Kemi has done some good work on policy reviews and shoring up party finances and she would have made a good party chairman.
Was she overpromoted becoming party leader? Clearly you and some voters think so. Cleverly would at least have the weight and gravitas of a holder of 2 Great Offices of State behind him as LOTO, having been Foreign and Home Secretary
Kemi upsetting @Roger and others on the left who would have no interest voting conservative no matter who the leader is, is not something she will lose a moments sleep for
Normally that would be correct and she or any other Tory leader would not be bothered what leftwingers thought of her but we are not in normal circumstances. The Conservatives are polling third in most polls and Conservatives will need some leftwingers to have some respect for their leader so they are willing to hold their noses if they live in a Conservative held seat and vote for an incumbent Conservative councillor or MP to beat Reform
Kemi will close in on Reform given time and is far and away the popular leader in the party, as difficult as you find this
Look where your so called white knight is on this list
There are other more popular candidates than your new hero anyway
That is a survey of Tory members, who we know love Kemi but that is not enough if voters overall are not willing to vote for her party over Labour and Reform. Cleverly is still +31% in that survey with Tory members but is voters as a whole a leader needs to appeal to not just party members as Truss, Corbyn and IDS discovered
Show me any poll Cleverly beats Kemi and 2024 is past it's sell by date
And you think 31+ for Cleverly by the menbership is a vote winner - really
The vast majority of voters in Tory held seats are not Tory members.
James Cleverly was the most popular choice to be Tory leader amongst the public as a whole at the time of the leadership election in polling and I doubt much has changed since. If it had Kemi would be seeing the Tories lead the polls by now.
As they showed when they replaced IDS with Michael Howard and Truss with Rishi Sunak if a leader elected by party members fails to perform in the polls Tory MPs have been willing to replace them before a general election
First, would the relegation of Tottenham Hotspur to the Championship be the most significant event to occur in Europe since the Ottomans stormed Constantinople in 1453?
Second, is it true 400,000 KitKat bars have been stolen? Police are going to need a break to solve this crime.
I presume the owner of the kitkat bars has been told to just jot down the crime number and that's the end of the investigation?
Perhaps Nestlé will announce that there is a bounty for the successful recovery of the KitKats?
I hope the police have got some real Smarties working on the case.
Oh God what have I started????
Punfests are one of the regular Revels here.
So many brands of ket* to choose from. This could turn into a Marathon punfest.
*Ket is a term for sweets used in the north east. Nowt to do with ketamine.
Anyone else making terrible confectionary related puns should be exiled as far away as possible. Like Mars.
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
Utterly disgusting.
Forced repatriation from their homeland.
Why is this happening
NETANYAHU
Maybe it's time to move the Jewish State to a more suitable location.
Ethiopia might suit.
The industry and work ethic of Jewish people could revitalise Africa.
Leaving Palestine to the Palestinians.
Should Constantinople be given back to the Greeks?
Should we have acquiesced to the German occupation of Paris?
Are irrelevant analogies ever helpful?
I don't think it's irrelevant. The reason that people think there is somthing fundamentally illegitimate about Israel is that it's on 'Arab' land, but you could make a similar argument about European Turkey.
Personally I think Turkey (Erdogan's Turkey) should get a massive kick in the bollocks. They need to be shown firmly that the days of The Ottoman Empire are passed.
"Until 1918 the Arabian peninsula was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, so called because it had the same amount of intelligence and energy as a footstool."
Look, I know he won the Trojan war but surely there is a better name for a defensive system, if only this name wasn't synonomous with weakness despite overall strength.
Greece has approved a €3 billion defense program to build “Achilles Shield,” a multi-layered air defense system designed to counter missiles and drones. The project is expected to include advanced Israeli technology, with Israeli firms likely playing a central role.
Look, I know he won the Trojan war but surely there is a better name for a defensive system, if only this name wasn't synonomous with weakness despite overall strength.
Greece has approved a €3 billion defense program to build “Achilles Shield,” a multi-layered air defense system designed to counter missiles and drones. The project is expected to include advanced Israeli technology, with Israeli firms likely playing a central role.
Kemi is getting hammered on Ch4. She's hopeless under pressure. HYUFD knows what he's on about.
You say you're coming back. You're on 17% is that what you call 'coming back?'
It is a pity as Kemi has done some good work on policy reviews and shoring up party finances and she would have made a good party chairman.
Was she overpromoted becoming party leader? Clearly you and some voters think so. Cleverly would at least have the weight and gravitas of a holder of 2 Great Offices of State behind him as LOTO, having been Foreign and Home Secretary
Kemi upsetting @Roger and others on the left who would have no interest voting conservative no matter who the leader is, is not something she will lose a moments sleep for
Normally that would be correct and she or any other Tory leader would not be bothered what leftwingers thought of her but we are not in normal circumstances. The Conservatives are polling third in most polls and Conservatives will need some leftwingers to have some respect for their leader so they are willing to hold their noses if they live in a Conservative held seat and vote for an incumbent Conservative councillor or MP to beat Reform
Kemi will close in on Reform given time and is far and away the popular leader in the party, as difficult as you find this
Look where your so called white knight is on this list
There are other more popular candidates than your new hero anyway
That is a survey of Tory members, who we know love Kemi but that is not enough if voters overall are not willing to vote for her party over Labour and Reform. Cleverly is still +31% in that survey with Tory members but is voters as a whole a leader needs to appeal to not just party members as Truss, Corbyn and IDS discovered
Show me any poll Cleverly beats Kemi and 2024 is past it's sell by date
And you think 31+ for Cleverly by the menbership is a vote winner - really
The vast majority of voters in Tory held seats are not Tory members.
James Cleverly was the most popular choice to be Tory leader amongst the public as a whole at the time of the leadership election in polling and I doubt much has changed since. If it had Kemi would be seeing the Tories lead the polls by now.
As they showed when they replaced IDS with Michael Howard and Truss with Rishi Sunak if a leader elected by party members fails to perform in the polls Tory MPs have been willing to replace them before a general election
"The results showed that 13 per cent said Mr Cleverly"
Going to make all the difference that......
Compared to 12% for Jenrick and 10% for Kemi.
Amongst Labour voters in 2024 19% said Cleverly would make a good leader, 29% a bad leader compared to 31% of Labour voters saying Kemi would be a bad leader and 14% a good leader. Amongst 2024 LD voters 22% said Cleverly would be a good leader and just 20% a bad leader while 30% of LD voters said Kemi would be a bad leader and only 8% a good leader. Even amongst 2024 Tory voters 31% said Cleverly would be a good leader and only 8% bad, compared to 25% saying Kemi would be a good leader and 13% bad.
Kemi did lead Cleverly with 2024 Reform voters, 18% said Kemi would be a good leader and 15% bad compared to 12% saying Cleverly would be a good leader and 20% bad but after nearly 2 years in the job Kemi has failed to win back Reform voters to the Conservatives anyway
First, would the relegation of Tottenham Hotspur to the Championship be the most significant event to occur in Europe since the Ottomans stormed Constantinople in 1453?
Second, is it true 400,000 KitKat bars have been stolen? Police are going to need a break to solve this crime.
I presume the owner of the kitkat bars has been told to just jot down the crime number and that's the end of the investigation?
Perhaps Nestlé will announce that there is a bounty for the successful recovery of the KitKats?
I hope the police have got some real Smarties working on the case.
Oh God what have I started????
Punfests are one of the regular Revels here.
So many brands of ket* to choose from. This could turn into a Marathon punfest.
*Ket is a term for sweets used in the north east. Nowt to do with ketamine.
Anyone else making terrible confectionary related puns should be exiled as far away as possible. Like Mars.
Not far enough. How about the Milky Way?
Any more Galaxy related puns?
Was it a Careless Wispa?
I almost came up with a great response but decided it was too much of a fudge so have decided to flake out.
Kemi is getting hammered on Ch4. She's hopeless under pressure. HYUFD knows what he's on about.
You say you're coming back. You're on 17% is that what you call 'coming back?'
It is a pity as Kemi has done some good work on policy reviews and shoring up party finances and she would have made a good party chairman.
Was she overpromoted becoming party leader? Clearly you and some voters think so. Cleverly would at least have the weight and gravitas of a holder of 2 Great Offices of State behind him as LOTO, having been Foreign and Home Secretary
Kemi upsetting @Roger and others on the left who would have no interest voting conservative no matter who the leader is, is not something she will lose a moments sleep for
Normally that would be correct and she or any other Tory leader would not be bothered what leftwingers thought of her but we are not in normal circumstances. The Conservatives are polling third in most polls and Conservatives will need some leftwingers to have some respect for their leader so they are willing to hold their noses if they live in a Conservative held seat and vote for an incumbent Conservative councillor or MP to beat Reform
Kemi will close in on Reform given time and is far and away the popular leader in the party, as difficult as you find this
Look where your so called white knight is on this list
There are other more popular candidates than your new hero anyway
That is a survey of Tory members, who we know love Kemi but that is not enough if voters overall are not willing to vote for her party over Labour and Reform. Cleverly is still +31% in that survey with Tory members but is voters as a whole a leader needs to appeal to not just party members as Truss, Corbyn and IDS discovered
Show me any poll Cleverly beats Kemi and 2024 is past it's sell by date
And you think 31+ for Cleverly by the menbership is a vote winner - really
The vast majority of voters in Tory held seats are not Tory members.
James Cleverly was the most popular choice to be Tory leader amongst the public as a whole at the time of the leadership election in polling and I doubt much has changed since. If it had Kemi would be seeing the Tories lead the polls by now.
As they showed when they replaced IDS with Michael Howard and Truss with Rishi Sunak if a leader elected by party members fails to perform in the polls Tory MPs have been willing to replace them before a general election
I told you the 2024 poll is past it's sell by date and irrelevant to the party today
I published this months shadow cabinet table as you remain in denial, and Cleverly is by no means the only choice anyway
And to make such an extraordinary claim that Kemi should be leading the polls when your hero Johnson Boriswave and Truss's disaster ratnered the brand is bizarre
Kemi is getting hammered on Ch4. She's hopeless under pressure. HYUFD knows what he's on about.
You say you're coming back. You're on 17% is that what you call 'coming back?'
It is a pity as Kemi has done some good work on policy reviews and shoring up party finances and she would have made a good party chairman.
Was she overpromoted becoming party leader? Clearly you and some voters think so. Cleverly would at least have the weight and gravitas of a holder of 2 Great Offices of State behind him as LOTO, having been Foreign and Home Secretary
Kemi upsetting @Roger and others on the left who would have no interest voting conservative no matter who the leader is, is not something she will lose a moments sleep for
Normally that would be correct and she or any other Tory leader would not be bothered what leftwingers thought of her but we are not in normal circumstances. The Conservatives are polling third in most polls and Conservatives will need some leftwingers to have some respect for their leader so they are willing to hold their noses if they live in a Conservative held seat and vote for an incumbent Conservative councillor or MP to beat Reform
Kemi will close in on Reform given time and is far and away the popular leader in the party, as difficult as you find this
Look where your so called white knight is on this list
There are other more popular candidates than your new hero anyway
That is a survey of Tory members, who we know love Kemi but that is not enough if voters overall are not willing to vote for her party over Labour and Reform. Cleverly is still +31% in that survey with Tory members but is voters as a whole a leader needs to appeal to not just party members as Truss, Corbyn and IDS discovered
Show me any poll Cleverly beats Kemi and 2024 is past it's sell by date
And you think 31+ for Cleverly by the menbership is a vote winner - really
The vast majority of voters in Tory held seats are not Tory members.
James Cleverly was the most popular choice to be Tory leader amongst the public as a whole at the time of the leadership election in polling and I doubt much has changed since. If it had Kemi would be seeing the Tories lead the polls by now.
