Shocking last 15 from England. Terrible substitutions. Burgess and Farrell should have been left well alone. And that's not the first time Robshaw has made the wrong penalty call at the death.
Yes, I've told the story here before of the time when I tried to get some Home Office funding for a website that a branch of the Ahmadis wanted to set up, propagating a peaceful and inclusive version of Islam and drawing attention to passages in the Koran urging engagement and tolerance. The chap in Broxtowe who approached me was (and still is) as peaceful and open-minded as anyone I've ever met - I remember he wanted to organise a vigil outside synagogues to protect them at a time there were fears that they might be attacked by extremists. The Home Office declined to help - "This group is highly moderate so we don't see them as a problem, and therefore we don't feel it needs us to get involved."
The fact that they're seen as eccentric and at most borderline Muslims (perhaps more like the Quakers than the Mormons) might have been a stronger argument. But I felt that the "You're too moderate so we won't help you" line was ridiculous. (I'd have said so in public but, characteristically, my constituent politely accepted the decision and didn't want to make a fuss.)
The thing that worries me most about Muslims is seeing the way moderates like Maajid Nawaz, Irshad Manji, and, apparently, the Ahmadis are ostracised. I have no problem accepting Quakers as fellow Christians. Why can't Muslims accept Ahmadis as the same?
Ahmedis do not accept Muhammad as the last prophet. It is the central in Islam.
I know Zac and Suzanne Evans very well. She would have been the acceptable face of UKIP because she ismfemLe and not right wing. Ex-Tory but really was soooo left wing. Zac knows exactly what he is doing. Lynton Crosby is working for him. He's got a chance.
Virtually all the candidates in both the Democratic and Republican races for 2016 are mediocre to pretty dire. I feel sorry for the Americans.
Who were the last few presidential candidates (don't mean party nominee necessarily, anyone running in the primaries) who you would have identified as "strong", regardless of whether you agreed with their policies?
Are you referring to 2016 or previous primaries in 2012 and 2008? I personally would agree with Hilary most out of all the candidates, but given the sheer lack of trust many Americans have on her I don't think she's a strong candidate.
Well since you said nobody in 2016, I was asking for the last few before that - but that might be some way back! (HYUFD's answer was very interesting and he left decade-long gaps between some "strong" candidates...)
Yes, but strong candidates do not come along that regularly, in UK or US politics
Curious why you didn't pop Obama into your list. I thought DavidL's position was pretty nuanced (good candidate, shame about the administration). It was evident he was a superstar as early as the primaries. I can accept that may not mean you classify him as "strong"!
Indeed, Obama was a great candidate, as a president he has just been OK in my view
His speeches when he first stood were the best since Kennedy. Technically brilliant. Beautiful balanced sentences, soaring rhetoric and a genuine engagement with ideas. "Ok" as President strikes me as pretty seriously generous.
I'm a pretty conservative sort of guy but Obama seems to have been pretty good. The US recovery has been better than ours, he's mostly restrained the warmongering side of American politics, and he's ended the appalling situation where people couldn't get healthcare because they're too poor. He certainly compares well with Bush Jnr and the current lot competing to be his successor.
Shocking last 15 from England. Terrible substitutions. Burgess and Farrell should have been left well alone. And that's not the first time Robshaw has made the wrong penalty call at the death.
Excellent from Wales though. They deserved it.
It didn't work, but it wasn't the wrong call.
The mistake was kicking from 5m out up by 4 points with Wales really on the back foot. A try then would have killed the game.
Yes, I've told the story here before of the time when I tried to get some Home Office funding for a website that a branch of the Ahmadis wanted to set up, propagating a peaceful and inclusive version of Islam and drawing attention to passages in the Koran urging engagement and tolerance. The chap in Broxtowe who approached me was (and still is) as peaceful and open-minded as anyone I've ever met - I remember he wanted to organise a vigil outside synagogues to protect them at a time there were fears that they might be attacked by extremists. The Home Office declined to help - "This group is highly moderate so we don't see them as a problem, and therefore we don't feel it needs us to get involved."
