Mr. Felix, working together does not require membership of the EU. The UK and US intelligence services work together very closely.
One wonders where a number of our current good relationships will go if we vote for isolationism. Just because we opt for a bucketful of nonsense does not mean the rest of the world will put up with it.
Leaving the EU is not th same as voting for isolationism
Another point to remember about 2020 is that to remain in power the Conservatives need at least something close to a majority. Say 310 seats on the current boundaries.
Might be mishearing, but BBC are saying gunshots were fired in the terminal. I wonder if the shots were from security services?
If so, I wonder what Corbyn would say about the security services firing in such circumstances?
(It could equally be the terrorists firing, although that did not happen in the London or Glasgow attacks).
If they had access to them (and guns were used in Paris), they may have taken them. On the other hand, carrying guns might have been more noticeable and made it harder to reach their targets, or the gunfire allowed people to run before the explosions.
Might be mishearing, but BBC are saying gunshots were fired in the terminal. I wonder if the shots were from security services?
If so, I wonder what Corbyn would say about the security services firing in such circumstances?
(It could equally be the terrorists firing, although that did not happen in the London or Glasgow attacks).
If they had access to them (and guns were used in Paris), they may have taken them. On the other hand, carrying guns might have been more noticeable and made it harder to reach their targets, or the gunfire allowed people to run before the explosions.
Who knows ...
There will have been armed police and soldiers in the terminal who may well have reacted to something they saw or heard.
Might be mishearing, but BBC are saying gunshots were fired in the terminal. I wonder if the shots were from security services?
If so, I wonder what Corbyn would say about the security services firing in such circumstances?
(It could equally be the terrorists firing, although that did not happen in the London or Glasgow attacks).
If they had access to them (and guns were used in Paris), they may have taken them. On the other hand, carrying guns might have been more noticeable and made it harder to reach their targets, or the gunfire allowed people to run before the explosions.
Who knows ...
You're assuming it was the suicide bombers who fired.
At Warrington, IIRC, the PIRA used a small bomb to make people run towards a large bomb that went off a few minutes later
Mr. Felix, working together does not require membership of the EU. The UK and US intelligence services work together very closely.
One wonders where a number of our current good relationships will go if we vote for isolationism. Just because we opt for a bucketful of nonsense does not mean the rest of the world will put up with it.
Leaving the EU is not th same as voting for isolationism
Perceptions matter, as others have noted below.
If leave advocates use these attacks as a reason to vote to leave, then that will be heard loud and clear across Europe. For this reason and for many others I doubt they will.
Allison Pearson seems to have made the full transformation from metropolitan luvvie to reactionary flake. I'm sure her career at the Telegraph will only be enhanced.
Local Tory associations update as per Telegraph article
Originally, Lord Feldman had envisaged 650 Tory associations being merged into as few as 60 “multi-constituency associations” based loosely on county areas, downgrading the role of party chairmen and their influence on MPs.
However, after an outcry when The Daily Telegraph disclosed the scale of the reforms, they were watered down so that under the final proposals published by Lord Feldman last night, only local associations with fewer than 100 members - 290 out of the party's 650 associations - will have to consider merging.
Might be mishearing, but BBC are saying gunshots were fired in the terminal. I wonder if the shots were from security services?
If so, I wonder what Corbyn would say about the security services firing in such circumstances?
(It could equally be the terrorists firing, although that did not happen in the London or Glasgow attacks).
If they had access to them (and guns were used in Paris), they may have taken them. On the other hand, carrying guns might have been more noticeable and made it harder to reach their targets, or the gunfire allowed people to run before the explosions.
Who knows ...
You're assuming it was the suicide bombers who fired.
At Warrington, IIRC, the PIRA used a small bomb to make people run towards a large bomb that went off a few minutes later
No I'm not assuming that: read my first post above, where I wonder what Corbyn would say if it turned out to the security services firing.
Your second paragraph might sadly be correct: some eye-witness reports say that the first explosion caused people to run towards the site of the second.
Just imagine. A party chairman with the lowest personal rating from members thinks he can impose a reorganisation. This will end in tears or him being forced out.
Might be mishearing, but BBC are saying gunshots were fired in the terminal. I wonder if the shots were from security services?
If so, I wonder what Corbyn would say about the security services firing in such circumstances?
(It could equally be the terrorists firing, although that did not happen in the London or Glasgow attacks).
This is silly and does come across as playing partisan politics off the back of something [retty tragic. It was clear that Corbyn wasn't saying that the police shouldn't shoot people where it was justified on clear public safety grounds, but opposing a "shoot-to-kill" policy which is widely understood as referring to shooting terror suspects without making reasonable attempts to arrest them before deploying lethal force.
It was dreadful politics on Corbyn's part to even go there in that context, but those piling in knew exactly what he meant and merely saw an opportunity to damage him. Fair enough, it's their job, but would come across as pretty callous and opportunistic to play that game when another attack is going on.
'I consider using the current unfolding situation in Belgium as an argument for Brexit which several Leave supporters have done this morning, is beneath contempt'
Oh please - the Remain side have already used the terrorist threat as an argument for staying in. Spare us the pompous posturing.
In respect to all those killed and injured now is not the time to attempt to make a political case for remain or leave.
Andrew Neil New reports, sourced to Brussels fire service, four metro stations under attack. Belgian capital under terrorist onslaught multiple fronts
Sky confirm airport suicide bomber
This like London 2005, again. The same disbelief, the same panic when the news finally strikes home.
What panic? No one in London 'panicked'. Most people gritted their teeth and got on with it.
Shooting a Brazilian electrician eight times might be construed as panicky.
That was a week later, in response to another (real) terrorist group that were being hunted. Not that I'm excusing the shooting.
In the meantime, life went on.
I was in London that day - the initial reaction was that people were irritated they had to walk to work because the tube was down. Once they realised the enormity of what had happened nothing really got done - they talked about it, the mood was pretty downbeat, a lot of people went home early.
That continued for a couple of days, and then life slowly got back to normal.
Mr. Felix, working together does not require membership of the EU. The UK and US intelligence services work together very closely.
One wonders where a number of our current good relationships will go if we vote for isolationism. Just because we opt for a bucketful of nonsense does not mean the rest of the world will put up with it.
