I don't know whether GW is so completely fucked in the head that he actually believes this swill or he is so venal that he is spewing it for the benefit of the desiccated nationalists who will decide the next tory leadership campaign.
Probably the latter, but other countries will watch in disbelief as the UK's governing party is taken over by the League of Empire Loyalists.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
Accrington Stanley are, though, getting better and catching up.
Er....
Yes and City lost 2 games over Christmas. But still...
As a United fan this championship race is looking peculiarly grim. Who do I want to lose the most?
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
On the contrary, his is the only moral stance.
Compare and contrast Australia and the EU. The former does not let boats land, and tows them back out to sea. Consequently, migrant flows and drownings are at relatively low levels. The EU rescues migrants, which leads to vastly higher numbers attempting the trip in vessels that are not seaworthy, leading to more deaths overall.
Well-meaning policies can lead to real people dying.
Mr. Kinabalu, I think that's recognition of the immense difficulty of May's task (but not recognition of her, nevertheless, buggering it up tremendously).
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
As far as moral leadership is concerned, in many areas Canada and New Zealand are better role models than May's Britain.
Trudeau's Canada and Ardern's New Zealand may be more appealing to social democrats but neither are going to effectively lead the way in standing up to China and Russia and extremist Islamic terrorism
That's quite an incredible comment. The cost and complexities of a fixed link between NI and mainland Scotland are fantastic, and would make the Channel Tunnel look easy. The economics of it are p*ss poor as well, especially as you'd have to build the link from Kintyre to the Central Belt.
It'd be from Galloway if they ever did it. Apparently something like £20bn, including dealing with the old WW2 explosives dump :-)
Absolutely stupid idea, as bad as HS2
I once did a case in Campbeltown Sheriff Court. It is a hell of a long way from anywhere. The idea of spending serious money to establish a major transport link into that part of the country is completely mad.
A vision that includes Remain aspirations. The withdrawal treaty is largely the EU’s creation.
The WT is indeed mainly to satisfy the EU. A taste of things to come when FTA talks get underway, one fears. That is the reality of the imbalance. David would not slay Goliath in the real world. He'd get a right old mauling.
Remain(er) aspirations? The most important one is surely FOM. Certainly for me that is the best thing of the many good things about the EU. But we are in an enlightened minority. You yourself write frequently on here about how xenophobia drove the Leave vote. I agree with you.
But put that another way. The desire to end FOM was perhaps the single biggest reason why Leave won the referendum.
Now if this is true, and I think it is, then TM was surely correct to have drawn it as a great big thick red line.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
On the contrary, his is the only moral stance.
Compare and contrast Australia and the EU. The former does not let boats land, and tows them back out to sea. Consequently, migrant flows and drownings are at relatively low levels. The EU rescues migrants, which leads to vastly higher numbers attempting the trip in vessels that are not seaworthy, leading to more deaths overall.
Well-meaning policies can lead to real people dying.
I think that we will just have to agree to disagree on this one.
Were a General Election to come about , Labour would simply decline to engage on Brexit to any significant extent. They would seek to change the subject - as happened in both 2017 and February 1974 - by raising other issues to which voters can much more readily relate.The chances of managing that over a six week campaign period seem good to me. People wish to move on!
People nay wish to buy they cannot, even a Corbyn first term did be defined by trying to get a Deal with the EU which will also affect how much it has to spend at home
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
Accrington Stanley are, though, getting better and catching up.
If the government lose a VONC I am not so sure the DUP would prefer a general election to propping up a Corbyn government instead. In the case of the latter they are still Kingmaker and can dictate terms, in the case of either a Tory or Corbyn majority government or a Corbyn and SNP government after a general election however the DUP and their agenda can be dismissed as irrelevant.
The DUP are also likely to have seen the Northern Ireland polls showing No Deal makes a united Ireland more likely, in some respects therefore a Corbyn style permanent Customs Union plus single market elements on workers' rights for the whole UK is better than the backstop for Northern Ireland alone for the DUP and also poses less of a threat to the Union. Notice too even John McDonnell joking about getting out his orange sash.
