politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Every day that the GE2017 campaign is suspended is a win for the terrorists
One of the main functions of an election campaign is to ensure that those who seek to govern us are subject to proper scrutiny something that is much easier to avoid in non-election periods.
I agree and UKIP to be fair to them are launching their manifesto and restarting their campaign tomorrow. Labour are recommencing their local campaigns on Thursday and their national campaign on Friday, May is flying to the G7 at the end of the week so while the Tory local campaign may resume on Friday for practical purposes the Tory national campaign won't start until the beginning of next week
Except that a terrorist attack is not what the Police Federation were talking about.
Police will be forced to adopt a “paramilitary” style of enforcement if the government inflicts big budget cuts on them, the head of the police officers’ organisation has warned.
Steve White, chair of the Police Federation, said his 123,000 members, from police constables to inspectors, fear a move towards a more violent style of policing as they try to keep law and order with even fewer officers than now.
White told the Guardian that more cuts would be devastating: “You get a style of policing where the first options are teargas, rubber bullets and water cannon, which are the last options in the UK.”
White said cuts would see the bedrock principle of British law enforcement, policing by consent, ripped apart.
The EU Referendum campaign was suspended for three full days without the rush for resumption that we are now seeing. The threat level has now been at critical for fewer than 24 hours (it lasted for 3 and 4 days respectively on the last two occasions it was used).
The election isn't going anywhere, the debates and interviews are still on, there are still two full weeks to go from tomorrow. Democracy can handle a few days' disruption.
It's bollocks (no criticism of you - it's not obvious from the top level numbers). That speech was a good one and she frequently challenged them well on stuff like Stop and Search and institutional racism. Crime continued to fall and mostly what happened is that administrative police roles were cut. Since 2015 the budget has been relatively protected, and CT functions have never been cut. On the contrary they are much improved.
The great unspoken truth is that we have too many police forces, and those cuts made a number of them merge in all but name: a good thing. (Note - I'm not proposing a one size fits all approach like in Scotland, just that the likes of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire should have one police force).
Those cuts are not relevant to what we are seeing, which is the military back-filling static guarding posts to free up armed police for dynamic roles. Armed police numbers have not fallen.
I have just learned that local campaigning is resuming at 12 noon tomorrow and that a minute's silence is first being observed at 11-00am. National campaigning resumes on Friday.
I have just learned that local campaigning is resuming at 12 noon tomorrow and that a minute's silence is first being observed at 11-00am. National campaigning resumes on Friday.
Interestingly when May attends the G7 on Friday and Saturday in Italy, 4/7 leaders will be attending their first summit, May, Trump, Macron and Gentiloni. Trudeau, Abe and Merkel the only leaders to have been in place more than a year
FPT Jeremy the peacemaker is crap. Seamus Mallon has pointed out that Corbyn never bothered to meet the SDLP, and was exclusively supportive of Sinn Fein.
Campaigning expands (or contracts) to fill the time available, and my subjective view is this campaign was far too long in the first place. If you look at 2005 (exactly a month from dissolution to GE), losing a week to grieving would have made things a bit tight; if we lose a whole week now the campaign will be as long as 2005.
People and politicians need time to consider the implications of a terrible event like Monday's: it takes at least several days to decide how you react to it. Looking at some of the nastiness and silliness (not here!) of the last couple of days I think it's important that those campaigning have the opportunity to formulate their responses, so that they don't come out on camera with thoughtless and bloody stupid statements of a kind which generate huge quantities of more or less simulated outrage. That isn't good for democracy.
It's bollocks (no criticism of you - it's not obvious from the top level numbers). That speech was a good one and she frequently challenged them well on stuff like Stop and Search and institutional racism. Crime continued to fall and mostly what happened is that administrative police roles were cut. Since 2015 the budget has been relatively protected, and CT functions have never been cut. On the contrary they are much improved.
