the only thing missing from this thread to make it complete was a sneer at the Lib Dems and Charles obliged.
Well done everybody. Glad you have all put the world to rights by deciding the best thing to do is to have no compassion, and no qualms, and that we can do what we want without worrying about the consequences. And no, there isn't a punchline. You have properly pissed me off.
Get off your high horse.
The LibDems for 2 decades were the most duplicitous of political parties. My family saw them operate in the West country, in the Summer country, in London and in Scotland. And senior members of the party adopted different and contradictory positions in each region, carefully tailored to what they thought would appeal to the local voters.
You really think we don't share information about interactions with politicians?
(As an aside, I respect individual MPs who did a good thing in 2010 in agreeing a coalition and serving the public for 5 difficult years. But the party itself is institutionally despicable)
Stop virtue signalling. You are neck deep in the most duplicitous political party in history.
The Tories are entirely transparent.
They are interested in governing in what they believe to be the best interests of the country. This requires being in power. They don't lie to anyone about their objectives.
What objectives do other political parties have that they do lie about?
As an example, the LibDems were pro-Europe in London and anti-Europe in the West Country.
Following the rules is what makes you the "good guys".
I understand that point perfectly well. But how to fight a war against an enemy which will not abide by any of the laws of war? That's the question I'm asking.
While we argue about legal niceties, IS are smuggling into Europe any number of operatives who will have no hesitation in carrying out the most bestial and brutal of attacks, unless we stop them. I want my government to focus on that. I suspect I'm not alone.
In the last ten years there has been one successful Islamist terror attack in the United Kingdom - the beheading of Lee Rigby. That itself was only the second successful Islamist terror attack in recorded history. Neither of which are directly related to ISIS
There have also been two failed attacks, both of which failed entirely due to the incompetence of the attackers. Neither of which are direcrtly related to ISIS.
That pales compard to the number of people killed by the IRA over a 40 years campaign.
And yet. We refused to give up our fundamental rights to the IRA and when governments capitulated to fear and on occasion broke the principles of decency and Human Rights, it was abandoned under public pressure (such as internment).
Yet despite this, you appear to be TERRIFIED of being murdered in your bed by ISIS and/or Islamic extremists who have virtually no historic of successful attacks and a strong record of incompetence. And for this you will give up not only your own rights but the principle that the United Kingdom is a beacon of democracy and respecter of Human rights.
It sickens me to see people cower in fear and allow their government to control THEM not terrorists by using the excuse of fear and threat which has never been realised to any meaningful extent.
Yes, and ten years and two months ago, terrorists exploded three bombs in London.
We also don't know how many plots have been stopped by our intelligence services.
You are taking the threat of terrorism too lightly in order to support your leader's stupid stance on taking more refugees. A stance that the majority of people in Britain (and most likely Scotland) don't support.
Keep ploughing on though, it just makes you look stupid.
Although I agree it's very amusing to see the disconnect between media and public opinion on the drones/refugees, I wonder why PBers are not always so up in arms about the media not reflecting public will on Austerity (the media including the BBC is pretty uncritical of it while opinion polls constantly show the public against it).
No they don't - Osborne's budget was generally supported in the polling.
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Interesting article apart from saying Burnham has been ' all things to all people'. What was Blair in his early years other than ' all things to all people' indeed Cameron was not much different either
The act wears thin after the first few decades.
And Cameron is in No.10 because he's not the SNP, people don't have high hopes about him doing the right thing but at least that he won't do much of the wrong things. A bit of a larger version of Corbyn inside the Labour party, he might not be the best but surely he's not the worst.
the only thing missing from this thread to make it complete was a sneer at the Lib Dems and Charles obliged.
Well done everybody. Glad you have all put the world to rights by deciding the best thing to do is to have no compassion, and no qualms, and that we can do what we want without worrying about the consequences. And no, there isn't a punchline. You have properly pissed me off.
Get off your high horse.
The LibDems for 2 decades were the most duplicitous of political parties. My family saw them operate in the West country, in the Summer country, in London and in Scotland. And senior members of the party adopted different and contradictory positions in each region, carefully tailored to what they thought would appeal to the local voters.
You really think we don't share information about interactions with politicians?
(As an aside, I respect individual MPs who did a good thing in 2010 in agreeing a coalition and serving the public for 5 difficult years. But the party itself is institutionally despicable)
Stop virtue signalling. You are neck deep in the most duplicitous political party in history.
The Tories are entirely transparent.
They are interested in governing in what they believe to be the best interests of the country. This requires being in power. They don't lie to anyone about their objectives.
What objectives do other political parties have that they do lie about?
As an example, the LibDems were pro-Europe in London and anti-Europe in the West Country.
Re the London mayoralty, if one of the candidates came out against the random, horrible demolition of happy pubs I reckon they could get quite a few votes.
I'm all for the free market but property developers are now hollowing out the city.
Typical Tory - all for the 'free' market until the negative effects cease falling solely on other people. I know you aren't really a Tory anyway, just a drama queen. Join us.
Free market doesn't mean "free for all". Do you not understand the difference?
Do you actually not understand that 'free market' does indeed mean 'free for all'.
@adavies4: Saleem Kidwai, Muslim Council of Wales: People who knew Reyaad Khan say he didn't have intellect/charisma to pose such a big threat.
I thought he was described as a straight A-grade student?
Grade inflation....
It's the descent from "he was such a smart boy with such a great future, it's society's fault that he became a terrorist" to "he was an idiot who was easily led, no danger to us really".
These eulogies to dead criminals and terrorists aren't very enlightening. No-one ever seems to say "he was an asshole from the day he was born", do they?
the only thing missing from this thread to make it complete was a sneer at the Lib Dems and Charles obliged.
Well done everybody. Glad you have all put the world to rights by deciding the best thing to do is to have no compassion, and no qualms, and that we can do what we want without worrying about the consequences. And no, there isn't a punchline. You have properly pissed me off.
Get off your high horse.
The LibDems for 2 decades were the most duplicitous of political parties. My family saw them operate in the West country, in the Summer country, in London and in Scotland. And senior members of the party adopted different and contradictory positions in each region, carefully tailored to what they thought would appeal to the local voters.
You really think we don't share information about interactions with politicians?
(As an aside, I respect individual MPs who did a good thing in 2010 in agreeing a coalition and serving the public for 5 difficult years. But the party itself is institutionally despicable)
Stop virtue signalling. You are neck deep in the most duplicitous political party in history.
The Tories are entirely transparent.
They are interested in governing in what they believe to be the best interests of the country. This requires being in power. They don't lie to anyone about their objectives.
What objectives do other political parties have that they do lie about?
Well there are parties that believe in "equality" and then their MPs send their children to fee paying schools.. - as a start..
Interesting article apart from saying Burnham has been ' all things to all people'. What was Blair in his early years other than ' all things to all people' indeed Cameron was not much different either
The act wears thin after the first few decades.
And Cameron is in No.10 because he's not the SNP, people don't have high hopes about him doing the right thing but at least that he won't do much of the wrong things. A bit of a larger version of Corbyn inside the Labour party, he might not be the best but surely he's not the worst.
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
In the last ten years there has been one successful Islamist terror attack in the United Kingdom - the beheading of Lee Rigby. That itself was only the second successful Islamist terror attack in recorded history. Neither of which are directly related to ISIS
There have also been two failed attacks, both of which failed entirely due to the incompetence of the attackers. Neither of which are direcrtly related to ISIS.
That pales compard to the number of people killed by the IRA over a 40 years campaign.
And yet. We refused to give up our fundamental rights to the IRA and when governments capitulated to fear and on occasion broke the principles of decency and Human Rights, it was abandoned under public pressure (such as internment).
Yet despite this, you appear to be TERRIFIED of being murdered in your bed by ISIS and/or Islamic extremists who have virtually no historic of successful attacks and a strong record of incompetence. And for this you will give up not only your own rights but the principle that the United Kingdom is a beacon of democracy and respecter of Human rights.
It sickens me to see people cower in fear and allow their government to control THEM not terrorists by using the excuse of fear and threat which has never been realised to any meaningful extent.
Yes, and ten years and two months ago, terrorists exploded three bombs in London.
We also don't know how many plots have been stopped by our intelligence services.
You are taking the threat of terrorism too lightly in order to support your leader's stupid stance on taking more refugees. A stance that the majority of people in Britain (and most likely Scotland) don't support.
Keep ploughing on though, it just makes you look stupid.
I mentioned 7/7
It brings the total deaths to Islamist extremists in the United Kingdom in all of recorded history to 57.
Let's give it your best, between start 2005 and start 2015 there were 6 deaths per year
The IRA killed 1800 people over a 30 year period. Or 60 deaths per year.
Yes of course I am taking the threat of terrorism lightly. Because that threat is pitifully, comically TINY. It will not happen. I will not live my life based on a one in 10 MILLION chance and I object to all the over-hyped nonsense that has been implemented and impact MY RIGHTS and MY FREEDOM in the UK because of this.
Fear is the primary control mechanism of government and it has become an art form in Western Democracies in the 21st century. I am sure some of this is unintentional but much of it appears to be very deliberate, it starts early and continues through life. And it is shocking so many people fall for this bullshit and let their lives be diminished because of it.
"The pragmatic cosy centrist consensus is being about to get an earthquake. It's not going to be an easy ride. Hell, there are even lots of cosy Labour MPs who are in for a shaking, but the article puts it very well. The political debate in Britain hasn't really advanced for 40 years. Thatcher won it back around 1983/4. Corbyn's about to challenge the status quo and I think that kind of cocksure public schoolboy grin we saw from Osborne yesterday is going to be wiped off a few faces. A massive shift in political debate, and therefore centre, is about to happen."
Estobar 15:41 8/9/15 PoliticalBetting.com
I think that post might become the most quoted bit of political prognosis since Sion Simon's masterpiece. So I thought I'd practice reposting it and make sure that it was tucked safely away in the Llama archives.