Do not rule out therefore PM Corbyn by the middle of next year, propped up by the SNP, the LDs, the DUP, Plaid and the Greens and BINO Brexit in a similar scenario to Spain now where the Socialists are in power without having won a general election and despite having significantly fewer MPs than the main conservatives due to manoueverings of minority parties in parliament
Good thinking. I hadn't thought of that.
As with many of the potential scenarios, Corbyn is of course the impediment
The DUP can be bought. That much we know. If Mrs May is serious why doesn't she just find out their price and pay it? The electoral arithmetic will never be as favourable again. This is a once in a lifetime chance to fill their pockets.
As I've mentioned before, the tunnel/bridge combo linking (Northern) Ireland to Scotland would be a huge commitment they could extract. The billions it will cost are years down the line. She could cancel HS2 to pay for it. And get Varadkar to have the EU pull the back stop in exchange. Everyone happy. What's not to love?
That's quite an incredible comment. The cost and complexities of a fixed link between NI and mainland Scotland are fantastic, and would make the Channel Tunnel look easy. The economics of it are p*ss poor as well, especially as you'd have to build the link from Kintyre to the Central Belt.
He's a leaver, so he can just wish away any practical, financial or economic concerns with his magic Brexit stick....
That's quite an incredible comment. The cost and complexities of a fixed link between NI and mainland Scotland are fantastic, and would make the Channel Tunnel look easy. The economics of it are p*ss poor as well, especially as you'd have to build the link from Kintyre to the Central Belt.
It'd be from Galloway if they ever did it. Apparently something like £20bn, including dealing with the old WW2 explosives dump :-)
There is also the small matter of the most active fault system in the British Isles that runs down the Irish Sea and is the source of the majority of the significant earthquakes in the UK.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I hate phrases like "some estimate". London has a population of approximately nine million people. That would mean that more than 10% of Londoners are illegal immigrants. That would mean that illegal immigrants outnumber legal non-EU immigrants in the capital. So, for every American or Canadian or Australian you meet, there are one and a half illegal immigrants from... errr... where exactly?
Yet these illegal immigrants somehow manage to avoid using the health service in great numbers, or having babies, or being in any way detectable. If more than 10% of the London population was illegal, that would one in six workers were too.
It would mean that it wouldn't just be Albanian car washers, but every restaurant would contain a number of illegals.
There are, I'm sure a great many illegal immigrants in London. But one million? That is, I suspect, an order of magnitude too high.
That's quite an incredible comment. The cost and complexities of a fixed link between NI and mainland Scotland are fantastic, and would make the Channel Tunnel look easy. The economics of it are p*ss poor as well, especially as you'd have to build the link from Kintyre to the Central Belt.
It'd be from Galloway if they ever did it. Apparently something like £20bn, including dealing with the old WW2 explosives dump :-)
There is also the small matter of the most active fault system in the British Isles that runs down the Irish Sea and is the source of the majority of the significant earthquakes in the UK.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
On the contrary, his is the only moral stance.
Compare and contrast Australia and the EU. The former does not let boats land, and tows them back out to sea. Consequently, migrant flows and drownings are at relatively low levels. The EU rescues migrants, which leads to vastly higher numbers attempting the trip in vessels that are not seaworthy, leading to more deaths overall.
Well-meaning policies can lead to real people dying.
I think that we will just have to agree to disagree on this one.
I believe RoyalBlue is absolutely correct in this case. It is one of the reasons I believe Merkel has the blood of many migrants on her hands.
The DUP can be bought. That much we know. If Mrs May is serious why doesn't she just find out their price and pay it? The electoral arithmetic will never be as favourable again. This is a once in a lifetime chance to fill their pockets.
As I've mentioned before, the tunnel/bridge combo linking (Northern) Ireland to Scotland would be a huge commitment they could extract. The billions it will cost are years down the line. She could cancel HS2 to pay for it. And get Varadkar to have the EU pull the back stop in exchange. Everyone happy. What's not to love?
That's quite an incredible comment. The cost and complexities of a fixed link between NI and mainland Scotland are fantastic, and would make the Channel Tunnel look easy. The economics of it are p*ss poor as well, especially as you'd have to build the link from Kintyre to the Central Belt.
