LOL! Blimey, Mark Senior is a twerp of the highest order!
Seriously, Mark - did you really read that as me saying that was my view? You did? You were really so staggeringly stupid as to think that, despite the quotation marks and the context?
Good lord. Well, if you're that stupid, you have my sympathy.
Meanwhile, did you find any posts where I said Miliband was in Putin's pocket, as you claimed?
There were no quotation marks in your original post . I understand your desire to call me stupid in a futile attempt to draw attention away from a partisan post which you are now no doubt embarrassed of making .
I got within 10 miles having found the zoom function but it was a cheat having already done it. Apparently that was more accurate than 100% of the players so far.
Set up an 0871 telephone number for yourself when dealing with utility companies and providing a contact number to commercial organisations and earn 7p per minute when they phone you.
There were no quotation marks in your original post . I understand your desire to call me stupid in a futile attempt to draw attention away from a partisan post which you are now no doubt embarrassed of making .
There was a Hmm, wasn't there?
I'm not in the least bit embarrassed about a completely non-partisan post, in an exchange where we were exploring the politics of what might happen if Miliband insisted on a UN resolution. As I rightly predicted later on, in the end he didn't make that blunder, no doubt precisely because he realised it risked being interpreted in the way which my post, which you so hilariously quoted having completely misunderstood, indicated might happen.
The more worrying thing is if you look on the results.. who the F- thinks it's in China or India?
(assuming not a joke, like the ones putting it in the US, at least I hope they were jokes).
There are 9 Damascus in the US, but the closest two to the spot marked in Wyoming (Damascus, Oregon and Damascus Arkansas) are around a thousand miles away.
Mr. Boy, someone playing party politics with war and peace is unfit to govern.
We shouldn't be surprised. tim expressed it perfectly during the Eastbourne bye-election: nothing is more important than beating the Tories. If dictators are given the nod to carry on gassing children, so long as the Tories are politically damaged in the process then that's more important.
Correction, I just looked it up. There was a question mark, which Mark curiously omitted, and a comment on it being a position (and a couple of posts later I say it's not a position I expect Miliband to take):
Tory lead sometime in 2016 whilst in opposition I'd say.
Too many relying on government handouts that expect the gravy train to keep on running when Labour get back in. Unfortunately mathematics doesn't seem to like that idea.
"There is growing anger inside government with Labour's shifting position as the divided opposition issued a tortured statement on, claiming Mr Cameron had failed to produce ‘compelling evidence’ showing the Assad regime had deployed chemical weapons.
Throwing the Government’s plans for a vote on imminent missile attacks into chaos, Mr Miliband’s party did not come out and oppose intervention.
Instead it claimed any action would have to meet six gruelling criteria which could take weeks to fulfil.
Mr Miliband said: 'Parliament must agree criteria for action, not write a blank cheque.'
But his refusal to support the Coalition sparked a furious response from the heart of government.
'Number 10 and the Foreign Office think Miliband is a f****** c**** and a copper-bottomed s***,' a government source told The Times.
'The French hate him now and he’s got no chance of building an alliance with the US Democratic Party,' the source added.
The official Conservative press office Twitter feed said: 'Ed-Miliband is playing politics when he should be thinking about the national interest and global security.'
Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi tweeted: 'It's weak leadership to seek political advantage while every effort is being made to achieve consensus in the national interest Ed-Miliband.'"
The Times of London @thetimes Co-operative Group in deeper trouble as it announces saying the business has plunged to a £709 million loss thetim.es/1fkSRze
It wouldn't surprise me if labour will be on plus 10 point leads again after camerons old grand duke of York performance over Syria.
He had miliband been Questioned on his leadership by his own party,now he be proberly cheered at the party conference.
Cameron ran away with him self over Syria and should have been more cautious like where we our now on the matter knowing he was also in coalition without a con majority.
Too far South West and 160 miles out - which ironical is closer than Mrs SSC often gets just driving to Southampton.
End up in Israel ?
I don’t think so, Mr Pulpstar: Mrs SSC normally ends up stuck on the ring road around Andover. – As far as I’m aware, she has never actually left the country on one of her excursions…!
Too far South West and 160 miles out - which ironical is closer than Mrs SSC often gets just driving to Southampton.
End up in Israel ?
