"The main beneficiaries of any attack on Assad would have been ISIS and its allies who have a far better organised command structure and were far better placed to take advantage of any Assad weakness."
A massive assumption. And as I said below, there were great opportunities for better outcomes, and the current situation could hardly be worse.
"I am sick and tired of the old mantra of 'we must do something' "
If you read what I've written, I'm not saying that. In fact, I'm saying that arming the Kurds might be a really bad idea (tm).
But the question you need to ask is when you would get to the stage where you believed something needed to be done. If a Caliphate is created? If it spreads through Turkey and Northern Africa? If it spreads (as many of its adherents want) through Europe?
It's a mess. And it;s getting messier by the day.
You do something when it will make a clear strategic difference and will actually help achieve your aims - whether they are military or humanitarian. Right now there is the potential to do that by supporting the Kurds and by coordinating action with the Iranians. That opportunity did not exist in Syria last year - nor does it now (in Syria) given that to hinder one side we would have to be helping the other and both sides are unacceptable to us.
I would argue that a 'clear' strategic difference will never occur: there will always be people, for all sorts of reasons, who will think it is unclear. I think what you mean is when it seems clear to you. This is exactly what we saw with the vote last year.
Where we seem to differ is that, in my mind at least, the situation clearly did exist in Syria last year, and it was a much better opportunity than we have now.
And in the meantime, tens of thousands have died in Syria and Iraq. More will do so. Worse, the use of chemical weapons is now more or less accepted by the west. After all, we did nothing about it after Hallubjah and Syria.
I fear history will favour my side of the argument, not yours. We missed a great chance to nip this in the bud, or at least contain the poison.
It's interesting how the likes of Ken Clarke, Alan Haselhurst and Richard Shepherd are still intending to contest their seats despite being first elected in the 1970s, but at the same time people like Mark Simmonds, Laura Sandys, Dan Byles, Jessica Lee are standing down after just a few years.
The Simmonds resignation is a bit The Thick of It. Who has ever heard of him until now.
Commons Speaker John Bercow has been criticised after it emerged he charged taxpayers £1,300 to attend an MP’s funeral.
Mr Bercow was one of a host of MPs at the Manchester service for popular Labour backbencher Paul Goggins who collapsed and died while out running in January.
He charged £239.10 for a return train journey to Manchester for him and two staff, plus £112.50 for a car from Parliament to Euston station and back the next day.
Surely most people would pay for their own expenses when attending a funeral and why take two staff? Also a taxi does not cost £112.50 to go to Euston from Parliament and back.
Bercow attended in his official capacity as Speaker. A position of considerable precedence in our Constitution.
£1300 for a round trip on official business for the Speaker and two staff (who will also likely have attended in their official capacity) for the funeral of an MP is IMHO not excessive.
I'm sure the family of Paul Goggins will feel their relative was appropriately honoured.
Commons Speaker John Bercow has been criticised after it emerged he charged taxpayers £1,300 to attend an MP’s funeral.
Mr Bercow was one of a host of MPs at the Manchester service for popular Labour backbencher Paul Goggins who collapsed and died while out running in January.
He charged £239.10 for a return train journey to Manchester for him and two staff, plus £112.50 for a car from Parliament to Euston station and back the next day.
Surely most people would pay for their own expenses when attending a funeral and why take two staff? Also a taxi does not cost £112.50 to go to Euston from Parliament and back.
Bercow attended in his official capacity as Speaker. A position of considerable precedence in our Constitution.
£1300 for a round trip on official business for the Speaker and two staff (who will also likely have attended in their official capacity) for the funeral of an MP is IMHO not excessive.
I'm sure the family of Paul Goggins will feel their relative was appropriately honoured.
I'd have thought the taxi fees would have included those in Manchester as well.
Assad as an anti-ISIS proxy is complicated. Forgetting the moral element for the moment - the actual strategic situation in Syria is about as clear as mud - previously there was a sort of de-facto NAP between IS and the Syrian Army but as both IS and the Syrian Army have made gains/retook areas and eliminated other rebel groups (The Free Syrian Army is very weak from what I can work out right now) and now most of the oil and gas is under the control of IS so they may well come into natural conflict.
The support to the FSA has failed, and may well be helping IS now. Time to switch tack slightly in Syria/Iraq as is seeming to happen.
I'm not saying we should support Assad; quite the opposite. Ideally he needs to be put on trial for war crimes. Supporting his barbarous regime (which, if you remember, had committed atrocities well before the current civil war) is unthinkable.
We should have supported the FSA against Assad. If Assad had fallen (and it was very tight, which was exactly why Assad resorted to using chemical weapons) then a new leader with combined Syrian Army and FSA, along with western support, could have stopped or contained much of this mess.
It would also have sent a clear message that the use of chemical weapons is abhorred by the international community.
Heck, It would stick in my throat, but I'd have even agreed to let Assad and his family take themselves and their riches to (Russia?) with an international guarantee of no prosecution, if it would have stopped this current mess.
Instead, the anti-war people (and Miliband's perverse and sick politicking) has directly led to these deaths. Most were, at least, well-meaning.
Is Phillip Hammond proving to be a bad choice as Foreign Secretary ? Two minister have now resigned weeks after Hammond took over. I just wonder whether he has expressed views that people don't agree with. Hague proved to be quite good at the diplomatic stuff, whereas Hammond may be willing to give his view, which might clash with colleagues views.
Hammond is known to be quite hawkish, though not a neo-con unlike Fallon. That may rile up a few people in the FCO which tends to be pro-Arab rather than pro-Israel. This resignation is for personal reasons though and the MP is standing down in 2015 so it probably isn't related to any policy decisions.
I think Cameron has played a blinder with Hammond though and getting the pro-Arab/pro-EU Hague out. Hammond is better aligned to US foreign policy than Hague ever was, he kept looking to the EU and Cathy Ashton for guidance.
If Hammond can drive through a pro-Israel agenda in the FCO he will be making headway. Israel is one of our only allies in that region, the house of Saud and Qatar (our other supposed allies) are the ones funding ISIL and Hamas so any break from the pro-Arab nature of the FCO is a good thing for our interests.
It is a difficult position where you can't win really. My preference is for the UK to be even handed and to not take sides. I was in favour of the Iraq war, but now think it was probably the wrong decision, as there may have been other ways to have dealt with Saddam. In a similar way I was in favour of the actions UK forces took in regard to Syria, but again now think that the UK and others should have done much more to make sure Syria was going to be stable. Two many factions in the region who don't want to live together as neighbours. Some of it is to do with money, as the powerful seem to steal the wealth and let their enemies starve.
Israel may well have broken international law in regard to their actions on Gaza, as their actions may be seen as not proportionate in dealing with the security risks they faced. I know Hamas is a pain in the *ss, but Israel are creating more enemies by their actions. At some stage Israel may face being at war, where no one really wins, due to the damage and casualties caused.
Commons Speaker John Bercow has been criticised after it emerged he charged taxpayers £1,300 to attend an MP’s funeral.
Mr Bercow was one of a host of MPs at the Manchester service for popular Labour backbencher Paul Goggins who collapsed and died while out running in January.
He charged £239.10 for a return train journey to Manchester for him and two staff, plus £112.50 for a car from Parliament to Euston station and back the next day.
Surely most people would pay for their own expenses when attending a funeral and why take two staff? Also a taxi does not cost £112.50 to go to Euston from Parliament and back.
Bercow attended in his official capacity as Speaker. A position of considerable precedence in our Constitution.
£1300 for a round trip on official business for the Speaker and two staff (who will also likely have attended in their official capacity) for the funeral of an MP is IMHO not excessive.
I'm sure the family of Paul Goggins will feel their relative was appropriately honoured.
I'd have thought the taxi fees would have included those in Manchester as well.
Funerals (in all but exceptional cases) should be attended by people in a personal capacity (and therefore paid personally) . I am sure the family would have been just as honoured to recieve some official flowers or other equivalent from the Speaker
Commons Speaker John Bercow has been criticised after it emerged he charged taxpayers £1,300 to attend an MP’s funeral.
Mr Bercow was one of a host of MPs at the Manchester service for popular Labour backbencher Paul Goggins who collapsed and died while out running in January.
He charged £239.10 for a return train journey to Manchester for him and two staff, plus £112.50 for a car from Parliament to Euston station and back the next day.
Surely most people would pay for their own expenses when attending a funeral and why take two staff? Also a taxi does not cost £112.50 to go to Euston from Parliament and back.
Bercow attended in his official capacity as Speaker. A position of considerable precedence in our Constitution.
£1300 for a round trip on official business for the Speaker and two staff (who will also likely have attended in their official capacity) for the funeral of an MP is IMHO not excessive.
I'm sure the family of Paul Goggins will feel their relative was appropriately honoured.
I doubt these staff were Lindsay Hoyle; Eleanor Laing, Dawn Primarolo or even Nigel Evans as they'd be claiming their own expenses, and would have also been named by the Mail. You don't need two staff to attend a funeral.
Commons Speaker John Bercow has been criticised after it emerged he charged taxpayers £1,300 to attend an MP’s funeral.
Mr Bercow was one of a host of MPs at the Manchester service for popular Labour backbencher Paul Goggins who collapsed and died while out running in January.
He charged £239.10 for a return train journey to Manchester for him and two staff, plus £112.50 for a car from Parliament to Euston station and back the next day.
Surely most people would pay for their own expenses when attending a funeral and why take two staff? Also a taxi does not cost £112.50 to go to Euston from Parliament and back.
Bercow attended in his official capacity as Speaker. A position of considerable precedence in our Constitution.
£1300 for a round trip on official business for the Speaker and two staff (who will also likely have attended in their official capacity) for the funeral of an MP is IMHO not excessive.
I'm sure the family of Paul Goggins will feel their relative was appropriately honoured.
I'd have thought the taxi fees would have included those in Manchester as well.
Possibly.
This is a non story really ... or rather the story is the continuing flak that Bercow continues to attract from the gutter press.
Not sure i understood the logic of the anecdote about the man who betted two lots of £100 at 5/4. Granted tax did make it harder to win but still not a ridiculous bet to make given the return potential
Assad as an anti-ISIS proxy is complicated. Forgetting the moral element for the moment - the actual strategic situation in Syria is about as clear as mud - previously there was a sort of de-facto NAP between IS and the Syrian Army but as both IS and the Syrian Army have made gains/retook areas and eliminated other rebel groups (The Free Syrian Army is very weak from what I can work out right now) and now most of the oil and gas is under the control of IS so they may well come into natural conflict.