The great unspoken truth is that we have too many police forces, and those cuts made a number of them merge in all but name: a good thing. (Note - I'm not proposing a one size fits all approach like in Scotland, just that the likes of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire should have one police force).
Those cuts are not relevant to what we are seeing, which is the military back-filling static guarding posts to free up armed police for dynamic roles. Armed police numbers have not fallen.
IMHO May's stance on stop and search was wrong. Even some Labour politicians, like Joan Ryan, are calling for stop and search to be stepped up, in response to a wave of knife crime.
Given all major parties had announced their plans to resume campaigning by the day after tomorrow before this thread was published, this thread seems a tad redundant and petty no offence - unless it was penned and scheduled prior to the announcements to resume on Friday that came before this was published.
They've already announced a full resumption by Friday. While I'd have preferred Thursday, is that really worth quibbling over by this point?
Honest to good f**k, those looking for any party political partisan angle on Manchester, wise up. Political facts in a situation are not the same as seeing everything through your party colours.
Police resources: In NI, where active human and technical watch activity was less than 150 targets at most, there were around 8,500 regular police officers and about 4500-5000 reservists many of whom were full time. You 10's of thousands of UK military at peak, you had 6000 UDR. You had MI5 and to a smaller extent had MI6.
You had a quite widespread informant network that took about 10 years to build and grew into a monster.
Even with extensive resources and sources like that, far in excess of anything the UK government has to hand in proportion today, they had to rely heavily on informants as well as routine policing activities because they just didn't have enough to keep watch on all critical people in the way some people think you can.
You can't, get over it.
There are several hundred Abedis alone, travellers who raise suspicion. are seen in the wrong places, but don't have any firm action behind them on domestic soil. On top you have former fighters, proper grenade throwing, trigger pulling types, you have logistics support, facilitators, encouragers many of which might just decide to go to Allah even after you weed out those who won't do the pointy stick bit yet still may be of high interest. Several thousand then. Chances are they are picking sub-two hundred to sit on at any one time.
As for Libya, anyone who can remember the apparently off topic rantings of this madman back in 2016 in particular will see a few posts on Islamic extremists working out of Libya, training and inserting people into Europe and reports on Western military interest.
Anyone who thinks Islamic extremists just popped up after Gaddafi went forget it, again talking through their party political hole, get an education. They have been churning out high grade extremists for decades.
Honest to good f**k, those looking for any party political partisan angle on Manchester, wise up. Political facts in a situation are not the same as seeing everything through your party colours.
Police resources: In NI, where active human and technical watch activity was less than 150 targets at most, there were around 8,500 regular police officers and about 4500-5000 reservists many of whom were full time. You 10's of thousands of UK military at peak, you had 6000 UDR. You had MI5 and to a smaller extent had MI6.
You had a quite widespread informant network that took about 10 years to build and grew into a monster.
Even with extensive resources and sources like that, far in excess of anything the UK government has to hand in proportion today, they had to rely heavily on informants as well as routine policing activities because they just didn't have enough to keep watch on all critical people in the way some people think you can.
You can't, get over it.
There are several hundred Abedis alone, travellers who raise suspicion. are seen in the wrong places, but don't have any firm action behind them on domestic soil. On top you have former fighters, proper grenade throwing, trigger pulling types, you have logistics support, facilitators, encouragers many of which might just decide to go to Allah even after you weed out those who won't do the pointy stick bit yet still may be of high interest. Several thousand then. Chances are they are picking sub-two hundred to sit on at any one time.
As for Libya, anyone who can remember the apparently off topic rantings of this madman back in 2016 in particular will see a few posts on Islamic extremists working out of Libya, training and inserting people into Europe and reports on Western military interest.
Anyone who thinks Islamic extremists just popped up after Gaddafi went forget it, again talking through their party political hole, get an education. They have been churning out high grade extremists for decades.
Hindsight is always a wonderful judge. No doubt the security services thought there were more dangerous shitbags than Abedi. By and large, they've done a good job.