The fact that they're seen as eccentric and at most borderline Muslims (perhaps more like the Quakers than the Mormons) might have been a stronger argument. But I felt that the "You're too moderate so we won't help you" line was ridiculous. (I'd have said so in public but, characteristically, my constituent politely accepted the decision and didn't want to make a fuss.)
The thing that worries me most about Muslims is seeing the way moderates like Maajid Nawaz, Irshad Manji, and, apparently, the Ahmadis are ostracised. I have no problem accepting Quakers as fellow Christians. Why can't Muslims accept Ahmadis as the same?
Ahmedis do not accept Muhammad as the last prophet. It is the central in Islam.
And Quakers don't accept Jesus being the son of God.
If Lab is now going to set policy by a vote of all those eligible to vote for the leader it must be very likely they will endorse the Corbyn agenda - ie:
- Scrap Trident - No welfare cap
Leaving NATO may be a closer run thing but 60:40 they go for it.
If the potential Con vote maxes out in the low 40s, and Labour are going to pursue a 20% strategy, it really is quite difficult to work out where the rest of the votes end up!
Evening all. I think people will just not bother voting. I can't see Corbyn breaking 30% in the election. Having said that, I can at least bail out of the UK if the worst happens .
I could see a Corbin labour party getting may be 25% of the vote. There is scope for a growth of one of the other parties, UKIP, LD or Green, or maybe something non of us have herd of yet. However we are still left with the fact that FPTP is very hard for 3rd parties.
Wales win, England now have to beat Australia next weekend or go out. Well done to the boyos though!
Game turned on a penalty for Wales for a not very late tackle on their 10 yd line. Very foolish and needless challenge. Doubly bad as England would have got the ball from their own throw in otherwise. Wales needlessly gained 40 yds and possession.
Shocking last 15 from England. Terrible substitutions. Burgess and Farrell should have been left well alone. And that's not the first time Robshaw has made the wrong penalty call at the death.
Excellent from Wales though. They deserved it.
It didn't work, but it wasn't the wrong call.
The mistake was kicking from 5m out up by 4 points with Wales really on the back foot. A try then would have killed the game.
The substitutions were awful. Still, onwards and upwards.
Wales win, England now have to beat Australia next weekend or go out. Well done to the boyos though!
Game turned on a penalty for Wales for a not very late tackle on their 10 yd line. Very foolish and needless challenge. Doubly bad as England would have got the ball from their own throw in otherwise. Wales needlessly gained 40 yds and possession.
Indeed, plus a stupid England decision to go for a try and not a penalty kick
His speeches when he first stood were the best since Kennedy. Technically brilliant. Beautiful balanced sentences, soaring rhetoric and a genuine engagement with ideas. "Ok" as President strikes me as pretty seriously generous.
Obama has begun the path to socialised medicine in the United States, ended the Cuban embargo and might have started proper relations with Iran.
Any one of those would be a hugely successful president.
The best claim Kennedy has was he focused the space programme on the moon landings (which they actually were already focused on). He never really achieved anything else.
Well done to Lizzie Armistead! Cracking result to become World Champion.
Plus she has a couple of years on Vos who's body seems to be giving out on her. Armistead for gold in Rio looks pretty good right now.
The actual racing was even more impressive than just claiming the rainbow jersey. Superbly done without a decent team to back her up (which is a bit disappointing to be honest, GB should have at least as strong a team as the Dutch, something is going wrong with the women's Road Race set up).