As they showed when they replaced IDS with Michael Howard and Truss with Rishi Sunak if a leader elected by party members fails to perform in the polls Tory MPs have been willing to replace them before a general election
"The results showed that 13 per cent said Mr Cleverly"
Going to make all the difference that......
Compared to 12% for Jenrick and 10% for Kemi.
Amongst Labour voters in 2024 19% said Cleverly would make a good leader, 29% a bad leader compared to 31% of Labour voters saying Kemi would be a bad leader and 14% a good leader. Amongst 2024 LD voters 22% said Cleverly would be a good leader and just 20% a bad leader while 30% of LD voters said Kemi would be a bad leader and only 8% a good leader. Even amongst 2024 Tory voters 31% said Cleverly would be a good leader and only 8% bad, compared to 25% saying Kemi would be a good leader and 13% bad.
Kemi did lead Cleverly with Reform voters, 18% said Kemi would be a good leader and 15% bad compared to 12% saying Cleverly would be a good leader and 20% bad but after nearly 2 years in the job Kemi has failed to win back Reform voters to the Conservatives anyway
Look, I know he won the Trojan war but surely there is a better name for a defensive system, if only this name wasn't synonomous with weakness despite overall strength.
Greece has approved a €3 billion defense program to build “Achilles Shield,” a multi-layered air defense system designed to counter missiles and drones. The project is expected to include advanced Israeli technology, with Israeli firms likely playing a central role.
Every party is the NIMBY party. They talk a game at national level. But then…
Which is why I predict that the attempts at increasing house building from Starmer will be u-turned after May.
One of the squares the Green will need to make into a circle is their strong NIMBYism locally, with the massive support for house building and infrastructure among the young.
'...the massive support for house building and infrastructure among the young.' 50% of voters aged 18-24 and 62% of voters aged 25-49 oppose building new housing on 'green belt land' not massively lower than the 76% of over 65s who oppose building new homes on the greenbelt. 64% of 2024 Green voters and 59% of 2024 Labour voters oppose building new homes on the greenbelt.
Labour's core vote is about as YIMBY as you can get- if they can't get housebuilding happening, we really are stuffed.
(Meanwhile, of course Reform are NIMBY. Older homeowners, many of them via RTB, whose main asset is their house which was way cheaper when they bought it.)
Yimby and environmentally conscious
Which is why the Tory energy policy to be launched tomorrow is fundamentally dangerius, pointless, built on false logic and from a Party who utterly spaffed up and wasted the golden bonus from the peak North Sea days and then exacerbated their utter ineptitude by doing nothing in 14 years in power worthwhile to secure our energy future.
@Richard_Tyndall who is in the industry comprehensively debunked your comments on this
Kemi is leading on this with the support of the unions,SNP, upto 40 labour mps and others
Your anti Kemi views are well known but repeating fake news is sadly, your modus operandi
Others who are experts within the industry and with billions invested within the industry do not agree with Richard Tindall.
Thats a fact
As for Kemi, her shadow energy secretary had a polar opposite view in Government to Kemi now
Kemi is Kemi
A foghorn, she's well suited to the North Sea is is simply irrelevant.
I understand she's staying at Trumps Golf Course near Aberdeen
I hope she remembers to declare that.
I've looked up Richard Tyndall
With respect
He's made his living working on Oil Rigs
Drill baby Drill
Respect the knowledge but he's hardly likely to advocate as stopping drilling
It a bit like the guy who pulls the guillotine being pro capital punishment.
For the last few years I have made my living shutting down oil fields. I actually make a much better living shutting them down than I did drilling them. We are in the process of abandoning a field that still has 1 billion barrels of recoverable oil in it. One field. How stupid do you have to be to think that is a good idea?
And for the last 20 odd years on PB I have advocated stopping burning fossil fuels because they are too imprtant for too many other aspects of our modern life.
If you are going to go for the ad hominem attacks, again it helps if you actually get your basic facts right. You should try it some time, it might be a new experience for you.
You protesteth too nuch
Oil is a commodity that has had its time.
There could be 10 billion barrels it's still unprofoitable to drill and pump and to be sold at extortionate prices to the detriment of a climate that has been destroyed by fossil fuel extraction and burning.
Yes - the stone age didn't end when we ran out of stone.
The oil age won't end by us running out of oil. There will still be oil left in the ground. It will be uneconomic to recover it. That could be quite soon for most oil. There will be a residual need for oil (pharmaceuticals, maybe plastics) just as there is a residual need for stone (roads, buildings). But the oil age will end soon.
Different fractions of crude oil are used for different petroleum products. As it is distilled, petrol is obtained first at 25C, then naphtha, which is used to make chemicals, then kerosene for aviation fuel, etc., and finally bitumen at 350C. So what I imagine will happen is that we will use the same amount of oil, but the parts used for gasolene or jet fuel will be burned off, as they were before the internal combustion engine was invented, or used for other purposes.
This is the old way of doing things. But these days we are more able to 'recombine' fractions so there is no need to wste any of the product.
Edit: Also worth pointing out that North Sea Oil is ideally suited for this sort of high end product as it is (generally) low in sulphur and has a higher API (the gravity of the oil which reflects its quality and potential uses). There are exceptions. The Tartan/Piper fields are notorious for being high in H2S. You can smell it as you land on the platform.
The bit I don't understand is why so many people are so keen to extract and burn our relatively modest reserves of oil and gas when they will be desperately needed for chemicals, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, etc. in the future. Surely the sensible thing to do would be to extract them as judiciously as possible so that our children are not left completely at the mercy of foreign powers with more reserves when ours have run dry (so to speak, I know it's not as simple as that)?
Yep I can agree with this. The problem we have is that government rules - ones that have existed for decades and that the current government have not seen fit to change - insist that when COP (Cease of Production) is reached then the licence holder is responsible for plugging all the wells, removing all the seabed equipment and removing the platforms. The plugging of the wells is done in such a way that they cannot leak for centuries (actually for much longer but several centuries is what the legislation very loosely defines) and all the of the topsides are removed completely.
The licence holders have to prove they have the money put aside to cover abandonment costs as part of their licence to continue producing. This will run to hundreds of millions of pounds. The current estimate for complete abandonment of the UKCS is north of £25 billion. So once a field reaches COP it is abandoned.
The effect of this is to render the fields useless for future generations. In theory if the resource became so scarce that the price became astronomical then we might go back but in practice that will never happen. Not when there are plenty of other places around the world where it can be done more cheaply. So the effect is we kill our specialist petrochemical industries and drive all that work, jobs and revenue overseas.
If you want to know how stupid this is, there was a company a few years ago that was looking at remodelling existing oil and gas wells as geothermal wells. Basically you pull the completion (the specialist string inside the hole that allows you to lift the oil and gas out), run a new, geothermal completion, restructure the platform with heat exchanger turbines and start generating electricity.
But the O&G legislation doesn't allow it. It says the wells must be plugged and abandoned. So the idea dies before it can be developed.
The legislation around O&G is utterly bonkers. It was before Miliband turned up and all he has done is added an extra level of lunacy to the mix.
Kemi is getting hammered on Ch4. She's hopeless under pressure. HYUFD knows what he's on about.
You say you're coming back. You're on 17% is that what you call 'coming back?'
It is a pity as Kemi has done some good work on policy reviews and shoring up party finances and she would have made a good party chairman.
Was she overpromoted becoming party leader? Clearly you and some voters think so. Cleverly would at least have the weight and gravitas of a holder of 2 Great Offices of State behind him as LOTO, having been Foreign and Home Secretary
Kemi upsetting @Roger and others on the left who would have no interest voting conservative no matter who the leader is, is not something she will lose a moments sleep for
Normally that would be correct and she or any other Tory leader would not be bothered what leftwingers thought of her but we are not in normal circumstances. The Conservatives are polling third in most polls and Conservatives will need some leftwingers to have some respect for their leader so they are willing to hold their noses if they live in a Conservative held seat and vote for an incumbent Conservative councillor or MP to beat Reform
Kemi will close in on Reform given time and is far and away the popular leader in the party, as difficult as you find this
Look where your so called white knight is on this list
There are other more popular candidates than your new hero anyway
That is a survey of Tory members, who we know love Kemi but that is not enough if voters overall are not willing to vote for her party over Labour and Reform. Cleverly is still +31% in that survey with Tory members but is voters as a whole a leader needs to appeal to not just party members as Truss, Corbyn and IDS discovered
Show me any poll Cleverly beats Kemi and 2024 is past it's sell by date
And you think 31+ for Cleverly by the menbership is a vote winner - really
The vast majority of voters in Tory held seats are not Tory members.
James Cleverly was the most popular choice to be Tory leader amongst the public as a whole at the time of the leadership election in polling and I doubt much has changed since. If it had Kemi would be seeing the Tories lead the polls by now.
As they showed when they replaced IDS with Michael Howard and Truss with Rishi Sunak if a leader elected by party members fails to perform in the polls Tory MPs have been willing to replace them before a general election
Their hole below the waterline is that they recently had 14 years in power, and it's pretty universally agreed it didn't entirely work out to our national advantage. Different people have different critiques (some people diametrically opposed), but almost no one liked what they did.
They could be jointly led by Mother Teresa and the ghost of Margaret Thatcher, and they'd still be languishing at 17% in the polls.
Kemi isn't particularly good, but I see no reason to think any of the alternative non-entities would do any better.
Kemi is getting hammered on Ch4. She's hopeless under pressure. HYUFD knows what he's on about.
You say you're coming back. You're on 17% is that what you call 'coming back?'
It is a pity as Kemi has done some good work on policy reviews and shoring up party finances and she would have made a good party chairman.
Was she overpromoted becoming party leader? Clearly you and some voters think so. Cleverly would at least have the weight and gravitas of a holder of 2 Great Offices of State behind him as LOTO, having been Foreign and Home Secretary
Kemi upsetting @Roger and others on the left who would have no interest voting conservative no matter who the leader is, is not something she will lose a moments sleep for
Normally that would be correct and she or any other Tory leader would not be bothered what leftwingers thought of her but we are not in normal circumstances. The Conservatives are polling third in most polls and Conservatives will need some leftwingers to have some respect for their leader so they are willing to hold their noses if they live in a Conservative held seat and vote for an incumbent Conservative councillor or MP to beat Reform
Kemi will close in on Reform given time and is far and away the popular leader in the party, as difficult as you find this
Look where your so called white knight is on this list
There are other more popular candidates than your new hero anyway
That is a survey of Tory members, who we know love Kemi but that is not enough if voters overall are not willing to vote for her party over Labour and Reform. Cleverly is still +31% in that survey with Tory members but is voters as a whole a leader needs to appeal to not just party members as Truss, Corbyn and IDS discovered
Show me any poll Cleverly beats Kemi and 2024 is past it's sell by date
And you think 31+ for Cleverly by the menbership is a vote winner - really
The vast majority of voters in Tory held seats are not Tory members.
James Cleverly was the most popular choice to be Tory leader amongst the public as a whole at the time of the leadership election in polling and I doubt much has changed since. If it had Kemi would be seeing the Tories lead the polls by now.
As they showed when they replaced IDS with Michael Howard and Truss with Rishi Sunak if a leader elected by party members fails to perform in the polls Tory MPs have been willing to replace them before a general election
"The results showed that 13 per cent said Mr Cleverly"
Going to make all the difference that......
Compared to 12% for Jenrick and 10% for Kemi.
Amongst Labour voters in 2024 19% said Cleverly would make a good leader, 29% a bad leader compared to 31% of Labour voters saying Kemi would be a bad leader and 14% a good leader. Amongst 2024 LD voters 22% said Cleverly would be a good leader and just 20% a bad leader while 30% of LD voters said Kemi would be a bad leader and only 8% a good leader. Even amongst 2024 Tory voters 31% said Cleverly would be a good leader and only 8% bad, compared to 25% saying Kemi would be a good leader and 13% bad.