Leaving the EU is not th same as voting for isolationism
Perceptions matter, as others have noted below.
If leave advocates use these attacks as a reason to vote to leave, then that will be heard loud and clear across Europe. For this reason and for many others I doubt they will.
Finished reading the article. Going to have to massively disagree with it. If anything it is Dave and George who are out of step with the party.
In an alternate universe Dave would have ignored Osborne and taken my advice:
"The only way to unite the party is have the PM campaign for Leave. The Europhile headbangers can f*** off to the Lib Dems then."
Anyway, your opinion on the Tory party is basically not worth anything, you aren't a member, you aren't interested in the party's well being and you couldn't care less if it survives as long as the leadership delivers a Remain vote.
In 1990 this article may have been relevant, but today it is the Europhiles who are set to destroy the party. If Dave had backed a Leave vote he would have carried 270-280 MPs and about 70-80% of Tory voters. It is only because the PM has gone against the grain of his party that we appear split on the subject, it is loyalty to the PM that is the driver of the split.
Dave stepped back from the brink yesterday, we can see he sensed the danger, he knows that the tone he took in the reply to IDS and specifically mentioning Europe was, on balance, idiotic.
Stop pretending to care about the Conservative party when really all you are interested in is making the vast majority of the party, eurosceptics, look like a few crazy people tearing the party apart because it suits your agenda. The party will survive, even on a local level there is no appetite to remove the PM, a few hardline MPs might want to but the members I know have no appetite to remove him, there is real hostility towards Osborne, people who previously may have backed him for the leadership now want him gone as chancellor.
May got criticism for signing up to parts of the Justice pillar of the EU last year which allows such things as the European Arrest Warrant and co-operation on police and security. I think that was unwarranted.
It is true that the UK and the US have a closer intelligence relationship than any we have with any EU country but that has arisen out of 60 years of such close co-operation, Nato and shared IT assets. Within the EU co-operation has largely developed within the EU structure and the institutional co-operation is dependent upon it.
In my view it would be very much in the interests of the UK to maintain and indeed develop such co-operation and intelligence sharing whether we are in the EU or not. The mechanics of how that might be done within the EEA may be complex but the mutuality of interest is obvious. With GCHQ and the American connection the UK has by far the best intelligence in respect of international risks but if we are to be safe we (and the Belgians) need to have a better idea of what is happening on our own continent and our own indigenous populations.
For me, this is an issue for Leave but ultimately a very solvable one and the horrors in Belgium today are no reason for anyone to change their vote about EU membership.
A lot of money has been staked on Leave since last night. The implied probability of Leave at the Betfair exchange has risen in half a day from 31% to 37%.
Mr. Betting, not just that. If the PCP has just averted civil war, Cameron would be nuts to give the green light to a grassroots rebellion.
You think that Cameron 1. Pays that much attention to detail 2. Thinks about what causes dissatisfaction in his party? 3. Is not demob happy and wants out asap?
Finished reading the article. Going to have to massively disagree with it. If anything it is Dave and George who are out of step with the party.
In an alternate universe Dave would have ignored Osborne and taken my advice:
"The only way to unite the party is have the PM campaign for Leave. The Europhile headbangers can f*** off to the Lib Dems then."
Anyway, your opinion on the Tory party is basically not worth anything, you aren't a member, you aren't interested in the party's well being and you couldn't care less if it survives as long as the leadership delivers a Remain vote.
In 1990 this article may have been relevant, but today it is the Europhiles who are set to destroy the party. If Dave had backed a Leave vote he would have carried 270-280 MPs and about 70-80% of Tory voters. It is only because the PM has gone against the grain of his party that we appear split on the subject, it is loyalty to the PM that is the driver of the split.
Dave stepped back from the brink yesterday, we can see he sensed the danger, he knows that the tone he took in the reply to IDS and specifically mentioning Europe was, on balance, idiotic.
Stop pretending to care about the Conservative party when really all you are interested in is making the vast majority of the party, eurosceptics, look like a few crazy people tearing the party apart because it suits your agenda. The party will survive, even on a local level there is no appetite to remove the PM, a few hardline MPs might want to but the members I know have no appetite to remove him, there is real hostility towards Osborne, people who previously may have backed him for the leadership now want him gone as chancellor.
Your last paragraph sums up how I feel about the party and I am a member. Osborne needs to be moved in the immediate post referendum cabinet
You'd have thought they could come up with a better title that "Cabinet Office Briefing Room A meeting"...
I'm fairly sure that for a couple of years in the last decade they actually met in Briefing Room B due to refurb works in A. It's a sad indictment of the lack of openness in our political system that the committee was never described as COBRB in those years.
Andrew Neil New reports, sourced to Brussels fire service, four metro stations under attack. Belgian capital under terrorist onslaught multiple fronts
Sky confirm airport suicide bomber
This like London 2005, again. The same disbelief, the same panic when the news finally strikes home.
What panic? No one in London 'panicked'. Most people gritted their teeth and got on with it.
Shooting a Brazilian electrician eight times might be construed as panicky.
That was a week later, in response to another (real) terrorist group that were being hunted. Not that I'm excusing the shooting.
In the meantime, life went on.
I was in London that day - the initial reaction was that people were irritated they had to walk to work because the tube was down. Once they realised the enormity of what had happened nothing really got done - they talked about it, the mood was pretty downbeat, a lot of people went home early.
That continued for a couple of days, and then life slowly got back to normal.
Riding the Tube to work the next morning was by far Livingstone's finest hour as mayor.
Might be mishearing, but BBC are saying gunshots were fired in the terminal. I wonder if the shots were from security services?
If so, I wonder what Corbyn would say about the security services firing in such circumstances?
(It could equally be the terrorists firing, although that did not happen in the London or Glasgow attacks).
This is silly and does come across as playing partisan politics off the back of something [retty tragic. It was clear that Corbyn wasn't saying that the police shouldn't shoot people where it was justified on clear public safety grounds, but opposing a "shoot-to-kill" policy which is widely understood as referring to shooting terror suspects without making reasonable attempts to arrest them before deploying lethal force.
It was dreadful politics on Corbyn's part to even go there in that context, but those piling in knew exactly what he meant and merely saw an opportunity to damage him. Fair enough, it's their job, but would come across as pretty callous and opportunistic to play that game when another attack is going on.