'This politician may or may not be President of the United States someday… but he’s already yapping behind the scenes about his rather interesting choice for Vice President! Since he is male, he wants to appeal to female voters by choosing a female running mate. To that end, he is already talking to a woman whose family name is certainly one of the most famous in political history. The only trouble is… she’s never actually DONE anything! She’s never won an election of any kind, and it would be easy to argue that any job she has gotten came from trading in on her family name. Would that family name really be enough to sway voters to their ticket?' http://blindgossip.com/?p=73951
Very annoyed about the substitutions, especially the Burgess one. But that was some performance by the Welsh.
At least Spurs won.
Just shows: never rely on posh boys :-)
Leaving aside that none of them were posh, the substitutions for no good reason were strange. But England were the ones who gave away the needless penalties. I rarely bother watching RU but since its wall to will on Saturday I've been giving it a go. Its still slow and rewards goal kicks too much. Strangely I've just had a frisson of deja vu as I watch the News.
Sport is strange. United pilloried for paying record sum for 19 year old and they've rocketed up to top of table since, whilst City slump.
If you spent your time watching the rugby, you missed much better sport.
Lizzie Armistead winning the World Road Race was just amazing.
Agreed. With 20km to go I thought the peloton had blown it. Awesome last few KM's to bring it back together then she monstored the sprint.
The way she pushed it on the hill, then managed to conserve enough energy when she couldn't pull away and ride a tactically perfect last 700m was just awesome.
Vos is gonna be a little bit doubtful for Rio and I doubt she's ever had a doubt before in her career.
'This politician may or may not be President of the United States someday… but he’s already yapping behind the scenes about his rather interesting choice for Vice President! Since he is male, he wants to appeal to female voters by choosing a female running mate. To that end, he is already talking to a woman whose family name is certainly one of the most famous in political history. The only trouble is… she’s never actually DONE anything! She’s never won an election of any kind, and it would be easy to argue that any job she has gotten came from trading in on her family name. Would that family name really be enough to sway voters to their ticket?' http://blindgossip.com/?p=73951
If Biden wants a woman VP choice to electrify the race, he would choose Elizabeth Warren.
If you spent your time watching the rugby, you missed much better sport.
Lizzie Armistead winning the World Road Race was just amazing.
Agreed. With 20km to go I thought the peloton had blown it. Awesome last few KM's to bring it back together then she monstored the sprint.
The way she pushed it on the hill, then managed to conserve enough energy when she couldn't pull away and ride a tactically perfect last 700m was just awesome.
Vos is gonna be a little bit doubtful for Rio and I doubt she's ever had a doubt before in her career.
I was amazed how the breakaway didn't hold the gap. Goes to show how different the men's race is, imo that would have been done and dusted.
His speeches when he first stood were the best since Kennedy. Technically brilliant. Beautiful balanced sentences, soaring rhetoric and a genuine engagement with ideas. "Ok" as President strikes me as pretty seriously generous.
Obama has begun the path to socialised medicine in the United States, ended the Cuban embargo and might have started proper relations with Iran.
Any one of those would be a hugely successful president.
The best claim Kennedy has was he focused the space programme on the moon landings (which they actually were already focused on). He never really achieved anything else.
'This politician may or may not be President of the United States someday… but he’s already yapping behind the scenes about his rather interesting choice for Vice President! Since he is male, he wants to appeal to female voters by choosing a female running mate. To that end, he is already talking to a woman whose family name is certainly one of the most famous in political history. The only trouble is… she’s never actually DONE anything! She’s never won an election of any kind, and it would be easy to argue that any job she has gotten came from trading in on her family name. Would that family name really be enough to sway voters to their ticket?' http://blindgossip.com/?p=73951
If Biden wants a woman VP choice to electrify the race, he would choose Elizabeth Warren.
That has been suggested in the past, but this item suggests he is trying for some Kennedy stardust
If you spent your time watching the rugby, you missed much better sport.
Lizzie Armistead winning the World Road Race was just amazing.
Agreed. With 20km to go I thought the peloton had blown it. Awesome last few KM's to bring it back together then she monstored the sprint.