Kemi did lead Cleverly with 2024 Reform voters, 18% said Kemi would be a good leader and 15% bad compared to 12% saying Cleverly would be a good leader and 20% bad but after nearly 2 years in the job Kemi has failed to win back Reform voters to the Conservatives anyway
Israel is set to invite the United States to relocate some of its bases in the region to Israel — and to establish new bases in the country — after the current war is over, Channel 12 reports, citing unnamed security sources.
*PBers join together in a poignant World War One singalong*
"whennnn, this curr-ent war is ohhhh-verrrr......"
How will this approach from the Greens affect their Home Counties, NIMbY, fluffy environmental vote ?
Presumably Your Party are pretty much dead.
‘ 🟢 EXC: Zack Polanski will target trade unions with appearances at conferences as part of a Green Party strategy to win over core Labour groups disillusioned with Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership
The Green leader has spoken to ten unions, including some officially affiliated with Labour, across health, education and culture sectors
He is set to make five keynote speeches at union conferences in an attempt to win over members
One Green source said Polanski’s goal was to stop the unions funding Labour, rather than getting them to back the Greens outright
Polanski told @thetimes that a “crucial part” of replacing Labour as Britain’s main left-wing option for voters was to “connect with the organised labour movement”’
US government officials and Wall Street analysis are starting to consdier the prospect that oil prices might surge to an unprecedeted $200 a barrel.
Have they potentially considered NOT invading Iran with ground troops, withdrawing from the Middle East theatre, while saying "we decapitated the regime, we won, kthxbye"?
Because that way they avoid global economic catastrophe. Just a thought
Look, I know he won the Trojan war but surely there is a better name for a defensive system, if only this name wasn't synonomous with weakness despite overall strength.
Greece has approved a €3 billion defense program to build “Achilles Shield,” a multi-layered air defense system designed to counter missiles and drones. The project is expected to include advanced Israeli technology, with Israeli firms likely playing a central role.
First, would the relegation of Tottenham Hotspur to the Championship be the most significant event to occur in Europe since the Ottomans stormed Constantinople in 1453?
Second, is it true 400,000 KitKat bars have been stolen? Police are going to need a break to solve this crime.
I presume the owner of the kitkat bars has been told to just jot down the crime number and that's the end of the investigation?
Perhaps Nestlé will announce that there is a bounty for the successful recovery of the KitKats?
I hope the police have got some real Smarties working on the case.
Oh God what have I started????
Punfests are one of the regular Revels here.
So many brands of ket* to choose from. This could turn into a Marathon punfest.
*Ket is a term for sweets used in the north east. Nowt to do with ketamine.
Anyone else making terrible confectionary related puns should be exiled as far away as possible. Like Mars.
Not far enough. How about the Milky Way?
Any more Galaxy related puns?
Was it a Careless Wispa?
Reminds me of the time George Michael had a slow puncture, pulled over, got out and got the replacement tyre from the boot with a view to changing it.
At that moment someone jumped into his car, started the engine as silly George left the keys in and drove off.
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
With all due respect, your choice of language is almost exactly the same as those who said the Ukrainians should just lie down for the Russians. Because, heck, they're going to win anyway.
And your view would also be a lot more plausible if Israeli behaviour in the West Bank had changed post October 7. But that annexation/invasion has continued in just the same way as before.
This is a remarkably childish and asinine comparison. Seriously. Quite surprisingly dim
First, would the relegation of Tottenham Hotspur to the Championship be the most significant event to occur in Europe since the Ottomans stormed Constantinople in 1453?
Second, is it true 400,000 KitKat bars have been stolen? Police are going to need a break to solve this crime.
I presume the owner of the kitkat bars has been told to just jot down the crime number and that's the end of the investigation?
Perhaps Nestlé will announce that there is a bounty for the successful recovery of the KitKats?
I hope the police have got some real Smarties working on the case.
Oh God what have I started????
Punfests are one of the regular Revels here.
So many brands of ket* to choose from. This could turn into a Marathon punfest.
*Ket is a term for sweets used in the north east. Nowt to do with ketamine.
Anyone else making terrible confectionary related puns should be exiled as far away as possible. Like Mars.
Not far enough. How about the Milky Way?
Any more Galaxy related puns?
Was it a Careless Wispa?
Reminds me of the time George Michael had a slow puncture, pulled over, got out and got the replacement tyre from the boot with a view to changing it.
At that moment someone jumped into his car, started the engine as silly George left the keys in and drove off.
Left poor George car less with spare.
Phew. I was a bit concerned we might have had to cancel you when George was referenced.
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
With all due respect, your choice of language is almost exactly the same as those who said the Ukrainians should just lie down for the Russians. Because, heck, they're going to win anyway.
And your view would also be a lot more plausible if Israeli behaviour in the West Bank had changed post October 7. But that annexation/invasion has continued in just the same way as before.
This is a remarkably childish and asinine comparison. Seriously. Quite surprisingly dim
Look, I know he won the Trojan war but surely there is a better name for a defensive system, if only this name wasn't synonomous with weakness despite overall strength.
Greece has approved a €3 billion defense program to build “Achilles Shield,” a multi-layered air defense system designed to counter missiles and drones. The project is expected to include advanced Israeli technology, with Israeli firms likely playing a central role.
Look, I know he won the Trojan war but surely there is a better name for a defensive system, if only this name wasn't synonomous with weakness despite overall strength.
Greece has approved a €3 billion defense program to build “Achilles Shield,” a multi-layered air defense system designed to counter missiles and drones. The project is expected to include advanced Israeli technology, with Israeli firms likely playing a central role.
Look, I know he won the Trojan war but surely there is a better name for a defensive system, if only this name wasn't synonomous with weakness despite overall strength.
Greece has approved a €3 billion defense program to build “Achilles Shield,” a multi-layered air defense system designed to counter missiles and drones. The project is expected to include advanced Israeli technology, with Israeli firms likely playing a central role.
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
With all due respect, your choice of language is almost exactly the same as those who said the Ukrainians should just lie down for the Russians. Because, heck, they're going to win anyway.
And your view would also be a lot more plausible if Israeli behaviour in the West Bank had changed post October 7. But that annexation/invasion has continued in just the same way as before.
This is a remarkably childish and asinine comparison. Seriously. Quite surprisingly dim
Why?
Seriously? You can't work out why the Palestinian situation is wildly different to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Really?
Why should I spend a second of my dwindling life dealing with this level of fuck-wittery. There is no reason
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
Utterly disgusting.
Forced repatriation from their homeland.
Why is this happening
NETANYAHU
Maybe it's time to move the Jewish State to a more suitable location.
Ethiopia might suit.
The industry and work ethic of Jewish people could revitalise Africa.
Leaving Palestine to the Palestinians.
Hypocrite.
You can't object to Palestinians being moved from their homeland, if you propose Israelis being moved from their homeland.
Either you accept repatriation as morally acceptable, or you don't.
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
Kemi is getting hammered on Ch4. She's hopeless under pressure. HYUFD knows what he's on about.
You say you're coming back. You're on 17% is that what you call 'coming back?'
It is a pity as Kemi has done some good work on policy reviews and shoring up party finances and she would have made a good party chairman.
Was she overpromoted becoming party leader? Clearly you and some voters think so. Cleverly would at least have the weight and gravitas of a holder of 2 Great Offices of State behind him as LOTO, having been Foreign and Home Secretary
Kemi upsetting @Roger and others on the left who would have no interest voting conservative no matter who the leader is, is not something she will lose a moments sleep for
Normally that would be correct and she or any other Tory leader would not be bothered what leftwingers thought of her but we are not in normal circumstances. The Conservatives are polling third in most polls and Conservatives will need some leftwingers to have some respect for their leader so they are willing to hold their noses if they live in a Conservative held seat and vote for an incumbent Conservative councillor or MP to beat Reform
Kemi will close in on Reform given time and is far and away the popular leader in the party, as difficult as you find this
Look where your so called white knight is on this list
There are other more popular candidates than your new hero anyway
That is a survey of Tory members, who we know love Kemi but that is not enough if voters overall are not willing to vote for her party over Labour and Reform. Cleverly is still +31% in that survey with Tory members but is voters as a whole a leader needs to appeal to not just party members as Truss, Corbyn and IDS discovered
Show me any poll Cleverly beats Kemi and 2024 is past it's sell by date
And you think 31+ for Cleverly by the menbership is a vote winner - really
The vast majority of voters in Tory held seats are not Tory members.
James Cleverly was the most popular choice to be Tory leader amongst the public as a whole at the time of the leadership election in polling and I doubt much has changed since. If it had Kemi would be seeing the Tories lead the polls by now.
As they showed when they replaced IDS with Michael Howard and Truss with Rishi Sunak if a leader elected by party members fails to perform in the polls Tory MPs have been willing to replace them before a general election
"The results showed that 13 per cent said Mr Cleverly"
Going to make all the difference that......
Compared to 12% for Jenrick and 10% for Kemi.
Amongst Labour voters in 2024 19% said Cleverly would make a good leader, 29% a bad leader compared to 31% of Labour voters saying Kemi would be a bad leader and 14% a good leader. Amongst 2024 LD voters 22% said Cleverly would be a good leader and just 20% a bad leader while 30% of LD voters said Kemi would be a bad leader and only 8% a good leader. Even amongst 2024 Tory voters 31% said Cleverly would be a good leader and only 8% bad, compared to 25% saying Kemi would be a good leader and 13% bad.
Kemi did lead Cleverly with 2024 Reform voters, 18% said Kemi would be a good leader and 15% bad compared to 12% saying Cleverly would be a good leader and 20% bad but after nearly 2 years in the job Kemi has failed to win back Reform voters to the Conservatives anyway
US government officials and Wall Street analysis are starting to consdier the prospect that oil prices might surge to an unprecedeted $200 a barrel.
Have they potentially considered NOT invading Iran with ground troops, withdrawing from the Middle East theatre, while saying "we decapitated the regime, we won, kthxbye"?
Because that way they avoid global economic catastrophe. Just a thought
A few days ago, Eagles gave us the colourful Wasp/Foreskin metaphor. I don't remember what for, it hardly matters. I was going to work on the Overground, and thought "that's a colourful metaphor ".
But it's a way of thinking about the America/Iran conflict. America went into this like a human attacking a wasp. After all, humans are bigger and more powerful than wasps; it's obvious.
Meanwhile, Iran, like a wasp, has found a way of causing unendurable pain to the human. And I'm dubious that swatting the wasp now will improve matters.
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
With all due respect, your choice of language is almost exactly the same as those who said the Ukrainians should just lie down for the Russians. Because, heck, they're going to win anyway.
And your view would also be a lot more plausible if Israeli behaviour in the West Bank had changed post October 7. But that annexation/invasion has continued in just the same way as before.
This is a remarkably childish and asinine comparison. Seriously. Quite surprisingly dim
Why?
Seriously? You can't work out why the Palestinian situation is wildly different to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Really?
Why should I spend a second of my dwindling life dealing with this level of fuck-wittery. There is no reason
Ah, so you just made some off the cuff remark and then get all huffy when someone challenges you on it.
Anyone with any intelligence can see the comparison in terms of telling someone they should give up because they can't win (which in case you couldn't even be arsed to read it was the comment robert was replying to) is valid. That is exactly what was being said of the Ukrainians.
So before you shuffle off into your rapidly approaching dementia why not use a few of those rapidly depleting, drug infused, brain cells to explain what you were actually talking about.