The connection won't be made explicitly for a few weeks. Voters can make the connection for themselves though. As to it being unfair, I don't entirely agree. It's low politics but not, imo, unfair.
Having started the day by describing the Conservatives as screwed I should add that that all depends on Jexit.
Sky reporting 90 ISIS members thought to be in Europe, and the sophisticated approach to avoiding surveillance is a real concern. Crates of one use only mobiles found and low tech bomb making skills widely spread.
If leave advocates use these attacks as a reason to vote to leave, then that will be heard loud and clear across Europe. For this reason and for many others I doubt they will.
What the attacks do argue for is a British withdrawal from NATO. And yes they do. If Belgium has got a crap foreign policy based on alliance with the US, that is no reason for Britain to. Russia and China have also been subjected to terrorist attacks, and that is no reason for Britain to be allied militarily to those countries. Britain's defence policy should first and foremost be about the defence of the British homeland.
'The only way to unite the party is have the PM campaign for Leave. The Europhile headbangers can f*** off to the Lib Dems then'
While I would sympathise with the sentiment there, he didn't I think even need to go that far. Even a moderately successful renegotiation, with a few clear wins in it, would probably have been enough to keep most of his party happy. Something along the lines of the agenda of the Bloomberg speech for example. There would have been a positive direction of travel, at least.
Instead of that, what we got was the PM making no serious effort at all to achieve significant reforms, but rather engaging in a cynical PR exercise aimed at bouncing his party and the voters into a Remain vote - and allowing his various aides and hangers-on to say so publicly.
He has rubbed the noses of not just hardened EU opponents but also much milder eurosceptics in the dirt. And then he expects them to simply accept this.
You can demand loyalty all you like, but real leaders earn it.
May got criticism for signing up to parts of the Justice pillar of the EU last year which allows such things as the European Arrest Warrant and co-operation on police and security. I think that was unwarranted.
It is true that the UK and the US have a closer intelligence relationship than any we have with any EU country but that has arisen out of 60 years of such close co-operation, Nato and shared IT assets. Within the EU co-operation has largely developed within the EU structure and the institutional co-operation is dependent upon it.
In my view it would be very much in the interests of the UK to maintain and indeed develop such co-operation and intelligence sharing whether we are in the EU or not. The mechanics of how that might be done within the EEA may be complex but the mutuality of interest is obvious. With GCHQ and the American connection the UK has by far the best intelligence in respect of international risks but if we are to be safe we (and the Belgians) need to have a better idea of what is happening on our own continent and our own indigenous populations.
For me, this is an issue for Leave but ultimately a very solvable one and the horrors in Belgium today are no reason for anyone to change their vote about EU membership.
Agreed - if anything Leave might make it easier to cooperate effectively by removing the political dimension from what, fundamentally, is a practical matter
You'd have thought they could come up with a better title that "Cabinet Office Briefing Room A meeting"...
I'm fairly sure that for a couple of years in the last decade they actually met in Briefing Room B due to refurb works in A. It's a sad indictment of the lack of openness in our political system that the committee was never described as COBRB in those years.
How can it take a couple of years to refurb a room...?
If leave advocates use these attacks as a reason to vote to leave, then that will be heard loud and clear across Europe. For this reason and for many others I doubt they will.
What the attacks do argue for is a British withdrawal from NATO. And yes they do. If Belgium has got a crap foreign policy based on alliance with the US, that is no reason for Britain to. Russia and China have also been subjected to terrorist attacks, and that is no reason for Britain to be allied militarily to those countries. Britain's defence policy should first and foremost be about the defence of the British homeland.
I hate to comment in the midst of something awful like this and my heart goes out to the Belgians.
Just to say that I never really gave a toss about myself but now I have kids it is slightly concerning to see attacks like this carried out against innocent people on the continent.
I'm willing to accept that there are religious nutters out there and that it can be impossible to prevent a militant killing people. But I think it's fair - even in the midst of an attack like this - for the European people to question whether their governments have done enough to keep the nutters at bay.
I personally think successive governments in Britain have done enough (there is a fine balance between individual liberty and intelligence services intercepting people purely on vague suspicion, as we all know...) and I'm sure the politicians/intelligence services here get nowhere near the amount of praise they deserve for a) striking that balance perfectly and b) keeping us safe. But there were news items about Molenbeek in the months after the Paris attacks which I found difficult to stomach. Police officers quoted on their unwillingness to enter the area; an area known to harbour militants, for fear of causing offence; destabilising community relations.
If any European govt is even 1% complicit in allowing people who want to do us harm to reside on our streets unchallenged then that is wrong, regardless of cultural difficulties. Given what I read, the suspicion is that the Belgian authorities have been too soft, and too in fear of causing offence to a minority population, to have properly tackled the problem in their capital.
That's a dereliction of duty I'm afraid and it is perfectly reasonable for liberal people (like me) to raise their concerns about it.
A lot of money has been staked on Leave since last night. The implied probability of Leave at the Betfair exchange has risen in half a day from 31% to 37%.
Finally. I was puzzled that hadn't happened over the weekend or yesterday.
If leave advocates use these attacks as a reason to vote to leave, then that will be heard loud and clear across Europe. For this reason and for many others I doubt they will.
What the attacks do argue for is a British withdrawal from NATO. And yes they do. If Belgium has got a crap foreign policy based on alliance with the US, that is no reason for Britain to. Russia and China have also been subjected to terrorist attacks, and that is no reason for Britain to be allied militarily to those countries. Britain's defence policy should first and foremost be about the defence of the British homeland.
A resurgent Russia poses a far greater threat to Europe than Islamic terrorists. Best we stay in NATO.
Grim start to the day. UKIP must be mad to try and capitalise so quickly. Appalling politics. Even lower on the human decency scale.
Why don't you say the same about the British Government? They are trying to capitalise too. I do not think you would make a very effective strategist for UKIP. British EU membership is a foreign policy issue. It is about time that the defence of the country from terrorist attacks also became recognised as a foreign policy issue, rather than such horrendous attacks as today's being a time for banalities and for supporting existing policy without question.
I hate to comment in the midst of something awful like this and my heart goes out to the Belgians.
Just to say that I never really gave a toss about myself but now I have kids it is slightly concerning to see attacks like this carried out against innocent people on the continent.