The support to the FSA has failed, and may well be helping IS now. Time to switch tack slightly in Syria/Iraq as is seeming to happen.
I'm not saying we should support Assad; quite the opposite. Ideally he needs to be put on trial for war crimes. Supporting his barbarous regime (which, if you remember, had committed atrocities well before the current civil war) is unthinkable.
We should have supported the FSA against Assad. If Assad had fallen (and it was very tight, which was exactly why Assad resorted to using chemical weapons) then a new leader with combined Syrian Army and FSA, along with western support, could have stopped or contained much of this mess.
It would also have sent a clear message that the use of chemical weapons is abhorred by the international community.
Heck, It would stick in my throat, but I'd have even agreed to let Assad and his family take themselves and their riches to (Russia?) with an international guarantee of no prosecution, if it would have stopped this current mess.
Instead, the anti-war people (and Miliband's perverse and sick politicking) has directly led to these deaths. Most were, at least, well-meaning.
I hope they can sleep at night.
Supporting an uprising against Assad would have handed ISIL an even easier road to Damascus, Assad is still an strong man who can keep ISIL at bay. A fractured government with a huge number of different agendas and probable sectarian violence between Shia, Sunni and Alawite factions would have made for easy picking for ISIL who have just one agenda - the destruction and extermination of all non-Sunni Muslims.
Even so it is difficult to say with any level of certainty what removing Assad would have done to the current conflict, and ISIL are so very evil that we must now all ourselves with him to ensure their destruction. Assad will leave us and our allies alone once the threat is gone, his removal and subsequent rolling through of ISIL in Syria puts Egypt, Israel and Jordan (and probably even Palestine) in danger of ISIL extremists. Assad has been in power for a long time and had chemical weapons for a long time, he did not use them against any of our allies in the region so to paint a picture of a deranged dictator is comical.
Commons Speaker John Bercow has been criticised after it emerged he charged taxpayers £1,300 to attend an MP’s funeral.
Mr Bercow was one of a host of MPs at the Manchester service for popular Labour backbencher Paul Goggins who collapsed and died while out running in January.
He charged £239.10 for a return train journey to Manchester for him and two staff, plus £112.50 for a car from Parliament to Euston station and back the next day.
Surely most people would pay for their own expenses when attending a funeral and why take two staff? Also a taxi does not cost £112.50 to go to Euston from Parliament and back.
Bercow attended in his official capacity as Speaker. A position of considerable precedence in our Constitution.
£1300 for a round trip on official business for the Speaker and two staff (who will also likely have attended in their official capacity) for the funeral of an MP is IMHO not excessive.
I'm sure the family of Paul Goggins will feel their relative was appropriately honoured.
I doubt these staff were Lindsay Hoyle; Eleanor Laing, Dawn Primarolo or even Nigel Evans as they'd be claiming their own expenses, and would have also been named by the Mail. You don't need two staff to attend a funeral.
No and you do not need to spend £1300 pounds. A couple of taxis and a return train ticket, all done is a day would have sufficed. Of course with HS2 the journey would have been quicker still.
DavidL, congratulations to your daughter on her exam results. We were also celebrating last week after our youngest lad achieved a great set of 5th year Higher results, we are so proud of him after all his hard work. He is now really looking forward to his final year at school before heading off to Uni, where as Fitaloon now sees a serious bout of empty nest syndrome looming for me.
DavidL, congrats to your daughter. I read Law at Durham, albeit some 30-odd years ago. Durham itself is a beautiful place to be for 3 years - you can walk everywhere and although it is hardly Rio in festival week (the biggest society in my time was the Christian Union...) you can be in Newcastle in a jiffy, with all the dubious pleasures of its nightlife. It is also a very college-based society - there are quite limited options for accommodation outside. It is certainly a good place to knuckle down and get a degree that will serve her well through her career. And contrary to SeanT, it is much easier to get to know a broad range of contacts through life because you are all together all the time, rather than spending time apart crossing London to your digs.
If I had my time again though, I probably wouldn't have done a Law degree. Spend three years doing something less enervating than discussing making bridges that were never designed to meet in the middle. Do astronomy or archaeology or something else beginning with A. Then spend a year doing the law catch-up - if that is really what she still wants.
Many thanks for that and all the other comments. I tend to agree. I was, Kinnock like, the first member of my family to go to University in a 1,000 generations (probably ever actually). I had no idea what to expect but I had vague aspirations of being able to answer the questions on University Challenge by the end of it. I thought I was going to get an education.
Instead I had 4 years of people talking to me about law which is a deathly dull subject. I got to do an extra subject in economics which was great fun and I quite liked some of the philosophy/sociological stuff around the edges but it was a serious disappointment.
I bitterly regretted not doing something I actually cared about or was interested in. Law has given me a safe and solid career but it is a waste of a University life. I tend to call it a "techie subject" where regurgitation of facts is more important than actually thinking.
I have discussed this with my daughter whose first love is English. She is thinking about it.
Commons Speaker John Bercow has been criticised after it emerged he charged taxpayers £1,300 to attend an MP’s funeral.
Mr Bercow was one of a host of MPs at the Manchester service for popular Labour backbencher Paul Goggins who collapsed and died while out running in January.
He charged £239.10 for a return train journey to Manchester for him and two staff, plus £112.50 for a car from Parliament to Euston station and back the next day.
Surely most people would pay for their own expenses when attending a funeral and why take two staff? Also a taxi does not cost £112.50 to go to Euston from Parliament and back.
Bercow attended in his official capacity as Speaker. A position of considerable precedence in our Constitution.
£1300 for a round trip on official business for the Speaker and two staff (who will also likely have attended in their official capacity) for the funeral of an MP is IMHO not excessive.
I'm sure the family of Paul Goggins will feel their relative was appropriately honoured.
I doubt these staff were Lindsay Hoyle; Eleanor Laing, Dawn Primarolo or even Nigel Evans as they'd be claiming their own expenses, and would have also been named by the Mail. You don't need two staff to attend a funeral.
Whilst its not the worst case of public purse abuse , you would have thought Bercow could have shown a bit more class and paid for the trip himself . Not sure how honoured Goggin's family would feel to learn that Bercow made sure he was not going to spend any of his own money attending the funeral
Assad as an anti-ISIS proxy is complicated. Forgetting the moral element for the moment - the actual strategic situation in Syria is about as clear as mud - previously there was a sort of de-facto NAP between IS and the Syrian Army but as both IS and the Syrian Army have made gains/retook areas and eliminated other rebel groups (The Free Syrian Army is very weak from what I can work out right now) and now most of the oil and gas is under the control of IS so they may well come into natural conflict.
The support to the FSA has failed, and may well be helping IS now. Time to switch tack slightly in Syria/Iraq as is seeming to happen.
I'm not saying we should support Assad; quite the opposite. Ideally he needs to be put on trial for war crimes. Supporting his barbarous regime (which, if you remember, had committed atrocities well before the current civil war) is unthinkable.
We should have supported the FSA against Assad. If Assad had fallen (and it was very tight, which was exactly why Assad resorted to using chemical weapons) then a new leader with combined Syrian Army and FSA, along with western support, could have stopped or contained much of this mess.
It would also have sent a clear message that the use of chemical weapons is abhorred by the international community.
Heck, It would stick in my throat, but I'd have even agreed to let Assad and his family take themselves and their riches to (Russia?) with an international guarantee of no prosecution, if it would have stopped this current mess.
Instead, the anti-war people (and Miliband's perverse and sick politicking) has directly led to these deaths. Most were, at least, well-meaning.
I hope they can sleep at night.
You keep repeating this and it is an outright lie. Nothing that is happening now is because we did not drop bombs on Syria and had we done so it would certainly not have made the current situation any better. This is simply the warmongers from last year trying to claim some retrospective justification for their position trading on the misfortune of the victims of ISIS today.
@Pulpstar It would depend on the "staff"? Any high level politician attending a public event will have at least a few "staff" in case of unforeseen events.
Commons Speaker John Bercow has been criticised after it emerged he charged taxpayers £1,300 to attend an MP’s funeral.
Mr Bercow was one of a host of MPs at the Manchester service for popular Labour backbencher Paul Goggins who collapsed and died while out running in January.
He charged £239.10 for a return train journey to Manchester for him and two staff, plus £112.50 for a car from Parliament to Euston station and back the next day.
Surely most people would pay for their own expenses when attending a funeral and why take two staff? Also a taxi does not cost £112.50 to go to Euston from Parliament and back.
Bercow attended in his official capacity as Speaker. A position of considerable precedence in our Constitution.
£1300 for a round trip on official business for the Speaker and two staff (who will also likely have attended in their official capacity) for the funeral of an MP is IMHO not excessive.
I'm sure the family of Paul Goggins will feel their relative was appropriately honoured.
I doubt these staff were Lindsay Hoyle; Eleanor Laing, Dawn Primarolo or even Nigel Evans as they'd be claiming their own expenses, and would have also been named by the Mail. You don't need two staff to attend a funeral.
No and you do not need to spend £1300 pounds. A couple of taxis and a return train ticket, all done is a day would have sufficed. Of course with HS2 the journey would have been quicker still.
Good point about the hotel, why stay overnight - Manchester and London have decent train links...
Not sure i understood the logic of the anecdote about the man who betted two lots of £100 at 5/4. Granted tax did make it harder to win but still not a ridiculous bet to make given the return potential
Backing at long odds-on [which 5/4 & 7/4 combined represent] was a very bad idea under a turnover-based taxation scheme, since you were getting taxed on the stake side of the equation rather than the winnings side (you had the option of paying up front or paying on the return).
In fact, the old taxation scheme is part of the reason why accumulators and complex bets like Double Stakes About became popular - by making the odds longer or effectively recycling the original stake you minimised your tax.
Not sure i understood the logic of the anecdote about the man who betted two lots of £100 at 5/4. Granted tax did make it harder to win but still not a ridiculous bet to make given the return potential
Backing at long odds-on [which 5/4 & 7/4 combined represent] was a very bad idea under a turnover-based taxation scheme: since you were getting taxed on the stake side of the equation rather than the winnings side (you had the option of paying up front or paying on the return).
In fact, the old taxation scheme is part of the reason why accumulators and complex bets like Double Stakes About became popular - by making the odds longer or effectively recycling the original stake you minimised your tax.