It's bollocks (no criticism of you - it's not obvious from the top level numbers). That speech was a good one and she frequently challenged them well on stuff like Stop and Search and institutional racism. Crime continued to fall and mostly what happened is that administrative police roles were cut. Since 2015 the budget has been relatively protected, and CT functions have never been cut. On the contrary they are much improved.
The great unspoken truth is that we have too many police forces, and those cuts made a number of them merge in all but name: a good thing. (Note - I'm not proposing a one size fits all approach like in Scotland, just that the likes of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire should have one police force).
Those cuts are not relevant to what we are seeing, which is the military back-filling static guarding posts to free up armed police for dynamic roles. Armed police numbers have not fallen.
IMHO May's stance on stop and search was wrong. Even some Labour politicians, like Joan Ryan, are calling for stop and search to be stepped up, in response to a wave of knife crime.
It's a fine judgement call. Community cohesion and consent for policing vs. speedy action. I am prepared to accept I might be wrong and debate the approach, but my judgement is that the former is more valuable in the long term. We really do have policing by consent here, and that's what keeps some of the rioting you see in the US at bay.
Another conspiracy theory - the secret state allowed May to have her interview with Andrew Neil and then allowed the bombing to go ahead so that all opposition leaders were effectively silenced. Ain't life wonderful.
Another conspiracy theory - the secret state allowed May to have her interview with Andrew Neil and then allowed the bombing to go ahead so that all opposition leaders were effectively silenced. Ain't life wonderful.
I've seen one or two conspiracies already, bearing in mind this plan would have to been enacted by a governing party that cannot even launch a manifesto properly.
It's bollocks (no criticism of you - it's not obvious from the top level numbers). That speech was a good one and she frequently challenged them well on stuff like Stop and Search and institutional racism. Crime continued to fall and mostly what happened is that administrative police roles were cut. Since 2015 the budget has been relatively protected, and CT functions have never been cut. On the contrary they are much improved.
The great unspoken truth is that we have too many police forces, and those cuts made a number of them merge in all but name: a good thing. (Note - I'm not proposing a one size fits all approach like in Scotland, just that the likes of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire should have one police force).
Those cuts are not relevant to what we are seeing, which is the military back-filling static guarding posts to free up armed police for dynamic roles. Armed police numbers have not fallen.
Well quite. Beds, Herts and Cambs already pool resources in a whole range of areas, from police dogs to counter-terrorism. Herts and Cambs didn't come out of their most recent inspections at all badly, but Bedfordshire is an atypically small force and rather struggles. My knowledge of policing is very limited, but I would imagine that being both diminutive and having Luton on their patch isn't helpful to them.
A combination of the three counties would not be vastly different in terms either of population or geographic extent to the area which has been patrolled by the Thames Valley Police for the last 50 years; however, I can't recall having seen any talk of a merger on the local news for some years, since proposals for a tie up between Herts & Beds were shelved.
Honest to good f**k, those looking for any party political partisan angle on Manchester, wise up.
Overall the security services seem to be doing a pretty good job - but as the IRA observed, they 'have to be lucky always'.
Any thoughts on the stream of leaks coming from the US on Manchester?
The Americans tend to share. Its how they work.
There are only two likely agencies which would have the data sharing that is coming out, the FBI and CIA so its coming from them or political elements privy to it as well but it looks direct from agency. The NSA is less likely.
Why?
Someone (likely more than a single source) just likes sharing There is a point specific to this case or general handling (it wouldn't be a first time that agencies have sent info to the public domain because they think it needs to be there) Something else, to which political motivation is a possibility
Being honest, other than naming Abedi early, and lets bear in mind they tend to do that in the US, nothing coming out is going to change actions this side of the water.
Another conspiracy theory - the secret state allowed May to have her interview with Andrew Neil and then allowed the bombing to go ahead so that all opposition leaders were effectively silenced. Ain't life wonderful.