Well the high Tory strategists have considered a full frontal attack on Corbyn:
"The Tories will emphasize ‘security’ if Corbyn is victorious. Tories will say emphatically that the new Labour leader poses a risk to Britain’s economy and national security. Instead of laughing off Corbyn as a joke — a simpler strategy that has been considered— he will be recognized as a real threat and everything possible will be done to undermine him. “It’s deadly serious,” as one Downing Street source puts it."
But also they fear that Corbyn is going to blackmail Cameron over his support for IN over the EU referendum:
"Corbyn’s interest in the referendum would pose a problem for Cameron — one of his own making. If he is going to accept him as a serious and credible threat, he has little choice but to take his policy demands seriously, too. "
I am not sure what point you are trying to make by selectively quoting an opinion piece by Sebastian Payne (whoever he is).
If you think, "A massive shift in political debate, and therefore centre, is about to happen." Why not just say so?
Following the rules is what makes you the "good guys".
I understand that point perfectly well. But how to fight a war against an enemy which will not abide by any of the laws of war? That's the question I'm asking.
While we argue about legal niceties, IS are smuggling into Europe any number of operatives who will have no hesitation in carrying out the most bestial and brutal of attacks, unless we stop them. I want my government to focus on that. I suspect I'm not alone.
In the last ten years there has been one successful Islamist terror attack in the United Kingdom - the beheading of Lee Rigby. That itself was only the second successful Islamist terror attack in recorded history. Neither of which are directly related to ISIS
There have also been two failed attacks, both of which failed entirely due to the incompetence of the attackers. Neither of which are direcrtly related to ISIS.
That pales compard to the number of people killed by the IRA over a 40 years campaign.
And yet. We refused to give up our fundamental rights to the IRA and when governments capitulated to fear and on occasion broke the principles of decency and Human Rights, it was abandoned under public pressure (such as internment).
Yet despite this, you appear to be TERRIFIED of being murdered in your bed by ISIS and/or Islamic extremists who have virtually no historic of successful attacks and a strong record of incompetence. And for this you will give up not only your own rights but the principle that the United Kingdom is a beacon of democracy and respecter of Human rights.
It sickens me to see people cower in fear and allow their government to control THEM not terrorists by using the excuse of fear and threat which has never been realised to any meaningful extent.
Yebbut, the IRA had clear and limited objectives, a clear command structure, and were old foes whom we had had to ultimately parley with before. They also drew the line (mostly) at killing for killing's sake, or for sectarian reasons, or by suicide bomb, or with funky stuff like planes, decapitations, chemicals or nukes.
Surely that is the problem: terrorists who really do think God is on their side, and who literally believe mass murder will buy their ascent to heaven.
Re the London mayoralty, if one of the candidates came out against the random, horrible demolition of happy pubs I reckon they could get quite a few votes.
I'm all for the free market but property developers are now hollowing out the city.
Typical Tory - all for the 'free' market until the negative effects cease falling solely on other people. I know you aren't really a Tory anyway, just a drama queen. Join us.
Free market doesn't mean "free for all". Do you not understand the difference?
Do you actually not understand that 'free market' does indeed mean 'free for all'.
the only thing missing from this thread to make it complete was a sneer at the Lib Dems and Charles obliged.
Well done everybody. Glad you have all put the world to rights by deciding the best thing to do is to have no compassion, and no qualms, and that we can do what we want without worrying about the consequences. And no, there isn't a punchline. You have properly pissed me off.
Get off your high horse.
The LibDems for 2 decades were the most duplicitous of political parties. My family saw them operate in the West country, in the Summer country, in London and in Scotland. And senior members of the party adopted different and contradictory positions in each region, carefully tailored to what they thought would appeal to the local voters.
You really think we don't share information about interactions with politicians?
(As an aside, I respect individual MPs who did a good thing in 2010 in agreeing a coalition and serving the public for 5 difficult years. But the party itself is institutionally despicable)
Stop virtue signalling. You are neck deep in the most duplicitous political party in history.
The Tories are entirely transparent.
They are interested in governing in what they believe to be the best interests of the country. This requires being in power. They don't lie to anyone about their objectives.
What objectives do other political parties have that they do lie about?
As an example, the LibDems were pro-Europe in London and anti-Europe in the West Country.
the only thing missing from this thread to make it complete was a sneer at the Lib Dems and Charles obliged.
Well done everybody. Glad you have all put the world to rights by deciding the best thing to do is to have no compassion, and no qualms, and that we can do what we want without worrying about the consequences. And no, there isn't a punchline. You have properly pissed me off.
Get off your high horse.
The LibDems for 2 decades were the most duplicitous of political parties. My family saw them operate in the West country, in the Summer country, in London and in Scotland. And senior members of the party adopted different and contradictory positions in each region, carefully tailored to what they thought would appeal to the local voters.
You really think we don't share information about interactions with politicians?
(As an aside, I respect individual MPs who did a good thing in 2010 in agreeing a coalition and serving the public for 5 difficult years. But the party itself is institutionally despicable)
Stop virtue signalling. You are neck deep in the most duplicitous political party in history.
The Tories are entirely transparent.
They are interested in governing in what they believe to be the best interests of the country. This requires being in power. They don't lie to anyone about their objectives.
What objectives do other political parties have that they do lie about?
Well there are parties that believe in "equality" and then their MPs send their children to fee paying schools.. - as a start..
Doesn't that just make the individual MPs hypocrites, rather like preaching family values while having affairs?
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
I think the Dutch are not interested in taking more migrants but have signed up to the quota system in order to avoid another election. They are taking a much tougher line on non-refugees than Germany or Austria, anyone who has their refugee statues denied (Somalians, Afghans, Pakistanis) are given 7 days to leave or be deported forcefully with shelter and food cut off at that point as well.
Following the rules is what makes you the "good guys".
I understand that point perfectly well. But how to fight a war against an enemy which will not abide by any of the laws of war? That's the question I'm asking.
While we argue about legal niceties, IS are smuggling into Europe any number of operatives who will have no hesitation in carrying out the most bestial and brutal of attacks, unless we stop them. I want my government to focus on that. I suspect I'm not alone.
In the last ten years there has been one successful Islamist terror attack in the United Kingdom - the beheading of Lee Rigby. That itself was only the second successful Islamist terror attack in recorded history. Neither of which are directly related to ISIS
There have also been two failed attacks, both of which failed entirely due to the incompetence of the attackers. Neither of which are direcrtly related to ISIS.
That pales compard to the number of people killed by the IRA over a 40 years campaign.
And yet. We refused to give up our fundamental rights to the IRA and when governments capitulated to fear and on occasion broke the principles of decency and Human Rights, it was abandoned under public pressure (such as internment).
Yet despite this, you appear to be TERRIFIED of being murdered in your bed by ISIS and/or Islamic extremists who have virtually no historic of successful attacks and a strong record of incompetence. And for this you will give up not only your own rights but the principle that the United Kingdom is a beacon of democracy and respecter of Human rights.
It sickens me to see people cower in fear and allow their government to control THEM not terrorists by using the excuse of fear and threat which has never been realised to any meaningful extent.
Yebbut, the IRA had clear and limited objectives, a clear command structure, and were old foes whom we had had to ultimately parley with before. They also drew the line (mostly) at killing for killing's sake, or for sectarian reasons, or by suicide bomb, or with funky stuff like planes, decapitations, chemicals or nukes.
None of those things apply to Islamists.
You (as in your government) is currently parlaying with the Taliban.
if you think you will not be (may already be) parlaying with ISIS you are truly naive.
Re the London mayoralty, if one of the candidates came out against the random, horrible demolition of happy pubs I reckon they could get quite a few votes.
I'm all for the free market but property developers are now hollowing out the city.
Typical Tory - all for the 'free' market until the negative effects cease falling solely on other people. I know you aren't really a Tory anyway, just a drama queen. Join us.
It's a criticism I've heard elsewhere, but this is the most insightful post I've read of yours - and done in a friendly manner too.
the only thing missing from this thread to make it complete was a sneer at the Lib Dems and Charles obliged.
Well done everybody. Glad you have all put the world to rights by deciding the best thing to do is to have no compassion, and no qualms, and that we can do what we want without worrying about the consequences. And no, there isn't a punchline. You have properly pissed me off.
Get off your high horse.
The LibDems for 2 decades were the most duplicitous of political parties. My family saw them operate in the West country, in the Summer country, in London and in Scotland. And senior members of the party adopted different and contradictory positions in each region, carefully tailored to what they thought would appeal to the local voters.
You really think we don't share information about interactions with politicians?
(As an aside, I respect individual MPs who did a good thing in 2010 in agreeing a coalition and serving the public for 5 difficult years. But the party itself is institutionally despicable)
Stop virtue signalling. You are neck deep in the most duplicitous political party in history.
The Tories are entirely transparent.
They are interested in governing in what they believe to be the best interests of the country. This requires being in power. They don't lie to anyone about their objectives.
What objectives do other political parties have that they do lie about?
As an example, the LibDems were pro-Europe in London and anti-Europe in the West Country.
It brings the total deaths to Islamist extremists in the United Kingdom in all of recorded history to 57.
Let's give it your best, between start 2005 and start 2015 there were 6 deaths per year
The IRA killed 1800 people over a 30 year period. Or 60 deaths per year.
Yes of course I am taking the threat of terrorism lightly. Because that threat is pitifully, comically TINY. It will not happen. I will not live my life based on a one in 10 MILLION chance and I object to all the over-hyped nonsense that has been implemented and impact MY RIGHTS and MY FREEDOM in the UK because of this.
Fear is the primary control mechanism of government and it has become an art form in Western Democracies in the 21st century. I am sure some of this is unintentional but much of it appears to be very deliberate, it starts early and continues through life. And it is shocking so many people fall for this bullshit and let their lives be diminished because of it.
So the government policy restricts your freedom to go to an active warzone and fight for a terrorist organisation? I don't see why you are so agitated.