Was it two horses in the SAME race? Thats explains it - sorry just skimmed the article
Not sure i understood the logic of the anecdote about the man who betted two lots of £100 at 5/4. Granted tax did make it harder to win but still not a ridiculous bet to make given the return potential
Backing at long odds-on [which 5/4 & 7/4 combined represent] was a very bad idea under a turnover-based taxation scheme: since you were getting taxed on the stake side of the equation rather than the winnings side (you had the option of paying up front or paying on the return).
In fact, the old taxation scheme is part of the reason why accumulators and complex bets like Double Stakes About became popular - by making the odds longer or effectively recycling the original stake you minimised your tax.
yes but long odds on means 1/5 or 2/7 etc . But 5/4 ? I don't understand the reaction of manager
He backed 5/4 & 7/4 in the same race which c. equals 1/4
Commons Speaker John Bercow has been criticised after it emerged he charged taxpayers £1,300 to attend an MP’s funeral.
Mr Bercow was one of a host of MPs at the Manchester service for popular Labour backbencher Paul Goggins who collapsed and died while out running in January.
He charged £239.10 for a return train journey to Manchester for him and two staff, plus £112.50 for a car from Parliament to Euston station and back the next day.
Surely most people would pay for their own expenses when attending a funeral and why take two staff? Also a taxi does not cost £112.50 to go to Euston from Parliament and back.
Bercow attended in his official capacity as Speaker. A position of considerable precedence in our Constitution.
£1300 for a round trip on official business for the Speaker and two staff (who will also likely have attended in their official capacity) for the funeral of an MP is IMHO not excessive.
I'm sure the family of Paul Goggins will feel their relative was appropriately honoured.
I doubt these staff were Lindsay Hoyle; Eleanor Laing, Dawn Primarolo or even Nigel Evans as they'd be claiming their own expenses, and would have also been named by the Mail. You don't need two staff to attend a funeral.
Whilst its not the worst case of public purse abuse , you would have thought Bercow could have shown a bit more class and paid for the trip himself . Not sure how honoured Goggin's family would feel to learn that Bercow made sure he was not going to spend any of his own money attending the funeral
Was he "required" to attend (Either through historical protocol or rules) that's my question. I sincerely hope he hasn't made it up as he was going along.
JosiasJessop says ... 'Instead, the anti-war people (and Miliband's perverse and sick politicking) has directly led to these deaths. Most were, at least, well-meaning. I hope they can sleep at night. '
I've never quite understood why the SNP never had a backup plan for the currency in the event that using the pound wasn't going to be possible.
It looked like a massive oversight years ago, how did Salmond manage to get caught out so badly when he's had all this time to prepare an answer?
Because until 2008, the Euro was going to be their currency. Remember, "Independence in Europe". It was a reassuring slogan saying we will be independent but, don't worry, we will still be part of Europe.
In Scotland, there isn't that broadly semi racist Euro phobia that we have in parts of England[ London excluded ]
Not sure i understood the logic of the anecdote about the man who betted two lots of £100 at 5/4. Granted tax did make it harder to win but still not a ridiculous bet to make given the return potential
Backing at long odds-on [which 5/4 & 7/4 combined represent] was a very bad idea under a turnover-based taxation scheme: since you were getting taxed on the stake side of the equation rather than the winnings side (you had the option of paying up front or paying on the return).
In fact, the old taxation scheme is part of the reason why accumulators and complex bets like Double Stakes About became popular - by making the odds longer or effectively recycling the original stake you minimised your tax.
yes but long odds on means 1/5 or 2/7 etc . But 5/4 ? I don't understand the reaction of manager
He backed 5/4 & 7/4 in the same race which c. equals 1/4
Yes thoise days of the irritating betting tax I remember with not too much fondness! I see that Labour may be looking to put some tax like this back on betting.
Commons Speaker John Bercow has been criticised after it emerged he charged taxpayers £1,300 to attend an MP’s funeral.
Mr Bercow was one of a host of MPs at the Manchester service for popular Labour backbencher Paul Goggins who collapsed and died while out running in January.
He charged £239.10 for a return train journey to Manchester for him and two staff, plus £112.50 for a car from Parliament to Euston station and back the next day.
Surely most people would pay for their own expenses when attending a funeral and why take two staff? Also a taxi does not cost £112.50 to go to Euston from Parliament and back.
Bercow attended in his official capacity as Speaker. A position of considerable precedence in our Constitution.
£1300 for a round trip on official business for the Speaker and two staff (who will also likely have attended in their official capacity) for the funeral of an MP is IMHO not excessive.
I'm sure the family of Paul Goggins will feel their relative was appropriately honoured.
I doubt these staff were Lindsay Hoyle; Eleanor Laing, Dawn Primarolo or even Nigel Evans as they'd be claiming their own expenses, and would have also been named by the Mail. You don't need two staff to attend a funeral.
Whilst its not the worst case of public purse abuse , you would have thought Bercow could have shown a bit more class and paid for the trip himself . Not sure how honoured Goggin's family would feel to learn that Bercow made sure he was not going to spend any of his own money attending the funeral
Was he "required" to attend (Either through historical protocol or rules) that's my question. I sincerely hope he hasn't made it up as he was going along.
Are you being a dullard by chance or have you worked at this one with some forethought ?
I know some PBers blame Bercow for breathing but being a fellow traveller for a shabby attack piece by the Mail is almost as bad as being exiled to ConHome for a few months.
Supporting an uprising against Assad would have handed ISIL an even easier road to Damascus, Assad is still an strong man who can keep ISIL at bay. A fractured government with a huge number of different agendas and probable sectarian violence between Shia, Sunni and Alawite factions would have made for easy picking for ISIL who have just one agenda - the destruction and extermination of all non-Sunni Muslims.
Even so it is difficult to say with any level of certainty what removing Assad would have done to the current conflict, and ISIL are so very evil that we must now all ourselves with him to ensure their destruction. Assad will leave us and our allies alone once the threat is gone, his removal and subsequent rolling through of ISIL in Syria puts Egypt, Israel and Jordan (and probably even Palestine) in danger of ISIL extremists. Assad has been in power for a long time and had chemical weapons for a long time, he did not use them against any of our allies in the region so to paint a picture of a deranged dictator is comical.
"Supporting an uprising against Assad would have handed ISIL an even easier road to Damascus,"
A rather large assumption given the situation on the ground at the time. Remember how concerned Russia was about Assad falling? As for splits: the FSA appears non-sectarian and contains Alawis.
But the FSA's time is past. They appear to have lost all momentum and hope in their martial aims. We should have supported them when there was a chance.
"he did not use them (chemical weapons) against any of our allies in the region so to paint a picture of a deranged dictator is comical."
My God, do you actually believe that? You say he is not a deranged dictator because he did not use chemical weapons against us? Do you care to rethink that?
Recent events have shown that Assad is a butcher and murderer; worse than his father. We can in no way support him without supporting the same sort of evil that we want to defeat.
OT. From Nick Davis at 'Hacked off' who deserves our support. Sign the petition. This is far more crucial to our democracy than voting methods.....
"I've spent most of the last six years attempting to expose the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World and, for most of that time, I've also been trying to explain that the scandal isn't really about phone-hacking at all…
For sure, the hacking is important. It's a crime and it was being committed casually and routinely by a newspaper which was otherwise happy to beat the drum for law and order. A grotesque invasion of privacy, seasoned with plenty of hypocrisy.
But what makes the whole saga worth exposing is what lies behind it. Put simply: the power of Rupert Murdoch. Why did Scotland Yard spend years telling press, public and parliament false stories about the hacking? Why did the feeble press regulator join in? Why did David Cameron hire the editor who had been responsible?"
In the end, it is that last question which really matters. Cameron wanted Murdoch's man in his office but, more than that, he wanted Murdoch's blessing on his attempt to become Prime Minister. Sometimes, it's good to be naive - to stand back and remember that sweet old idea about democracy being government of the people for the people, and to recognise just how much we have lost, just how fundamentally wrong it is that one man who has no vote wields so much more power than the rest of us.
On the Simmonds resignation, I see in the Speccie:
"I understand that Simmonds’ decision is related to his own constituency. One of his party colleagues tells me:
‘He’s under massive pressure in his constituency. Party infrastructure evaporated. UKIP all over him.’
And he has told his local paper that the impact on his young family has been ‘so huge and so negative that I’m not prepared to tolerate it anymore’."
I am not sure about why his family should be affected, I hope nobody is being silly. However, the "Party infrastructure evaporated", is very interesting. I think a trip to the bookies and getting a few quid on UKIP to take the seat must be in order.
Are you being a dullard by chance or have you worked at this one with some forethought ?
I know some PBers blame Bercow for breathing but being a fellow traveller for a shabby attack piece by the Mail is almost as bad as being exiled to ConHome for a few months.
Given that the speaker by convention is required to attend funerals of MPs as you pointed out I think it's correct that he put it onto expenses, but I don't believe he needed two aides to attend with him and could have done the whole thing at less cost.
So my view is neither the same as yours nor the Mail. It is a viewpoint recognising that the man has a duty to both his position and the taxpayer.
The situation in conservative (to our eyes at least) muslim countries is odd. The young always want to rebel and normally its to fight for more freedom ,less control from convention etc .However in many muslim countries its to fight for even more religious control and fundamentalism. Strange!
"I know some PBers blame Bercow for breathing but being a fellow traveller for a shabby attack piece by the Mail is almost as bad as being exiled to ConHome for a few months."
Couldn't agree with you more. A first class return from Euston to Piccadilly costs £450 so three people including a one night stay for £1,200 sounds remarkably cheap. Perhaps they want him to walk dragging a cross......
He has a very big maj, however. It would take very big shift to unseat him.
True a majority of 12,000 in 2010 and UKIP would have to more than quadruple their vote. Simmonds, who has held the seat since 2001, would have been very hard to shift. However, new candidate with a party organisation that must be demoralised and possibly barely extant, in what we are told is UKIP's heartland, well, got to be worth twenty quid at least.
"I know some PBers blame Bercow for breathing but being a fellow traveller for a shabby attack piece by the Mail is almost as bad as being exiled to ConHome for a few months."
Couldn't agree with you more. A first class return from Euston to Piccadilly costs £450 so three people including a one night stay for £1,200 sounds remarkably cheap. Perhaps they want him to walk dragging a cross......
I think you can see why labour got us into so much debt
OT. From Nick Davis at 'Hacked off' who deserves our support. Sign the petition. This is far more crucial to our democracy than voting methods.....