He's a leaver, so he can just wish away any practical, financial or economic concerns with his magic Brexit stick....
There is a certain commonality of magic thinking between some of the Brexit handwavers and Corbyn’s more credulous acolytes...
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
"just behind"
US Navy escorts:230 RN escorts: 17
Geography means we aren't that well integrated with the preeminent commonwealth military (Australia) so we rarely exercise with them. Most of the UK-Australian (and NZ to a lesser extent) officer exchange programs have been stopped as the exchangees had a habit doing a lateral transfers into the ADF and not coming back.
As the threat of Islamic terrorism remains and China is still no ally of Australia and New Zealand neither nation can afford to ignore the Western Alliance
Most of the time most MPs will do the thing that is most likely to give them most chance of remaining an MP. From here, for Tory MPs that means voting to ensure that the UK leaves the EU on 29th March 2019 and for Labour MPs it is making sure to do what Jeremy tells them to do. Thus, a government led by Theresa May will take us out of the EU on 29th March 2019. The only issue is whether it will be under her deal or No Deal. May would prefer the former, Corbyn the latter. It could be that Jeremy is the one who gets his way.
Good for JC, particularly if he can in future plausibly claim not to have been involved, so his hands would be "clean".
No Deal is a fantasy that does seem to appeal mostly to the kind of wealthy, privileged people who will suffer few of its consequences.
No Deal appeals most to wealthy, privileged, home owning, retired people for whom a recession, rising unemployment and the threat of negative equity and home repossessions is less of a risk. Even a lot of City Workers will lose their jobs under No Deal, at least if they want to stay working in the UK
Have you any evidence to support your fantasy, preferably not CCHQ propaganda as well.
Have you any evidence to show No Deal will not hit the economy, besides trying to use it as a tool for Scottish independence?
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
Accrington Stanley are, though, getting better and catching up.
Er....
Yes and City lost 2 games over Christmas. But still...
As a United fan this championship race is looking peculiarly grim. Who do I want to lose the most?
Liverpool and Man City. Let Spurs win it for once.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
Turkey’s army is about twice the size of the UK and France put together. In a conventional war I am not sure I would fancy our chances.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
On the contrary, his is the only moral stance.
Compare and contrast Australia and the EU. The former does not let boats land, and tows them back out to sea. Consequently, migrant flows and drownings are at relatively low levels. The EU rescues migrants, which leads to vastly higher numbers attempting the trip in vessels that are not seaworthy, leading to more deaths overall.
Well-meaning policies can lead to real people dying.
I think that we will just have to agree to disagree on this one.
I believe RoyalBlue is absolutely correct in this case. It is one of the reasons I believe Merkel has the blood of many migrants on her hands.
There are certain geographic differences which render the comparison a little less than convincing.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
Accrington Stanley are, though, getting better and catching up.
Er....
Yes and City lost 2 games over Christmas. But still...
As a United fan this championship race is looking peculiarly grim. Who do I want to lose the most?
Liverpool and Man City. Let Spurs win it for once.
How did Surs get on yesterday, I missed the results?
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
Accrington Stanley are, though, getting better and catching up.
Er....
Yes and City lost 2 games over Christmas. But still...
As a United fan this championship race is looking peculiarly grim. Who do I want to lose the most?
Liverpool and Man City. Let Spurs win it for once.
How did Surs get on yesterday, I missed the results?
Just as well you did, you'd have not liked the LCFC one
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
"just behind"
US Navy escorts:230 RN escorts: 17
Geography means we aren't that well integrated with the preeminent commonwealth military (Australia) so we rarely exercise with them.
I would have thought the pre-eminent Commonwealth military is India?
No - CLPs and Tory Associations would react immediately to such behaviour and the MPs concerned would place themselves beyond the pale. As the 2017 election showed, new candidates could be chosen at very short notice.MPs who vote against their party on a VONC would fight any general election as Independents - were they to stand at all.