The world is facing a 'ticking time bomb' from its supply of oil, according to a briefing note from JP Morgan. Physical scarcity of oil is about to unfold across the globe, spreading sequentially through April from east to west, causing major economic disruption worldwide.
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
With all due respect, your choice of language is almost exactly the same as those who said the Ukrainians should just lie down for the Russians. Because, heck, they're going to win anyway.
And your view would also be a lot more plausible if Israeli behaviour in the West Bank had changed post October 7. But that annexation/invasion has continued in just the same way as before.
This is a remarkably childish and asinine comparison. Seriously. Quite surprisingly dim
Why?
Seriously? You can't work out why the Palestinian situation is wildly different to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Really?
Why should I spend a second of my dwindling life dealing with this level of fuck-wittery. There is no reason
Ah, so you just made some off the cuff remark and then get all huffy when someone challenges you on it.
Anyone with any intelligence can see the comparison in terms of telling someone they should give up because they can't win (which in case you couldn't even be arsed to read it was the comment robert was replying to) is valid. That is exactly what was being said of the Ukrainians.
So before you shuffle off into your rapidly approaching dementia why not use a few of those rapidly depleting, drug infused, brain cells to explain what you were actually talking about.
I really cannot be fucking arsed. It's like explaining why the Battle of Britain is not REALLY like Cortes' Conquest of Mexico, even though both were quite closely balanced, and could have gone either way
The world is facing a 'ticking time bomb' from its supply of oil, according to a briefing note from JP Morgan. Physical scarcity of oil is about to unfold across the globe, spreading sequentially through April from east to west, causing major economic disruption worldwide.
Thanks for capping off our oil wells Milliband you utter twunt.
Every party is the NIMBY party. They talk a game at national level. But then…
Which is why I predict that the attempts at increasing house building from Starmer will be u-turned after May.
One of the squares the Green will need to make into a circle is their strong NIMBYism locally, with the massive support for house building and infrastructure among the young.
'...the massive support for house building and infrastructure among the young.' 50% of voters aged 18-24 and 62% of voters aged 25-49 oppose building new housing on 'green belt land' not massively lower than the 76% of over 65s who oppose building new homes on the greenbelt. 64% of 2024 Green voters and 59% of 2024 Labour voters oppose building new homes on the greenbelt.
Labour's core vote is about as YIMBY as you can get- if they can't get housebuilding happening, we really are stuffed.
(Meanwhile, of course Reform are NIMBY. Older homeowners, many of them via RTB, whose main asset is their house which was way cheaper when they bought it.)
Yimby and environmentally conscious
Which is why the Tory energy policy to be launched tomorrow is fundamentally dangerius, pointless, built on false logic and from a Party who utterly spaffed up and wasted the golden bonus from the peak North Sea days and then exacerbated their utter ineptitude by doing nothing in 14 years in power worthwhile to secure our energy future.
@Richard_Tyndall who is in the industry comprehensively debunked your comments on this
Kemi is leading on this with the support of the unions,SNP, upto 40 labour mps and others
Your anti Kemi views are well known but repeating fake news is sadly, your modus operandi
Others who are experts within the industry and with billions invested within the industry do not agree with Richard Tindall.
Thats a fact
As for Kemi, her shadow energy secretary had a polar opposite view in Government to Kemi now
Kemi is Kemi
A foghorn, she's well suited to the North Sea is is simply irrelevant.
I understand she's staying at Trumps Golf Course near Aberdeen
I hope she remembers to declare that.
I've looked up Richard Tyndall
With respect
He's made his living working on Oil Rigs
Drill baby Drill
Respect the knowledge but he's hardly likely to advocate as stopping drilling
It a bit like the guy who pulls the guillotine being pro capital punishment.
For the last few years I have made my living shutting down oil fields. I actually make a much better living shutting them down than I did drilling them. We are in the process of abandoning a field that still has 1 billion barrels of recoverable oil in it. One field. How stupid do you have to be to think that is a good idea?
And for the last 20 odd years on PB I have advocated stopping burning fossil fuels because they are too imprtant for too many other aspects of our modern life.
If you are going to go for the ad hominem attacks, again it helps if you actually get your basic facts right. You should try it some time, it might be a new experience for you.
You protesteth too nuch
Oil is a commodity that has had its time.
There could be 10 billion barrels it's still unprofoitable to drill and pump and to be sold at extortionate prices to the detriment of a climate that has been destroyed by fossil fuel extraction and burning.
Care to tell me how much of an electric car is made of oil? Medicines, fertilisers, lubricants, coolants, most of modern life is made of oil. The computer, phone or tablet you are making your purile comments on is made of oil.
And not producing from the North Sea doesn't reduce or oil usage by a single barrel. It doesn't reduce our carbon emissions by a single gram. Indeed it increases our carbon emissions, at least a small amount, because of the transportation of oil and gas from around the world.
I was reading that the oil used as a lubricant on wind turbines is oil based ! How do you replace that ?
Until we can replace the products that come from oil, and for that matter gas, at scale we need for life we have to use them.
Also once you have alternatives, depending on the application, it can take years to get alternatives approved.
Not exploiting our own is nuts. Also from a supply chain risk point of view. It’s an additional source from a less volatile region. Sadly we are ruled by morons.
I suspect Brixian, being tribally labour, is ‘my party right or wrong’ here.
About 15% of oil is used for non-fuel purposes, so obviously we’d need a lot less oil and prices would slump compared to present.
If we wanted to replace fossil oil entirely, we could go back to the previous main source of oil: whale oil. Everybody could get behind that, couldn’t they?
US government officials and Wall Street analysis are starting to consdier the prospect that oil prices might surge to an unprecedeted $200 a barrel.
Not unprecedented in real terms.
It's not only the price though is it? It's the fact that supply is constrained to below current demand. And in particular, certain types of oil will be unavailable. So refineries will shut down. Meaning some nations will pretty soon run out altogether.
As Williamglenn shows above. This is being studiously ignored in the main. La, la, la.
Kemi is getting hammered on Ch4. She's hopeless under pressure. HYUFD knows what he's on about.
You say you're coming back. You're on 17% is that what you call 'coming back?'
It is a pity as Kemi has done some good work on policy reviews and shoring up party finances and she would have made a good party chairman.
Was she overpromoted becoming party leader? Clearly you and some voters think so. Cleverly would at least have the weight and gravitas of a holder of 2 Great Offices of State behind him as LOTO, having been Foreign and Home Secretary
Kemi upsetting @Roger and others on the left who would have no interest voting conservative no matter who the leader is, is not something she will lose a moments sleep for
Normally that would be correct and she or any other Tory leader would not be bothered what leftwingers thought of her but we are not in normal circumstances. The Conservatives are polling third in most polls and Conservatives will need some leftwingers to have some respect for their leader so they are willing to hold their noses if they live in a Conservative held seat and vote for an incumbent Conservative councillor or MP to beat Reform
Kemi will close in on Reform given time and is far and away the popular leader in the party, as difficult as you find this
Look where your so called white knight is on this list
There are other more popular candidates than your new hero anyway
That is a survey of Tory members, who we know love Kemi but that is not enough if voters overall are not willing to vote for her party over Labour and Reform. Cleverly is still +31% in that survey with Tory members but is voters as a whole a leader needs to appeal to not just party members as Truss, Corbyn and IDS discovered
Show me any poll Cleverly beats Kemi and 2024 is past it's sell by date
And you think 31+ for Cleverly by the menbership is a vote winner - really
The vast majority of voters in Tory held seats are not Tory members.
James Cleverly was the most popular choice to be Tory leader amongst the public as a whole at the time of the leadership election in polling and I doubt much has changed since. If it had Kemi would be seeing the Tories lead the polls by now.
As they showed when they replaced IDS with Michael Howard and Truss with Rishi Sunak if a leader elected by party members fails to perform in the polls Tory MPs have been willing to replace them before a general election
Their hole below the waterline is that they recently had 14 years in power, and it's pretty universally agreed it didn't entirely work out to our national advantage. Different people have different critiques (some people diametrically opposed), but almost no one liked what they did.
They could be jointly led by Mother Teresa and the ghost of Margaret Thatcher, and they'd still be languishing at 17% in the polls.
Kemi isn't particularly good, but I see no reason to think any of the alternative non-entities would do any better.
Then the Tories may as well give up and let Farage take them over Canada style and merge with Reform because unless Kemi starts to improve their voteshare that is where they are heading within a decade unless we move from FPTP to PR.
If the Conservatives want to survive as an independent force however they need a leader who can shore up their 2024 vote, the 24% who voted for Sunak remember when the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform even after 14 years in power and forget about winning back voters who voted Reform even in 2024. Plus a leader who can get tactical anti Reform votes from Labour and the LDs more than Kemi can
One third of all French wine is produced in Languedoc-Roussillon
Apparently in 2001, the region produced more wine than the entire USA
It's where I walked to last year, and plan to walk through in two years' time (on the way to Rome!)
It's tiny..
it's really not "tiny"
Because France and the UK seem so broadly equal in many ways - population, contemporary power, imperial histories (tho ours is much more impressive, ahem) - people often forget that France is MUCH bigger than the UK, geographically
Languedoc-Rousillon is considerably larger, in area, than all of Wales
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
All other solutions haven’t been eliminated. For example, the solution of Israel sticking to its internationally recognised borders and not trying to, covertly or overtly, annex additional territory would be a good start.
Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity and one sign of a genocide. The international community and the UK should strongly resist any attempt to ethnically cleanse 2 million people.
One third of all French wine is produced in Languedoc-Roussillon
Apparently in 2001, the region produced more wine than the entire USA
It's where I walked to last year, and plan to walk through in two years' time (on the way to Rome!)
It's tiny..
it's really not "tiny"
Because France and the UK seem so broadly equal in many ways - population, contemporary power, imperial histories (tho ours is much more impressive, ahem) - people often forget that France is MUCH bigger than the UK, geographically
Languedoc-Rousillon is considerably larger, in area, than all of Wales
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
With all due respect, your choice of language is almost exactly the same as those who said the Ukrainians should just lie down for the Russians. Because, heck, they're going to win anyway.
And your view would also be a lot more plausible if Israeli behaviour in the West Bank had changed post October 7. But that annexation/invasion has continued in just the same way as before.
This is a remarkably childish and asinine comparison. Seriously. Quite surprisingly dim
Why?
Seriously? You can't work out why the Palestinian situation is wildly different to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Really?
Why should I spend a second of my dwindling life dealing with this level of fuck-wittery. There is no reason
Ah, so you just made some off the cuff remark and then get all huffy when someone challenges you on it.
Anyone with any intelligence can see the comparison in terms of telling someone they should give up because they can't win (which in case you couldn't even be arsed to read it was the comment robert was replying to) is valid. That is exactly what was being said of the Ukrainians.
So before you shuffle off into your rapidly approaching dementia why not use a few of those rapidly depleting, drug infused, brain cells to explain what you were actually talking about.
I really cannot be fucking arsed. It's like explaining why the Battle of Britain is not REALLY like Cortes' Conquest of Mexico, even though both were quite closely balanced, and could have gone either way
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
It is not our choice, but so long as the Mullahs fall, I'd take that.
Better than surrendering to them and letting them survive, with control of the Strait.
One third of all French wine is produced in Languedoc-Roussillon
Apparently in 2001, the region produced more wine than the entire USA
It's where I walked to last year, and plan to walk through in two years' time (on the way to Rome!)
It's tiny..
it's really not "tiny"
Because France and the UK seem so broadly equal in many ways - population, contemporary power, imperial histories (tho ours is much more impressive, ahem) - people often forget that France is MUCH bigger than the UK, geographically
Languedoc-Rousillon is considerably larger, in area, than all of Wales
And hasn't existed for 10 years. It was merged with Midi-Pyrenees in 2016 to form Occitanie (Occitania).