"I've spent most of the last six years attempting to expose the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World and, for most of that time, I've also been trying to explain that the scandal isn't really about phone-hacking at all…
For sure, the hacking is important. It's a crime and it was being committed casually and routinely by a newspaper which was otherwise happy to beat the drum for law and order. A grotesque invasion of privacy, seasoned with plenty of hypocrisy.
But what makes the whole saga worth exposing is what lies behind it. Put simply: the power of Rupert Murdoch. Why did Scotland Yard spend years telling press, public and parliament false stories about the hacking? Why did the feeble press regulator join in? Why did David Cameron hire the editor who had been responsible?"
In the end, it is that last question which really matters. Cameron wanted Murdoch's man in his office but, more than that, he wanted Murdoch's blessing on his attempt to become Prime Minister. Sometimes, it's good to be naive - to stand back and remember that sweet old idea about democracy being government of the people for the people, and to recognise just how much we have lost, just how fundamentally wrong it is that one man who has no vote wields so much more power than the rest of us.
Roger: Please can you give a reference for this piece.
Apparently Nick Davis did not object to the influences and power of the unelected Mandelson (before he was an MP), Alistair Campbell and even Damian McBride.
Are you being a dullard by chance or have you worked at this one with some forethought ?
I know some PBers blame Bercow for breathing but being a fellow traveller for a shabby attack piece by the Mail is almost as bad as being exiled to ConHome for a few months.
Given that the speaker by convention is required to attend funerals of MPs as you pointed out I think it's correct that he put it onto expenses, but I don't believe he needed two aides to attend with him and could have done the whole thing at less cost.
So my view is neither the same as yours nor the Mail. It is a viewpoint recognising that the man has a duty to both his position and the taxpayer.
Firstly we do not know which other staff attended as opposed to "aides" and more importantly The Speaker is not some minor local functionary but in our Constitution among the most important in the land.
IMHO, £1300 was an appropriate spend of the public purse. Indeed fairly modest in context. Bercow did his duty and most certainly didn't trouble the taxpayer unduly.
"Supporting an uprising against Assad would have handed ISIL an even easier road to Damascus,"
A rather large assumption given the situation on the ground at the time. Remember how concerned Russia was about Assad falling? As for splits: the FSA appears non-sectarian and contains Alawis.
But the FSA's time is past. They appear to have lost all momentum and hope in their martial aims. We should have supported them when there was a chance.
"he did not use them (chemical weapons) against any of our allies in the region so to paint a picture of a deranged dictator is comical."
Recent events have shown that Assad is a butcher and murderer; worse than his father. We can in no way support him without supporting the same sort of evil that we want to defeat.
Your assumption that any government in Syria formed after toppling Assad would be better able to deal with ISIL is laughable. Look at the shambles that is Libya and look at the time it took Egypt to form any semblance of a government post Mubarak. Even then Egypt went back to a military strongman associated with Mubarak to get a peaceful resolution to their Arab spring.
Bashar al-Assad was in power for those? I'm pretty sure it was Hafez in charge for all of those (as you pointed out quizzically enough). Should the son pay for the sins of the father? Bashar al-Assad had no history of using chemical weapons since his inauguration in 2000 until ISIL militants under the guise of the FSA tore through Homs and other areas of eastern Syria.
You have a basic misunderstanding of the situation it seems. Bashar al-Assad is an Alewite, he leads a pretty multi-ethnic country and while he is a strongman he still respected most religious freedoms within Syria including Jews, Christians and a few Hindus there to do business. The FSA is riddled with ISIL militants who infiltrated them early on and after capturing Homs began to kill non-Sunni Muslims. To say that Assad represents the same sort of evil as ISIL is completely and utterly wrong. He represents a different kind of evil, greed and power, which is the same as the House of Saud incidentally. The evil represented by ISIL is unhinged villainy, they will not rest until the areas they control are purged of all non-Sunni Muslims by force. Assad can be called a lot of things, but to say he engaged in sectarian violence on this scale is completely wrong, his violence was political in nature, and while it is true that any uprising or dissent in Syria has been Sunni-led to class his snuffing out of that dissent as sectarian violence is pushing the envelope. Assad is a greedy politician who does not want to be ousted from power and is using whatever means necessary to hold onto power. He is not led by some divine will like ISIL to eradicate non-Sunni Muslims. There is a massive difference.
"I know some PBers blame Bercow for breathing but being a fellow traveller for a shabby attack piece by the Mail is almost as bad as being exiled to ConHome for a few months."
Couldn't agree with you more. A first class return from Euston to Piccadilly costs £450 so three people including a one night stay for £1,200 sounds remarkably cheap. Perhaps they want him to walk dragging a cross......
??
No it doesn't, it can be done for less than a hundred quid - that's first class selected any time in the next week there and back.
"I know some PBers blame Bercow for breathing but being a fellow traveller for a shabby attack piece by the Mail is almost as bad as being exiled to ConHome for a few months."
Couldn't agree with you more. A first class return from Euston to Piccadilly costs £450 so three people including a one night stay for £1,200 sounds remarkably cheap. Perhaps they want him to walk dragging a cross......
"Dragging a cross" ?????????
Some here wouldn't be satisfied if Bercow was pinned to one !!
OT. From Nick Davis at 'Hacked off' who deserves our support. Sign the petition. This is far more crucial to our democracy than voting methods.....
"I've spent most of the last six years attempting to expose the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World and, for most of that time, I've also been trying to explain that the scandal isn't really about phone-hacking at all…
For sure, the hacking is important. It's a crime and it was being committed casually and routinely by a newspaper which was otherwise happy to beat the drum for law and order. A grotesque invasion of privacy, seasoned with plenty of hypocrisy.
But what makes the whole saga worth exposing is what lies behind it. Put simply: the power of Rupert Murdoch. Why did Scotland Yard spend years telling press, public and parliament false stories about the hacking? Why did the feeble press regulator join in? Why did David Cameron hire the editor who had been responsible?"
In the end, it is that last question which really matters. Cameron wanted Murdoch's man in his office but, more than that, he wanted Murdoch's blessing on his attempt to become Prime Minister. Sometimes, it's good to be naive - to stand back and remember that sweet old idea about democracy being government of the people for the people, and to recognise just how much we have lost, just how fundamentally wrong it is that one man who has no vote wields so much more power than the rest of us.
Roger: Please can you give a reference for this piece.
Apparently Nick Davis did not object to the influences and power of the unelected Mandelson (before he was an MP), Alistair Campbell and even Damian McBride.
Those of us who have got onto Hacked Off’s emailing list have this email. It’s urging us to sign a petition to the EU “to stop Murdoch and Co controlling even more of our media”.
I agree with DavidL that economics is fun - see Ms Swann's twitter today-
It was just flashed up on the Sky news business that CIPD thinks that productivity is linked to wage growth - I've not heard this before?
I know Avery appears to be off-duty but can anyone help me with this?
Productivity is the source of real wage (as opposed to inflationary) increases. As the value of labour goes up the employer can afford to pay more for it.
Over the last 6 years the UK has had abysmal productivity growth and a fall in real wages. These are clearly linked. Firstly, if we had made the least productive million employees unemployed as we normally would in a recession the average productivity of those still employed would have gone up. For some reason this did not happen this time.
What has happened instead over the last couple of years is that another couple of million have been employed. A significant number of these newly employed are not particularly skilled or productive and this has had the effect of (a) reducing productivity and (b) reducing average wages.
So in the long term getting those employees more productive is essential if standards of living are going to rise. In the short term increasing employment has distorted wages and productivity.
You keep repeating this and it is an outright lie. Nothing that is happening now is because we did not drop bombs on Syria and had we done so it would certainly not have made the current situation any better. This is simply the warmongers from last year trying to claim some retrospective justification for their position trading on the misfortune of the victims of ISIS today.
It is frankly sickening.
"and had we done so it would certainly not have made the current situation any better. "
That is your opinion. I disagree.
You say what I wrote above is a lie: note you said earlier that I thought we should be supporting ISIS. Now *that* is a lie, and rather a despicable one.
The problem for you anti's is that the situation has got massively worse. The conflict has spread, and thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands?) more have died. And the use of chemical weapons has gone unpunished, again.
Worse, the antis proposed no other solutions. No way forwards, no way to stop what was happening. Whilst some of us warned about the conflict spreading. The antis were against, with no other helpful ideas.
That is what is sickening.
We were right. You were wrong. It's time to face up to it. Sadly even if you did, it is too late to change the situation now, which is quite hopeless.
He has a very big maj, however. It would take very big shift to unseat him.
True a majority of 12,000 in 2010 and UKIP would have to more than quadruple their vote. Simmonds, who has held the seat since 2001, would have been very hard to shift. However, new candidate with a party organisation that must be demoralised and possibly barely extant, in what we are told is UKIP's heartland, well, got to be worth twenty quid at least.
UKIP dropped to 4th in 2010, behind the LD's. They were third in 2005. Never been good LD territorry, but I don’t think UKIP have a candidate lined up at the moment. The guy who fought it for them last time has been thrown out of the party.
OT. From Nick Davis at 'Hacked off' who deserves our support. Sign the petition. This is far more crucial to our democracy than voting methods.....
"I've spent most of the last six years attempting to expose the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World and, for most of that time, I've also been trying to explain that the scandal isn't really about phone-hacking at all…
For sure, the hacking is important. It's a crime and it was being committed casually and routinely by a newspaper which was otherwise happy to beat the drum for law and order. A grotesque invasion of privacy, seasoned with plenty of hypocrisy.
But what makes the whole saga worth exposing is what lies behind it. Put simply: the power of Rupert Murdoch. Why did Scotland Yard spend years telling press, public and parliament false stories about the hacking? Why did the feeble press regulator join in? Why did David Cameron hire the editor who had been responsible?"
In the end, it is that last question which really matters. Cameron wanted Murdoch's man in his office but, more than that, he wanted Murdoch's blessing on his attempt to become Prime Minister. Sometimes, it's good to be naive - to stand back and remember that sweet old idea about democracy being government of the people for the people, and to recognise just how much we have lost, just how fundamentally wrong it is that one man who has no vote wields so much more power than the rest of us.
Roger: Please can you give a reference for this piece.
Apparently Nick Davis did not object to the influences and power of the unelected Mandelson (before he was an MP), Alistair Campbell and even Damian McBride.
Those of us who have got onto Hacked Off’s emailing list have this email. It’s urging us to sign a petition to the EU “to stop Murdoch and Co controlling even more of our media”.