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
Yes. I had my reservations about him but, so far, I'm quite pleased with the leadership he's given to this Tory government. Better than the coalition, IMHO.
Just listened to about 10 minutes on BBC R4 PM programme all about the debate on migrants in the HoC. Lots of quotes from the bleeding hearts club, nothing at all about the majority views of the voters. Completely out of touch.
"The pragmatic cosy centrist consensus is being about to get an earthquake. It's not going to be an easy ride. Hell, there are even lots of cosy Labour MPs who are in for a shaking, but the article puts it very well. The political debate in Britain hasn't really advanced for 40 years. Thatcher won it back around 1983/4. Corbyn's about to challenge the status quo and I think that kind of cocksure public schoolboy grin we saw from Osborne yesterday is going to be wiped off a few faces. A massive shift in political debate, and therefore centre, is about to happen."
Estobar 15:41 8/9/15 PoliticalBetting.com
I think that post might become the most quoted bit of political prognosis since Sion Simon's masterpiece. So I thought I'd practice reposting it and make sure that it was tucked safely away in the Llama archives.
Well the high Tory strategists have considered a full frontal attack on Corbyn:
"The Tories will emphasize ‘security’ if Corbyn is victorious. Tories will say emphatically that the new Labour leader poses a risk to Britain’s economy and national security. Instead of laughing off Corbyn as a joke — a simpler strategy that has been considered— he will be recognized as a real threat and everything possible will be done to undermine him. “It’s deadly serious,” as one Downing Street source puts it."
But also they fear that Corbyn is going to blackmail Cameron over his support for IN over the EU referendum:
"Corbyn’s interest in the referendum would pose a problem for Cameron — one of his own making. If he is going to accept him as a serious and credible threat, he has little choice but to take his policy demands seriously, too. "
The Tories will attack whomever is elected Labour leader. If one line of attack fails, they'll try another.
On Europe, Corbyn should simply announce a free vote, which will increase pressure on Cameron to reverse his current insistence that all ministers campaign for IN.
Following the rules is what makes you the "good guys".
I understand that point perfectly well. But how to fight a war against an enemy which will not abide by any of the laws of war? That's the question I'm asking.
While we argue about legal niceties, IS are smuggling into Europe any number of operatives who will have no hesitation in carrying out the most bestial and brutal of attacks, unless we stop them. I want my government to focus on that. I suspect I'm not alone.
In the last ten years there has been one successful Islamist terror attack in the United Kingdom - the beheading of Lee Rigby. That itself was only the second successful Islamist terror attack in recorded history. Neither of which are directly related to ISIS
There have also been two failed attacks, both of which failed entirely due to the incompetence of the attackers. Neither of which are direcrtly related to ISIS.
That pales compard to the number of people killed by the IRA over a 40 years campaign.
And yet. We refused to give up our fundamental rights to the IRA and when governments capitulated to fear and on occasion broke the principles of decency and Human Rights, it was abandoned under public pressure (such as internment).
Yet despite this, you appear to be TERRIFIED of being murdered in your bed by ISIS and/or Islamic extremists who have virtually no historic of successful attacks and a strong record of incompetence. And for this you will give up not only your own rights but the principle that the United Kingdom is a beacon of democracy and respecter of Human rights.
It sickens me to see people cower in fear and allow their government to control THEM not terrorists by using the excuse of fear and threat which has never been realised to any meaningful extent.
Yebbut, the IRA had clear and limited objectives, a clear command structure, and were old foes whom we had had to ultimately parley with before. They also drew the line (mostly) at killing for killing's sake, or for sectarian reasons, or by suicide bomb, or with funky stuff like planes, decapitations, chemicals or nukes.
None of those things apply to Islamists.
You (as in your government) is currently parlaying with the Taliban.
if you think you will not be (may already be) parlaying with ISIS you are truly naive.
Surely that is the problem: terrorists who really do think God is on their side, and who literally believe mass murder will buy their ascent to heaven.
And Allah will also reward them if they die trying to cross the Med on a lilo, it seems.
"And whoever emigrates for the cause of Allah will find on the earth many locations and abundance,” says the Qur’an. “And whoever leaves his home as an emigrant to Allah and His Messenger and then death overtakes him, his reward has already become incumbent upon Allah. And Allah is ever Forgiving and Merciful.” (4:100)
It brings the total deaths to Islamist extremists in the United Kingdom in all of recorded history to 57.
Let's give it your best, between start 2005 and start 2015 there were 6 deaths per year
The IRA killed 1800 people over a 30 year period. Or 60 deaths per year.
Yes of course I am taking the threat of terrorism lightly. Because that threat is pitifully, comically TINY. It will not happen. I will not live my life based on a one in 10 MILLION chance and I object to all the over-hyped nonsense that has been implemented and impact MY RIGHTS and MY FREEDOM in the UK because of this.
Fear is the primary control mechanism of government and it has become an art form in Western Democracies in the 21st century. I am sure some of this is unintentional but much of it appears to be very deliberate, it starts early and continues through life. And it is shocking so many people fall for this bullshit and let their lives be diminished because of it.
So the government policy restricts your freedom to go to an active warzone and fight for a terrorist organisation? I don't see why you are so agitated.
Don't you? Its quite easy when you assess his character and viewpoint.
It brings the total deaths to Islamist extremists in the United Kingdom in all of recorded history to 57.
Let's give it your best, between start 2005 and start 2015 there were 6 deaths per year
The IRA killed 1800 people over a 30 year period. Or 60 deaths per year.
Yes of course I am taking the threat of terrorism lightly. Because that threat is pitifully, comically TINY. It will not happen. I will not live my life based on a one in 10 MILLION chance and I object to all the over-hyped nonsense that has been implemented and impact MY RIGHTS and MY FREEDOM in the UK because of this.
Fear is the primary control mechanism of government and it has become an art form in Western Democracies in the 21st century. I am sure some of this is unintentional but much of it appears to be very deliberate, it starts early and continues through life. And it is shocking so many people fall for this bullshit and let their lives be diminished because of it.
So the government policy restricts your freedom to go to an active warzone and fight for a terrorist organisation? I don't see why you are so agitated.
Not sure why you think I'm agitated. I'm clearly quite appalled that people in a relatively free society will have their freedom limited in ANY way. While it may only be liquids on aircraft and the threat of ID cards at the moment, the public appear to be quite easily trained to give into fear on all manner of issues and increase government control of the population. If you don't understand why that should be a concern, I really can't help you.
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
Germany has a demographic problem. It needs more people of working age and does not have them. Its population is ageing. Merkel understands this, but her problem is that the German public does not want more immigration. However, it is reasonably sympathetic to refugees right now. So what Merkel has done is seize an opportunity. It is realpolitik.
As Robert Peston of the biased BBC makes clear in this article, the same dynamics do not exist in the UK:
Surely that is the problem: terrorists who really do think God is on their side, and who literally believe mass murder will buy their ascent to heaven.
That is exactly right. And to undo that we need to attack the intellectual foundations of the belief system. It's not good enough for scholars to argue that terrorism is wrong on "Islamic grounds" pointing to some scriptute, because that just means you need another scholar to point to other scripture and you're converted again.
Following the rules is what makes you the "good guys".
I understand that point perfectly well. But how to fight a war against an enemy which will not abide by any of the laws of war? That's the question I'm asking.
While we argue about legal niceties, IS are smuggling into Europe any number of operatives who will have no hesitation in carrying out the most bestial and brutal of attacks, unless we stop them. I want my government to focus on that. I suspect I'm not alone.
In the last ten years there has been one successful Islamist terror attack in the United Kingdom - the beheading of Lee Rigby. That itself was only the second successful Islamist terror attack in recorded history. Neither of which are directly related to ISIS
There have also been two failed attacks, both of which failed entirely due to the incompetence of the attackers. Neither of which are direcrtly related to ISIS.
That pales compard to the number of people killed by the IRA over a 40 years campaign.
And yet. We refused to give up our fundamental rights to the IRA and when governments capitulated to fear and on occasion broke the principles of decency and Human Rights, it was abandoned under public pressure (such as internment).
Yet despite this, you appear to be TERRIFIED of being murdered in your bed by ISIS and/or Islamic extremists who have virtually no historic of successful attacks and a strong record of incompetence. And for this you will give up not only your own rights but the principle that the United Kingdom is a beacon of democracy and respecter of Human rights.
It sickens me to see people cower in fear and allow their government to control THEM not terrorists by using the excuse of fear and threat which has never been realised to any meaningful extent.
Yebbut, the IRA had clear and limited objectives, a clear command structure, and were old foes whom we had had to ultimately parley with before. They also drew the line (mostly) at killing for killing's sake, or for sectarian reasons, or by suicide bomb, or with funky stuff like planes, decapitations, chemicals or nukes.
None of those things apply to Islamists.
You (as in your government) is currently parlaying with the Taliban.
if you think you will not be (may already be) parlaying with ISIS you are truly naive.
'Our' Government please. I didn't vote for them either.
And people are saying that Erdogan is part of the solution?
Nope, as I said on and on, he's funding ISIS to get rid of Assad and he's bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS.
And as I've said on and on, the situation is far more complex than that. For instance, only the most pathetic dullard could say he was ' bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS', when there is rather a little more sad history between Turkey and the Kurds than that, leading to 45,000 deaths in 31 years:
As I say above, Turkey needs to be part of this process. If they are not, expect the Kurd / Turkey situation to worsen and the region to destabilise further.
Also note that Turkey sent in troops after the Kurds after a bomb attack in Turkey that killed at least 14 Turkish police officers, a day after another bomb killed 16 soldiers.
People also ignore the quite good job Turkey has been doing in dealing with the humanitarian crisis.
Turkey's in an impossible situation. Erdogan's played the humanitarian aspect of the crisis well; he's played the wider geopolitical aspect poorly.