I'm willing to accept that there are religious nutters out there and that it can be impossible to prevent a militant killing people. But I think it's fair - even in the midst of an attack like this - for the European people to question whether their governments have done enough to keep the nutters at bay.
I personally think successive governments in Britain have done enough (there is a fine balance between individual liberty and intelligence services intercepting people purely on vague suspicion, as we all know...) and I'm sure the politicians/intelligence services here get nowhere near the amount of praise they deserve for a) striking that balance perfectly and b) keeping us safe. But there were news items about Molenbeek in the months after the Paris attacks which I found difficult to stomach. Police officers quoted on their unwillingness to enter the area; an area known to harbour militants, for fear of causing offence; destabilising community relations.
If any European govt is even 1% complicit in allowing people who want to do us harm to reside on our streets unchallenged then that is wrong, regardless of cultural difficulties. Given what I read, the suspicion is that the Belgian authorities have been too soft, and too in fear of causing offence to a minority population, to have properly tackled the problem in their capital.
That's a dereliction of duty I'm afraid and it is perfectly reasonable for liberal people (like me) to raise their concerns about it.
I think that is largely correct although it probably gives our governments more credit than they really deserve.
What we will almost inevitably find in this case, as in the others, is that most or all of those responsible for these outrages are home grown and Schengen and freedom of movement is irrelevant.
What is not irrelevant is the duty of every EU country to take responsibility for its own citizens and the citizens of neighbouring countries (such as France) completely seriously. To that extent close co-operation and knowledge of what is and is not being done in neighbouring countries is essential.
Might be mishearing, but BBC are saying gunshots were fired in the terminal. I wonder if the shots were from security services?
If so, I wonder what Corbyn would say about the security services firing in such circumstances?
(It could equally be the terrorists firing, although that did not happen in the London or Glasgow attacks).
This is silly and does come across as playing partisan politics off the back of something [retty tragic. It was clear that Corbyn wasn't saying that the police shouldn't shoot people where it was justified on clear public safety grounds, but opposing a "shoot-to-kill" policy which is widely understood as referring to shooting terror suspects without making reasonable attempts to arrest them before deploying lethal force.
It was dreadful politics on Corbyn's part to even go there in that context, but those piling in knew exactly what he meant and merely saw an opportunity to damage him. Fair enough, it's their job, but would come across as pretty callous and opportunistic to play that game when another attack is going on.
The connection won't be made explicitly for a few weeks. Voters can make the connection for themselves though. As to it being unfair, I don't entirely agree. It's low politics but not, imo, unfair.
Having started the day by describing the Conservatives as screwed I should add that that all depends on Jexit.
I didn't say it was unfair. I said it was fair enough: if your opponent is shit at politics, you kick him or her. Hopefully it's a learning experience.
If the kicker does it too soon, it comes across as distasteful, and they suffer from their partisan opportunism. So it's a fairly controlled system, and we're well past the point where we expect any form of reasonable morality or honour in politics.
I guess the bit that I object to is private individuals playing the same game. It just seems very unpleasant for any of us to be piling in with "and this [these tragic, horrible and as yet uncounted deaths of actual people] shows why I was right about my tenuously-related political hobbyhorse all along!".
If leave advocates use these attacks as a reason to vote to leave, then that will be heard loud and clear across Europe. For this reason and for many others I doubt they will.
What the attacks do argue for is a British withdrawal from NATO. And yes they do. If Belgium has got a crap foreign policy based on alliance with the US, that is no reason for Britain to. Russia and China have also been subjected to terrorist attacks, and that is no reason for Britain to be allied militarily to those countries. Britain's defence policy should first and foremost be about the defence of the British homeland.
What on our own - good luck with that
Yes. How many terrorist attacks have been carried out on the territories of neutral countries such as Switzerland, Iceland, Sweden and Ireland? They have no military alliances with any other country.
Britain is the target for terrorist attacks because of its policy of supporting the execrable military and foreign interference policies of the US.
You'd have thought they could come up with a better title that "Cabinet Office Briefing Room A meeting"...
I'm fairly sure that for a couple of years in the last decade they actually met in Briefing Room B due to refurb works in A. It's a sad indictment of the lack of openness in our political system that the committee was never described as COBRB in those years.
Is there a Cabinet Office Room for Briefing Yorkshire Nobility?
If any European govt is even 1% complicit in allowing people who want to do us harm to reside on our streets unchallenged then that is wrong, regardless of cultural difficulties. Given what I read, the suspicion is that the Belgian authorities have been too soft, and too in fear of causing offence to a minority population, to have properly tackled the problem in their capital.
That's a dereliction of duty I'm afraid and it is perfectly reasonable for liberal people (like me) to raise their concerns about it.
Absolutely agree. It is not, in fact, liberal for the authorities to be selective in trying to enforce the law.
'Agreed - if anything Leave might make it easier to cooperate effectively by removing the political dimension from what, fundamentally, is a practical matter'
Indeed. The reason May got such brickbats over her decision to opt back into justice and home affairs measures was precisely because what that involved was not 'cooperation' but instead a step towards the UK justice and legal systems being subsumed into an EU-wide system. The EU has laid out a clear plan for creating such a system - and will of course be happy to use any 'crises' that occur to further this.
Might be mishearing, but BBC are saying gunshots were fired in the terminal. I wonder if the shots were from security services?
If so, I wonder what Corbyn would say about the security services firing in such circumstances?
(It could equally be the terrorists firing, although that did not happen in the London or Glasgow attacks).
This is silly and does come across as playing partisan politics off the back of something [retty tragic. It was clear that Corbyn wasn't saying that the police shouldn't shoot people where it was justified on clear public safety grounds, but opposing a "shoot-to-kill" policy which is widely understood as referring to shooting terror suspects without making reasonable attempts to arrest them before deploying lethal force.
It was dreadful politics on Corbyn's part to even go there in that context, but those piling in knew exactly what he meant and merely saw an opportunity to damage him. Fair enough, it's their job, but would come across as pretty callous and opportunistic to play that game when another attack is going on.
The connection won't be made explicitly for a few weeks. Voters can make the connection for themselves though. As to it being unfair, I don't entirely agree. It's low politics but not, imo, unfair.