Kind of outside of the original remit of Hacked Off a touch isn't it? Of course it was clear from the start that whatever their claims they were really only ever about being an anti-Murdoch movement which is why they ignored the code breaches by various other non-Murdoch papers.
One thing the French have got right is their absolute hard-nosed clampdown on Islamist militants. When they went it alone in Mali it became clear that French are no longer tolerate Islamists and terrorists at home or abroad. If only our government would take a cue from that. Our "Londonistan" tag is coming back with a vengeance and the government not recalling Parliament and Labour pandering and appeasing Muslim voters by going easy on ISIL and Hamas will harm our long term goal of defeating Islamists. The French have it right and we have it wrong, that is an astonishing fact.
Your assumption that any government in Syria formed after toppling Assad would be better able to deal with ISIL is laughable. Look at the shambles that is Libya and look at the time it took Egypt to form any semblance of a government post Mubarak. Even then Egypt went back to a military strongman associated with Mubarak to get a peaceful resolution to their Arab spring.
Bashar al-Assad was in power for those? I'm pretty sure it was Hafez in charge for all of those (as you pointed out quizzically enough). Should the son pay for the sins of the father? Bashar al-Assad had no history of using chemical weapons since his inauguration in 2000 until ISIL militants under the guise of the FSA tore through Homs and other areas of eastern Syria.
You have a basic misunderstanding of the situation it seems. Bashar al-Assad is an Alewite, he leads a pretty multi-ethnic country and while he is a strongman he still respected most religious freedoms within Syria including Jews, Christians and a few Hindus there to do business. The FSA is riddled with ISIL militants who infiltrated them early on and after capturing Homs began to kill non-Sunni Muslims. To say that Assad represents the same sort of evil as ISIL is completely and utterly wrong. He represents a different kind of evil, greed and power, which is the same as the House of Saud incidentally. The evil represented by ISIL is unhinged villainy, they will not rest until the areas they control are purged of all non-Sunni Muslims by force. Assad can be called a lot of things, but to say he engaged in sectarian violence on this scale is completely wrong, his violence was political in nature, and while it is true that any uprising or dissent in Syria has been Sunni-led to class his snuffing out of that dissent as sectarian violence is pushing the envelope. Assad is a greedy politician who does not want to be ousted from power and is using whatever means necessary to hold onto power. He is not led by some divine will like ISIL to eradicate non-Sunni Muslims. There is a massive difference.
As I stated, Assad's father was in power for those atrocities. The regime is evil, and Assad has proved himself worse than his father.
And as I have said throughout this debate: there is no conceivable way in which the situation now could be worse, and many in which it could be better.
But I think we should just leave this with your statement from below:
"he did not use them (chemical weapons) against any of our allies in the region so to paint a picture of a deranged dictator is comical."
The shame is what a conservative government has done to our armed forces. Like many other armchair generals, you are asking for our young people to risk their lives when they are far short of being properly supported, financed and looked after when they wind up blown to bits.
This at a time when the vast majority of their compatriots are p*ssing it up against the walls at really nice colleges before going on to really nice lives
(as discussed below).
Get real.
Your remarks are populist and may play well to the masses, but are not true. We still spend huge sums on defence. Our army is volunteer. Where can you say they are not well looked after when wounded? This government has instigated a proper fully funded £160 billion equipment programme and it is because numbers of rgulars are reduced that we can afford them the proper equipment. All the hangovers we have been faced with are entirely as a result of labour's inept management of our defence budget.
You keep repeating this and it is an outright lie. Nothing that is happening now is because we did not drop bombs on Syria and had we done so it would certainly not have made the current situation any better. This is simply the warmongers from last year trying to claim some retrospective justification for their position trading on the misfortune of the victims of ISIS today.
It is frankly sickening.
"and had we done so it would certainly not have made the current situation any better. "
That is your opinion. I disagree.
You say what I wrote above is a lie: note you said earlier that I thought we should be supporting ISIS. Now *that* is a lie, and rather a despicable one.
The problem for you anti's is that the situation has got massively worse. The conflict has spread, and thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands?) more have died. And the use of chemical weapons has gone unpunished, again.
Worse, the antis proposed no other solutions. No way forwards, no way to stop what was happening. Whilst some of us warned about the conflict spreading. The antis were against, with no other helpful ideas.
That is what is sickening.
We were right. You were wrong. It's time to face up to it. Sadly even if you did, it is too late to change the situation now, which is quite hopeless.
For a start you are misquoting me. I said that if we had been bombing Assad last year (which is what you want) then we would have been supporting ISIS. That is a fact and one you keep trying to wriggle out of.
Your warmongering is as bad as Blair when we went into Iraq and you are thrashing around to try and justify your stance and using the misfortune of others to try and back up your militarily moronic position.
What is happening now would in no way be better had we dropped bombs on Assad last year but you are so desperate to start killing people at random in the Middle East again that you will use any lie to try and justify your position.
One thing the French have got right is their absolute hard-nosed clampdown on Islamist militants. When they went it alone in Mali it became clear that French are no longer tolerate Islamists and terrorists at home or abroad. If only our government would take a cue from that. Our "Londonistan" tag is coming back with a vengeance and the government not recalling Parliament and Labour pandering and appeasing Muslim voters by going easy on ISIL and Hamas will harm our long term goal of defeating Islamists. The French have it right and we have it wrong, that is an astonishing fact.
It has been said that France is anxious to avoid its sources of uranium falling into hostile arms.
As I stated, Assad's father was in power for those atrocities. The regime is evil, and Assad has proved himself worse than his father.
And as I have said throughout this debate: there is no conceivable way in which the situation now could be worse, and many in which it could be better.
But I think we should just leave this with your statement from below:
"he did not use them (chemical weapons) against any of our allies in the region so to paint a picture of a deranged dictator is comical."
Unbelievable.
I will ask you again, should the son pay for the sins of the father? Bear in mind that Bashar al-Assad was around 20 when those acts occurred I highly doubt he had any influence over them.
You have yet to disprove it, you have instead associated him with his father's actions over which I doubt he had any control.
I'll give you a situation that is worse:
Assad is toppled, sectarian violence sweeps though Syria like it has in Libya with the Shia and Alewites and Sunnis all going head to head to destroy each other, ISIL sweep through Syria during that time and gain control of Syrian military bases and chemical weapons stockpiles. A murderous terrorist group would then have chemical weapons in addition to the US military hardware they picked up in Northern Iraq.
It could have been much worse. Your insistence that toppling Assad would have been a net positive is completely and utterly wrong. Again I will repeat that I think Assad is not a good person or even an okay person, he is a bad man, but he is driven by political greed and lust for power. It is a completely different evil to that presented by ISIL.
Assad is a lesser evil than ISIL, if you can't see that then you are beyond all reason and help. Again, please show me any evidence of Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons against our allies in the region and I may reconsider but I have not seen any. To just say, oh his dad used them so he must be just as bad, is completely stupid.
Finally, I will repeat that before the Arab spring in Syria minorities like Christians, Jews and those few Hindus were able to live in peace and practice their religions freely. In Homs which was nominally under FSA control minorities and non-Sunni Muslims were killed and made to flee. This idea that Assad is as bad or worse than ISIL is wrong. It is in our interests to see Assad defeat ISIL and we will have to deal with the consequences of not supporting him once the dust settles. Toppling Assad and opening up a path for ISIL to take control of chemical weapons would be disastrous.
Mr jessop says ... 'The swithering cowardice occurred last year, and was much closer to home than America ...'
He is correct. Unfortunately for his critics he is probably referring to them and their hysteric resistance to the proposed intervention. The principal culprits are the opportunistic Labour party. The difference between Mr SeanT's attitude is phenomenal. Israelis bomb people sending rockets into their own country and he complains. But we are for him we ourselves are not doing enough to bomb another group who are nowhere near us. I am at least consistent. We should have bombed Assad who was gassing his own people, we should bomb the ISIS mass murderers and we should have sympathy with Israel who face a bunch of genocidal maniacs.
You keep repeating this and it is an outright lie. Nothing that is happening now is because we did not drop bombs on Syria and had we done so it would certainly not have made the current situation any better. This is simply the warmongers from last year trying to claim some retrospective justification for their position trading on the misfortune of the victims of ISIS today.
It is frankly sickening.
"and had we done so it would certainly not have made the current situation any better. "
That is your opinion. I disagree.
You say what I wrote above is a lie: note you said earlier that I thought we should be supporting ISIS. Now *that* is a lie, and rather a despicable one.
The problem for you anti's is that the situation has got massively worse. The conflict has spread, and thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands?) more have died. And the use of chemical weapons has gone unpunished, again.
Worse, the antis proposed no other solutions. No way forwards, no way to stop what was happening. Whilst some of us warned about the conflict spreading. The antis were against, with no other helpful ideas.
That is what is sickening.
We were right. You were wrong. It's time to face up to it. Sadly even if you did, it is too late to change the situation now, which is quite hopeless.
For a start you are misquoting me. I said that if we had been bombing Assad last year (which is what you want) then we would have been supporting ISIS. That is a fact and one you keep trying to wriggle out of.
Your warmongering is as bad as Blair when we went into Iraq and you are thrashing around to try and justify your stance and using the misfortune of others to try and back up your militarily moronic position.
What is happening now would in no way be better had we dropped bombs on Assad last year but you are so desperate to start killing people at random in the Middle East again that you will use any lie to try and justify your position.
Your quote to me from earlier:
"So you do think we should have been supporting ISIS last year then? Its a view I suppose but a very strange one."
It's quite clearly not my view, as you well knew when you wrote that. I might as well have asked: "So you're glad that ISIS have rampaged over Syria and Iraq? It's a view, I suppose hut a strange one."
You and others are lumping all the anti-Assad groups together to make your 'point'.
The truth is you got it wrong, big time. Just like your hilarious position on a Lisbon Treaty vote post-ratification.
Mr jessop says ... 'The swithering cowardice occurred last year, and was much closer to home than America ...'
He is correct. Unfortunately for his critics he is probably referring to them and their hysteric resistance to the proposed intervention. The principal culprits are the opportunistic Labour party. The difference between Mr SeanT's attitude is phenomenal. Israelis bomb people sending rockets into their own country and he complains. But we are for him we ourselves are not doing enough to bomb another group who are nowhere near us. I am at least consistent. We should have bombed Assad who was gassing his own people, we should bomb the ISIS mass murderers and we should have sympathy with Israel who face a bunch of genocidal maniacs.