I should have thought an interview with Neil is as welcome as suffering piles. Is it better or worse for the other parties that they will have their interviews closer to the 8th June? I suspect most people actually welcome the cessation in political discourse given the backdrop....
Another conspiracy theory - the secret state allowed May to have her interview with Andrew Neil and then allowed the bombing to go ahead so that all opposition leaders were effectively silenced. Ain't life wonderful.
I should have thought an interview with Neil is as welcome as suffering piles. Is it better or worse for the other parties that they will have their interviews closer to the 8th June? I suspect most people actually welcome the cessation in political discourse given the backdrop....
Tomorrows ITV interview with Theresa May has been postponed but Corbyn due on Friday with Andrew Neil
Another conspiracy theory - the secret state allowed May to have her interview with Andrew Neil and then allowed the bombing to go ahead so that all opposition leaders were effectively silenced. Ain't life wonderful.
I should have thought an interview with Neil is as welcome as suffering piles. Is it better or worse for the other parties that they will have their interviews closer to the 8th June? I suspect most people actually welcome the cessation in political discourse given the backdrop....
Tomorrows ITV interview with Theresa May has been postponed but Corbyn due on Friday with Andrew Neil
Good re Corbyn interview. I hope the rest of the Neil interviews can be arranged for next week.
It's bollocks (no criticism of you - it's not obvious from the top level numbers). That speech was a good one and she frequently challenged them well on stuff like Stop and Search and institutional racism. Crime continued to fall and mostly what happened is that administrative police roles were cut. Since 2015 the budget has been relatively protected, and CT functions have never been cut. On the contrary they are much improved.
The great unspoken truth is that we have too many police forces, and those cuts made a number of them merge in all but name: a good thing. (Note - I'm not proposing a one size fits all approach like in Scotland, just that the likes of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire should have one police force).
Those cuts are not relevant to what we are seeing, which is the military back-filling static guarding posts to free up armed police for dynamic roles. Armed police numbers have not fallen.
Well quite. Beds, Herts and Cambs already pool resources in a whole range of areas, from police dogs to counter-terrorism. Herts and Cambs didn't come out of their most recent inspections at all badly, but Bedfordshire is an atypically small force and rather struggles. My knowledge of policing is very limited, but I would imagine that being both diminutive and having Luton on their patch isn't helpful to them.
A combination of the three counties would not be vastly different in terms either of population or geographic extent to the area which has been patrolled by the Thames Valley Police for the last 50 years; however, I can't recall having seen any talk of a merger on the local news for some years, since proposals for a tie up between Herts & Beds were shelved.
Yes things like procurement have been pooled, and we've just about ended the spectacle of more than 30 "fleets" of a single helicopter, all with different maintenance contracts. But more could be done. If we're to have more police (and I'm not against that) then it does make sense to rationalise first before growth.
There are a great may reasons to criticise the PM, including over some security matters, but seeing folk crawl all over each other looking for a smoking gun to pin Manchester on her is not right.
Another conspiracy theory - the secret state allowed May to have her interview with Andrew Neil and then allowed the bombing to go ahead so that all opposition leaders were effectively silenced. Ain't life wonderful.
I should have thought an interview with Neil is as welcome as suffering piles. Is it better or worse for the other parties that they will have their interviews closer to the 8th June? I suspect most people actually welcome the cessation in political discourse given the backdrop....
Tomorrows ITV interview with Theresa May has been postponed but Corbyn due on Friday with Andrew Neil
Good re Corbyn interview. I hope the rest of the Neil interviews can be arranged for next week.
RobD thanks for the reply on the previous thread - appreciated.
I'm wondering why it (2nd pref to fptp) is in the manifesto. It raises issues on voting systems which will be debated again and which for the time being were completely dead and for types of elections where it is pretty impossible to put up an argument for fptp.