The way she pushed it on the hill, then managed to conserve enough energy when she couldn't pull away and ride a tactically perfect last 700m was just awesome.
Vos is gonna be a little bit doubtful for Rio and I doubt she's ever had a doubt before in her career.
I was amazed how the breakaway didn't hold the gap. Goes to show how different the men's race is, imo that would have been done and dusted.
The main difference is in the lack of depth, the chances are quite a few of those in the break weren't of the same level as the rest and were pretty much spent just staying in the stream (clearly the Dutch thought that of their rider as they led the chase).
It will be a good few years (possible a couple of decades) till womens racing gets the same sort of depth. A top female endurance athlete has better options (predominantly Triathlon) which pay better and get better exposure.
I wouldn't be surprised if Emma Pooley makes more money from the two or three years she gets at the top of distance Triathlon as she's ever made from cycling.
His speeches when he first stood were the best since Kennedy. Technically brilliant. Beautiful balanced sentences, soaring rhetoric and a genuine engagement with ideas. "Ok" as President strikes me as pretty seriously generous.
Obama has begun the path to socialised medicine in the United States, ended the Cuban embargo and might have started proper relations with Iran.
Any one of those would be a hugely successful president.
The best claim Kennedy has was he focused the space programme on the moon landings (which they actually were already focused on). He never really achieved anything else.
... The Home Office declined to help - "This group is highly moderate so we don't see them as a problem, and therefore we don't feel it needs us to get involved."
The fact that they're seen as eccentric and at most borderline Muslims (perhaps more like the Quakers than the Mormons) might have been a stronger argument. But I felt that the "You're too moderate so we won't help you" line was ridiculous. (I'd have said so in public but, characteristically, my constituent politely accepted the decision and didn't want to make a fuss.)
Thanks Nick, that's fascinating. I agree that the Home Office being seen to support Ahmadi activity would almost certainly have backfired: they're already seen as Zionist/American puppets by many Muslims, and the kind of extremists who are a threat to our security are already quite intent on wiping them out, even in London.
I disagree that the "they're too moderate" line was nonsense, my understanding (limited, presumably this is really y0kel's territory) is that it's a major issue with the Prevent strategy to find groups who are actually extreme enough to require intervention, but not so extreme that they were already a lost cause. There was certainly a feeling at one point that too many resources had been put into warm-n-fuzzy community relations initiatives that weren't targeting those hard-to-reach groups.
There are certainly kids out there who would switch off when they saw any involvement by more "ecumenical" folk. They're more likely to take heed of a hardliner who desires the Holy Land to be administered by a Muslim state, with full right of return for Palestinian refugees, and is highly critical of Western foreign policy, but who makes clear that this is no justification to commit atrocities in the West nor to travel to the Middle East, Central Asia or Kashmir to fight for extremist groups.
It's a tricky one. Certainly in the long run Britain would be better off it we fostered more liberal and modern forms of Islam, but it's difficult to do that without clerics being accused of being sell-outs (which leads young minds to seek "the truth" from unblemished sermons on Youtube). Training more imans in the UK and restricting foreign (principally Saudi) funding for British mosques might be acceptable ways forward. And in the 1990s it was clearly a strategic error to let so many extremist groups operate in "Londonistan" (I know from French media coverage at the time that this is something that drove the French government mad, and even after 9/11 we didn't seem to really get to grips with it ... 7/7 seems to have been the bigger wake-up call). But there's a degree of tension between an approach focused on the bedroom jihadi, and one that wants long-term, large-scale social change.
It's perhaps reasonable to consider that the Ahmadiyya are to Islam roughly what some of the borderline sects - Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons for example - are to Christianity. There is a sufficient alteration to doctrine to render them semi-detached.
That can then be leveraged to render them enemies, such as being defined as 'not Muslim' in the Pakistani Constitution by the Zia Ul-Hag regime.
Comments
Excellent from Wales though. They deserved it.