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
Germany has a demographic problem. It needs more people of working age and does not have them. Its population is ageing. Merkel understands this, but her problem is that the German public does not want more immigration. However, it is reasonably sympathetic to refugees right now. So what Merkel has done is seize an opportunity. It is realpolitik.
As Robert Peston of the biased BBC makes clear in this article, the same dynamics do not exist in the UK:
If Merkel just followed public opinion, it would do Germany significant damage further down the line. Sometimes leaders have to lead.
The problem is that Free Movement in the EU means her decision to set people on the path to getting passport affects us all. We do not have Germany's dynamics, but we will be affected by Germany's "solution".
And people are saying that Erdogan is part of the solution?
Nope, as I said on and on, he's funding ISIS to get rid of Assad and he's bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS.
And as I've said on and on, the situation is far more complex than that............ Also note that Turkey sent in troops after the Kurds after a bomb attack in Turkey that killed at least 14 Turkish police officers, a day after another bomb killed 16 soldiers. People also ignore the quite good job Turkey has been doing in dealing with the humanitarian crisis. Turkey's in an impossible situation. Erdogan's played the humanitarian aspect of the crisis well; he's played the wider geopolitical aspect poorly.
I understood that the latest wave of violence was kicked off by the Turks resuming bombing of the Kurds in Syria. But can you please enlighten us with the truth.
It's correct that luckily we have - so far - only had one large-scale successful Islamist attack in the UK. There have of course been plenty in other European countries, and only a complete fool would be complacent about the risk here. And of course we can never know how many attacks have been foiled by the security services; it's certainly lots, some of them very serious. It's a curious line of argument to cite the success of the security services in preventing attacks as a reason to criticise them.
Although I agree it's very amusing to see the disconnect between media and public opinion on the drones/refugees, I wonder why PBers are not always so up in arms about the media not reflecting public will on Austerity (the media including the BBC is pretty uncritical of it while opinion polls constantly show the public against it).
In the only opinion poll that mattered, they weren't so against austerity though.
Although I agree it's very amusing to see the disconnect between media and public opinion on the drones/refugees, I wonder why PBers are not always so up in arms about the media not reflecting public will on Austerity (the media including the BBC is pretty uncritical of it while opinion polls constantly show the public against it).
Probably because there has never been any austerity, govt spending having gone up every year.
Following the rules is what makes you the "good guys".
I understand that point perfectly well. But how to fight a war against an enemy which will not abide by any of the laws of war? That's the question I'm asking.
While we argue about legal niceties, IS are smuggling into Europe any number of operatives who will have no hesitation in carrying out the most bestial and brutal of attacks, unless we stop them. I want my government to focus on that. I suspect I'm not alone.
In the last ten years there has been one successful Islamist terror attack in the United Kingdom - the beheading of Lee Rigby. That itself was only the second successful Islamist terror attack in recorded history. Neither of which are directly related to ISIS
There have also been two failed attacks, both of which failed entirely due to the incompetence of the attackers. Neither of which are direcrtly related to ISIS.
That pales compard to the number of people killed by the IRA over a 40 years campaign.
And yet. We refused to give up our fundamental rights to the IRA and when governments capitulated to fear and on occasion broke the principles of decency and Human Rights, it was abandoned under public pressure (such as internment).
Yet despite this, you appear to be TERRIFIED of being murdered in your bed by ISIS and/or Islamic extremists who have virtually no historic of successful attacks and a strong record of incompetence. And for this you will give up not only your own rights but the principle that the United Kingdom is a beacon of democracy and respecter of Human rights.
It sickens me to see people cower in fear and allow their government to control THEM not terrorists by using the excuse of fear and threat which has never been realised to any meaningful extent.
I'm not terrified in the slightest. Far too feisty for that. I have consistently argued for the maintenance of our historic civil liberties, which predated the Human Rights Act, and against the authoritarian proposals of the Labour party, when in power. It is the Islamists who - if their world view is allowed to gain a foothold in this country - will do more harm to our civil liberties and freedoms, not by terrorist bombs but by the insidious attack on freedoms such as freedom of speech etc. And that has alread started, aided and abetted by the Labour party.
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
Germany has a demographic problem. It needs more people of working age and does not have them. Its population is ageing. Merkel understands this, but her problem is that the German public does not want more immigration. However, it is reasonably sympathetic to refugees right now. So what Merkel has done is seize an opportunity. It is realpolitik.
As Robert Peston of the biased BBC makes clear in this article, the same dynamics do not exist in the UK:
If Merkel just followed public opinion, it would do Germany significant damage further down the line. Sometimes leaders have to lead.
The problem is that Free Movement in the EU means her decision to set people on the path to getting passport affects us all. We do not have Germany's dynamics, but we will be affected by Germany's "solution".
By the time these people get German passports they will have homes and jobs there, will speak German and will have very little reason or desire to come to the UK.
And people are saying that Erdogan is part of the solution?
Nope, as I said on and on, he's funding ISIS to get rid of Assad and he's bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS.
And as I've said on and on, the situation is far more complex than that. For instance, only the most pathetic dullard could say he was ' bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS', when there is rather a little more sad history between Turkey and the Kurds than that, leading to 45,000 deaths in 31 years:
As I say above, Turkey needs to be part of this process. If they are not, expect the Kurd / Turkey situation to worsen and the region to destabilise further.
Also note that Turkey sent in troops after the Kurds after a bomb attack in Turkey that killed at least 14 Turkish police officers, a day after another bomb killed 16 soldiers.
People also ignore the quite good job Turkey has been doing in dealing with the humanitarian crisis.
Turkey's in an impossible situation. Erdogan's played the humanitarian aspect of the crisis well; he's played the wider geopolitical aspect poorly.
Yes there is the old Turkish vs Kurdish element, but it's not deniable that Turkey's priority right now is to attack anyone who threatens their ISIS pet:
Although I agree it's very amusing to see the disconnect between media and public opinion on the drones/refugees, I wonder why PBers are not always so up in arms about the media not reflecting public will on Austerity (the media including the BBC is pretty uncritical of it while opinion polls constantly show the public against it).
Probably because there has never been any austerity, govt spending having gone up every year.
There have been austerity in some areas, but not protected departments.
Fear is the primary control mechanism of government and it has become an art form in Western Democracies in the 21st century. I am sure some of this is unintentional but much of it appears to be very deliberate, it starts early and continues through life. And it is shocking so many people fall for this bullshit and let their lives be diminished because of it.
In 1937, you could have said "How many people has Nazism killed in the UK? None!" and you'd have been right. In the end the Nazis killed 30 million or more, because cowardly appeasers like you couldn't - or wouldn't - see the danger coming.
I'm not advocating appeasement.
If you'd actually read my previous posts instead of drooling out spew based on what you thought you read then you'd have seen me quite plainly state that a formal war against ISIS instead of this illegal extra-judicial killing would be preferable.
There are three ways to deal with a threat - Destroy, Control or Remove.
The problem with the way the UK is dealing with this is that it is trying to Control the threat which does nothing useful in the long run. Either Remove the threat (outlaw Islam and eject all Muslims who refuse conversion/apostasy) or Destroy the threat by using the Army and destroying ISIS where they stand. I'd understand the argument for either, only one would allow the UK to continue to portray itself as a nation of principle, however both would actually deal the perceived threat.
You're the one stuck in the middle not actually dealing with things at all, taking the worst of both, undermining any idea of being a nation which respects human rights and the law while leaving the threat relatively untouched and actually enforcing stringent restrictions on our own rights.
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
Germany has a demographic problem. It needs more people of working age and does not have them. Its population is ageing. Merkel understands this, but her problem is that the German public does not want more immigration. However, it is reasonably sympathetic to refugees right now. So what Merkel has done is seize an opportunity. It is realpolitik.
As Robert Peston of the biased BBC makes clear in this article, the same dynamics do not exist in the UK:
If Merkel just followed public opinion, it would do Germany significant damage further down the line. Sometimes leaders have to lead.
The problem is that Free Movement in the EU means her decision to set people on the path to getting passport affects us all. We do not have Germany's dynamics, but we will be affected by Germany's "solution".
By the time these people get German passports they will have homes and jobs there, will speak German and will have very little reason or desire to come to the UK.
Why would you think that? Thousands of British citizens aren't at all integrated despite being born here. At one level it makes for a lack of social cohesion, at the extremes we are killing them in Syria.
Re the London mayoralty, if one of the candidates came out against the random, horrible demolition of happy pubs I reckon they could get quite a few votes.
I'm all for the free market but property developers are now hollowing out the city.
Typical Tory - all for the 'free' market until the negative effects cease falling solely on other people. I know you aren't really a Tory anyway, just a drama queen. Join us.
Free market doesn't mean "free for all". Do you not understand the difference?
Do you actually not understand that 'free market' does indeed mean 'free for all'.
You can't really be that thick?
No it really doesn't.
Yes, it really does. You can have a 'free market' or a controlled market in the same way that you can't be a 'little bit' pregnant.
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
Germany has a demographic problem. It needs more people of working age and does not have them. Its population is ageing. Merkel understands this, but her problem is that the German public does not want more immigration. However, it is reasonably sympathetic to refugees right now. So what Merkel has done is seize an opportunity. It is realpolitik.
As Robert Peston of the biased BBC makes clear in this article, the same dynamics do not exist in the UK:
If Merkel just followed public opinion, it would do Germany significant damage further down the line. Sometimes leaders have to lead.
The problem is that Free Movement in the EU means her decision to set people on the path to getting passport affects us all. We do not have Germany's dynamics, but we will be affected by Germany's "solution".
By the time these people get German passports they will have homes and jobs there, will speak German and will have very little reason or desire to come to the UK.
That's very naive I think. Once they get settled in Europe I think many of the migrants will prefer to live in a less rigid society than Germany such as Denmark, Sweden, UK, Netherlands. Germany is still quite an old-fashioned society in some respects despite their current welcoming attitude to refugees. Just one example is the way people still use the equivalents of Mr and Mrs in everyday life rather than first names as in the other countries I mentioned.