Having started the day by describing the Conservatives as screwed I should add that that all depends on Jexit.
I didn't say it was unfair. I said it was fair enough: if your opponent is shit at politics, you kick him or her. Hopefully it's a learning experience.
If the kicker does it too soon, it comes across as distasteful, and they suffer from their partisan opportunism. So it's a fairly controlled system, and we're well past the point where we expect any form of reasonable morality or honour in politics.
I guess the bit that I object to is private individuals playing the same game. It just seems very unpleasant for any of us to be piling in with "and this [these tragic, horrible and as yet uncounted deaths of actual people] shows why I was right about my tenuously-related political hobbyhorse all along!".
That is just so out of order. Maybe sums up the mentality of some members of UKIP
Morning all,
Grim start to the day. UKIP must be mad to try and capitalise so quickly. Appalling politics. Even lower on the human decency scale.
No more appalling than Cameron telling us that we're safer in the EU. Personally I think it makes little difference, but the Remainers can't whinge when their opponents point out the fallacy of the 'safer in' argument.
“There is something going on, Maria,” he said. “Go to Brussels. Go to Paris. Go to different places. There is something going on and it’s not good, where they want Shariah law, where they want this, where they want things that — you know, there has to be some assimilation. There is no assimilation. There is something bad going on.”
If leave advocates use these attacks as a reason to vote to leave, then that will be heard loud and clear across Europe. For this reason and for many others I doubt they will.
What the attacks do argue for is a British withdrawal from NATO. And yes they do. If Belgium has got a crap foreign policy based on alliance with the US, that is no reason for Britain to. Russia and China have also been subjected to terrorist attacks, and that is no reason for Britain to be allied militarily to those countries. Britain's defence policy should first and foremost be about the defence of the British homeland.
Yes it is very telling that the attacks were at the American Airlines desk. Clearly motivated by US foreign policy in the Middle East which we so slavishly and catastrophically follow.
To be fair NATO has been a big sponsor of Islamist terrorism in Central Asia and that is a big reason that Russia and China have had problems. It looks like Cameron's chums from Syria have made their way to Europe again, thanks to Merkel.
The real beneficiary of today's events politically will be Donald Trump, of course.
Yes his opposition to open door immigration policy and ad vocation of a non interventionist foreign policy is timely. The day after the AIPAC grovel makes for bad optics though.
On topic: The point surely is this: at the moment, 'banging on about Europe' is perfectly reasonable. We have a referendum coming, and Leavers in particular are passionate about the issue (I don't think many Remainers in the Conservative Party are - there are almost no 'Europhiles' in the government or party as a whole, but there are many pragmatists unconvinced on balance by the Brexit case, for the reasons we have explored many times).
What wouldn't be reasonable would be to keep 'banging on about Europe', in a petulant and destructive way, if on June 24th it turns out that the nation has voted to stay in the EU. That will be the acid test.
Personally, my view is that Alastair, and many others, have misjudged the appetite for civil war once the result is in. It's a mistake to think that the current level of dissent will continue after the referendum. Why should it? The matter will be closed, and almost everyone in the party will recognise the need to re-unite and the counter-productive futility of trying to overturn the referendum result. Prominent Leavers such as Michael Gove, Boris, Chris Grayling, Priti Patel, Zac Goldsmith, Sarah Wollaston, grandees such as Michael Howard, and my own MP Nus Ghani, are not headbanging nutters who regard their Remain-leaning colleagues as Quislings and Europhiles, they are perfectly sensible people who disagree with Cameron and many other colleagues on the balance of whether it's better to stay in or leave the EU. If it turns out that the voters' verdict is to stay, these Leavers will all accept that verdict and work to reunite the party.
Of course there are a few well-known names whose positions more closely match Alastair's portrait. Twas' ever so: every party has its equivalents. But it's a mistake to give too much salience to the current battles. The battlefield will look very different on June 24th.
I hate to comment in the midst of something awful like this and my heart goes out to the Belgians.
It's good that you're commenting, Fenster. This is precisely the time when we need our minds and voices, and to apply our intelligence. Knees jerk to say "how terrible; let's support existing policy" only when minds stop working.
Get out of NATO and stop interfering in Arab and Muslim countries is the sensible response. As Jonathan Powell has observed, Daesh want a truce. Andrew Parker, head of MI5, talks as if terrorist attacks on Britain are inevitable. Does the British government not have a foreign policy? May we the people not pressurise it to change that policy? Make the alliance with the US an issue. It should be the biggest foreign policy issue of all. People are getting blown to bits in the street on our own continent and British security officials say it's going to happen in Britain too - in other words, they are at a security and intelligence disadvantage in relation to the enemy.
On the issue of the referendum, I have previously observed that most or all surprises and shocks are likely to go Leave's way. It's hard to envisage a big shock helping Remain.
Given what I read, the suspicion is that the Belgian authorities have been too soft, and too in fear of causing offence to a minority population, to have properly tackled the problem in their capital.
Oh come on! Brussels has been crawling with NATO (i.e. US) security for decades.
“There is something going on, Maria,” he said. “Go to Brussels. Go to Paris. Go to different places. There is something going on and it’s not good, where they want Shariah law, where they want this, where they want things that — you know, there has to be some assimilation. There is no assimilation. There is something bad going on.”
Has Trumps actually been to either in the last year or so?
If leave advocates use these attacks as a reason to vote to leave, then that will be heard loud and clear across Europe. For this reason and for many others I doubt they will.
What the attacks do argue for is a British withdrawal from NATO. And yes they do. If Belgium has got a crap foreign policy based on alliance with the US, that is no reason for Britain to. Russia and China have also been subjected to terrorist attacks, and that is no reason for Britain to be allied militarily to those countries. Britain's defence policy should first and foremost be about the defence of the British homeland.
Yes it is very telling that the attacks were at the American Airlines desk. Clearly motivated by US foreign policy in the Middle East which we so slavishly and catastrophically follow.
That's what they want us to think.
Personally, I reckon if it wasn't that, they'd find some other excuse
Thomas Hegghammer It's actually quite unusual, in Europe, to have attacks right after major crackdowns. Shows network here was large & already about to attack
On topic: The point surely is this: at the moment, 'banging on about Europe' is perfectly reasonable. We have a referendum coming, and Leavers in particular are passionate about the issue (I don't think many Remainers in the Conservative Party are - there are almost no 'Europhiles' in the government or party as a whole, but there are many pragmatists unconvinced on balance by the Brexit case, for the reasons we have explored many times).