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
The experience of Covid may have given some governments a false sense of confidence about how manageable this will be. You can't fix real shortages with financial engineering and paying people to stay at home.
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
I've been saying for a while we're headed for a de facto lockdown
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
It is not our choice, but so long as the Mullahs fall, I'd take that.
Better than surrendering to them and letting them survive, with control of the Strait.
What? You'd take total global catastrophe over allowing the Mullahs to gloat about some short term tactical win over the Great Satan?
You're a fucking idiot. If Iran destroys all the oil infra in the ME - which it looks very capable of doing - then the planetary economy will spiral into meltdown. We could see revolutions and famines, and economic Depressioin - not just recession - in the West
And all this will happen with no guarantee of "victory" in Iran, and even if there is a "victory" it could easily turn into Afghanistan, and America has to retreat 20 years later, by which time China will be utterly dominant and the dollar will be dethroned, with all that means for the USA and the West
I would love to see the Iranian regime eliminated. Sadly, it does not look do-able without using
1. nukes
or
2. nukes
Ground invasion won't do it. Nukes will be Armageddon
And this hollowing out of the civil service, to be replaced by political appointees, is Reform’s policy for the UK.
The public have had enough of experts, they want instinctive feelz.......until that hits reality, by when they still don't want experts, just someone else's instinctive feelz.
If you bothered yourself to acquire some actual knowledge rather than 'instinctive feelz', you would know that the civil service has a deliberate policy of moving people from department to department too frequently to develop any expertise. Meaning not only are civil servants obstructionist and ideologically captured, they are are also not experts. Bringing outsiders in from the world of business would probably improve expertise as well as getting things done.
That’s a simplification, at best. The civil service moves some people around, not to prevent them developing expertise, but to produce people with broad skills. However, other civil service posts are filled by experts who stay in one department/quango.
The Trump administration shows us what happens when you replace civil servants and existing expertise with political appointees.
One third of all French wine is produced in Languedoc-Roussillon
Apparently in 2001, the region produced more wine than the entire USA
It's where I walked to last year, and plan to walk through in two years' time (on the way to Rome!)
It's tiny..
it's really not "tiny"
Because France and the UK seem so broadly equal in many ways - population, contemporary power, imperial histories (tho ours is much more impressive, ahem) - people often forget that France is MUCH bigger than the UK, geographically
Languedoc-Rousillon is considerably larger, in area, than all of Wales
And hasn't existed for 10 years. It was merged with Midi-Pyrenees in 2016 to form Occitanie (Occitania).
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
With all due respect, your choice of language is almost exactly the same as those who said the Ukrainians should just lie down for the Russians. Because, heck, they're going to win anyway.
And your view would also be a lot more plausible if Israeli behaviour in the West Bank had changed post October 7. But that annexation/invasion has continued in just the same way as before.
This is a remarkably childish and asinine comparison. Seriously. Quite surprisingly dim
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
With all due respect, your choice of language is almost exactly the same as those who said the Ukrainians should just lie down for the Russians. Because, heck, they're going to win anyway.
And your view would also be a lot more plausible if Israeli behaviour in the West Bank had changed post October 7. But that annexation/invasion has continued in just the same way as before.
This is a remarkably childish and asinine comparison. Seriously. Quite surprisingly dim
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree. If the settlers in the West Bank would agree to move to Gaza (very nice seaside location) and the Gazaians move to the West Bank to live unmolested with their brother Palestinians, it would be a good solution.
That is not a good solution. Why should the Palestinians give up more territory? A good solution is Israel withdrawing from Gaza, the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon.
And this hollowing out of the civil service, to be replaced by political appointees, is Reform’s policy for the UK.
The public have had enough of experts, they want instinctive feelz.......until that hits reality, by when they still don't want experts, just someone else's instinctive feelz.
If you bothered yourself to acquire some actual knowledge rather than 'instinctive feelz', you would know that the civil service has a deliberate policy of moving people from department to department too frequently to develop any expertise. Meaning not only are civil servants obstructionist and ideologically captured, they are are also not experts. Bringing outsiders in from the world of business would probably improve expertise as well as getting things done.
That’s a simplification, at best. The civil service moves some people around, not to prevent them developing expertise, but to produce people with broad skills. However, other civil service posts are filled by experts who stay in one department/quango.
The Trump administration shows us what happens when you replace civil servants and existing expertise with political appointees.
No it doesn't - every US administration replaces hundreds of civil servants with political appointees - probably to a far greater degree than Farage plans. That's the US system. That's what Obama and Clinton did. And their country happens to be the biggest and most powerful in the world. So obviously our 'experts' aren't doing that well are they.
And this hollowing out of the civil service, to be replaced by political appointees, is Reform’s policy for the UK.
The public have had enough of experts, they want instinctive feelz.......until that hits reality, by when they still don't want experts, just someone else's instinctive feelz.
If you bothered yourself to acquire some actual knowledge rather than 'instinctive feelz', you would know that the civil service has a deliberate policy of moving people from department to department too frequently to develop any expertise. Meaning not only are civil servants obstructionist and ideologically captured, they are are also not experts. Bringing outsiders in from the world of business would probably improve expertise as well as getting things done.
That’s a simplification, at best. The civil service moves some people around, not to prevent them developing expertise, but to produce people with broad skills. However, other civil service posts are filled by experts who stay in one department/quango.
The Trump administration shows us what happens when you replace civil servants and existing expertise with political appointees.
And tbf. replacing skilled and experienced political appointees with people chosen by Trump.
One third of all French wine is produced in Languedoc-Roussillon
Apparently in 2001, the region produced more wine than the entire USA
It's where I walked to last year, and plan to walk through in two years' time (on the way to Rome!)
It's tiny..
it's really not "tiny"
Because France and the UK seem so broadly equal in many ways - population, contemporary power, imperial histories (tho ours is much more impressive, ahem) - people often forget that France is MUCH bigger than the UK, geographically
Languedoc-Rousillon is considerably larger, in area, than all of Wales
It's only about five days walk
We'll all get used to saying that by the end of the year at this rate...
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
The experience of Covid may have given some governments a false sense of confidence about how manageable this will be. You can't fix real shortages with financial engineering and paying people to stay at home.
I think it's more that the initial assumption was that this would be ~fortnight of bombing like the last time, and so only temporary disruption.
Obviously we're into week five now, but the roof hasn't fallen in yet, so there's simple denial that it will get that much worse.
And then, we all know that Trump chickens out before too much damage is done to share prices, right? Any day now.
And then, politicians seem to generally lack the imagination or courage to take bold steps until it's too late, so they're just rabbits in the headlights now, waiting for the disaster to hit before they react. With the exception of truly useless governments - like the Irish government - who are wasting their money subsidising fuel prices. They're going to look really stupid when there are shortages and they've thrown money away encouraging people to buy more fuel.
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
The experience of Covid may have given some governments a false sense of confidence about how manageable this will be. You can't fix real shortages with financial engineering and paying people to stay at home.
I think it's more that the initial assumption was that this would be ~fortnight of bombing like the last time, and so only temporary disruption.
Obviously we're into week five now, but the roof hasn't fallen in yet, so there's simple denial that it will get that much worse.
And then, we all know that Trump chickens out before too much damage is done to share prices, right? Any day now.
And then, politicians seem to generally lack the imagination or courage to take bold steps until it's too late, so they're just rabbits in the headlights now, waiting for the disaster to hit before they react. With the exception of truly useless governments - like the Irish government - who are wasting their money subsidising fuel prices. They're going to look really stupid when there are shortages and they've thrown money away encouraging people to buy more fuel.
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
Wouldn't it be better to do it the old way, and have rationing by price?
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
I've been saying for a while we're headed for a de facto lockdown
I'd settle for the permanent shutting of all nightclubs: after all, opinion polls show majority support for that.
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
The experience of Covid may have given some governments a false sense of confidence about how manageable this will be. You can't fix real shortages with financial engineering and paying people to stay at home.
I think it's more that the initial assumption was that this would be ~fortnight of bombing like the last time, and so only temporary disruption.
Obviously we're into week five now, but the roof hasn't fallen in yet, so there's simple denial that it will get that much worse.
And then, we all know that Trump chickens out before too much damage is done to share prices, right? Any day now.
And then, politicians seem to generally lack the imagination or courage to take bold steps until it's too late, so they're just rabbits in the headlights now, waiting for the disaster to hit before they react. With the exception of truly useless governments - like the Irish government - who are wasting their money subsidising fuel prices. They're going to look really stupid when there are shortages and they've thrown money away encouraging people to buy more fuel.
What doesn't seem to have been factored in, is that this War now ends at a time of Iran's choosing, not Trump's. Unless it is invasion and occupation.
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
The experience of Covid may have given some governments a false sense of confidence about how manageable this will be. You can't fix real shortages with financial engineering and paying people to stay at home.
I think it's more that the initial assumption was that this would be ~fortnight of bombing like the last time, and so only temporary disruption.
Obviously we're into week five now, but the roof hasn't fallen in yet, so there's simple denial that it will get that much worse.
And then, we all know that Trump chickens out before too much damage is done to share prices, right? Any day now.
And then, politicians seem to generally lack the imagination or courage to take bold steps until it's too late, so they're just rabbits in the headlights now, waiting for the disaster to hit before they react. With the exception of truly useless governments - like the Irish government - who are wasting their money subsidising fuel prices. They're going to look really stupid when there are shortages and they've thrown money away encouraging people to buy more fuel.
What doesn't seem to have been factored in, is that this War now ends at a time of Iran's choosing, not Trump's. Unless it is invasion and occupation.
As I posted earlier in the thread, the Iranians want to toll the Straight. That looks like where we're heading.
The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself. https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738
Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...
The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.
So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?
No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.
But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.
I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.
BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.
Yes.
Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.
Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.
Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"
There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med
Fundamentally your premise is:
Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.
And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?
No it's not, and I object to your construal
I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)
I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians
The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move
Utterly disgusting.
Forced repatriation from their homeland.
Why is this happening
NETANYAHU
Maybe it's time to move the Jewish State to a more suitable location.
Ethiopia might suit.
The industry and work ethic of Jewish people could revitalise Africa.
Leaving Palestine to the Palestinians.
Should Constantinople be given back to the Greeks?
Should we have acquiesced to the German occupation of Paris?
Are irrelevant analogies ever helpful?
I don't think it's irrelevant. The reason that people think there is somthing fundamentally illegitimate about Israel is that it's on 'Arab' land, but you could make a similar argument about European Turkey.
Personally I think Turkey (Erdogan's Turkey) should get a massive kick in the bollocks. They need to be shown firmly that the days of The Ottoman Empire are passed.
Any other imperial nostalgists that need a kick in the bollocks?
Hoping someone on here can help out - I thought only about 20% of the world's oil still went through Hormuz and Britain could get enough fuel for petrol from other sources.
I appreciate there may well be supply issues with diesel and that could cause a lot of other problems but are we likely to run out of petrol or simplyhave to function on 75-80% of current supply which will cause some issues especially if people (as they will once this seeps into the public domain) start panic buying?
Happy to once again wallow in the depths of my ignorance on these matters.
I wonder if, in Trump's weird head, there's a little voice saying "America is self sufficient in fuel, China is not, if there's a massive war that shuts down 20% of global oil and gas and associated exports, America will be fine and China will be fucked"
I'd wager money at evens that there is such a voice. And it comes from his amygdala or somewhere, because his frontal lobe ability to think more than one move ahead is gone, and he doesn't see that there will be calamitous second and third order effects on the USA, as much as anywhere else
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
I've been saying for a while we're headed for a de facto lockdown
I'd settle for the permanent shutting of all nightclubs: after all, opinion polls show majority support for that.