I don’t think so, Mr Pulpstar: Mrs SSC normally ends up stuck on the ring road around Andover. – As far as I’m aware, she has never actually left the country on one of her excursions…!
Don't you need a satnav to end up in another country by accident?
I'm always surprised wealthy Arab countries don't spend more on PR. If they only understood the sheer weight that is given to public opinion Assad could now be everyone's favourite optician.
John O has already tried the "Damascus Test" by train and finished up in Arbroath - nice kippers though !!
John's never going to live that is down.
I take the blame for his sojourn to Bournemouth.
He was clearly dazzled by meeting me and my epilepsly inducing shoes
Let's hope that neither you or John O in a previous incarnation had much to do with allied missile guidance intelligence or we might end up bombing Port Talbot and Carlisle !!
I'm always surprised wealthy Arab countries don't spend more on PR. If they only understood the sheer weight that is given to public opinion Assad could now be everyone's favourite optician.
Yep..lets do a charm offensive on how we treat women, and gays, and Christians, and other muslims who believe in the sky fairy in a slightly different way....
John O has already tried the "Damascus Test" by train and finished up in Arbroath - nice kippers though !!
John's never going to live that is down.
I take the blame for his sojourn to Bournemouth.
He was clearly dazzled by meeting me and my epilepsly inducing shoes
Let's hope that neither you or John O in a previous incarnation had much to do with allied missile guidance intelligence or we might end up bombing Port Talbot and Carlisle !!
As ever I try to improve myself by absorbing wisdom and relying on Avery to brush up my Latin which seemed to be more in vino veritas than cogito ergo sum on the Friday nights of my youth.
A manager for whom I used to work used to exhort us by saying we were all "single points of success". I begin to suspect that the truth is we were single points of failure.
Ah well...
So we await the UN Inspectors Report and IF they conclude chemical weapons were used, what then? Avery suggested to me last evening that the UN Resolution would include a demand for all chemical weapons to be located and destroyed under UN supervision with military action to enforce this as a penalty for non-compliance.
I don't have any problem with that as a form of words. I would have liked to have seen a greater emphasis on the humanitarian aspect with, for example, a demand to allow the safe passage of non-combatants out of cities like Aleppo and the provision of camps along and outside the Syrian border under UN jurisdiction but there you go.
The problem with the form of words is a) how long do we give both sides in Syria to identify their chemical munitions and the means for manufacturing them (assuming it's not just the Assad regime that has the means) and b) what form will the action to enforce non-compliance really take ?
In 1990, the world united behind the resolution to force Saddam Hussein and his forces to leave Iraq but there was no resolution to topple Saddam then and no mandate to do so.
There is no mandate to topple Assad now either but there is a possibility of a mandate to prevent the future use of chemical weapons in this conflict (and I don't need SeanT to point out how ludicrous that sounds either).
I fear that until and unless Putin is persuaded (or cajoled as you catch more flies with honey than with flypaper) to either abandon Assad or force him to the negotiating table, the likelihood of some form of military intervention in Syria remains.
I'm always surprised wealthy Arab countries don't spend more on PR. If they only understood the sheer weight that is given to public opinion Assad could now be everyone's favourite optician.
Yep..lets do a charm offensive on how we treat women, and gays, and Christians, and other muslims who believe in the sky fairy in a slightly different way....
LOL - but we have lots of money. And Qatar will host the World Cup in 50C but in air-conditioned stadiums [stadia?] using green technology - so that's alright then.
John O has already tried the "Damascus Test" by train and finished up in Arbroath - nice kippers though !!
John's never going to live that is down.
I take the blame for his sojourn to Bournemouth.
He was clearly dazzled by meeting me and my epilepsly inducing shoes
Let's hope that neither you or John O in a previous incarnation had much to do with allied missile guidance intelligence or we might end up bombing Port Talbot and Carlisle !!
Does anyone know why no one in Govt appears to be talking about using United Nations General Assembly resolution 377 (the "Uniting for Peace" resolution) if Russia vetoes, as this is exactly the scenario it was created for. (It wasnt possible for Iraq, because most of the world was against for obvious reasons, and the vote would have lost).
It's presumably because General Assembly resolutions have no legal weight, even in theory. Whereas a Security Council resolution is supposed to be binding on all members of the UN, GA resolutions aren't even binding on the countries that vote for them. It's why Britain gets away with ignoring all the GA resolutions calling for negotiations over sovereignity of the Falklands.