What wouldn't be reasonable would be to keep 'banging on about Europe', in a petulant and destructive way, if on June 24th it turns out that the nation has voted to stay in the EU. That will be the acid test.
Personally, my view is that Alastair, and many others, have misjudged the appetite for civil war once the result is in. It's a mistake to think that the current level of dissent will continue after the referendum. Why should it? The matter will be closed, and almost everyone in the party will recognise the need to re-unite and the counter-productive futility of trying to overturn the referendum result. Prominent Leavers such as Michael Gove, Boris, Chris Grayling, Priti Patel, Zac Goldsmith, Sarah Wollaston, grandees such as Michael Howard, and my own MP Nus Ghani, are not headbanging nutters who regard their Remain-leaning colleagues as Quislings and Europhiles, they are perfectly sensible people who disagree with Cameron and many other colleagues on the balance of whether it's better to stay in or leave the EU. If it turns out that the voters' verdict is to stay, these Leavers will all accept that verdict and work to reunite the party.
Of course there are a few well-known names whose positions more closely match Alastair's portrait. Twas' ever so: every party has its equivalents. But it's a mistake to give too much salience to the current battles. The battlefield will look very different on June 24th.
This is tosh. The sceptics are right. What is insane is the Tory party electing itself a leader who does not instinctively feel the way his party does and then expecting that there can be peace. Dave should have pushed hard for a Leave.
It seems so little to say and so inadequate but condolences to their families and friends and let us pray that there are no more fatalities.
There are no polite words to describe the hatred and contempt I feel for those who perpetrate such atrocities, for those who excuse and justify them and for those who have allowed, through fear and a misplaced refusal to condemn evil, such terror and its followers to gain a foothold in our countries.
Small request if I may - I have a bit of grief with my eyesight and I find the text is hard to read because it is so pale on a white background. Could I possibly ask you to make the grey thread text and green side text a couple of shades darker?
Sounds like he'd be perfect for a guest piece here.
No need. We can read these views from TSE and Meeks on a regular basis.
I must admit I'm wishing I'd come up with the Alsatian analogy.
Me too.
Nick Soames has forced us to raise our game
You see, this is what pisses me off. It's not ok for Brexiters to vent their spleen when they feel the Government is stacking the deck, or being disingenuous, but it's fine for the likes of Nicholas Soames to do the same because you agree with him?
Redwood/Jenkins and Soames/Baroness Altman are as bad as each other.
And if you are going to pretend to really make this about quietening down Tory tensions at least keep such views to yourself.
If leave advocates use these attacks as a reason to vote to leave, then that will be heard loud and clear across Europe. For this reason and for many others I doubt they will.
What the attacks do argue for is a British withdrawal from NATO. And yes they do. If Belgium has got a crap foreign policy based on alliance with the US, that is no reason for Britain to. Russia and China have also been subjected to terrorist attacks, and that is no reason for Britain to be allied militarily to those countries. Britain's defence policy should first and foremost be about the defence of the British homeland.
Yes it is very telling that the attacks were at the American Airlines desk. Clearly motivated by US foreign policy in the Middle East which we so slavishly and catastrophically follow.
That's what they want us to think.
Personally, I reckon if it wasn't that, they'd find some other excuse
Doesn't make it untrue. If the enemy sends you a message, listen to it.
This is tosh. The sceptics are right. What is insane is the Tory party electing itself a leader who does not instinctively feel the way his party does and then expecting that there can be peace. Dave should have pushed hard for a Leave.
I guess that depends whether Conservatives wish to be a party of government or a social club for foaming Europhobes.
It's a very similar choice to the choice that the Labour party had to make when it chose Jeremy Corbyn as leader. Labour has currently decided to be a social club. It would be nice if one of our two main parties decided that it would aspire to be a party of government.
If leave advocates use these attacks as a reason to vote to leave, then that will be heard loud and clear across Europe. For this reason and for many others I doubt they will.
What the attacks do argue for is a British withdrawal from NATO. And yes they do. If Belgium has got a crap foreign policy based on alliance with the US, that is no reason for Britain to. Russia and China have also been subjected to terrorist attacks, and that is no reason for Britain to be allied militarily to those countries. Britain's defence policy should first and foremost be about the defence of the British homeland.
Yes it is very telling that the attacks were at the American Airlines desk. Clearly motivated by US foreign policy in the Middle East which we so slavishly and catastrophically follow.
That's what they want us to think.
Personally, I reckon if it wasn't that, they'd find some other excuse
Indeed.
And I'm not sure that throwing the Baltics to the wolves is a sensible policy response.
On topic: The point surely is this: at the moment, 'banging on about Europe' is perfectly reasonable. We have a referendum coming, and Leavers in particular are passionate about the issue (I don't think many Remainers in the Conservative Party are - there are almost no 'Europhiles' in the government or party as a whole, but there are many pragmatists unconvinced on balance by the Brexit case, for the reasons we have explored many times).
What wouldn't be reasonable would be to keep 'banging on about Europe', in a petulant and destructive way, if on June 24th it turns out that the nation has voted to stay in the EU. That will be the acid test.
Personally, my view is that Alastair, and many others, have misjudged the appetite for civil war once the result is in. It's a mistake to think that the current level of dissent will continue after the referendum. Why should it? The matter will be closed, and almost everyone in the party will recognise the need to re-unite and the counter-productive futility of trying to overturn the referendum result. Prominent Leavers such as Michael Gove, Boris, Chris Grayling, Priti Patel, Zac Goldsmith, Sarah Wollaston, grandees such as Michael Howard, and my own MP Nus Ghani, are not headbanging nutters who regard their Remain-leaning colleagues as Quislings and Europhiles, they are perfectly sensible people who disagree with Cameron and many other colleagues on the balance of whether it's better to stay in or leave the EU. If it turns out that the voters' verdict is to stay, these Leavers will all accept that verdict and work to reunite the party.
Of course there are a few well-known names whose positions more closely match Alastair's portrait. Twas' ever so: every party has its equivalents. But it's a mistake to give too much salience to the current battles. The battlefield will look very different on June 24th.