It's bollocks (no criticism of you - it's not obvious from the top level numbers). That speech was a good one and she frequently challenged them well on stuff like Stop and Search and institutional racism. Crime continued to fall and mostly what happened is that administrative police roles were cut. Since 2015 the budget has been relatively protected, and CT functions have never been cut. On the contrary they are much improved.
The great unspoken truth is that we have too many police forces, and those cuts made a number of them merge in all but name: a good thing. (Note - I'm not proposing a one size fits all approach like in Scotland, just that the likes of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire should have one police force).
Those cuts are not relevant to what we are seeing, which is the military back-filling static guarding posts to free up armed police for dynamic roles. Armed police numbers have not fallen.
IMHO May's stance on stop and search was wrong. Even some Labour politicians, like Joan Ryan, are calling for stop and search to be stepped up, in response to a wave of knife crime.
Unfortunately, both the police and Government are in a no-win situation with stop and search. You don't do it and they're accused of going soft on the carrying of concealed weapons. They do it and they're accused of racial profiling, and minority interest groups kick up a stink and put people off co-operating with them. Always the same issue: a lot of screaming about racism and stigmatising the young, the only solution to which is to implement quotas and waste an enormous, indeed impractical quantity of resources searching little old white ladies for blades. And Labour politicians, including those to whom you refer, would probably be at the vanguard of any protests. Police brutality, same-old-racist-Tories, yada yada.
At least if you don't have those politicians and community leaders running around like headless chickens and effectively encouraging people to withhold co-operation, then you do have the chance to use an intelligence-based approach instead.
UKIP are in line with the public mood on this, I reckon. Time to press on.
Wonder if UKIP's move forced the Tories' and Labour's hand a little. As it is, UKIP will have uncontentested coverage in the election part of the news tomorrow.
RobD thanks for the reply on the previous thread - appreciated.
I'm wondering why it (2nd pref to fptp) is in the manifesto. It raises issues on voting systems which will be debated again and which for the time being were completely dead and for types of elections where it is pretty impossible to put up an argument for fptp.
Just asking for trouble where none was present.
Yes, I was quite surprised it was included. Perhaps the view is that all elections should be conducted using the same voting system?
Well said Mike. We've had two days off, let's have a minute's silence tomorrow morning then continue where we left off. Possibly in slightly more reserved tones.
RobD thanks for the reply on the previous thread - appreciated.
I'm wondering why it (2nd pref to fptp) is in the manifesto. It raises issues on voting systems which will be debated again and which for the time being were completely dead and for types of elections where it is pretty impossible to put up an argument for fptp.
Just asking for trouble where none was present.
Actually it could put to bed arguments about voting systems.
Every time people cast a vote with a different system it changes the conversation to voting systems, why don't we change Westminster etc - by putting forward a single uniform system (FPTP) across all English elections it has a one off discussion but then ends the trial of different systems across England. FPTP becomes entrenched as our voting system.
Another conspiracy theory - the secret state allowed May to have her interview with Andrew Neil and then allowed the bombing to go ahead so that all opposition leaders were effectively silenced. Ain't life wonderful.
I've seen one or two conspiracies already, bearing in mind this plan would have to been enacted by a governing party that cannot even launch a manifesto properly.
Yeah, it's like George W Bush concocting 9/11. Thousands still believe that is the case.
UKIP are in line with the public mood on this, I reckon. Time to press on.
Wonder if UKIP's move forced the Tories' and Labour's hand a little. As it is, UKIP will have uncontentested coverage in the election part of the news tomorrow.
Strongly suspect that no one cares whether the campaign starts on Thursday or Friday and that an extra day for UKIP will be worth less than 100 votes across the nation.
Guessing the opinion pollsters won't even be conducting their research while this suspension is happening, and publication normally happens a day or two later, so can we expect any polls before Saturday evening?