"The No 10 version of events is as follows. There was a meeting between Cameron and Miliband yesterday afternoon to finalise the two leaders' positions. Miliband indicated he would support the Government, but required – according to Whitehall sources – what he said was a “UN moment” to ensure diplomatic avenues had not been exhausted before any military action. The Prime Minister concurred, and said he had already drafted a resolution to be presented to the P5, although it was clear Russia and China would almost certainly veto it. Downing Street said Miliband indicated that he backed the approach, and crucially, made no mention at that time of any UN weapons inspectors report. The meeting concluded with apparent agreement.
Then, at 5:15, David Cameron took a call from Ed Miliband in which Miliband said that he would now be unable to support the Government until the UN weapons inspectors report had been published, and if the Government pushed ahead with the motion as tabled his party would vote against.
Ed Miliband’s team’s version of events is somewhat different. They insist that the Labour leader was clear at all times that he found the use of chemical weapons abhorrent, but that any military response had to, at a minimum, be conducted on “a solid legal basis”. There had to be “compelling evidence” and the case for action would “rest upon the UN”. They are, however, more guarded about the details of what was actually communicated in the meeting. When I specifically asked if Miliband had raised the issue of UN weapons inspectors prior to his 5:15 call, they said they would not discuss the details of private discussions.
But a shadow cabinet source I spoke to was clear that Miliband’s stance had indeed changed significantly during the course of yesterday. “Something definitely shifted”, they said. Miliband had, in their words, “come to an agreement” with Cameron to support military intervention and the Labour statement that was being drafted for the debate was “closely aligned” with the Government’s position. “Our position was supportive”, he added. What’s significant is that the person I spoke to actually agreed with the subsequent shift of stance. “I actually think we’re in a good place now,” he said."
As you are all so good at Middle East geography, would anyone like 4 weeks in the sun in October, all expenses paid, sea-front 5 Star hotel and private beach.
Just had a long call from a client who wants a job done in October - and our diary is quite full. Destination: Tel Aviv. Any volunteers - thought not.
Cameron says" he simply wants to deter Assad from using this stuff in future. But that is simply not credible. Bombing the regime would obviously be interpreted by Syria and its allies as a change in the status of our involvement"
Comments
(assuming not a joke, like the ones putting it in the US, at least I hope they were jokes).
I got within 10 miles having found the zoom function but it was a cheat having already done it. Apparently that was more accurate than 100% of the players so far.
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23869462
I'm not in the least bit embarrassed about a completely non-partisan post, in an exchange where we were exploring the politics of what might happen if Miliband insisted on a UN resolution. As I rightly predicted later on, in the end he didn't make that blunder, no doubt precisely because he realised it risked being interpreted in the way which my post, which you so hilariously quoted having completely misunderstood, indicated might happen.
But thanks for the amusement.
http://t.co/UHTgZz3cNH
LOL
http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/105844/#Comment_105844
Too many relying on government handouts that expect the gravy train to keep on running when Labour get back in. Unfortunately mathematics doesn't seem to like that idea.
"There is growing anger inside government with Labour's shifting position as the divided opposition issued a tortured statement on, claiming Mr Cameron had failed to produce ‘compelling evidence’ showing the Assad regime had deployed chemical weapons.
Throwing the Government’s plans for a vote on imminent missile attacks into chaos, Mr Miliband’s party did not come out and oppose intervention.
Instead it claimed any action would have to meet six gruelling criteria which could take weeks to fulfil.
Mr Miliband said: 'Parliament must agree criteria for action, not write a blank cheque.'
But his refusal to support the Coalition sparked a furious response from the heart of government.
'Number 10 and the Foreign Office think Miliband is a f****** c**** and a copper-bottomed s***,' a government source told The Times.
'The French hate him now and he’s got no chance of building an alliance with the US Democratic Party,' the source added.
The official Conservative press office Twitter feed said: 'Ed-Miliband is playing politics when he should be thinking about the national interest and global security.'
Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi tweeted: 'It's weak leadership to seek political advantage while every effort is being made to achieve consensus in the national interest Ed-Miliband.'"
"I doubt even the greatest advertising genius could sell that one."
The London ophthalmologist and his pretty English wife........