Surely that is the problem: terrorists who really do think God is on their side, and who literally believe mass murder will buy their ascent to heaven.
That is exactly right. And to undo that we need to attack the intellectual foundations of the belief system. It's not good enough for scholars to argue that terrorism is wrong on "Islamic grounds" pointing to some scriptute, because that just means you need another scholar to point to other scripture and you're converted again.
Tom Holland, the historian, has argued exactly that. That to deradicalise the jihadi youths, you need to deradicalise Mohammed himself.
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
Germany has a demographic problem. It needs more people of working age and does not have them. Its population is ageing. Merkel understands this, but her problem is that the German public does not want more immigration. However, it is reasonably sympathetic to refugees right now. So what Merkel has done is seize an opportunity. It is realpolitik.
As Robert Peston of the biased BBC makes clear in this article, the same dynamics do not exist in the UK:
If Merkel just followed public opinion, it would do Germany significant damage further down the line. Sometimes leaders have to lead.
The problem is that Free Movement in the EU means her decision to set people on the path to getting passport affects us all. We do not have Germany's dynamics, but we will be affected by Germany's "solution".
By the time these people get German passports they will have homes and jobs there, will speak German and will have very little reason or desire to come to the UK.
I'll wager that they don't learn German or integrate, and that they'll move at their earliest opportunity.
I'm with Dair in that I think terrorism is overblown as a threat. We'd get considerably better outcomes diverting CT funds into improved cancer treatments, as just one example. Of course, realpolitik prevents our leaders being as insouciant.
Re the London mayoralty, if one of the candidates came out against the random, horrible demolition of happy pubs I reckon they could get quite a few votes.
I'm all for the free market but property developers are now hollowing out the city.
Typical Tory - all for the 'free' market until the negative effects cease falling solely on other people. I know you aren't really a Tory anyway, just a drama queen. Join us.
It's a criticism I've heard elsewhere, but this is the most insightful post I've read of yours - and done in a friendly manner too.
Where a pub can be shown to be a community asset then it can resist closure. All thanks to this Tory government. New pubs are opening, to be fair, across the country and we have to put up with changing patterns and habits. CAMRA suggests something like 1000 new pubs are opening a year. Pubs in the country with their large footprint and car parks and drink drive laws are suffering closures as well. It is not the free market - it is the free choices of the public who are doing things other than going out for a drink. One new trend is for micro pubs, real ale but no lager food or music. Increasingly popular and profitable. So both SeanT and Wisemann are actually wrong.
And people are saying that Erdogan is part of the solution?
Nope, as I said on and on, he's funding ISIS to get rid of Assad and he's bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS.
And as I've said on and on, the situation is far more complex than that............ Also note that Turkey sent in troops after the Kurds after a bomb attack in Turkey that killed at least 14 Turkish police officers, a day after another bomb killed 16 soldiers. People also ignore the quite good job Turkey has been doing in dealing with the humanitarian crisis. Turkey's in an impossible situation. Erdogan's played the humanitarian aspect of the crisis well; he's played the wider geopolitical aspect poorly.
I understood that the latest wave of violence was kicked off by the Turks resuming bombing of the Kurds in Syria. But can you please enlighten us with the truth.
And that, AIUI, was a reaction to an attack by the Kurds going back to early August, one of which killed nine Turks, including five police, which the PKK admitted to. It seems (although God knows given the murky waters) that the Turks accuse the PKK of not keeping to their side of the ceasefire deal.
But the two sides hardly need a good reason to attack each other given their history over the last thirty years. The ceasefire of the last couple of years was only agreed because it was mutually beneficial. That is not so much the case now (although I'd obviously rather it was).
The PKK-Turkish conflict has been very bloody. Imagine the IRA versus the British Government in the 1970s, except with none of their restraint. There is little trust and mush fear on both sides.
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
Germany has a demographic problem. It needs more people of working age and does not have them. Its population is ageing. Merkel understands this, but her problem is that the German public does not want more immigration. However, it is reasonably sympathetic to refugees right now. So what Merkel has done is seize an opportunity. It is realpolitik.
As Robert Peston of the biased BBC makes clear in this article, the same dynamics do not exist in the UK:
If Merkel just followed public opinion, it would do Germany significant damage further down the line. Sometimes leaders have to lead.
The problem is that Free Movement in the EU means her decision to set people on the path to getting passport affects us all. We do not have Germany's dynamics, but we will be affected by Germany's "solution".
By the time these people get German passports they will have homes and jobs there, will speak German and will have very little reason or desire to come to the UK.
By the time Somalis got Dutch passports they had homes and jobs there, and spoke Dutch. They still had reasons to come to the UK.
"Quman's family had been housed by the Dutch government. She grew up there and spoke Dutch fluently. After finishing school, she would have been entitled to a subsidised university education; even her bus passes would have been paid for by the state.
Instead, in 2003, she told her father Jibril that she wanted to move to Britain, where she would have to pay for university. He wasn't upset – in fact he decided to quit his job in a printing firm and bring the whole family to London."
And people are saying that Erdogan is part of the solution?
Nope, as I said on and on, he's funding ISIS to get rid of Assad and he's bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS.
And as I've said on and on, the situation is far more complex than that. For instance, only the most pathetic dullard could say he was ' bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS', when there is rather a little more sad history between Turkey and the Kurds than that, leading to 45,000 deaths in 31 years:
As I say above, Turkey needs to be part of this process. If they are not, expect the Kurd / Turkey situation to worsen and the region to destabilise further.
Also note that Turkey sent in troops after the Kurds after a bomb attack in Turkey that killed at least 14 Turkish police officers, a day after another bomb killed 16 soldiers.
People also ignore the quite good job Turkey has been doing in dealing with the humanitarian crisis.
Turkey's in an impossible situation. Erdogan's played the humanitarian aspect of the crisis well; he's played the wider geopolitical aspect poorly.
Yes there is the old Turkish vs Kurdish element, but it's not deniable that Turkey's priority right now is to attack anyone who threatens their ISIS pet:
It's correct that luckily we have - so far - only had one large-scale successful Islamist attack in the UK. There have of course been plenty in other European countries, and only a complete fool would be complacent about the risk here. And of course we can never know how many attacks have been foiled by the security services; it's certainly lots, some of them very serious. It's a curious line of argument to cite the success of the security services in preventing attacks as a reason to criticise them.
FARC haven't attacked us yet and they've killed huge numbers of people in large numbers of attacks. Perhaps we should send the drones into Colombia?
BBC radio 4 news: leading with Fallon's warning about jihadists in Syria planning attacks on the UK.
I've been through this terror scare numerous times in the last 14 years, I've got bored of it, they should raise the terror level to code mustard or ketchup or something and get on with it:
It's correct that luckily we have - so far - only had one large-scale successful Islamist attack in the UK. There have of course been plenty in other European countries, and only a complete fool would be complacent about the risk here. And of course we can never know how many attacks have been foiled by the security services; it's certainly lots, some of them very serious. It's a curious line of argument to cite the success of the security services in preventing attacks as a reason to criticise them.
Crikey, that's a troubling list. The remorseless intensity of attacks and the geographical spread is quite something. Several thousand killed in the last five years?
As much as I dislike you, I really did think you would be beyond Virtue Signalling.
@SouthamObserver Arguably on this issue Merkel is following public opinion. Recent polling has shown most Germans are quite sympathetic to the refugees and helping them. Often, when it favours the POV a group of people agree with, public opinion will be mentioned as something politicians must follow. But there is a reason why people - no matter the differences in electoral systems across countries - elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf. We live in a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. And while this means public opinion should be taken into account, it should not be the sole determiner of policy. Otherwise, we may as well have a referendum on everything.
And good point on the hypocrisy of 'family values' MPs btw.
And people are saying that Erdogan is part of the solution?
Nope, as I said on and on, he's funding ISIS to get rid of Assad and he's bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS.
And as I've said on and on, the situation is far more complex than that............ Also note that Turkey sent in troops after the Kurds after a bomb attack in Turkey that killed at least 14 Turkish police officers, a day after another bomb killed 16 soldiers. People also ignore the quite good job Turkey has been doing in dealing with the humanitarian crisis. Turkey's in an impossible situation. Erdogan's played the humanitarian aspect of the crisis well; he's played the wider geopolitical aspect poorly.
I understood that the latest wave of violence was kicked off by the Turks resuming bombing of the Kurds in Syria. But can you please enlighten us with the truth.
And that, AIUI, was a reaction to an attack by the Kurds going back to early August, one of which killed nine Turks, including five police, which the PKK admitted to. It seems (although God knows given the murky waters) that the Turks accuse the PKK of not keeping to their side of the ceasefire deal.
But the two sides hardly need a good reason to attack each other given their history over the last thirty years. The ceasefire of the last couple of years was only agreed because it was mutually beneficial. That is not so much the case now (although I'd obviously rather it was).
The PKK-Turkish conflict has been very bloody. Imagine the IRA versus the British Government in the 1970s, except with none of their restraint. There is little trust and mush fear on both sides.
Wasn't the Kurdish attack due to (*alleged*) complicity of Turkey in the IS bomb attack in the Kurdish-majority city of Suruc?
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
Germany has a demographic problem. It needs more people of working age and does not have them. Its population is ageing. Merkel understands this, but her problem is that the German public does not want more immigration. However, it is reasonably sympathetic to refugees right now. So what Merkel has done is seize an opportunity. It is realpolitik.
As Robert Peston of the biased BBC makes clear in this article, the same dynamics do not exist in the UK:
If Merkel just followed public opinion, it would do Germany significant damage further down the line. Sometimes leaders have to lead.
The problem is that Free Movement in the EU means her decision to set people on the path to getting passport affects us all. We do not have Germany's dynamics, but we will be affected by Germany's "solution".