Guessing the opinion pollsters won't even be conducting their research while this suspension is happening, and publication normally happens a day or two later, so can we expect any polls before Saturday evening?
Yeah, but we may have some old polls from before the attack, however worthwhile they are.
UKIP are in line with the public mood on this, I reckon. Time to press on.
Wonder if UKIP's move forced the Tories' and Labour's hand a little. As it is, UKIP will have uncontentested coverage in the election part of the news tomorrow.
Which is exactly why they are doing it, and no, I don't blame them at all. Indeed, Labour hope UKIP get as much favourable publicity as possible, for obvious reasons.
Anyone been watching the match? Fucking turgid crap from Mourinho. At least Gurning Flopp plays attacking football.
All the Tories need to do to restart campaigning is to have a poster with pictures of May and Corbyn and a caption "Which one makes you most secure?"
Followed up with some choice quotes from McDonnell and Abbot.
Then sit back for a fortnight.
I'm not sure the Tories will go for that now, but they don't really need to. The Sun and the Mail will do it for them.
I reckon by the end of the campaign, every single person eligible to vote will know, in detail, everything Corbyn, Abbott & McDonnell ever said and did.
I'm not sure the Tories will go for that now, but they don't really need to. The Sun and the Mail will do it for them.
I reckon by the end of the campaign, every single person eligible to vote will know, in detail, everything Corbyn, Abbott & McDonnell ever said and did.
All the Tories need to do to restart campaigning is to have a poster with pictures of May and Corbyn and a caption "Which one makes you most secure?"
Followed up with some choice quotes from McDonnell and Abbot.
Then sit back for a fortnight.
I'm not sure the Tories will go for that now, but they don't really need to. The Sun and the Mail will do it for them.
I reckon by the end of the campaign, every single person eligible to vote will know, in detail, everything Corbyn, Abbott & McDonnell ever said and did.
And their judgement will be severe.
The Sun and the Mail doing it for them is the story of British political discourse.
RobD thanks for the reply on the previous thread - appreciated.
I'm wondering why it (2nd pref to fptp) is in the manifesto. It raises issues on voting systems which will be debated again and which for the time being were completely dead and for types of elections where it is pretty impossible to put up an argument for fptp.
Just asking for trouble where none was present.
Yes, I was quite surprised it was included. Perhaps the view is that all elections should be conducted using the same voting system?
Reply to Philip as well who made the same point as Rob:
But it won't will it. We will still have STV and Constituencies with top ups (although neither in England). Guess we have got rid of lists by default.
I have to say (personal view point) that the experiment with these systems seemed designed to fail by bringing in the worst possible types. 2nd preference seemed to be have a go at PR and then change your mind after the first round and resort to fptp, which to me seems odd and lists are just awful for so many reasons.
I suspect there will be some polling activity on Thur and Fri before people go off for their bank holiday break/halfterm and then the results will appear on Saturday night in the normal manner.
All the Tories need to do to restart campaigning is to have a poster with pictures of May and Corbyn and a caption "Which one makes you most secure?"
Followed up with some choice quotes from McDonnell and Abbot.
Then sit back for a fortnight.
I'm not sure the Tories will go for that now, but they don't really need to. The Sun and the Mail will do it for them.
I reckon by the end of the campaign, every single person eligible to vote will know, in detail, everything Corbyn, Abbott & McDonnell ever said and did.
And their judgement will be severe.
Sadly, Brexit and social care are no longer the topics of debate for this election, it's all going to be about security from now on.
As you say, the Tories will go back to being Strong&Stable, and will let the Mail and Sun give both barrels to Labour for a fortnight.
I suspect there will be some polling activity on Thur and Fri before people go off for their bank holiday break/halfterm and then the results will appear on Saturday night in the normal manner.
RobD thanks for the reply on the previous thread - appreciated.
I'm wondering why it (2nd pref to fptp) is in the manifesto. It raises issues on voting systems which will be debated again and which for the time being were completely dead and for types of elections where it is pretty impossible to put up an argument for fptp.