As I've said, the elderly were happy to destroy the futures and lives of young people for good. Should have let nature take its course.
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
I've been saying for a while we're headed for a de facto lockdown
I'd settle for the permanent shutting of all nightclubs: after all, opinion polls show majority support for that.
Hoping someone on here can help out - I thought only about 20% of the world's oil still went through Hormuz and Britain could get enough fuel for petrol from other sources.
I appreciate there may well be supply issues with diesel and that could cause a lot of other problems but are we likely to run out of petrol or simplyhave to function on 75-80% of current supply which will cause some issues especially if people (as they will once this seeps into the public domain) start panic buying?
Happy to once again wallow in the depths of my ignorance on these matters.
As @rcs1000 often says, refined hydrocarbon energy is fungible. So at the very least, if the world suddenly loses 20% of its energy supply, you can expect huge price spikes worldwide, for energy, which will very quickly lead to massive global inflation. This is not good, to put it mildly (and will hit America as much as anywhere)
PLUS there is all the nightmare of global fertiliser production being decimated, and much else - eg famine springing therefrom
Add in the imponderables. China relies on ME oil in a way the USA does not. It might come to Iran's aid and give America a brutal kicking to get them out
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
I've been saying for a while we're headed for a de facto lockdown
I'd settle for the permanent shutting of all nightclubs: after all, opinion polls show majority support for that.
Rule of six. NOW.
Let's do a reverse, the elderly can be locked at home and young people can live peacefully.
Goodwin doubling down on his race baiting dishonesty.
In more than 2,000 schools in England today a majority of children no longer speak English as their main language. My critics might not think that tells us something important about what is happening to our country. But I do. And I will not change my view https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/2037792677266162089
He has become the country's leading stand up philosophers.
The study states that they included "maintained, mainstream schools"
Included, or only included?
From page 25
"We used the School Level Database (SLD) from the ASC January 2013 to examine the variation in the proportion of EAL students at the school level. We selected all maintained, mainstream schools in England. Additionally we eliminated 32 very small maintained schools (10 or fewer students on roll). The resulting population contained 20,033 schools."
Ok, thanks. So they don't know the difference between maintained schools and academies. That's a rocky start in terms of their credibility.
From a quick googling around, there were a couple of thousand academies in 2013.
Edit : the report is from 2015 and doesn't seem to have an axe to grind over immigration. More about identifying areas where support is required.
Further Edit: they say - "Almost a quarter of all schools (22.1%) have less than 1% EAL, and over half (54%) have less than 5% of student with EAL. However at the other extreme 1,681 schools (8.4%) have a majority of students with EAL. This does not support headlines such as that in the Daily Telegraph (31/01/14) that "English is no longer the first language for the majority of pupils at one in nine schools"
Right, so it's not the survey, it's Goodwin misusing it by presenting out of date material. I withdraw my slur on their credibility.
I think it entirely possible that if a study found 1681 schools were found to have a majority on non-english speakers in 2013, that in 2026 the number is higher.
Given that we have had lots of immigration in the last 13 year, probably inevitable. If you import lots of furriners, then you'll get lots of people talkiin' the furrin.
So we just need to make sure we put enough resources into getting them up to speed in English. Which, according to the report has a direct, definite and completely unsurprising effect on educational attainment.
Edit: Goodwin is still Badfail, of course.
The report is interesting, and worth reading.
And, yes, it is entirely possible -probable even- that the number of schools where English is not the first language has risen since 2013. However, what is likely to have changed significantly is who the parents are. Back in 2013, a lot of those parents (and kids) will have been from the EU Eastern European 8. Because that was where the majority of immigration was from.
13 years later, we've left the EU, and net immigration from Eastern Europe is -IIRC- currently negative.
Instead we've had the Boriswave, bringing mostly people from outside Europe. And I suspect that those immigrants have settled in different parts of the country.
So there might well be an interesting 'switch' in where the majority non-English students are.
(As an aside: I went to a majority non-English speaking school in Bedford. All my friends from there who spoke Urdu/Gujerati/etc at home when kids, speak English at home now. So their kids won't be from English as a second language kids.)
My kids' primary school has gone from negligible EASL to c.50% EASL in the 11 years I have been a parent there. I should stress that they are largely the sort of EASL kids who ate very much tryimg to learn English and to integrate - HK and Indian are the top two nationalities. I live in a comfortable middle class area and realistically *difficult* immigrants are priced out.
However I do know quite a bit about a school with a less favourable experience in a deprived area of South Yorkshire: 60% of the kids there are Roma from Slovakia, typically: - from families where no women and under 10% of men are economically active - living upwards of 12 people to an unfurnished two bedroom house - from families where education is in no way value - from two villages in Slovakia which are functionally at war with each other. They are here living in these conditions because, incredibly, life in Slovakian Roma villages is much, much worse. Seriously. Google them. And because they face much less discrimination here than in Slovakia. But they have no sense of permanence or investment in the UK, and are constantly sparring with the authorities over crime and benefit fraud.
In these conditions education is challenging.
Of the 40% who are not Roma, the next most prominent ethnic group are Somali.
So, the experience of education at majority EASL schools is variable.
These people need to be expelled. They should never have been allowed in, we will bankrupt the country supporting them for the next ten generations
It's hard to escape that conclusion.
It’s hard to escape that conclusion if you’re blindfolded and tied up in a sack, perhaps, but everyone else can see through Leon’s nonsense. Jews fleeing Eastern Europe and the Nazis in the first half of the 20th century were talked about in similar terms at the time. We’re two or three generations on from that wave of immigration and their children and grandchildren are integrated and successful, even leading our political parties like Howard, Miliband and Polanski. Are we bankrupting the UK supporting them? The children and grandchildren of Roma and Somali immigrants will be just the same.
People are people. We should help those who have left terrible circumstances, and they will add to our nation. What we don’t need is bigots.
US government officials and Wall Street analysis are starting to consdier the prospect that oil prices might surge to an unprecedeted $200 a barrel.
Have they potentially considered NOT invading Iran with ground troops, withdrawing from the Middle East theatre, while saying "we decapitated the regime, we won, kthxbye"?
Because that way they avoid global economic catastrophe. Just a thought
A few days ago, Eagles gave us the colourful Wasp/Foreskin metaphor. I don't remember what for, it hardly matters. I was going to work on the Overground, and thought "that's a colourful metaphor ".
But it's a way of thinking about the America/Iran conflict. America went into this like a human attacking a wasp. After all, humans are bigger and more powerful than wasps; it's obvious.
Meanwhile, Iran, like a wasp, has found a way of causing unendurable pain to the human. And I'm dubious that swatting the wasp now will improve matters.
‘There’s a wasp trapped under my foreskin, smash it with a hammer!’
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
Wouldn't it be better to do it the old way, and have rationing by price?
I don't have any confidence that farmers would be able to borrow the money required to pay astronomical prices to get crops planted and harvested, or livestock reared. I just don't think our financial system does that sort of thing well anymore. It prefers to lend for more reliable returns on buying companies and asset-stripping them, or buying assets that can charge monopoly rents.
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
The experience of Covid may have given some governments a false sense of confidence about how manageable this will be. You can't fix real shortages with financial engineering and paying people to stay at home.
I think it's more that the initial assumption was that this would be ~fortnight of bombing like the last time, and so only temporary disruption.
Obviously we're into week five now, but the roof hasn't fallen in yet, so there's simple denial that it will get that much worse.
And then, we all know that Trump chickens out before too much damage is done to share prices, right? Any day now.
And then, politicians seem to generally lack the imagination or courage to take bold steps until it's too late, so they're just rabbits in the headlights now, waiting for the disaster to hit before they react. With the exception of truly useless governments - like the Irish government - who are wasting their money subsidising fuel prices. They're going to look really stupid when there are shortages and they've thrown money away encouraging people to buy more fuel.
Look, I know he won the Trojan war but surely there is a better name for a defensive system, if only this name wasn't synonomous with weakness despite overall strength.
Greece has approved a €3 billion defense program to build “Achilles Shield,” a multi-layered air defense system designed to counter missiles and drones. The project is expected to include advanced Israeli technology, with Israeli firms likely playing a central role.
First, would the relegation of Tottenham Hotspur to the Championship be the most significant event to occur in Europe since the Ottomans stormed Constantinople in 1453?
Second, is it true 400,000 KitKat bars have been stolen? Police are going to need a break to solve this crime.
I presume the owner of the kitkat bars has been told to just jot down the crime number and that's the end of the investigation?
Perhaps Nestlé will announce that there is a bounty for the successful recovery of the KitKats?
I hope the police have got some real Smarties working on the case.
Oh God what have I started????
Punfests are one of the regular Revels here.
So many brands of ket* to choose from. This could turn into a Marathon punfest.
*Ket is a term for sweets used in the north east. Nowt to do with ketamine.
Anyone else making terrible confectionary related puns should be exiled as far away as possible. Like Mars.
Goodwin doubling down on his race baiting dishonesty.
In more than 2,000 schools in England today a majority of children no longer speak English as their main language. My critics might not think that tells us something important about what is happening to our country. But I do. And I will not change my view https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/2037792677266162089
He has become the country's leading stand up philosophers.
The study states that they included "maintained, mainstream schools"
Included, or only included?
From page 25
"We used the School Level Database (SLD) from the ASC January 2013 to examine the variation in the proportion of EAL students at the school level. We selected all maintained, mainstream schools in England. Additionally we eliminated 32 very small maintained schools (10 or fewer students on roll). The resulting population contained 20,033 schools."
Ok, thanks. So they don't know the difference between maintained schools and academies. That's a rocky start in terms of their credibility.
From a quick googling around, there were a couple of thousand academies in 2013.
Edit : the report is from 2015 and doesn't seem to have an axe to grind over immigration. More about identifying areas where support is required.
Further Edit: they say - "Almost a quarter of all schools (22.1%) have less than 1% EAL, and over half (54%) have less than 5% of student with EAL. However at the other extreme 1,681 schools (8.4%) have a majority of students with EAL. This does not support headlines such as that in the Daily Telegraph (31/01/14) that "English is no longer the first language for the majority of pupils at one in nine schools"
Right, so it's not the survey, it's Goodwin misusing it by presenting out of date material. I withdraw my slur on their credibility.
I think it entirely possible that if a study found 1681 schools were found to have a majority on non-english speakers in 2013, that in 2026 the number is higher.
Given that we have had lots of immigration in the last 13 year, probably inevitable. If you import lots of furriners, then you'll get lots of people talkiin' the furrin.
So we just need to make sure we put enough resources into getting them up to speed in English. Which, according to the report has a direct, definite and completely unsurprising effect on educational attainment.
Edit: Goodwin is still Badfail, of course.
The report is interesting, and worth reading.
And, yes, it is entirely possible -probable even- that the number of schools where English is not the first language has risen since 2013. However, what is likely to have changed significantly is who the parents are. Back in 2013, a lot of those parents (and kids) will have been from the EU Eastern European 8. Because that was where the majority of immigration was from.
13 years later, we've left the EU, and net immigration from Eastern Europe is -IIRC- currently negative.
Instead we've had the Boriswave, bringing mostly people from outside Europe. And I suspect that those immigrants have settled in different parts of the country.
So there might well be an interesting 'switch' in where the majority non-English students are.
(As an aside: I went to a majority non-English speaking school in Bedford. All my friends from there who spoke Urdu/Gujerati/etc at home when kids, speak English at home now. So their kids won't be from English as a second language kids.)
My kids' primary school has gone from negligible EASL to c.50% EASL in the 11 years I have been a parent there. I should stress that they are largely the sort of EASL kids who ate very much tryimg to learn English and to integrate - HK and Indian are the top two nationalities. I live in a comfortable middle class area and realistically *difficult* immigrants are priced out.