That's my view too, at least for Labour (I don't know the Conservative mood as well). You can say all sorts of things, and revolt on a variety of issues, and colleagues in the CLP will shrug with mild irritation, but defecting on a VONC would alienate the middle ground of members who have no strong feelings on Brexit. The best you could hope for would be that a handful of the local exec (who are close to you from daily contact) would leave with you.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
That's true. But you are leaving out the other big factor that allows us to punch above our weight. Membership of the EU gives us clout as well.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I hate phrases like "some estimate". London has a population of approximately nine million people. That would mean that more than 10% of Londoners are illegal immigrants. That would mean that illegal immigrants outnumber legal non-EU immigrants in the capital. So, for every American or Canadian or Australian you meet, there are one and a half illegal immigrants from... errr... where exactly?
Yet these illegal immigrants somehow manage to avoid using the health service in great numbers, or having babies, or being in any way detectable. If more than 10% of the London population was illegal, that would one in sex workers were too.
It would mean that it wouldn't just be Albanian car washers, but every restaurant would contain a number of illegals.
There are, I'm sure a great many illegal immigrants in London. But one million? That is, I suspect, an order of magnitude too high.
However as we well know the systems in this country are so crap that there will be no linkage with NHS paper systems and any other government system , so would be easy to stay off radar.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
"just behind"
US Navy escorts:230 RN escorts: 17
Geography means we aren't that well integrated with the preeminent commonwealth military (Australia) so we rarely exercise with them.
I would have thought the pre-eminent Commonwealth military is India?
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
"just behind"
US Navy escorts:230 RN escorts: 17
Geography means we aren't that well integrated with the preeminent commonwealth military (Australia) so we rarely exercise with them. Most of the UK-Australian (and NZ to a lesser extent) officer exchange programs have been stopped as the exchangees had a habit doing a lateral transfers into the ADF and not coming back.
As the threat of Islamic terrorism remains and China is still no ally of Australia and New Zealand neither nation can afford to ignore the Western Alliance
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
On the contrary, his is the only moral stance.
Compare and contrast Australia and the EU. The former does not let boats land, and tows them back out to sea. Consequently, migrant flows and drownings are at relatively low levels. The EU rescues migrants, which leads to vastly higher numbers attempting the trip in vessels that are not seaworthy, leading to more deaths overall.
Well-meaning policies can lead to real people dying.
Actually the EU intervention has been to support the Libyan coastguard to return migrants to Libya, and the EU land forces in the Sahel have significantly reduced the numbers arriving in North Africa. The numbers crossing the Med is now back to the figure from a decade ago.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
"just behind"
US Navy escorts:230 RN escorts: 17
Geography means we aren't that well integrated with the preeminent commonwealth military (Australia) so we rarely exercise with them. Most of the UK-Australian (and NZ to a lesser extent) officer exchange programs have been stopped as the exchangees had a habit doing a lateral transfers into the ADF and not coming back.
As the threat of Islamic terrorism remains and China is still no ally of Australia and New Zealand neither nation can afford to ignore the Western Alliance
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
Turkey’s army is about twice the size of the UK and France put together. In a conventional war I am not sure I would fancy our chances.
Turkey is not considered part of the Western Alliance and does not have nuclear weapons or as many aircraft carriers and submarines as the UK and France. Turkey is also no fan of Assad so would have to get past Iran and Russia first if it wanted to take over Syria. Our role in Syria now is mainly to protect the Kurds, amongst the toughest fighters in the world
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
Turkey’s army is about twice the size of the UK and France put together. In a conventional war I am not sure I would fancy our chances.
David, we would struggle to beat a carpet nowadays
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
"just behind"
US Navy escorts:230 RN escorts: 17
Geography means we aren't that well integrated with the preeminent commonwealth military (Australia) so we rarely exercise with them. Most of the UK-Australian (and NZ to a lesser extent) officer exchange programs have been stopped as the exchangees had a habit doing a lateral transfers into the ADF and not coming back.
As the threat of Islamic terrorism remains and China is still no ally of Australia and New Zealand neither nation can afford to ignore the Western Alliance
US Navy escorts:230 RN escorts: 17
Bet we have more admirals than them though.