Just asking for trouble where none was present.
Yes, I was quite surprised it was included. Perhaps the view is that all elections should be conducted using the same voting system?
Reply to Philip as well who made the same point as Rob:
But it won't will it. We will still have STV and Constituencies with top ups (although neither in England). Guess we have got rid of lists by default.
I have to say (personal view point) that the experiment with these systems seemed designed to fail by bringing in the worst possible types. 2nd preference seemed to be have a go at PR and then change your mind after the first round and resort to fptp, which to me seems odd and lists are just awful for so many reasons.
Correcting myself - still have top ups for London assembly election or is that proposed to be changed as well?
Completely agree with the thread header, I said yesterday morning I wanted to see what May and Corbyn are like in a crisis. As it stands I'm very disappointed with both.
Comments
https://twitter.com/InspGadgetBlogs/status/867432319765946368
this is a victory for May and Corbyn
Corbyn wants to stay low because he's associated with terror
May wants to bury her manifesto screw ups
suits the big two
Police will be forced to adopt a “paramilitary” style of enforcement if the government inflicts big budget cuts on them, the head of the police officers’ organisation has warned.
Steve White, chair of the Police Federation, said his 123,000 members, from police constables to inspectors, fear a move towards a more violent style of policing as they try to keep law and order with even fewer officers than now.
White told the Guardian that more cuts would be devastating: “You get a style of policing where the first options are teargas, rubber bullets and water cannon, which are the last options in the UK.”
White said cuts would see the bedrock principle of British law enforcement, policing by consent, ripped apart.
The election isn't going anywhere, the debates and interviews are still on, there are still two full weeks to go from tomorrow. Democracy can handle a few days' disruption.
Has any other party announced when they'll resume full campaigning yet?
The great unspoken truth is that we have too many police forces, and those cuts made a number of them merge in all but name: a good thing. (Note - I'm not proposing a one size fits all approach like in Scotland, just that the likes of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire should have one police force).
Those cuts are not relevant to what we are seeing, which is the military back-filling static guarding posts to free up armed police for dynamic roles. Armed police numbers have not fallen.
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/867452787101237248
Agree with the thread. Campaigning should resume. The minute silence is a neat point at which to resume campaigning (afterwards, of course).
People and politicians need time to consider the implications of a terrible event like Monday's: it takes at least several days to decide how you react to it. Looking at some of the nastiness and silliness (not here!) of the last couple of days I think it's important that those campaigning have the opportunity to formulate their responses, so that they don't come out on camera with thoughtless and bloody stupid statements of a kind which generate huge quantities of more or less simulated outrage. That isn't good for democracy.
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/867402258090266626
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/24/world/europe/manchester-arena-bomb-materials-photos.html?_r=0
They've already announced a full resumption by Friday. While I'd have preferred Thursday, is that really worth quibbling over by this point?
Police resources: In NI, where active human and technical watch activity was less than 150 targets at most, there were around 8,500 regular police officers and about 4500-5000 reservists many of whom were full time. You 10's of thousands of UK military at peak, you had 6000 UDR. You had MI5 and to a smaller extent had MI6.
You had a quite widespread informant network that took about 10 years to build and grew into a monster.
Even with extensive resources and sources like that, far in excess of anything the UK government has to hand in proportion today, they had to rely heavily on informants as well as routine policing activities because they just didn't have enough to keep watch on all critical people in the way some people think you can.
You can't, get over it.
There are several hundred Abedis alone, travellers who raise suspicion. are seen in the wrong places, but don't have any firm action behind them on domestic soil. On top you have former fighters, proper grenade throwing, trigger pulling types, you have logistics support, facilitators, encouragers many of which might just decide to go to Allah even after you weed out those who won't do the pointy stick bit yet still may be of high interest. Several thousand then. Chances are they are picking sub-two hundred to sit on at any one time.