Agree with this. If the hardliners think they can remove Dave after the referendum regardless of the result then they have misjudged the mood within the party. I have seen literally no appetite to remove him at meetings. Osborn, otoh, has a lot of hostility aimed towards him, and from people who previously would have backed him for the leadership.
If Dave wants to unite the party after the referendum, whatever the result, he has to look at removing Osborne and replacing him with Gove.
Comments
Don't think a suicide bomber would need a gun myself.
Who knows ...
Half of Tory party associations could be culled despite grassroots rebellion https://t.co/D7oMqqoab8 https://t.co/fvv82tmO9p
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/12200581/Half-of-Tory-party-associations-could-be-culled-despite-grassroots-rebellion-under-Lord-Feldman-reforms.html
In the meantime, life went on.
You know if Cameron had recommended Brexit, David would be campaigning for Remain.
At Warrington, IIRC, the PIRA used a small bomb to make people run towards a large bomb that went off a few minutes later
If leave advocates use these attacks as a reason to vote to leave, then that will be heard loud and clear across Europe. For this reason and for many others I doubt they will.
I have been wondering whether the perpetrators were associates of Abdeslam and thought he might rat them out as he was taken alive by the police.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Object_Request_Broker_Architecture
Your second paragraph might sadly be correct: some eye-witness reports say that the first explosion caused people to run towards the site of the second.
UPDATE: No trains are currently running to or from Brussels Midi. Brussels customers are advised to postpone, and not come to station.
It was dreadful politics on Corbyn's part to even go there in that context, but those piling in knew exactly what he meant and merely saw an opportunity to damage him. Fair enough, it's their job, but would come across as pretty callous and opportunistic to play that game when another attack is going on.
That continued for a couple of days, and then life slowly got back to normal.
In an alternate universe Dave would have ignored Osborne and taken my advice:
"The only way to unite the party is have the PM campaign for Leave. The Europhile headbangers can f*** off to the Lib Dems then."
Anyway, your opinion on the Tory party is basically not worth anything, you aren't a member, you aren't interested in the party's well being and you couldn't care less if it survives as long as the leadership delivers a Remain vote.
In 1990 this article may have been relevant, but today it is the Europhiles who are set to destroy the party. If Dave had backed a Leave vote he would have carried 270-280 MPs and about 70-80% of Tory voters. It is only because the PM has gone against the grain of his party that we appear split on the subject, it is loyalty to the PM that is the driver of the split.
Dave stepped back from the brink yesterday, we can see he sensed the danger, he knows that the tone he took in the reply to IDS and specifically mentioning Europe was, on balance, idiotic.
Stop pretending to care about the Conservative party when really all you are interested in is making the vast majority of the party, eurosceptics, look like a few crazy people tearing the party apart because it suits your agenda. The party will survive, even on a local level there is no appetite to remove the PM, a few hardline MPs might want to but the members I know have no appetite to remove him, there is real hostility towards Osborne, people who previously may have backed him for the leadership now want him gone as chancellor.
It is true that the UK and the US have a closer intelligence relationship than any we have with any EU country but that has arisen out of 60 years of such close co-operation, Nato and shared IT assets. Within the EU co-operation has largely developed within the EU structure and the institutional co-operation is dependent upon it.
In my view it would be very much in the interests of the UK to maintain and indeed develop such co-operation and intelligence sharing whether we are in the EU or not. The mechanics of how that might be done within the EEA may be complex but the mutuality of interest is obvious. With GCHQ and the American connection the UK has by far the best intelligence in respect of international risks but if we are to be safe we (and the Belgians) need to have a better idea of what is happening on our own continent and our own indigenous populations.
For me, this is an issue for Leave but ultimately a very solvable one and the horrors in Belgium today are no reason for anyone to change their vote about EU membership.
1. Pays that much attention to detail
2. Thinks about what causes dissatisfaction in his party?
3. Is not demob happy and wants out asap?
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/712212398623617024
Having started the day by describing the Conservatives as screwed I should add that that all depends on Jexit.
And yes they do.
If Belgium has got a crap foreign policy based on alliance with the US, that is no reason for Britain to.
Russia and China have also been subjected to terrorist attacks, and that is no reason for Britain to be allied militarily to those countries. Britain's defence policy should first and foremost be about the defence of the British homeland.
While I would sympathise with the sentiment there, he didn't I think even need to go that far. Even a moderately successful renegotiation, with a few clear wins in it, would probably have been enough to keep most of his party happy. Something along the lines of the agenda of the Bloomberg speech for example. There would have been a positive direction of travel, at least.
Instead of that, what we got was the PM making no serious effort at all to achieve significant reforms, but rather engaging in a cynical PR exercise aimed at bouncing his party and the voters into a Remain vote - and allowing his various aides and hangers-on to say so publicly.
He has rubbed the noses of not just hardened EU opponents but also much milder eurosceptics in the dirt. And then he expects them to simply accept this.
You can demand loyalty all you like, but real leaders earn it.
Chances of that being debated sensibly anytime soon is zero.
Perhaps a debate about whether a debate would be more likely if we were out of the EU would be a start.
That's a sad indictment of our political system!
Top response Max - yet Meeks will get his 4 articles a week until the referendum regardless.
Grim start to the day. UKIP must be mad to try and capitalise so quickly. Appalling politics. Even lower on the human decency scale.
Just to say that I never really gave a toss about myself but now I have kids it is slightly concerning to see attacks like this carried out against innocent people on the continent.
I'm willing to accept that there are religious nutters out there and that it can be impossible to prevent a militant killing people. But I think it's fair - even in the midst of an attack like this - for the European people to question whether their governments have done enough to keep the nutters at bay.
I personally think successive governments in Britain have done enough (there is a fine balance between individual liberty and intelligence services intercepting people purely on vague suspicion, as we all know...) and I'm sure the politicians/intelligence services here get nowhere near the amount of praise they deserve for a) striking that balance perfectly and b) keeping us safe. But there were news items about Molenbeek in the months after the Paris attacks which I found difficult to stomach. Police officers quoted on their unwillingness to enter the area; an area known to harbour militants, for fear of causing offence; destabilising community relations.