By the time these people get German passports they will have homes and jobs there, will speak German and will have very little reason or desire to come to the UK.
By the time Somalis got Dutch passports they had homes and jobs there, and spoke Dutch. They still had reasons to come to the UK.
"Quman's family had been housed by the Dutch government. She grew up there and spoke Dutch fluently. After finishing school, she would have been entitled to a subsidised university education; even her bus passes would have been paid for by the state.
Instead, in 2003, she told her father Jibril that she wanted to move to Britain, where she would have to pay for university. He wasn't upset – in fact he decided to quit his job in a printing firm and bring the whole family to London."
Last time I looked the Netherlands was not part of Germany.
Crikey, that's a troubling list. The remorseless intensity of attacks and the geographical spread is quite something. Several thousand killed in the last five years?
Admittedly you probably need to separate out the horrors in Iraq, Afghanistan and to an extent Pakistan which are part of wider wars, but, yes, after doing that the geographical spread is remarkable. The most worrying thing is how simple some of these attacks can be: as we saw with the Tunisian attack in which BJO was caught up, it only takes one guy with an automatic weapon in a crowded place to create carnage.
And people are saying that Erdogan is part of the solution?
Nope, as I said on and on, he's funding ISIS to get rid of Assad and he's bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS.
And as I've said on and on, the situation is far more complex than that. For instance, only the most pathetic dullard could say he was ' bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS', when there is rather a little more sad history between Turkey and the Kurds than that, leading to 45,000 deaths in 31 years:
As I say above, Turkey needs to be part of this process. If they are not, expect the Kurd / Turkey situation to worsen and the region to destabilise further.
Also note that Turkey sent in troops after the Kurds after a bomb attack in Turkey that killed at least 14 Turkish police officers, a day after another bomb killed 16 soldiers.
People also ignore the quite good job Turkey has been doing in dealing with the humanitarian crisis.
Turkey's in an impossible situation. Erdogan's played the humanitarian aspect of the crisis well; he's played the wider geopolitical aspect poorly.
Yes there is the old Turkish vs Kurdish element, but it's not deniable that Turkey's priority right now is to attack anyone who threatens their ISIS pet:
We should not be blind to the fact that Turkey and ISIS are allies.
It is deniable, especially the sick 'ISIS pet' accusation.
Well something of that size can't appear out of nowhere, of course someone created ISIS and still supports it, Turkey is the most obvious suspect along with Saudi Arabia, and there is plenty of evidence about Turkey.
It's correct that luckily we have - so far - only had one large-scale successful Islamist attack in the UK. There have of course been plenty in other European countries, and only a complete fool would be complacent about the risk here. And of course we can never know how many attacks have been foiled by the security services; it's certainly lots, some of them very serious. It's a curious line of argument to cite the success of the security services in preventing attacks as a reason to criticise them.
FARC haven't attacked us yet and they've killed huge numbers of people in large numbers of attacks. Perhaps we should send the drones into Colombia?
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
Germany has a demographic problem. It needs more people of working age and does not have them. Its population is ageing. Merkel understands this, but her problem is that the German public does not want more immigration. However, it is reasonably sympathetic to refugees right now. So what Merkel has done is seize an opportunity. It is realpolitik.
As Robert Peston of the biased BBC makes clear in this article, the same dynamics do not exist in the UK:
If Merkel just followed public opinion, it would do Germany significant damage further down the line. Sometimes leaders have to lead.
The problem is that Free Movement in the EU means her decision to set people on the path to getting passport affects us all. We do not have Germany's dynamics, but we will be affected by Germany's "solution".
By the time these people get German passports they will have homes and jobs there, will speak German and will have very little reason or desire to come to the UK.
I'll wager that they don't learn German or integrate, and that they'll move at their earliest opportunity.
I'm with Dair in that I think terrorism is overblown as a threat. We'd get considerably better outcomes diverting CT funds into improved cancer treatments, as just one example. Of course, realpolitik prevents our leaders being as insouciant.
They can't move to the UK unless we let them in or until they get German passports.
That is exactly right. And to undo that we need to attack the intellectual foundations of the belief system. It's not good enough for scholars to argue that terrorism is wrong on "Islamic grounds" pointing to some scriptute, because that just means you need another scholar to point to other scripture and you're converted again.
Tom Holland, the historian, has argued exactly that. That to deradicalise the jihadi youths, you need to deradicalise Mohammed himself.
Good luck with that.
I've seen it argued that Islam needs to complete its Reformation which (again it's argued) it is currently going through. It would be nice if there was a way that process could be speeded up but I've not seen any compelling argument as to how that can be achieved.
"The mayor of Calais has said she is "disgusted" by David Cameron's response to the migrant crisis.
She said the offer of taking 20,000 migrants over the Parliament but none from Europe proved the prime minister was "contemptuous" of Calais people. Natacha Bouchart said migrants in Calais saw Britain as a soft touch on benefits and illegal work. She told MPs migrants said they could easily find work and accommodation in England and were not controlled."
And another big group, who almost certainly will successfully get asylum in Germany, are Afghans. The big Afghan population in Europe is of course in the UK.
Even if only a small minority come here, it will be a huge influx because of the sheer volume Germany is letting in. The German government has said it can accept half a million a year for several years and "maybe more". If they do that for five years and only one in ten come to the UK, then we will get 250k that come here. That's six times as many as our government is choosing to accept.
Our non-EU immigration policy is now out of our hands. That is the inescapable logic of the European Union as currently constituted. Reform is needed - or we should leave.
By the time these people get German passports they will have homes and jobs there, will speak German and will have very little reason or desire to come to the UK.
I'll wager that they don't learn German or integrate, and that they'll move at their earliest opportunity.
I'm with Dair in that I think terrorism is overblown as a threat. We'd get considerably better outcomes diverting CT funds into improved cancer treatments, as just one example. Of course, realpolitik prevents our leaders being as insouciant.
But it's not merely realpolitik forcing governments to act as they do.
There are genuine benefits to a government in having a cowering, fearful population. It makes their job much easier and their continuation all but guaranteed.
Re the London mayoralty, if one of the candidates came out against the random, horrible demolition of happy pubs I reckon they could get quite a few votes.
I'm all for the free market but property developers are now hollowing out the city.
Typical Tory - all for the 'free' market until the negative effects cease falling solely on other people. I know you aren't really a Tory anyway, just a drama queen. Join us.
Free market doesn't mean "free for all". Do you not understand the difference?
Do you actually not understand that 'free market' does indeed mean 'free for all'.
You can't really be that thick?
No it really doesn't.
Yes, it really does. You can have a 'free market' or a controlled market in the same way that you can't be a 'little bit' pregnant.
Silly little man.
You are somewhat limited in both your understanding of what controls there are on "free" markets, and your ability to come up with insults.
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
Germany has a demographic problem. It needs more people of working age and does not have them. Its population is ageing. Merkel understands this, but her problem is that the German public does not want more immigration. However, it is reasonably sympathetic to refugees right now. So what Merkel has done is seize an opportunity. It is realpolitik.
As Robert Peston of the biased BBC makes clear in this article, the same dynamics do not exist in the UK:
If Merkel just followed public opinion, it would do Germany significant damage further down the line. Sometimes leaders have to lead.
The problem is that Free Movement in the EU means her decision to set people on the path to getting passport affects us all. We do not have Germany's dynamics, but we will be affected by Germany's "solution".
By the time these people get German passports they will have homes and jobs there, will speak German and will have very little reason or desire to come to the UK.
That's very naive I think. Once they get settled in Europe I think many of the migrants will prefer to live in a less rigid society than Germany such as Denmark, Sweden, UK, Netherlands. Germany is still quite an old-fashioned society in some respects despite their current welcoming attitude to refugees. Just one example is the way people still use the equivalents of Mr and Mrs in everyday life rather than first names as in the other countries I mentioned.
I doubt whether you call someone Mr and Mrs or by their first name is a huge motivating factor in deciding where to live.
"The mayor of Calais has said she is "disgusted" by David Cameron's response to the migrant crisis.
She said the offer of taking 20,000 migrants over the Parliament but none from Europe proved the prime minister was "contemptuous" of Calais people. Natacha Bouchart said migrants in Calais saw Britain as a soft touch on benefits and illegal work. She told MPs migrants said they could easily find work and accommodation in England and were not controlled."
By the time these people get German passports they will have homes and jobs there, will speak German and will have very little reason or desire to come to the UK.
I'll wager that they don't learn German or integrate, and that they'll move at their earliest opportunity.
I'm with Dair in that I think terrorism is overblown as a threat. We'd get considerably better outcomes diverting CT funds into improved cancer treatments, as just one example. Of course, realpolitik prevents our leaders being as insouciant.
But it's not merely realpolitik forcing governments to act as they do.
There are genuine benefits to a government in having a cowering, fearful population. It makes their job much easier and their continuation all but guaranteed.
Who's cowering and fearful? Wee scaredy Scottish folk presumably.
And another big group, who almost certainly will successfully get asylum in Germany, are Afghans. The big Afghan population in Europe is of course in the UK.
Even if only a small minority come here, it will be a huge influx because of the sheer volume Germany is letting in. The German government has said it can accept half a million a year for several years and "maybe more". If they do that for five years and only one in ten come to the UK, then we will get 250k that come here. That's six times as many as our government is choosing to accept.
Our non-EU immigration policy is now out of our hands. That is the inescapable logic of the European Union as currently constituted. Reform is needed - or we should leave.
If lots of Afghans settle in Germany there will be a big Afghan population in Germany.
I've recorded on here on several occasions how out of touch the BBC and Sky are and the you gov poll endorses that viewpoint. Wonder why neither broadcaster is featuring the poll and with everything going on in Europe the BBC 6.00 news comes from Lebanon would you believe. And finally Obama is commenting in a very non specific way how the US will help
It's correct that luckily we have - so far - only had one large-scale successful Islamist attack in the UK. There have of course been plenty in other European countries, and only a complete fool would be complacent about the risk here. And of course we can never know how many attacks have been foiled by the security services; it's certainly lots, some of them very serious. It's a curious line of argument to cite the success of the security services in preventing attacks as a reason to criticise them.