Being consistently wrong as you are on this issue is nothing to be proud of. Sad armchair generals always willing to support killing other people when they have no real concept of either the current situation nor the consequences of the action they propose.
I am very glad saner heads prevailed in Parliament last year.
"So you do think we should have been supporting ISIS last year then? Its a view I suppose but a very strange one."
It's quite clearly not my view, as you well knew when you wrote that. I might as well have asked: "So you're glad that ISIS have rampaged over Syria and Iraq? It's a view, I suppose hut a strange one."
You and others are lumping all the anti-Assad groups together to make your 'point'.
The truth is you got it wrong, big time. Just like your hilarious position on a Lisbon Treaty vote post-ratification.
You know full well that the comment is in direct response to your claims we should have bombed Assad and my assertion - which is I am afraid undeniable - that this would have help[ed ISIS. If, as you do, you claim we should bomb Assad then you are directly supporting ISIS on the ground.
Warmongers like yourself should learn when to shut up before you get even more innocent people killed.
Mr jessop says ... 'The swithering cowardice occurred last year, and was much closer to home than America ...'
He is correct. Unfortunately for his critics he is probably referring to them and their hysteric resistance to the proposed intervention. The principal culprits are the opportunistic Labour party. The difference between Mr SeanT's attitude is phenomenal. Israelis bomb people sending rockets into their own country and he complains. But we are for him we ourselves are not doing enough to bomb another group who are nowhere near us. I am at least consistent. We should have bombed Assad who was gassing his own people, we should bomb the ISIS mass murderers and we should have sympathy with Israel who face a bunch of genocidal maniacs.
Being consistently wrong as you are on this issue is nothing to be proud of. Sad armchair generals always willing to support killing other people when they have no real concept of either the current situation nor the consequences of the action they propose.
I am very glad saner heads prevailed in Parliament last year.
The same is always easy to say about people who wash their hands and ignore an issue. Your remarks are quite self serving because you assume (or pretend) that doing nothing is somehow magically better. You assume based on no evidence (indeed all the evidence is to the contrary) that doing nothing has saved lives. But in fact we see that suffereing and murder has continued and increased in its barbarity. I will ignore your quite nasty and pejorative use of 'armchair generals', suffice it to say you have not gone up in my estimation.
Mr jessop says ... 'The swithering cowardice occurred last year, and was much closer to home than America ...'
He is correct. Unfortunately for his critics he is probably referring to them and their hysteric resistance to the proposed intervention. The principal culprits are the opportunistic Labour party. The difference between Mr SeanT's attitude is phenomenal. Israelis bomb people sending rockets into their own country and he complains. But we are for him we ourselves are not doing enough to bomb another group who are nowhere near us. I am at least consistent. We should have bombed Assad who was gassing his own people, we should bomb the ISIS mass murderers and we should have sympathy with Israel who face a bunch of genocidal maniacs.
Being consistently wrong as you are on this issue is nothing to be proud of. Sad armchair generals always willing to support killing other people when they have no real concept of either the current situation nor the consequences of the action they propose.
I am very glad saner heads prevailed in Parliament last year.
The same is always easy to say about people who wash their hands and ignore an issue. Your remarks are quite self serving because you assume (or pretend) that doing nothing is somehow magically better. You assume based on no evidence (indeed all the evidence is to the contrary) that doing nothing has saved lives. But in fact we see that suffereing and murder has continued and increased in its barbarity. I will ignore your quite nasty and pejorative use of 'armchair generals', suffice it to say you have not gone up in my estimation.
I don't want to go up in your estimation. It would be proof I was doing something wrong.
Those who want to drop bombs on others are the ones who need to show that it will make a material difference to the situation otherwise they are simply repeating that old useless mantra of 'we must do something'.
Anyone with any knowledge of the area and with even the slightest bit of sense would realise that 'bombing Assad' (whatever that might mean given the chaos on the ground) would be counterproductive and in this particular instance would only have helped the extremists such as ISIS. Those who are happy to sit in the safety of their own homes and push for us to send our forces to bomb others just because 'something must be done' deserve to be treated with scorn and derision. Hence the very accurate term armchair general for people like you.
"So you do think we should have been supporting ISIS last year then? Its a view I suppose but a very strange one."
It's quite clearly not my view, as you well knew when you wrote that. I might as well have asked: "So you're glad that ISIS have rampaged over Syria and Iraq? It's a view, I suppose hut a strange one."
You and others are lumping all the anti-Assad groups together to make your 'point'.
The truth is you got it wrong, big time. Just like your hilarious position on a Lisbon Treaty vote post-ratification.
You know full well that the comment is in direct response to your claims we should have bombed Assad and my assertion - which is I am afraid undeniable - that this would have help[ed ISIS. If, as you do, you claim we should bomb Assad then you are directly supporting ISIS on the ground.
Warmongers like yourself should learn when to shut up before you get even more innocent people killed.
It is deniable, I am afraid.
And now you are calling me a warmonger. Chortle. I think you've just lost the argument.
Mr jessop says ... 'The swithering cowardice occurred last year, and was much closer to home than America ...'
He is correct. Unfortunately for his critics he is probably referring to them and their hysteric resistance to the proposed intervention. The principal culprits are the opportunistic Labour party. The difference between Mr SeanT's attitude is phenomenal. Israelis bomb people sending rockets into their own country and he complains. But we are for him we ourselves are not doing enough to bomb another group who are nowhere near us. I am at least consistent. We should have bombed Assad who was gassing his own people, we should bomb the ISIS mass murderers and we should have sympathy with Israel who face a bunch of genocidal maniacs.
Being consistently wrong as you are on this issue is nothing to be proud of. Sad armchair generals always willing to support killing other people when they have no real concept of either the current situation nor the consequences of the action they propose.
I am very glad saner heads prevailed in Parliament last year.
Show me where you, or any of these 'saner heads', stated that there was a risk of a Caliphate being declared and the war spreading into Iraq, with all the attendant consequences and deaths, if we did nothing?
How can they be sane if they did not see, or worse ignored, the consequences of doing nothing? Consequences innocents (and not you) are seeing every hour.
(BTW: it's sad that you think I am 'consistently wrong'. I am avowedly on the fence about being in or out of Europe. I have previously commended you for trying to discover more information about how a Britain out of Europe would look. It seems I was 'wrong' to commend you. It won't happen again.)
"So you do think we should have been supporting ISIS last year then? Its a view I suppose but a very strange one."
It's quite clearly not my view, as you well knew when you wrote that. I might as well have asked: "So you're glad that ISIS have rampaged over Syria and Iraq? It's a view, I suppose hut a strange one."
You and others are lumping all the anti-Assad groups together to make your 'point'.
The truth is you got it wrong, big time. Just like your hilarious position on a Lisbon Treaty vote post-ratification.
You know full well that the comment is in direct response to your claims we should have bombed Assad and my assertion - which is I am afraid undeniable - that this would have help[ed ISIS. If, as you do, you claim we should bomb Assad then you are directly supporting ISIS on the ground.
Warmongers like yourself should learn when to shut up before you get even more innocent people killed.
It is deniable, I am afraid.
And now you are calling me a warmonger. Chortle. I think you've just lost the argument.
No. If you what to continually advocate bombing people even though there is no clear strategic value to it then you are indeed a warmonger. Get used to it.
"So you do think we should have been supporting ISIS last year then? Its a view I suppose but a very strange one."
It's quite clearly not my view, as you well knew when you wrote that. I might as well have asked: "So you're glad that ISIS have rampaged over Syria and Iraq? It's a view, I suppose hut a strange one."
You and others are lumping all the anti-Assad groups together to make your 'point'.
The truth is you got it wrong, big time. Just like your hilarious position on a Lisbon Treaty vote post-ratification.
You know full well that the comment is in direct response to your claims we should have bombed Assad and my assertion - which is I am afraid undeniable - that this would have help[ed ISIS. If, as you do, you claim we should bomb Assad then you are directly supporting ISIS on the ground.
Warmongers like yourself should learn when to shut up before you get even more innocent people killed.
It is deniable, I am afraid.
And now you are calling me a warmonger. Chortle. I think you've just lost the argument.
No. If you what to continually advocate bombing people even though there is no clear strategic value to it then you are indeed a warmonger. Get used to it.
I looked at the issue, looked at the alternative responses, and with heavy heart came to the conclusion that something should be done. It was hardly an instinctive, hurried or easy decision.
If I recall correctly, I was also criticised when I said the conflict may spread if we did nothing (especially in relation to it spreading to Turkey, and I think I mentioned Iraq as well).
Tell me, did you acknowledge it could spread? Did you make any comment on the risks of doing nothing? Did you give any thought to it?
"So you do think we should have been supporting ISIS last year then? Its a view I suppose but a very strange one."
It's quite clearly not my view, as you well knew when you wrote that. I might as well have asked: "So you're glad that ISIS have rampaged over Syria and Iraq? It's a view, I suppose hut a strange one."
You and others are lumping all the anti-Assad groups together to make your 'point'.
The truth is you got it wrong, big time. Just like your hilarious position on a Lisbon Treaty vote post-ratification.
You know full well that the comment is in direct response to your claims we should have bombed Assad and my assertion - which is I am afraid undeniable - that this would have help[ed ISIS. If, as you do, you claim we should bomb Assad then you are directly supporting ISIS on the ground.
Warmongers like yourself should learn when to shut up before you get even more innocent people killed.
It is deniable, I am afraid.
And now you are calling me a warmonger. Chortle. I think you've just lost the argument.
No. If you what to continually advocate bombing people even though there is no clear strategic value to it then you are indeed a warmonger. Get used to it.
I looked at the issue, looked at the alternative responses, and with heavy heart came to the conclusion that something should be done. It was hardly an instinctive, hurried or easy decision.
If I recall correctly, I was also criticised when I said the conflict may spread if we did nothing (especially in relation to it spreading to Turkey, and I think I mentioned Iraq as well).
Tell me, did you acknowledge it could spread? Did you make any comment on the risks of doing nothing? Did you give any thought to it?
Having spent a great deal of time in Kurdistan and with friends in both Iraq and Syria right now I can assure you I have given more thought to it than you can ever imagine.
"So you do think we should have been supporting ISIS last year then? Its a view I suppose but a very strange one."
It's quite clearly not my view, as you well knew when you wrote that. I might as well have asked: "So you're glad that ISIS have rampaged over Syria and Iraq? It's a view, I suppose hut a strange one."