As for Libya, anyone who can remember the apparently off topic rantings of this madman back in 2016 in particular will see a few posts on Islamic extremists working out of Libya, training and inserting people into Europe and reports on Western military interest.
Anyone who thinks Islamic extremists just popped up after Gaddafi went forget it, again talking through their party political hole, get an education. They have been churning out high grade extremists for decades.
Any thoughts on the stream of leaks coming from the US on Manchester?
A combination of the three counties would not be vastly different in terms either of population or geographic extent to the area which has been patrolled by the Thames Valley Police for the last 50 years; however, I can't recall having seen any talk of a merger on the local news for some years, since proposals for a tie up between Herts & Beds were shelved.
There are only two likely agencies which would have the data sharing that is coming out, the FBI and CIA so its coming from them or political elements privy to it as well but it looks direct from agency. The NSA is less likely.
Why?
Someone (likely more than a single source) just likes sharing
There is a point specific to this case or general handling (it wouldn't be a first time that agencies have sent info to the public domain because they think it needs to be there)
Something else, to which political motivation is a possibility
Being honest, other than naming Abedi early, and lets bear in mind they tend to do that in the US, nothing coming out is going to change actions this side of the water.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-clarifies-that-self-declared-eu-envoy-candidate-isnt-up-for-post-1495649596
There are a great may reasons to criticise the PM, including over some security matters, but seeing folk crawl all over each other looking for a smoking gun to pin Manchester on her is not right.
I'm wondering why it (2nd pref to fptp) is in the manifesto. It raises issues on voting systems which will be debated again and which for the time being were completely dead and for types of elections where it is pretty impossible to put up an argument for fptp.
Just asking for trouble where none was present.
At least if you don't have those politicians and community leaders running around like headless chickens and effectively encouraging people to withhold co-operation, then you do have the chance to use an intelligence-based approach instead.
Wonder if UKIP's move forced the Tories' and Labour's hand a little. As it is, UKIP will have uncontentested coverage in the election part of the news tomorrow.
https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/867462373719801856
Most people who grew (or lost) a beard would fix themselves a new Twitter picture.
Every time people cast a vote with a different system it changes the conversation to voting systems, why don't we change Westminster etc - by putting forward a single uniform system (FPTP) across all English elections it has a one off discussion but then ends the trial of different systems across England. FPTP becomes entrenched as our voting system.
file:///C:/Users/john/Downloads/SN00634.pdf
Anyone been watching the match? Fucking turgid crap from Mourinho. At least Gurning Flopp plays attacking football.
Followed up with some choice quotes from McDonnell and Abbot.
Then sit back for a fortnight.
Surely just need AB
I reckon by the end of the campaign, every single person eligible to vote will know, in detail, everything Corbyn, Abbott & McDonnell ever said and did.
And their judgement will be severe.
I'm not sure the Tories will go for that now, but they don't really need to. The Sun and the Mail will do it for them.
I reckon by the end of the campaign, every single person eligible to vote will know, in detail, everything Corbyn, Abbott & McDonnell ever said and did.
And their judgement will be severe. The Sun and the Mail doing it for them is the story of British political discourse.
But it won't will it. We will still have STV and Constituencies with top ups (although neither in England). Guess we have got rid of lists by default.
I have to say (personal view point) that the experiment with these systems seemed designed to fail by bringing in the worst possible types. 2nd preference seemed to be have a go at PR and then change your mind after the first round and resort to fptp, which to me seems odd and lists are just awful for so many reasons.
As you say, the Tories will go back to being Strong&Stable, and will let the Mail and Sun give both barrels to Labour for a fortnight.
Eng surely have this in bag
Edit: GOT HIM!!!!!! 225/7, out of batsmen this looks over for the visitors.
Why is BJO supporting the Proteas?
Edit - Ok, make that a smidgeon over 64.
Surely England can't blow this?
ABDV not so much