FARC haven't attacked us yet and they've killed huge numbers of people in large numbers of attacks. Perhaps we should send the drones into Colombia?
Have they expressed an intent to attack us?
Well they are Marxists so their dogma is that the working class in the United Kingdom should attack and kill those who own Capital. ISIS aren't attacking us directly, it appears at best they are trying to inspire those who live here. Much like Marxists.
It's correct that luckily we have - so far - only had one large-scale successful Islamist attack in the UK. There have of course been plenty in other European countries, and only a complete fool would be complacent about the risk here. And of course we can never know how many attacks have been foiled by the security services; it's certainly lots, some of them very serious. It's a curious line of argument to cite the success of the security services in preventing attacks as a reason to criticise them.
"The mayor of Calais has said she is "disgusted" by David Cameron's response to the migrant crisis.
She said the offer of taking 20,000 migrants over the Parliament but none from Europe proved the prime minister was "contemptuous" of Calais people. Natacha Bouchart said migrants in Calais saw Britain as a soft touch on benefits and illegal work. She told MPs migrants said they could easily find work and accommodation in England and were not controlled."
And people are saying that Erdogan is part of the solution?
Nope, as I said on and on, he's funding ISIS to get rid of Assad and he's bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS.
And as I've said on and on, the situation is far more complex than that............ Also note that Turkey sent in troops after the Kurds after a bomb attack in Turkey that killed at least 14 Turkish police officers, a day after another bomb killed 16 soldiers. People also ignore the quite good job Turkey has been doing in dealing with the humanitarian crisis. Turkey's in an impossible situation. Erdogan's played the humanitarian aspect of the crisis well; he's played the wider geopolitical aspect poorly.
I understood that the latest wave of violence was kicked off by the Turks resuming bombing of the Kurds in Syria. But can you please enlighten us with the truth.
And that, AIUI, was a reaction to an attack by the Kurds going back to early August, one of which killed nine Turks, including five police, which the PKK admitted to. It seems (although God knows given the murky waters) that the Turks accuse the PKK of not keeping to their side of the ceasefire deal.
But the two sides hardly need a good reason to attack each other given their history over the last thirty years. The ceasefire of the last couple of years was only agreed because it was mutually beneficial. That is not so much the case now (although I'd obviously rather it was).
The PKK-Turkish conflict has been very bloody. Imagine the IRA versus the British Government in the 1970s, except with none of their restraint. There is little trust and mush fear on both sides.
Wasn't the Kurdish attack due to (*alleged*) complicity of Turkey in the IS bomb attack in the Kurdish-majority city of Suruc?
As I said, some people on both sides don't need much of an excuse to start fighting once again. "Alleged" is probably as far as any of us can go. IS/IS/IL admitted responsibility.
That Yougov poll shows Cameron has pitched his refugee numbers almost exactly right, IMHO.
would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
Cameron is actually listening to public opinion in his country, unlike most other European leaders.
Germany has a demographic problem. It needs more people of working age and does not have them. Its population is ageing. Merkel understands this, but her problem is that the German public does not want more immigration. However, it is reasonably sympathetic to refugees right now. So what Merkel has done is seize an opportunity. It is realpolitik.
As Robert Peston of the biased BBC makes clear in this article, the same dynamics do not exist in the UK:
If Merkel just followed public opinion, it would do Germany significant damage further down the line. Sometimes leaders have to lead.
The problem is that Free Movement in the EU means her decision to set people on the path to getting passport affects us all. We do not have Germany's dynamics, but we will be affected by Germany's "solution".
By the time these people get German passports they will have homes and jobs there, will speak German and will have very little reason or desire to come to the UK.
.
Instead, in 2003, she told her father Jibril that she wanted to move to Britain, where she would have to pay for university. He wasn't upset – in fact he decided to quit his job in a printing firm and bring the whole family to London."
Last time I looked the Netherlands was not part of Germany.
That's one of the stupidest things you've ever said on PB. And I suspect you know it. But you can be forgiven. I suspect you are tired and depressed by the state of Labour.
I am afraid I just don't buy the idea that swarms of people will abandon the biggest and most successful economy in Europe after having lived there for at least eight years (the period it takes to begin to qualify for German citizenship) in order to come to the UK. Why would they?
"The mayor of Calais has said she is "disgusted" by David Cameron's response to the migrant crisis.
She said the offer of taking 20,000 migrants over the Parliament but none from Europe proved the prime minister was "contemptuous" of Calais people. Natacha Bouchart said migrants in Calais saw Britain as a soft touch on benefits and illegal work. She told MPs migrants said they could easily find work and accommodation in England and were not controlled."
Re the London mayoralty, if one of the candidates came out against the random, horrible demolition of happy pubs I reckon they could get quite a few votes.
I'm all for the free market but property developers are now hollowing out the city.
Typical Tory - all for the 'free' market until the negative effects cease falling solely on other people. I know you aren't really a Tory anyway, just a drama queen. Join us.
Free market doesn't mean "free for all". Do you not understand the difference?
Do you actually not understand that 'free market' does indeed mean 'free for all'.
You can't really be that thick?
No it really doesn't.
Yes, it really does. You can have a 'free market' or a controlled market in the same way that you can't be a 'little bit' pregnant.
Silly little man.
You are somewhat limited in both your understanding of what controls there are on "free" markets, and your ability to come up with insults.
If there are controls on the 'market', then it is not 'free', is it.
It's correct that luckily we have - so far - only had one large-scale successful Islamist attack in the UK. There have of course been plenty in other European countries, and only a complete fool would be complacent about the risk here. And of course we can never know how many attacks have been foiled by the security services; it's certainly lots, some of them very serious. It's a curious line of argument to cite the success of the security services in preventing attacks as a reason to criticise them.
FARC haven't attacked us yet and they've killed huge numbers of people in large numbers of attacks. Perhaps we should send the drones into Colombia?
Have they expressed an intent to attack us?
Well they are Marxists so their dogma is that the working class in the United Kingdom should attack and kill those who own Capital. ISIS aren't attacking us directly, it appears at best they are trying to inspire those who live here. Much like Marxists.
And people are saying that Erdogan is part of the solution?
Nope, as I said on and on, he's funding ISIS to get rid of Assad and he's bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS.
And as I've said on and on, the situation is far more complex than that. For instance, only the most pathetic dullard could say he was ' bombing the Kurds because they are fighting ISIS', when there is rather a little more sad history between Turkey and the Kurds than that, leading to 45,000 deaths in 31 years:
As I say above, Turkey needs to be part of this process. If they are not, expect the Kurd / Turkey situation to worsen and the region to destabilise further.
Also note that Turkey sent in troops after the Kurds after a bomb attack in Turkey that killed at least 14 Turkish police officers, a day after another bomb killed 16 soldiers.
People also ignore the quite good job Turkey has been doing in dealing with the humanitarian crisis.
Turkey's in an impossible situation. Erdogan's played the humanitarian aspect of the crisis well; he's played the wider geopolitical aspect poorly.
Yes there is the old Turkish vs Kurdish element, but it's not deniable that Turkey's priority right now is to attack anyone who threatens their ISIS pet:
We should not be blind to the fact that Turkey and ISIS are allies.
It is deniable, especially the sick 'ISIS pet' accusation.
Well something of that size can't appear out of nowhere, of course someone created ISIS and still supports it, Turkey is the most obvious suspect along with Saudi Arabia, and there is plenty of evidence about Turkey.
"The mayor of Calais has said she is "disgusted" by David Cameron's response to the migrant crisis.
She said the offer of taking 20,000 migrants over the Parliament but none from Europe proved the prime minister was "contemptuous" of Calais people. Natacha Bouchart said migrants in Calais saw Britain as a soft touch on benefits and illegal work. She told MPs migrants said they could easily find work and accommodation in England and were not controlled."
Harsh words from Merkel and Hollande to follow, presumably.
How does anyone think that the EU will survive this as it is presently constituted. It seems increasingly likely the UK will vote to leave. While it is only one poll the angst against increased immigration in the UK must strengthen the desire to control our own borders
And another big group, who almost certainly will successfully get asylum in Germany, are Afghans. The big Afghan population in Europe is of course in the UK.
Even if only a small minority come here, it will be a huge influx because of the sheer volume Germany is letting in. The German government has said it can accept half a million a year for several years and "maybe more". If they do that for five years and only one in ten come to the UK, then we will get 250k that come here. That's six times as many as our government is choosing to accept.
Our non-EU immigration policy is now out of our hands. That is the inescapable logic of the European Union as currently constituted. Reform is needed - or we should leave.
I entirely agree. I was minded to vote IN just a year ago, but now I am unsure. As you say, the brutal logic of free movement means unlimited immigration into the UK. That's all there is to it. And they will keep coming, unless the economy crashes. Which is hardly an enticing choice of options. Depression or Civil Strife.
I can easily see the EU referendum being lost, by the europhiles, thanks to this one toxic topic. The timing of the migrant crisis is spookily perfect for sceptics.
The referendum does look very losable. How many passionate Europeans are there?
But there is free movement only for EU citizens. The Syrians going to Germany are not European citizens, and will not become so for many years. When they do, what incentive will they have to come to the UK?
We are about to see the start of one of the greatest shake ups in British politics since 1997 and possibly 1979 and very few people in the establishment, to which I include political betting, are aware. There is a zeitgeist shift.
The fracture of Labour ?
Labour under Corbyn will be like the Gers under Warburton
It's correct that luckily we have - so far - only had one large-scale successful Islamist attack in the UK. There have of course been plenty in other European countries, and only a complete fool would be complacent about the risk here. And of course we can never know how many attacks have been foiled by the security services; it's certainly lots, some of them very serious. It's a curious line of argument to cite the success of the security services in preventing attacks as a reason to criticise them.