You and others are lumping all the anti-Assad groups together to make your 'point'.
The truth is you got it wrong, big time. Just like your hilarious position on a Lisbon Treaty vote post-ratification.
You know full well that the comment is in direct response to your claims we should have bombed Assad and my assertion - which is I am afraid undeniable - that this would have help[ed ISIS. If, as you do, you claim we should bomb Assad then you are directly supporting ISIS on the ground.
Warmongers like yourself should learn when to shut up before you get even more innocent people killed.
It is deniable, I am afraid.
And now you are calling me a warmonger. Chortle. I think you've just lost the argument.
No. If you what to continually advocate bombing people even though there is no clear strategic value to it then you are indeed a warmonger. Get used to it.
I looked at the issue, looked at the alternative responses, and with heavy heart came to the conclusion that something should be done. It was hardly an instinctive, hurried or easy decision.
If I recall correctly, I was also criticised when I said the conflict may spread if we did nothing (especially in relation to it spreading to Turkey, and I think I mentioned Iraq as well).
Tell me, did you acknowledge it could spread? Did you make any comment on the risks of doing nothing? Did you give any thought to it?
Having spent a great deal of time in Kurdistan and with friends in both Iraq and Syria right now I can assure you I have given more thought to it than you can ever imagine.
I have quite an imagination.
So, with all that time spent in, and knowledge of, that area, you did not think the conflict could spread if we did nothing? Or you did think it could, but chose not to mention that risk?
The former shows poor judgement, given consequent events. The latter appalling blindness.
No, I knew the conflict could and would spread no matter what we did. I also said so extensively at the time but don't expect you to remember that as you seem to have a very selective memory.
What I also said though was that random acts of bombing would do nothing to prevent that spread and that if it did spread towards Turkey then that would be the point at which we would have to commit to protecting the Turkish borders under our NATO agreements. I even remember arguing that any effective campaign against Assad's forces would need us to conduct extensive bombing in Lebanon since a lot of his support was from Hezbollah. Funnily enough people (including you) didn't really want to hear that.
No, I knew the conflict could and would spread no matter what we did. I also said so extensively at the time but don't expect you to remember that as you seem to have a very selective memory.
What I also said though was that random acts of bombing would do nothing to prevent that spread and that if it did spread towards Turkey then that would be the point at which we would have to commit to protecting the Turkish borders under our NATO agreements. I even remember arguing that any effective campaign against Assad's forces would need us to conduct extensive bombing in Lebanon since a lot of his support was from Hezbollah. Funnily enough people (including you) didn't really want to hear that.
I honestly cannot remember that. If you did, then fair enough. Whilst you are at it, show where I 'didn't want to hear that'. Or are you smearing again?
But it's a shame that, despite having that opinion, you sat back seemingly knowing it would spread.
How do you feel about all the consequent deaths? Do you have even a little gnawing doubt that you might just have been wrong?
No, I knew the conflict could and would spread no matter what we did. I also said so extensively at the time but don't expect you to remember that as you seem to have a very selective memory.
What I also said though was that random acts of bombing would do nothing to prevent that spread and that if it did spread towards Turkey then that would be the point at which we would have to commit to protecting the Turkish borders under our NATO agreements. I even remember arguing that any effective campaign against Assad's forces would need us to conduct extensive bombing in Lebanon since a lot of his support was from Hezbollah. Funnily enough people (including you) didn't really want to hear that.
I honestly cannot remember that. If you did, then fair enough. Whilst you are at it, show where I 'didn't want to hear that'. Or are you smearing again?
But it's a shame that, despite having that opinion, you sat back seemingly knowing it would spread.
How do you feel about all the consequent deaths? Do you have even a little gnawing doubt that you might just have been wrong?
As for 'random acts of bombing': really?
No doubts at all. The deaths are the responsibility of those committing them on the ground. All we can do is make sure we do not make it worse and that where we can make a clear strategic difference we do so. Neither of those cases applied - nor applies now - inside Syria.
And yes, whilst your intent may be for targeted strikes, in the end what you have is random acts of bombing which will almost inevitably kill far more innocent people than 'guilty'.
No, I knew the conflict could and would spread no matter what we did. I also said so extensively at the time but don't expect you to remember that as you seem to have a very selective memory.
What I also said though was that random acts of bombing would do nothing to prevent that spread and that if it did spread towards Turkey then that would be the point at which we would have to commit to protecting the Turkish borders under our NATO agreements. I even remember arguing that any effective campaign against Assad's forces would need us to conduct extensive bombing in Lebanon since a lot of his support was from Hezbollah. Funnily enough people (including you) didn't really want to hear that.
I honestly cannot remember that. If you did, then fair enough. Whilst you are at it, show where I 'didn't want to hear that'. Or are you smearing again?
But it's a shame that, despite having that opinion, you sat back seemingly knowing it would spread.
How do you feel about all the consequent deaths? Do you have even a little gnawing doubt that you might just have been wrong?
As for 'random acts of bombing': really?
No doubts at all. The deaths are the responsibility of those committing them on the ground. All we can do is make sure we do not make it worse and that where we can make a clear strategic difference we do so. Neither of those cases applied - nor applies now - inside Syria.
And yes, whilst your intent may be for targeted strikes, in the end what you have is random acts of bombing which will almost inevitably kill far more innocent people than 'guilty'.
Who decides when something will make a 'clear strategic difference'? You? There will always be muddy waters rather than clear. And how can we ever be sure that we will not make things worse? Yours is a recipe for non-intervention in any situation - which is a reasonable position to have, just as long as you are honest about it.
The fact is, you were willing to sit back while more people died, whilst 'knowing' the conflict would spread. You were also willing to let Assad get away with using chemical weapons. You may have made that decision for what you thought were the best possible reasons, but those people are dead nonetheless.
If and when we need to do something, it will be much harder, more people will have died in the meantime, and more will die in the process.
I think we missed an opportunity. A shitty, poor opportunity, but an opportunity nonetheless. You disagree, Fair enough?
Comments
Where we seem to differ is that, in my mind at least, the situation clearly did exist in Syria last year, and it was a much better opportunity than we have now.
And in the meantime, tens of thousands have died in Syria and Iraq. More will do so. Worse, the use of chemical weapons is now more or less accepted by the west. After all, we did nothing about it after Hallubjah and Syria.
I fear history will favour my side of the argument, not yours. We missed a great chance to nip this in the bud, or at least contain the poison.
£1300 for a round trip on official business for the Speaker and two staff (who will also likely have attended in their official capacity) for the funeral of an MP is IMHO not excessive.
I'm sure the family of Paul Goggins will feel their relative was appropriately honoured.
We should have supported the FSA against Assad. If Assad had fallen (and it was very tight, which was exactly why Assad resorted to using chemical weapons) then a new leader with combined Syrian Army and FSA, along with western support, could have stopped or contained much of this mess.
It would also have sent a clear message that the use of chemical weapons is abhorred by the international community.
Heck, It would stick in my throat, but I'd have even agreed to let Assad and his family take themselves and their riches to (Russia?) with an international guarantee of no prosecution, if it would have stopped this current mess.
Instead, the anti-war people (and Miliband's perverse and sick politicking) has directly led to these deaths. Most were, at least, well-meaning.
I hope they can sleep at night.
Israel may well have broken international law in regard to their actions on Gaza, as their actions may be seen as not proportionate in dealing with the security risks they faced. I know Hamas is a pain in the *ss, but Israel are creating more enemies by their actions. At some stage Israel may face being at war, where no one really wins, due to the damage and casualties caused.
This is a non story really ... or rather the story is the continuing flak that Bercow continues to attract from the gutter press.
Even so it is difficult to say with any level of certainty what removing Assad would have done to the current conflict, and ISIL are so very evil that we must now all ourselves with him to ensure their destruction. Assad will leave us and our allies alone once the threat is gone, his removal and subsequent rolling through of ISIL in Syria puts Egypt, Israel and Jordan (and probably even Palestine) in danger of ISIL extremists. Assad has been in power for a long time and had chemical weapons for a long time, he did not use them against any of our allies in the region so to paint a picture of a deranged dictator is comical.
It is frankly sickening.
It would depend on the "staff"? Any high level politician attending a public event will have at least a few "staff" in case of unforeseen events.
In fact, the old taxation scheme is part of the reason why accumulators and complex bets like Double Stakes About became popular - by making the odds longer or effectively recycling the original stake you minimised your tax.
I hope they can sleep at night. '
Yes I agree with your post.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11014543/White-hipsters-not-black-looters-are-now-threatening-post-riots-London.html
Yes thoise days of the irritating betting tax I remember with not too much fondness! I see that Labour may be looking to put some tax like this back on betting.
I know some PBers blame Bercow for breathing but being a fellow traveller for a shabby attack piece by the Mail is almost as bad as being exiled to ConHome for a few months.
A rather large assumption given the situation on the ground at the time. Remember how concerned Russia was about Assad falling? As for splits: the FSA appears non-sectarian and contains Alawis.
But the FSA's time is past. They appear to have lost all momentum and hope in their martial aims. We should have supported them when there was a chance.
"he did not use them (chemical weapons) against any of our allies in the region so to paint a picture of a deranged dictator is comical."
My God, do you actually believe that? You say he is not a deranged dictator because he did not use chemical weapons against us? Do you care to rethink that?
The entire regime is evil and corrupt: in 1980 Assad's father killed thousands in the siege of Aleppo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Aleppo_(1980)
In 1981, hundreds in Hama:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Hama_massacre
And if that was not enough, tens of thousands more in Aleppo in 1982:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Hama_massacre
Recent events have shown that Assad is a butcher and murderer; worse than his father. We can in no way support him without supporting the same sort of evil that we want to defeat.
"I've spent most of the last six years attempting to expose the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World and, for most of that time, I've also been trying to explain that the scandal isn't really about phone-hacking at all…
For sure, the hacking is important. It's a crime and it was being committed casually and routinely by a newspaper which was otherwise happy to beat the drum for law and order. A grotesque invasion of privacy, seasoned with plenty of hypocrisy.
But what makes the whole saga worth exposing is what lies behind it. Put simply: the power of Rupert Murdoch. Why did Scotland Yard spend years telling press, public and parliament false stories about the hacking? Why did the feeble press regulator join in? Why did David Cameron hire the editor who had been responsible?"