If any European govt is even 1% complicit in allowing people who want to do us harm to reside on our streets unchallenged then that is wrong, regardless of cultural difficulties. Given what I read, the suspicion is that the Belgian authorities have been too soft, and too in fear of causing offence to a minority population, to have properly tackled the problem in their capital.
That's a dereliction of duty I'm afraid and it is perfectly reasonable for liberal people (like me) to raise their concerns about it.
#BREAKING At least 21 dead in Brussels airport, metro blasts: firefighters to AFP
It won't just be bombers. They'll have strategic groups, and recruiters too.
What we will almost inevitably find in this case, as in the others, is that most or all of those responsible for these outrages are home grown and Schengen and freedom of movement is irrelevant.
What is not irrelevant is the duty of every EU country to take responsibility for its own citizens and the citizens of neighbouring countries (such as France) completely seriously. To that extent close co-operation and knowledge of what is and is not being done in neighbouring countries is essential.
If the kicker does it too soon, it comes across as distasteful, and they suffer from their partisan opportunism. So it's a fairly controlled system, and we're well past the point where we expect any form of reasonable morality or honour in politics.
I guess the bit that I object to is private individuals playing the same game. It just seems very unpleasant for any of us to be piling in with "and this [these tragic, horrible and as yet uncounted deaths of actual people] shows why I was right about my tenuously-related political hobbyhorse all along!".
Britain is the target for terrorist attacks because of its policy of supporting the execrable military and foreign interference policies of the US.
By the way, on the Leave side it's not just UKIP who are trying to capitalise. The Torygraph strapline is "With three blasts in Brussels this morning, we recount everything we know so far about the latest Europe terror outrage" (emphasis added).
They don't say that when there are attacks in Madrid or Moscow.
Nick Soames has forced us to raise our game
Indeed. The reason May got such brickbats over her decision to opt back into justice and home affairs measures was precisely because what that involved was not 'cooperation' but instead a step towards the UK justice and legal systems being subsumed into an EU-wide system. The EU has laid out a clear plan for creating such a system - and will of course be happy to use any 'crises' that occur to further this.
“There is something going on, Maria,” he said. “Go to Brussels. Go to Paris. Go to different places. There is something going on and it’s not good, where they want Shariah law, where they want this, where they want things that — you know, there has to be some assimilation. There is no assimilation. There is something bad going on.”
NOW: NYPD in process of ramping up security at mass transit, bridges and tunnels, as well as landmarks https://t.co/qbW9ZarDW4
To be fair NATO has been a big sponsor of Islamist terrorism in Central Asia and that is a big reason that Russia and China have had problems. It looks like Cameron's chums from Syria have made their way to Europe again, thanks to Merkel.
What wouldn't be reasonable would be to keep 'banging on about Europe', in a petulant and destructive way, if on June 24th it turns out that the nation has voted to stay in the EU. That will be the acid test.
Personally, my view is that Alastair, and many others, have misjudged the appetite for civil war once the result is in. It's a mistake to think that the current level of dissent will continue after the referendum. Why should it? The matter will be closed, and almost everyone in the party will recognise the need to re-unite and the counter-productive futility of trying to overturn the referendum result. Prominent Leavers such as Michael Gove, Boris, Chris Grayling, Priti Patel, Zac Goldsmith, Sarah Wollaston, grandees such as Michael Howard, and my own MP Nus Ghani, are not headbanging nutters who regard their Remain-leaning colleagues as Quislings and Europhiles, they are perfectly sensible people who disagree with Cameron and many other colleagues on the balance of whether it's better to stay in or leave the EU. If it turns out that the voters' verdict is to stay, these Leavers will all accept that verdict and work to reunite the party.
Of course there are a few well-known names whose positions more closely match Alastair's portrait. Twas' ever so: every party has its equivalents. But it's a mistake to give too much salience to the current battles. The battlefield will look very different on June 24th.
Get out of NATO and stop interfering in Arab and Muslim countries is the sensible response. As Jonathan Powell has observed, Daesh want a truce. Andrew Parker, head of MI5, talks as if terrorist attacks on Britain are inevitable. Does the British government not have a foreign policy? May we the people not pressurise it to change that policy? Make the alliance with the US an issue. It should be the biggest foreign policy issue of all. People are getting blown to bits in the street on our own continent and British security officials say it's going to happen in Britain too - in other words, they are at a security and intelligence disadvantage in relation to the enemy.
On the issue of the referendum, I have previously observed that most or all surprises and shocks are likely to go Leave's way. It's hard to envisage a big shock helping Remain. Oh come on! Brussels has been crawling with NATO (i.e. US) security for decades.
Personally, I reckon if it wasn't that, they'd find some other excuse
It's actually quite unusual, in Europe, to have attacks right after major crackdowns. Shows network here was large & already about to attack
This is tosh. The sceptics are right. What is insane is the Tory party electing itself a leader who does not instinctively feel the way his party does and then expecting that there can be peace. Dave should have pushed hard for a Leave.
It seems so little to say and so inadequate but condolences to their families and friends and let us pray that there are no more fatalities.
There are no polite words to describe the hatred and contempt I feel for those who perpetrate such atrocities, for those who excuse and justify them and for those who have allowed, through fear and a misplaced refusal to condemn evil, such terror and its followers to gain a foothold in our countries.
@AndrewSparrow Hello! We're crowdsourcing details of all candidates in every election in May! https://t.co/W3Ix8yEiXK. RTs very welcome
Small request if I may - I have a bit of grief with my eyesight and I find the text is hard to read because it is so pale on a white background. Could I possibly ask you to make the grey thread text and green side text a couple of shades darker?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/35868662
Redwood/Jenkins and Soames/Baroness Altman are as bad as each other.
And if you are going to pretend to really make this about quietening down Tory tensions at least keep such views to yourself.
It's a very similar choice to the choice that the Labour party had to make when it chose Jeremy Corbyn as leader. Labour has currently decided to be a social club. It would be nice if one of our two main parties decided that it would aspire to be a party of government.
And I'm not sure that throwing the Baltics to the wolves is a sensible policy response.
#DEVELOPING Border CLOSED between France and Belgium. @CBSMiami @CBSNews
If Dave wants to unite the party after the referendum, whatever the result, he has to look at removing Osborne and replacing him with Gove.