The mistake was kicking from 5m out up by 4 points with Wales really on the back foot. A try then would have killed the game.
Lizzie Armistead winning the World Road Race was just amazing.
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/Politics/article1612373.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2015_09_26
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4290624.stm
Awesome last few KM's to bring it back together then she monstored the sprint.
At least Spurs won.
Just shows: never rely on posh boys :-)
I appointed the best person for the job
Your choice could be open to question
He indulges in nepotism
The actual racing was even more impressive than just claiming the rainbow jersey. Superbly done without a decent team to back her up (which is a bit disappointing to be honest, GB should have at least as strong a team as the Dutch, something is going wrong with the women's Road Race set up).
'This politician may or may not be President of the United States someday… but he’s already yapping behind the scenes about his rather interesting choice for Vice President! Since he is male, he wants to appeal to female voters by choosing a female running mate. To that end, he is already talking to a woman whose family name is certainly one of the most famous in political history. The only trouble is… she’s never actually DONE anything! She’s never won an election of any kind, and it would be easy to argue that any job she has gotten came from trading in on her family name. Would that family name really be enough to sway voters to their ticket?'
http://blindgossip.com/?p=73951
Corbyn's son is called Sebastian!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CP3AF46XAAEwO64.jpg
Strangely I've just had a frisson of deja vu as I watch the News.
Sport is strange. United pilloried for paying record sum for 19 year old and they've rocketed up to top of table since, whilst City slump.
Vos is gonna be a little bit doubtful for Rio and I doubt she's ever had a doubt before in her career.
We knew this already I think
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3247831/Rape-child-abuse-rife-overcrowded-asylum-centres-huge-surge-migrants-pushes-Germany-s-services-breaking-point-claim-womens-rights-groups-politicians.html
I see - Wales won
England - presumably - hyufd.
Tomorrow's front page: 'Punishment beatings' to split Labour http://t.co/nQWGJgNg7n
It will be a good few years (possible a couple of decades) till womens racing gets the same sort of depth. A top female endurance athlete has better options (predominantly Triathlon) which pay better and get better exposure.
I wouldn't be surprised if Emma Pooley makes more money from the two or three years she gets at the top of distance Triathlon as she's ever made from cycling.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hardliners-call-for-deaths-of-surrey-muslims-2112268.html
I disagree that the "they're too moderate" line was nonsense, my understanding (limited, presumably this is really y0kel's territory) is that it's a major issue with the Prevent strategy to find groups who are actually extreme enough to require intervention, but not so extreme that they were already a lost cause. There was certainly a feeling at one point that too many resources had been put into warm-n-fuzzy community relations initiatives that weren't targeting those hard-to-reach groups.
There are certainly kids out there who would switch off when they saw any involvement by more "ecumenical" folk. They're more likely to take heed of a hardliner who desires the Holy Land to be administered by a Muslim state, with full right of return for Palestinian refugees, and is highly critical of Western foreign policy, but who makes clear that this is no justification to commit atrocities in the West nor to travel to the Middle East, Central Asia or Kashmir to fight for extremist groups.
It's a tricky one. Certainly in the long run Britain would be better off it we fostered more liberal and modern forms of Islam, but it's difficult to do that without clerics being accused of being sell-outs (which leads young minds to seek "the truth" from unblemished sermons on Youtube). Training more imans in the UK and restricting foreign (principally Saudi) funding for British mosques might be acceptable ways forward. And in the 1990s it was clearly a strategic error to let so many extremist groups operate in "Londonistan" (I know from French media coverage at the time that this is something that drove the French government mad, and even after 9/11 we didn't seem to really get to grips with it ... 7/7 seems to have been the bigger wake-up call). But there's a degree of tension between an approach focused on the bedroom jihadi, and one that wants long-term, large-scale social change.
That can then be leveraged to render them enemies, such as being defined as 'not Muslim' in the Pakistani Constitution by the Zia Ul-Hag regime.