In the end, it is that last question which really matters. Cameron wanted Murdoch's man in his office but, more than that, he wanted Murdoch's blessing on his attempt to become Prime Minister. Sometimes, it's good to be naive - to stand back and remember that sweet old idea about democracy being government of the people for the people, and to recognise just how much we have lost, just how fundamentally wrong it is that one man who has no vote wields so much more power than the rest of us.
"I understand that Simmonds’ decision is related to his own constituency. One of his party colleagues tells me:
‘He’s under massive pressure in his constituency. Party infrastructure evaporated. UKIP all over him.’
And he has told his local paper that the impact on his young family has been ‘so huge and so negative that I’m not prepared to tolerate it anymore’."
I am not sure about why his family should be affected, I hope nobody is being silly. However, the "Party infrastructure evaporated", is very interesting. I think a trip to the bookies and getting a few quid on UKIP to take the seat must be in order.
Edit to add sorry I forgot the link:
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/08/foreign-office-clear-out-continues-mark-simmonds-stands-down-as-fco-minister/
So my view is neither the same as yours nor the Mail. It is a viewpoint recognising that the man has a duty to both his position and the taxpayer.
He has a very big maj, however. It would take very big shift to unseat him.
It was just flashed up on the Sky news business that CIPD thinks that productivity is linked to wage growth - I've not heard this before?
I know Avery appears to be off-duty but can anyone help me with this?
"I know some PBers blame Bercow for breathing but being a fellow traveller for a shabby attack piece by the Mail is almost as bad as being exiled to ConHome for a few months."
Couldn't agree with you more. A first class return from Euston to Piccadilly costs £450 so three people including a one night stay for £1,200 sounds remarkably cheap. Perhaps they want him to walk dragging a cross......
Apparently Nick Davis did not object to the influences and power of the unelected Mandelson (before he was an MP), Alistair Campbell and even Damian McBride.
IMHO, £1300 was an appropriate spend of the public purse. Indeed fairly modest in context. Bercow did his duty and most certainly didn't trouble the taxpayer unduly.
Bashar al-Assad was in power for those? I'm pretty sure it was Hafez in charge for all of those (as you pointed out quizzically enough). Should the son pay for the sins of the father? Bashar al-Assad had no history of using chemical weapons since his inauguration in 2000 until ISIL militants under the guise of the FSA tore through Homs and other areas of eastern Syria.
You have a basic misunderstanding of the situation it seems. Bashar al-Assad is an Alewite, he leads a pretty multi-ethnic country and while he is a strongman he still respected most religious freedoms within Syria including Jews, Christians and a few Hindus there to do business. The FSA is riddled with ISIL militants who infiltrated them early on and after capturing Homs began to kill non-Sunni Muslims. To say that Assad represents the same sort of evil as ISIL is completely and utterly wrong. He represents a different kind of evil, greed and power, which is the same as the House of Saud incidentally. The evil represented by ISIL is unhinged villainy, they will not rest until the areas they control are purged of all non-Sunni Muslims by force. Assad can be called a lot of things, but to say he engaged in sectarian violence on this scale is completely wrong, his violence was political in nature, and while it is true that any uprising or dissent in Syria has been Sunni-led to class his snuffing out of that dissent as sectarian violence is pushing the envelope. Assad is a greedy politician who does not want to be ousted from power and is using whatever means necessary to hold onto power. He is not led by some divine will like ISIL to eradicate non-Sunni Muslims. There is a massive difference.
No it doesn't, it can be done for less than a hundred quid - that's first class selected any time in the next week there and back.
http://www.farefinder.virgintrains.co.uk/
Some here wouldn't be satisfied if Bercow was pinned to one !!
............................................
Welcome back BTW.
Over the last 6 years the UK has had abysmal productivity growth and a fall in real wages. These are clearly linked. Firstly, if we had made the least productive million employees unemployed as we normally would in a recession the average productivity of those still employed would have gone up. For some reason this did not happen this time.
What has happened instead over the last couple of years is that another couple of million have been employed. A significant number of these newly employed are not particularly skilled or productive and this has had the effect of (a) reducing productivity and (b) reducing average wages.
So in the long term getting those employees more productive is essential if standards of living are going to rise. In the short term increasing employment has distorted wages and productivity.
And now back to some boring law....
That is your opinion. I disagree.
You say what I wrote above is a lie: note you said earlier that I thought we should be supporting ISIS. Now *that* is a lie, and rather a despicable one.
The problem for you anti's is that the situation has got massively worse. The conflict has spread, and thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands?) more have died. And the use of chemical weapons has gone unpunished, again.
Worse, the antis proposed no other solutions. No way forwards, no way to stop what was happening. Whilst some of us warned about the conflict spreading. The antis were against, with no other helpful ideas.
That is what is sickening.
We were right. You were wrong. It's time to face up to it. Sadly even if you did, it is too late to change the situation now, which is quite hopeless.
And as I have said throughout this debate: there is no conceivable way in which the situation now could be worse, and many in which it could be better.
But I think we should just leave this with your statement from below:
"he did not use them (chemical weapons) against any of our allies in the region so to paint a picture of a deranged dictator is comical."
Unbelievable.
Its not so astonishing when you consider Marine Le Pen is leading the French presidential polls. And that was before ISIS.
This government has instigated a proper fully funded £160 billion equipment programme and it is because numbers of rgulars are reduced that we can afford them the proper equipment. All the hangovers we have been faced with are entirely as a result of labour's inept management of our defence budget.
Then nuke the winner.
Your warmongering is as bad as Blair when we went into Iraq and you are thrashing around to try and justify your stance and using the misfortune of others to try and back up your militarily moronic position.
What is happening now would in no way be better had we dropped bombs on Assad last year but you are so desperate to start killing people at random in the Middle East again that you will use any lie to try and justify your position.
You have yet to disprove it, you have instead associated him with his father's actions over which I doubt he had any control.
I'll give you a situation that is worse:
Assad is toppled, sectarian violence sweeps though Syria like it has in Libya with the Shia and Alewites and Sunnis all going head to head to destroy each other, ISIL sweep through Syria during that time and gain control of Syrian military bases and chemical weapons stockpiles. A murderous terrorist group would then have chemical weapons in addition to the US military hardware they picked up in Northern Iraq.
It could have been much worse. Your insistence that toppling Assad would have been a net positive is completely and utterly wrong. Again I will repeat that I think Assad is not a good person or even an okay person, he is a bad man, but he is driven by political greed and lust for power. It is a completely different evil to that presented by ISIL.
Assad is a lesser evil than ISIL, if you can't see that then you are beyond all reason and help. Again, please show me any evidence of Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons against our allies in the region and I may reconsider but I have not seen any. To just say, oh his dad used them so he must be just as bad, is completely stupid.
Finally, I will repeat that before the Arab spring in Syria minorities like Christians, Jews and those few Hindus were able to live in peace and practice their religions freely. In Homs which was nominally under FSA control minorities and non-Sunni Muslims were killed and made to flee. This idea that Assad is as bad or worse than ISIL is wrong. It is in our interests to see Assad defeat ISIL and we will have to deal with the consequences of not supporting him once the dust settles. Toppling Assad and opening up a path for ISIL to take control of chemical weapons would be disastrous.
He is correct. Unfortunately for his critics he is probably referring to them and their hysteric resistance to the proposed intervention. The principal culprits are the opportunistic Labour party.
The difference between Mr SeanT's attitude is phenomenal. Israelis bomb people sending rockets into their own country and he complains. But we are for him we ourselves are not doing enough to bomb another group who are nowhere near us.
I am at least consistent. We should have bombed Assad who was gassing his own people, we should bomb the ISIS mass murderers and we should have sympathy with Israel who face a bunch of genocidal maniacs.
"So you do think we should have been supporting ISIS last year then? Its a view I suppose but a very strange one."
It's quite clearly not my view, as you well knew when you wrote that. I might as well have asked: "So you're glad that ISIS have rampaged over Syria and Iraq? It's a view, I suppose hut a strange one."
You and others are lumping all the anti-Assad groups together to make your 'point'.
The truth is you got it wrong, big time. Just like your hilarious position on a Lisbon Treaty vote post-ratification.
I am very glad saner heads prevailed in Parliament last year.
Warmongers like yourself should learn when to shut up before you get even more innocent people killed.
I will ignore your quite nasty and pejorative use of 'armchair generals', suffice it to say you have not gone up in my estimation.
Those who want to drop bombs on others are the ones who need to show that it will make a material difference to the situation otherwise they are simply repeating that old useless mantra of 'we must do something'.
Anyone with any knowledge of the area and with even the slightest bit of sense would realise that 'bombing Assad' (whatever that might mean given the chaos on the ground) would be counterproductive and in this particular instance would only have helped the extremists such as ISIS. Those who are happy to sit in the safety of their own homes and push for us to send our forces to bomb others just because 'something must be done' deserve to be treated with scorn and derision. Hence the very accurate term armchair general for people like you.
And now you are calling me a warmonger. Chortle. I think you've just lost the argument.
How can they be sane if they did not see, or worse ignored, the consequences of doing nothing? Consequences innocents (and not you) are seeing every hour.
(BTW: it's sad that you think I am 'consistently wrong'. I am avowedly on the fence about being in or out of Europe. I have previously commended you for trying to discover more information about how a Britain out of Europe would look. It seems I was 'wrong' to commend you. It won't happen again.)
If I recall correctly, I was also criticised when I said the conflict may spread if we did nothing (especially in relation to it spreading to Turkey, and I think I mentioned Iraq as well).
Tell me, did you acknowledge it could spread? Did you make any comment on the risks of doing nothing? Did you give any thought to it?
So, with all that time spent in, and knowledge of, that area, you did not think the conflict could spread if we did nothing? Or you did think it could, but chose not to mention that risk?
The former shows poor judgement, given consequent events. The latter appalling blindness.
But it's a shame that, despite having that opinion, you sat back seemingly knowing it would spread.
How do you feel about all the consequent deaths? Do you have even a little gnawing doubt that you might just have been wrong?
As for 'random acts of bombing': really?
And yes, whilst your intent may be for targeted strikes, in the end what you have is random acts of bombing which will almost inevitably kill far more innocent people than 'guilty'.
The fact is, you were willing to sit back while more people died, whilst 'knowing' the conflict would spread. You were also willing to let Assad get away with using chemical weapons. You may have made that decision for what you thought were the best possible reasons, but those people are dead nonetheless.
If and when we need to do something, it will be much harder, more people will have died in the meantime, and more will die in the process.
I think we missed an opportunity. A shitty, poor opportunity, but an opportunity nonetheless. You disagree, Fair enough?