However I do know quite a bit about a school with a less favourable experience in a deprived area of South Yorkshire: 60% of the kids there are Roma from Slovakia, typically: - from families where no women and under 10% of men are economically active - living upwards of 12 people to an unfurnished two bedroom house - from families where education is in no way value - from two villages in Slovakia which are functionally at war with each other. They are here living in these conditions because, incredibly, life in Slovakian Roma villages is much, much worse. Seriously. Google them. And because they face much less discrimination here than in Slovakia. But they have no sense of permanence or investment in the UK, and are constantly sparring with the authorities over crime and benefit fraud.
In these conditions education is challenging.
Of the 40% who are not Roma, the next most prominent ethnic group are Somali.
So, the experience of education at majority EASL schools is variable.
These people need to be expelled. They should never have been allowed in, we will bankrupt the country supporting them for the next ten generations
It's hard to escape that conclusion.
It’s hard to escape that conclusion if you’re blindfolded and tied up in a sack, perhaps, but everyone else can see through Leon’s nonsense. Jews fleeing Eastern Europe and the Nazis in the first half of the 20th century were talked about in similar terms at the time. We’re two or three generations on from that wave of immigration and their children and grandchildren are integrated and successful, even leading our political parties like Howard, Miliband and Polanski. Are we bankrupting the UK supporting them? The children and grandchildren of Roma and Somali immigrants will be just the same.
People are people. We should help those who have left terrible circumstances, and they will add to our nation. What we don’t need is bigots.
You have cats, don't you?
You're a weird, slightly creepy little guy that has cats. It all makes sense
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
I've been saying for a while we're headed for a de facto lockdown
I'd settle for the permanent shutting of all nightclubs: after all, opinion polls show majority support for that.
Rule of six. NOW.
Let's do a reverse, the elderly can be locked at home and young people can live peacefully.
Masking whilst seated but they must be removed if the entire head is between 5 foot 3 and 6 foot 7 above the bottom brick layer of the building AND music is both audible and 20th century. To help with the oil thing.
Goodwin doubling down on his race baiting dishonesty.
In more than 2,000 schools in England today a majority of children no longer speak English as their main language. My critics might not think that tells us something important about what is happening to our country. But I do. And I will not change my view https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/2037792677266162089
He has become the country's leading stand up philosophers.
The study states that they included "maintained, mainstream schools"
Included, or only included?
From page 25
"We used the School Level Database (SLD) from the ASC January 2013 to examine the variation in the proportion of EAL students at the school level. We selected all maintained, mainstream schools in England. Additionally we eliminated 32 very small maintained schools (10 or fewer students on roll). The resulting population contained 20,033 schools."
Ok, thanks. So they don't know the difference between maintained schools and academies. That's a rocky start in terms of their credibility.
From a quick googling around, there were a couple of thousand academies in 2013.
Edit : the report is from 2015 and doesn't seem to have an axe to grind over immigration. More about identifying areas where support is required.
Further Edit: they say - "Almost a quarter of all schools (22.1%) have less than 1% EAL, and over half (54%) have less than 5% of student with EAL. However at the other extreme 1,681 schools (8.4%) have a majority of students with EAL. This does not support headlines such as that in the Daily Telegraph (31/01/14) that "English is no longer the first language for the majority of pupils at one in nine schools"
Right, so it's not the survey, it's Goodwin misusing it by presenting out of date material. I withdraw my slur on their credibility.
I think it entirely possible that if a study found 1681 schools were found to have a majority on non-english speakers in 2013, that in 2026 the number is higher.
Given that we have had lots of immigration in the last 13 year, probably inevitable. If you import lots of furriners, then you'll get lots of people talkiin' the furrin.
So we just need to make sure we put enough resources into getting them up to speed in English. Which, according to the report has a direct, definite and completely unsurprising effect on educational attainment.
Edit: Goodwin is still Badfail, of course.
The report is interesting, and worth reading.
And, yes, it is entirely possible -probable even- that the number of schools where English is not the first language has risen since 2013. However, what is likely to have changed significantly is who the parents are. Back in 2013, a lot of those parents (and kids) will have been from the EU Eastern European 8. Because that was where the majority of immigration was from.
13 years later, we've left the EU, and net immigration from Eastern Europe is -IIRC- currently negative.
Instead we've had the Boriswave, bringing mostly people from outside Europe. And I suspect that those immigrants have settled in different parts of the country.
So there might well be an interesting 'switch' in where the majority non-English students are.
(As an aside: I went to a majority non-English speaking school in Bedford. All my friends from there who spoke Urdu/Gujerati/etc at home when kids, speak English at home now. So their kids won't be from English as a second language kids.)
My kids' primary school has gone from negligible EASL to c.50% EASL in the 11 years I have been a parent there. I should stress that they are largely the sort of EASL kids who ate very much tryimg to learn English and to integrate - HK and Indian are the top two nationalities. I live in a comfortable middle class area and realistically *difficult* immigrants are priced out.
However I do know quite a bit about a school with a less favourable experience in a deprived area of South Yorkshire: 60% of the kids there are Roma from Slovakia, typically: - from families where no women and under 10% of men are economically active - living upwards of 12 people to an unfurnished two bedroom house - from families where education is in no way value - from two villages in Slovakia which are functionally at war with each other. They are here living in these conditions because, incredibly, life in Slovakian Roma villages is much, much worse. Seriously. Google them. And because they face much less discrimination here than in Slovakia. But they have no sense of permanence or investment in the UK, and are constantly sparring with the authorities over crime and benefit fraud.
In these conditions education is challenging.
Of the 40% who are not Roma, the next most prominent ethnic group are Somali.
So, the experience of education at majority EASL schools is variable.
These people need to be expelled. They should never have been allowed in, we will bankrupt the country supporting them for the next ten generations
It's hard to escape that conclusion.
It’s hard to escape that conclusion if you’re blindfolded and tied up in a sack, perhaps, but everyone else can see through Leon’s nonsense. Jews fleeing Eastern Europe and the Nazis in the first half of the 20th century were talked about in similar terms at the time. We’re two or three generations on from that wave of immigration and their children and grandchildren are integrated and successful, even leading our political parties like Howard, Miliband and Polanski. Are we bankrupting the UK supporting them? The children and grandchildren of Roma and Somali immigrants will be just the same.
People are people. We should help those who have left terrible circumstances, and they will add to our nation. What we don’t need is bigots.
Our own gypsies seem to go counter to the children and grandchildren theory.
Goodwin doubling down on his race baiting dishonesty.
In more than 2,000 schools in England today a majority of children no longer speak English as their main language. My critics might not think that tells us something important about what is happening to our country. But I do. And I will not change my view https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/2037792677266162089
He has become the country's leading stand up philosophers.
The study states that they included "maintained, mainstream schools"
Included, or only included?
From page 25
"We used the School Level Database (SLD) from the ASC January 2013 to examine the variation in the proportion of EAL students at the school level. We selected all maintained, mainstream schools in England. Additionally we eliminated 32 very small maintained schools (10 or fewer students on roll). The resulting population contained 20,033 schools."
Ok, thanks. So they don't know the difference between maintained schools and academies. That's a rocky start in terms of their credibility.
From a quick googling around, there were a couple of thousand academies in 2013.
Edit : the report is from 2015 and doesn't seem to have an axe to grind over immigration. More about identifying areas where support is required.
Further Edit: they say - "Almost a quarter of all schools (22.1%) have less than 1% EAL, and over half (54%) have less than 5% of student with EAL. However at the other extreme 1,681 schools (8.4%) have a majority of students with EAL. This does not support headlines such as that in the Daily Telegraph (31/01/14) that "English is no longer the first language for the majority of pupils at one in nine schools"
Right, so it's not the survey, it's Goodwin misusing it by presenting out of date material. I withdraw my slur on their credibility.
I think it entirely possible that if a study found 1681 schools were found to have a majority on non-english speakers in 2013, that in 2026 the number is higher.
Given that we have had lots of immigration in the last 13 year, probably inevitable. If you import lots of furriners, then you'll get lots of people talkiin' the furrin.
So we just need to make sure we put enough resources into getting them up to speed in English. Which, according to the report has a direct, definite and completely unsurprising effect on educational attainment.
Edit: Goodwin is still Badfail, of course.
The report is interesting, and worth reading.
And, yes, it is entirely possible -probable even- that the number of schools where English is not the first language has risen since 2013. However, what is likely to have changed significantly is who the parents are. Back in 2013, a lot of those parents (and kids) will have been from the EU Eastern European 8. Because that was where the majority of immigration was from.
13 years later, we've left the EU, and net immigration from Eastern Europe is -IIRC- currently negative.
Instead we've had the Boriswave, bringing mostly people from outside Europe. And I suspect that those immigrants have settled in different parts of the country.
So there might well be an interesting 'switch' in where the majority non-English students are.
(As an aside: I went to a majority non-English speaking school in Bedford. All my friends from there who spoke Urdu/Gujerati/etc at home when kids, speak English at home now. So their kids won't be from English as a second language kids.)
My kids' primary school has gone from negligible EASL to c.50% EASL in the 11 years I have been a parent there. I should stress that they are largely the sort of EASL kids who ate very much tryimg to learn English and to integrate - HK and Indian are the top two nationalities. I live in a comfortable middle class area and realistically *difficult* immigrants are priced out.
However I do know quite a bit about a school with a less favourable experience in a deprived area of South Yorkshire: 60% of the kids there are Roma from Slovakia, typically: - from families where no women and under 10% of men are economically active - living upwards of 12 people to an unfurnished two bedroom house - from families where education is in no way value - from two villages in Slovakia which are functionally at war with each other. They are here living in these conditions because, incredibly, life in Slovakian Roma villages is much, much worse. Seriously. Google them. And because they face much less discrimination here than in Slovakia. But they have no sense of permanence or investment in the UK, and are constantly sparring with the authorities over crime and benefit fraud.
In these conditions education is challenging.
Of the 40% who are not Roma, the next most prominent ethnic group are Somali.
So, the experience of education at majority EASL schools is variable.
These people need to be expelled. They should never have been allowed in, we will bankrupt the country supporting them for the next ten generations
It's hard to escape that conclusion.
It’s hard to escape that conclusion if you’re blindfolded and tied up in a sack, perhaps, but everyone else can see through Leon’s nonsense. Jews fleeing Eastern Europe and the Nazis in the first half of the 20th century were talked about in similar terms at the time. We’re two or three generations on from that wave of immigration and their children and grandchildren are integrated and successful, even leading our political parties like Howard, Miliband and Polanski. Are we bankrupting the UK supporting them? The children and grandchildren of Roma and Somali immigrants will be just the same.
People are people. We should help those who have left terrible circumstances, and they will add to our nation. What we don’t need is bigots.
Fun fact
Winston Churchill was booed by locals after the Siege at Sidney Street.
This wasn't because he allowed the criminals (who murdered a policeman) to burn to death. That was considered a good idea.
It was because he was seen as soft on immigrants (like the anarchists) - many of whom were... Jewish.
I wonder if, in Trump's weird head, there's a little voice saying "America is self sufficient in fuel, China is not, if there's a massive war that shuts down 20% of global oil and gas and associated exports, America will be fine and China will be fucked"
I'd wager money at evens that there is such a voice. And it comes from his amygdala or somewhere, because his frontal lobe ability to think more than one move ahead is gone, and he doesn't see that there will be calamitous second and third order effects on the USA, as much as anywhere else
This podcast from earlier in the year anticipated a US-Iran conflict on the basis of the US seeking to control China's access to oil. It's not that outlandish given that it was the US strategy for containing Japan before WWII.
Past Present Future: Talking Geopolitics with Helen Thompson: The Weirdness of American Power Part 2
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
The experience of Covid may have given some governments a false sense of confidence about how manageable this will be. You can't fix real shortages with financial engineering and paying people to stay at home.