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9149710/Asma-Assad-is-the-good-wife-standing-by-her-bad-man.html
Co-operative Group in deeper trouble as it announces saying the business has plunged to a £709 million loss thetim.es/1fkSRze
He had miliband been Questioned on his leadership by his own party,now he be proberly cheered at the party conference.
Cameron ran away with him self over Syria and should have been more cautious like where we our now on the matter knowing he was also in coalition without a con majority.
I take the blame for his sojourn to Bournemouth.
He was clearly dazzled by meeting me and my epilepsly inducing shoes
As ever I try to improve myself by absorbing wisdom and relying on Avery to brush up my Latin which seemed to be more in vino veritas than cogito ergo sum on the Friday nights of my youth.
A manager for whom I used to work used to exhort us by saying we were all "single points of success". I begin to suspect that the truth is we were single points of failure.
Ah well...
So we await the UN Inspectors Report and IF they conclude chemical weapons were used, what then? Avery suggested to me last evening that the UN Resolution would include a demand for all chemical weapons to be located and destroyed under UN supervision with military action to enforce this as a penalty for non-compliance.
I don't have any problem with that as a form of words. I would have liked to have seen a greater emphasis on the humanitarian aspect with, for example, a demand to allow the safe passage of non-combatants out of cities like Aleppo and the provision of camps along and outside the Syrian border under UN jurisdiction but there you go.
The problem with the form of words is a) how long do we give both sides in Syria to identify their chemical munitions and the means for manufacturing them (assuming it's not just the Assad regime that has the means) and b) what form will the action to enforce non-compliance really take ?
In 1990, the world united behind the resolution to force Saddam Hussein and his forces to leave Iraq but there was no resolution to topple Saddam then and no mandate to do so.
There is no mandate to topple Assad now either but there is a possibility of a mandate to prevent the future use of chemical weapons in this conflict (and I don't need SeanT to point out how ludicrous that sounds either).
I fear that until and unless Putin is persuaded (or cajoled as you catch more flies with honey than with flypaper) to either abandon Assad or force him to the negotiating table, the likelihood of some form of military intervention in Syria remains.
"The No 10 version of events is as follows. There was a meeting between Cameron and Miliband yesterday afternoon to finalise the two leaders' positions. Miliband indicated he would support the Government, but required – according to Whitehall sources – what he said was a “UN moment” to ensure diplomatic avenues had not been exhausted before any military action. The Prime Minister concurred, and said he had already drafted a resolution to be presented to the P5, although it was clear Russia and China would almost certainly veto it. Downing Street said Miliband indicated that he backed the approach, and crucially, made no mention at that time of any UN weapons inspectors report. The meeting concluded with apparent agreement.
Then, at 5:15, David Cameron took a call from Ed Miliband in which Miliband said that he would now be unable to support the Government until the UN weapons inspectors report had been published, and if the Government pushed ahead with the motion as tabled his party would vote against.
Ed Miliband’s team’s version of events is somewhat different. They insist that the Labour leader was clear at all times that he found the use of chemical weapons abhorrent, but that any military response had to, at a minimum, be conducted on “a solid legal basis”. There had to be “compelling evidence” and the case for action would “rest upon the UN”. They are, however, more guarded about the details of what was actually communicated in the meeting. When I specifically asked if Miliband had raised the issue of UN weapons inspectors prior to his 5:15 call, they said they would not discuss the details of private discussions.
But a shadow cabinet source I spoke to was clear that Miliband’s stance had indeed changed significantly during the course of yesterday. “Something definitely shifted”, they said. Miliband had, in their words, “come to an agreement” with Cameron to support military intervention and the Labour statement that was being drafted for the debate was “closely aligned” with the Government’s position. “Our position was supportive”, he added. What’s significant is that the person I spoke to actually agreed with the subsequent shift of stance. “I actually think we’re in a good place now,” he said."
Well, I missed Damascus by quite a bit but probably took out the rebel positions.
Is that good enough?
'The French hate him now and he’s got no chance of building an alliance with the US Democratic Party,' the source added.
So he can't be all bad then.
Just had a long call from a client who wants a job done in October - and our diary is quite full. Destination: Tel Aviv. Any volunteers - thought not.
Immigration is all perceptions anyway.
I don't know why the Tories set themselves such a high bar.
"Getting a grip" would satisfying enough people enough.
Also the fall in immigration might have an effect on perceptions, even if net migration rises.
Ian Martin is correct about this.