FARC haven't attacked us yet and they've killed huge numbers of people in large numbers of attacks. Perhaps we should send the drones into Colombia?
Have they expressed an intent to attack us?
Well they are Marxists so their dogma is that the working class in the United Kingdom should attack and kill those who own Capital. ISIS aren't attacking us directly, it appears at best they are trying to inspire those who live here. Much like Marxists.
Haven't ISIS explicitly targetted the UK though?
Have they?
I've seen claimed attributes about "The West" but that appears no different to Marx' call to "The Workers Of The World".
Comments
We also don't know how many plots have been stopped by our intelligence services.
You are taking the threat of terrorism too lightly in order to support your leader's stupid stance on taking more refugees. A stance that the majority of people in Britain (and most likely Scotland) don't support.
Keep ploughing on though, it just makes you look stupid.
Those who support it or want more (42%) are only just below those who want less (45%)
Any more and he'd be out of kilter with public opinion. Much less and he'd be more open to accusations he wasn't doing enough.
I suppose you could say precise balance would be when the 'support' figure was a bit higher, and the 'fewer' and 'more' numbers polled almost the same, but the Tory leadership are within the MoE for that and should be pretty happy with this.
'It's curious to think that Kaufman's future already lay behind him, when he entered Parliament in 1970.'
Surely it's time for Kaufman to spend more time at home with his £8,865 Bang & Olufsen 40'' TV.
And Cameron is in No.10 because he's not the SNP, people don't have high hopes about him doing the right thing but at least that he won't do much of the wrong things.
A bit of a larger version of Corbyn inside the Labour party, he might not be the best but surely he's not the worst.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/veteran-nhs-campaigner-david-cameron-5067256
You can't really be that thick?
It brings the total deaths to Islamist extremists in the United Kingdom in all of recorded history to 57.
Let's give it your best, between start 2005 and start 2015 there were 6 deaths per year
The IRA killed 1800 people over a 30 year period. Or 60 deaths per year.
Yes of course I am taking the threat of terrorism lightly. Because that threat is pitifully, comically TINY. It will not happen. I will not live my life based on a one in 10 MILLION chance and I object to all the over-hyped nonsense that has been implemented and impact MY RIGHTS and MY FREEDOM in the UK because of this.
Fear is the primary control mechanism of government and it has become an art form in Western Democracies in the 21st century. I am sure some of this is unintentional but much of it appears to be very deliberate, it starts early and continues through life. And it is shocking so many people fall for this bullshit and let their lives be diminished because of it.
If you think, "A massive shift in political debate, and therefore centre, is about to happen." Why not just say so?
None of those things apply to Islamists.
No it really doesn't.
Even the father of two other jihadists accepts that (a) they will likely be killed; and (b) they deserve it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11851000/Syria-drone-strike-My-sons-will-be-next-says-father-of-two-British-jihadists-Nasser-and-Aseel-Muthana.html
if you think you will not be (may already be) parlaying with ISIS you are truly naive.
That said, I'd be interested in LD campaign literature from the SW stating that the party was opposed to the EU.
On Europe, Corbyn should simply announce a free vote, which will increase pressure on Cameron to reverse his current insistence that all ministers campaign for IN.
Hmm.....he seems to be channelling me. I said much the same quite a few days ago now.
"And whoever emigrates for the cause of Allah will find on the earth many locations and abundance,” says the Qur’an. “And whoever leaves his home as an emigrant to Allah and His Messenger and then death overtakes him, his reward has already become incumbent upon Allah. And Allah is ever Forgiving and Merciful.” (4:100)
As Robert Peston of the biased BBC makes clear in this article, the same dynamics do not exist in the UK:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34172729
If Merkel just followed public opinion, it would do Germany significant damage further down the line. Sometimes leaders have to lead.
Hi all,
The game is available below and closes at 7pm tomorrow:
http://www.electiongame.co.uk/labour-leadership/
Thanks!
DC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey–PKK_conflict
As I say above, Turkey needs to be part of this process. If they are not, expect the Kurd / Turkey situation to worsen and the region to destabilise further.
Also note that Turkey sent in troops after the Kurds after a bomb attack in Turkey that killed at least 14 Turkish police officers, a day after another bomb killed 16 soldiers.
People also ignore the quite good job Turkey has been doing in dealing with the humanitarian crisis.
Turkey's in an impossible situation. Erdogan's played the humanitarian aspect of the crisis well; he's played the wider geopolitical aspect poorly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamist_terrorist_attacks#2010s
It's correct that luckily we have - so far - only had one large-scale successful Islamist attack in the UK. There have of course been plenty in other European countries, and only a complete fool would be complacent about the risk here. And of course we can never know how many attacks have been foiled by the security services; it's certainly lots, some of them very serious. It's a curious line of argument to cite the success of the security services in preventing attacks as a reason to criticise them.
I'm not terrified in the slightest. Far too feisty for that. I have consistently argued for the maintenance of our historic civil liberties, which predated the Human Rights Act, and against the authoritarian proposals of the Labour party, when in power. It is the Islamists who - if their world view is allowed to gain a foothold in this country - will do more harm to our civil liberties and freedoms, not by terrorist bombs but by the insidious attack on freedoms such as freedom of speech etc. And that has alread started, aided and abetted by the Labour party.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/21/us-mideast-crisis-turkey-arms-idUSKBN0O61L220150521
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Turkish-Intel-provided-weapons-to-ISIS-terror-suspects-says-390571
http://www.iraqinews.com/arab-world-news/turkish-authorities-arreste-8-soldiers-accused-arms-smuggling-isis/
http://europe.newsweek.com/isis-and-turkey-cooperate-destroy-kurds-former-isis-member-reveals-turkish-282920
We should not be blind to the fact that Turkey and ISIS are allies.
If you'd actually read my previous posts instead of drooling out spew based on what you thought you read then you'd have seen me quite plainly state that a formal war against ISIS instead of this illegal extra-judicial killing would be preferable.
There are three ways to deal with a threat - Destroy, Control or Remove.
The problem with the way the UK is dealing with this is that it is trying to Control the threat which does nothing useful in the long run. Either Remove the threat (outlaw Islam and eject all Muslims who refuse conversion/apostasy) or Destroy the threat by using the Army and destroying ISIS where they stand. I'd understand the argument for either, only one would allow the UK to continue to portray itself as a nation of principle, however both would actually deal the perceived threat.
You're the one stuck in the middle not actually dealing with things at all, taking the worst of both, undermining any idea of being a nation which respects human rights and the law while leaving the threat relatively untouched and actually enforcing stringent restrictions on our own rights.
Silly little man.
Good luck with that.
I'm with Dair in that I think terrorism is overblown as a threat. We'd get considerably better outcomes diverting CT funds into improved cancer treatments, as just one example. Of course, realpolitik prevents our leaders being as insouciant.
Pubs in the country with their large footprint and car parks and drink drive laws are suffering closures as well.
It is not the free market - it is the free choices of the public who are doing things other than going out for a drink. One new trend is for micro pubs, real ale but no lager food or music. Increasingly popular and profitable.
So both SeanT and Wisemann are actually wrong.
But the two sides hardly need a good reason to attack each other given their history over the last thirty years. The ceasefire of the last couple of years was only agreed because it was mutually beneficial. That is not so much the case now (although I'd obviously rather it was).
The PKK-Turkish conflict has been very bloody. Imagine the IRA versus the British Government in the 1970s, except with none of their restraint. There is little trust and mush fear on both sides.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/28/british-dream-europe-african-citizens
"Quman's family had been housed by the Dutch government. She grew up there and spoke Dutch fluently. After finishing school, she would have been entitled to a subsidised university education; even her bus passes would have been paid for by the state.
Instead, in 2003, she told her father Jibril that she wanted to move to Britain, where she would have to pay for university. He wasn't upset – in fact he decided to quit his job in a printing firm and bring the whole family to London."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoDrM1xEVR0
And good point on the hypocrisy of 'family values' MPs btw.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Suruç_bombing
Good luck with that.
I've seen it argued that Islam needs to complete its Reformation which (again it's argued) it is currently going through. It would be nice if there was a way that process could be speeded up but I've not seen any compelling argument as to how that can be achieved.
The Xtian Reformation took, what, 250 years?
Interesting Times.
She said the offer of taking 20,000 migrants over the Parliament but none from Europe proved the prime minister was "contemptuous" of Calais people.
Natacha Bouchart said migrants in Calais saw Britain as a soft touch on benefits and illegal work.
She told MPs migrants said they could easily find work and accommodation in England and were not controlled."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34191937
And another big group, who almost certainly will successfully get asylum in Germany, are Afghans. The big Afghan population in Europe is of course in the UK.
Even if only a small minority come here, it will be a huge influx because of the sheer volume Germany is letting in. The German government has said it can accept half a million a year for several years and "maybe more". If they do that for five years and only one in ten come to the UK, then we will get 250k that come here. That's six times as many as our government is choosing to accept.
Our non-EU immigration policy is now out of our hands. That is the inescapable logic of the European Union as currently constituted. Reform is needed - or we should leave.
Says that we're showing contempt to her people. Whatever.
There are genuine benefits to a government in having a cowering, fearful population. It makes their job much easier and their continuation all but guaranteed.
You are somewhat limited in both your understanding of what controls there are on "free" markets, and your ability to come up with insults.
Man Up and get some backbone.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34173542
Oh, and I didn't insult you either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant#Foundation.2C_1999.E2.80.932006
You're just being silly now.
But there is free movement only for EU citizens. The Syrians going to Germany are not European citizens, and will not become so for many years. When they do, what incentive will they have to come to the UK?
I do love how these examples of pretty much every other North European economy demonstrate how much UK media lies to people.
I've seen claimed attributes about "The West" but that appears no different to Marx' call to "The Workers Of The World".
Really, there is no difference.