I think it's more that the initial assumption was that this would be ~fortnight of bombing like the last time, and so only temporary disruption.
Obviously we're into week five now, but the roof hasn't fallen in yet, so there's simple denial that it will get that much worse.
And then, we all know that Trump chickens out before too much damage is done to share prices, right? Any day now.
And then, politicians seem to generally lack the imagination or courage to take bold steps until it's too late, so they're just rabbits in the headlights now, waiting for the disaster to hit before they react. With the exception of truly useless governments - like the Irish government - who are wasting their money subsidising fuel prices. They're going to look really stupid when there are shortages and they've thrown money away encouraging people to buy more fuel.
We are seriously staring into the abyss, here
Is it time to brace?
I am verily afraid to inform the forum, that the much-afeared time has indeed come upon us, when we are all obliged by quite fateful global events, to...
If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
I've been saying for a while we're headed for a de facto lockdown
I'd settle for the permanent shutting of all nightclubs: after all, opinion polls show majority support for that.
Rule of six. NOW.
Let's do a reverse, the elderly can be locked at home and young people can live peacefully.
Lots of us are effectively locked up at home. Or locked up in a Home.
Comments
It was very frustrating.
However, if relegated that would leave only Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool and Man U as the teams never so far relegated from the Premier League.
But Arsenal have not been relegated from top football since 1913, repromoted 1919, WWI intervening, and are decades ahead of anyone else, Everton are next, promoted 1954.
The most significant event in Europe since 1453 was the Ashes series of 2005.
(Sorry, wrong thread!)
And you think 31+ for Cleverly by the menbership is a vote winner - really
Israel is set to invite the United States to relocate some of its bases in the region to Israel — and to establish new bases in the country — after the current war is over, Channel 12 reports, citing unnamed security sources.
James Cleverly was the most popular choice to be Tory leader amongst the public as a whole at the time of the leadership election in polling and I doubt much has changed since. If it had Kemi would be seeing the Tories lead the polls by now.
As they showed when they replaced IDS with Michael Howard and Truss with Rishi Sunak if a leader elected by party members fails to perform in the polls Tory MPs have been willing to replace them before a general election
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/29/james-cleverly-is-publics-choice-for-tory-leader-poll-finds/
Going to make all the difference that......
Greece has approved a €3 billion defense program to build “Achilles Shield,” a multi-layered air defense system designed to counter missiles and drones. The project is expected to include advanced Israeli technology, with Israeli firms likely playing a central role.
https://x.com/israelnewspulse/status/2037986001457406316
Amongst Labour voters in 2024 19% said Cleverly would make a good leader, 29% a bad leader compared to 31% of Labour voters saying Kemi would be a bad leader and 14% a good leader. Amongst 2024 LD voters 22% said Cleverly would be a good leader and just 20% a bad leader while 30% of LD voters said Kemi would be a bad leader and only 8% a good leader. Even amongst 2024 Tory voters 31% said Cleverly would be a good leader and only 8% bad, compared to 25% saying Kemi would be a good leader and 13% bad.
Kemi did lead Cleverly with 2024 Reform voters, 18% said Kemi would be a good leader and 15% bad compared to 12% saying Cleverly would be a good leader and 20% bad but after nearly 2 years in the job Kemi has failed to win back Reform voters to the Conservatives anyway
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/james-cleverly-tops-list-who-would-make-good-tory-leader-3-in-5-say-they-dont-care
I published this months shadow cabinet table as you remain in denial, and Cleverly is by no means the only choice anyway
And to make such an extraordinary claim that Kemi should be leading the polls when your hero Johnson Boriswave and Truss's disaster ratnered the brand is bizarre
Arguably, Sean Bean won the Trojan war, since he came up with the winning plan.
The licence holders have to prove they have the money put aside to cover abandonment costs as part of their licence to continue producing. This will run to hundreds of millions of pounds. The current estimate for complete abandonment of the UKCS is north of £25 billion. So once a field reaches COP it is abandoned.
The effect of this is to render the fields useless for future generations. In theory if the resource became so scarce that the price became astronomical then we might go back but in practice that will never happen. Not when there are plenty of other places around the world where it can be done more cheaply. So the effect is we kill our specialist petrochemical industries and drive all that work, jobs and revenue overseas.
If you want to know how stupid this is, there was a company a few years ago that was looking at remodelling existing oil and gas wells as geothermal wells. Basically you pull the completion (the specialist string inside the hole that allows you to lift the oil and gas out), run a new, geothermal completion, restructure the platform with heat exchanger turbines and start generating electricity.
But the O&G legislation doesn't allow it. It says the wells must be plugged and abandoned. So the idea dies before it can be developed.
The legislation around O&G is utterly bonkers. It was before Miliband turned up and all he has done is added an extra level of lunacy to the mix.
Their hole below the waterline is that they recently had 14 years in power, and it's pretty universally agreed it didn't entirely work out to our national advantage. Different people have different critiques (some people diametrically opposed), but almost no one liked what they did.
They could be jointly led by Mother Teresa and the ghost of Margaret Thatcher, and they'd still be languishing at 17% in the polls.
Kemi isn't particularly good, but I see no reason to think any of the alternative non-entities would do any better.
US government officials and Wall Street analysis are starting to consdier the prospect that oil prices might surge to an unprecedeted $200 a barrel.
"whennnn, this curr-ent war is ohhhh-verrrr......"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK4p7tbwv1w
Presumably Your Party are pretty much dead.
‘ 🟢 EXC: Zack Polanski will target trade unions with appearances at conferences as part of a Green Party strategy to win over core Labour groups disillusioned with Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership
The Green leader has spoken to ten unions, including some officially affiliated with Labour, across health, education and culture sectors
He is set to make five keynote speeches at union conferences in an attempt to win over members
One Green source said Polanski’s goal was to stop the unions funding Labour, rather than getting them to back the Greens outright
Polanski told @thetimes that a “crucial part” of replacing Labour as Britain’s main left-wing option for voters was to “connect with the organised labour movement”’
https://x.com/daisyeastlake/status/2038305056597098514?s=61
Because that way they avoid global economic catastrophe. Just a thought
At that moment someone jumped into his car, started the engine as silly George left the keys in and drove off.
Left poor George car less with spare.
It hasn't quite filtered through yet.
And investing in an AI startup isn't going provide power to basic industries.
Why should I spend a second of my dwindling life dealing with this level of fuck-wittery. There is no reason
You can't object to Palestinians being moved from their homeland, if you propose Israelis being moved from their homeland.
Either you accept repatriation as morally acceptable, or you don't.
One third of all French wine is produced in Languedoc-Roussillon
Apparently in 2001, the region produced more wine than the entire USA
It's where I walked to last year, and plan to walk through in two years' time (on the way to Rome!)
It's tiny..
They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us
It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide
But it's a way of thinking about the America/Iran conflict. America went into this like a human attacking a wasp. After all, humans are bigger and more powerful than wasps; it's obvious.
Meanwhile, Iran, like a wasp, has found a way of causing unendurable pain to the human. And I'm dubious that swatting the wasp now will improve matters.
Anyone with any intelligence can see the comparison in terms of telling someone they should give up because they can't win (which in case you couldn't even be arsed to read it was the comment robert was replying to) is valid. That is exactly what was being said of the Ukrainians.
So before you shuffle off into your rapidly approaching dementia why not use a few of those rapidly depleting, drug infused, brain cells to explain what you were actually talking about.
https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/2038187681935401098
The world is facing a 'ticking time bomb' from its supply of oil, according to a briefing note from JP Morgan. Physical scarcity of oil is about to unfold across the globe, spreading sequentially through April from east to west, causing major economic disruption worldwide.
Yes, but not quite as tiny compared with the wine growing regions. Must be very fertile though.
If we wanted to replace fossil oil entirely, we could go back to the previous main source of oil: whale oil. Everybody could get behind that, couldn’t they?
It's the fact that supply is constrained to below current demand.
And in particular, certain types of oil will be unavailable. So refineries will shut down.
Meaning some nations will pretty soon run out altogether.
As Williamglenn shows above.
This is being studiously ignored in the main.
La, la, la.
If the Conservatives want to survive as an independent force however they need a leader who can shore up their 2024 vote, the 24% who voted for Sunak remember when the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform even after 14 years in power and forget about winning back voters who voted Reform even in 2024. Plus a leader who can get tactical anti Reform votes from Labour and the LDs more than Kemi can
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occitania_(administrative_region)
Because France and the UK seem so broadly equal in many ways - population, contemporary power, imperial histories (tho ours is much more impressive, ahem) - people often forget that France is MUCH bigger than the UK, geographically
Languedoc-Rousillon is considerably larger, in area, than all of Wales
Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity and one sign of a genocide. The international community and the UK should strongly resist any attempt to ethnically cleanse 2 million people.
I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.
Better than surrendering to them and letting them survive, with control of the Strait.
You're a fucking idiot. If Iran destroys all the oil infra in the ME - which it looks very capable of doing - then the planetary economy will spiral into meltdown. We could see revolutions and famines, and economic Depressioin - not just recession - in the West
And all this will happen with no guarantee of "victory" in Iran, and even if there is a "victory" it could easily turn into Afghanistan, and America has to retreat 20 years later, by which time China will be utterly dominant and the dollar will be dethroned, with all that means for the USA and the West
I would love to see the Iranian regime eliminated. Sadly, it does not look do-able without using
1. nukes
or
2. nukes
Ground invasion won't do it. Nukes will be Armageddon
The Trump administration shows us what happens when you replace civil servants and existing expertise with political appointees.
Obviously we're into week five now, but the roof hasn't fallen in yet, so there's simple denial that it will get that much worse.
And then, we all know that Trump chickens out before too much damage is done to share prices, right? Any day now.
And then, politicians seem to generally lack the imagination or courage to take bold steps until it's too late, so they're just rabbits in the headlights now, waiting for the disaster to hit before they react. With the exception of truly useless governments - like the Irish government - who are wasting their money subsidising fuel prices. They're going to look really stupid when there are shortages and they've thrown money away encouraging people to buy more fuel.
Unless it is invasion and occupation.
Hoping someone on here can help out - I thought only about 20% of the world's oil still went through Hormuz and Britain could get enough fuel for petrol from other sources.
I appreciate there may well be supply issues with diesel and that could cause a lot of other problems but are we likely to run out of petrol or simplyhave to function on 75-80% of current supply which will cause some issues especially if people (as they will once this seeps into the public domain) start panic buying?
Happy to once again wallow in the depths of my ignorance on these matters.
I'd wager money at evens that there is such a voice. And it comes from his amygdala or somewhere, because his frontal lobe ability to think more than one move ahead is gone, and he doesn't see that there will be calamitous second and third order effects on the USA, as much as anywhere else
PLUS there is all the nightmare of global fertiliser production being decimated, and much else - eg famine springing therefrom
Add in the imponderables. China relies on ME oil in a way the USA does not. It might come to Iran's aid and give America a brutal kicking to get them out
People are people. We should help those who have left terrible circumstances, and they will add to our nation. What we don’t need is bigots.
So government will have to intervene.
You're a weird, slightly creepy little guy that has cats. It all makes sense
Winston Churchill was booed by locals after the Siege at Sidney Street.
This wasn't because he allowed the criminals (who murdered a policeman) to burn to death. That was considered a good idea.
It was because he was seen as soft on immigrants (like the anarchists) - many of whom were... Jewish.
Past Present Future: Talking Geopolitics with Helen Thompson: The Weirdness of American Power Part 2
Episode webpage: https://www.ppfideas.com/
Media file: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/NSR8305628821.mp3?updated=1769534035
BRACE