We are allies of the US and a key component of the Western Alliance
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
That's surely because those we don't win, like Suez, we don't class as wars.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I hate phrases like "some estimate". London has a population of approximately nine million people. That would mean that more than 10% of Londoners are illegal immigrants. That would mean that illegal immigrants outnumber legal non-EU immigrants in the capital. So, for every American or Canadian or Australian you meet, there are one and a half illegal immigrants from... errr... where exactly?
Yet these illegal immigrants somehow manage to avoid using the health service in great numbers, or having babies, or being in any way detectable. If more than 10% of the London population was illegal, that would one in sex workers were too.
It would mean that it wouldn't just be Albanian car washers, but every restaurant would contain a number of illegals.
There are, I'm sure a great many illegal immigrants in London. But one million? That is, I suspect, an order of magnitude too high.
O The health service doesn’t check status and doesn’t turn people away that needs treatment ( registration with a GP may be more problematic). IANAE in sex workers but I think that you would find a very high percentage were illegals. Large numbers of “self employed” delivery people are too. We tolerate a large and unpleasant underbelly of illegal employment which only ever seems to come to the surface when something goes wrong like those Chinese cockle pickers or rare prosecutions for modern slavery.
I don’t know how many illegal immigrants live in London but the rate at which London’s population has increased over the last decade is pretty dramatic and illegal immigrants have played a major part.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
That's true. But you are leaving out the other big factor that allows us to punch above our weight. Membership of the EU gives us clout as well.
Not in military terms, in economic terms maybe.
It is NATO and UN Security Council membership that gives us military clout
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
On the contrary, his is the only moral stance.
Compare and contrast Australia and the EU. The former does not let boats land, and tows them back out to sea. Consequently, migrant flows and drownings are at relatively low levels. The EU rescues migrants, which leads to vastly higher numbers attempting the trip in vessels that are not seaworthy, leading to more deaths overall.
Well-meaning policies can lead to real people dying.
Actually the EU intervention has been to support the Libyan coastguard to return migrants to Libya, and the EU land forces in the Sahel have significantly reduced the numbers arriving in North Africa. The numbers crossing the Med is now back to the figure from a decade ago.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
That's surely because those we don't win, like Suez, we don't class as wars.
Suez we won militarily but could not sustain economically as the US would not support us
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
Technicalities don't cut it, we have skedaddled out from plenty with tail between legs, just look at our recent debacles in middle east as an example. Only reason we did not lose was because the USA joined in and saved our bacon on others as well.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
Technicalities don't cut it, we have skedaddled out from plenty with tail between legs, just look at our recent debacles in middle east as an example.
We have liberated Kuwait, got rid of Bin Laden, removed the Taliban and Gaddhafi and Saddam Hussein from power and largely defeated ISIS
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
That's true. But you are leaving out the other big factor that allows us to punch above our weight. Membership of the EU gives us clout as well.
Not in military terms, in economic terms maybe.
It is NATO and UN Security Council membership that gives us military clout
I think it makes a difference. Remember how quickly we were able to get military supplies to Argentina from Europe embargoed during the Falklands conflict.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
That's surely because those we don't win, like Suez, we don't class as wars.
Suez we won militarily but could not sustain economically as the US would not support us
Well that's fair but you cannot really separate the two.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
"just behind"
US Navy escorts:230 RN escorts: 17
Geography means we aren't that well integrated with the preeminent commonwealth military (Australia) so we rarely exercise with them.
I would have thought the pre-eminent Commonwealth military is India?
Yes and democratic India will be a key bulwark against Communist China and in containing extremists in Pakistan
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
You think we won in Korea? Or Iraq? Or Afghanistan? Or against the Soviets post WW1?
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
Technicalities don't cut it, we have skedaddled out from plenty with tail between legs, just look at our recent debacles in middle east as an example.
We have liberated Kuwait, got rid of Bin Laden, removed the Taliban and Gaddhafi and Saddam Hussein from power and largely defeated ISIS
Dream on , we were on USA coat tails to try and give them legitimacy, a very very very junior role.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
That's true. But you are leaving out the other big factor that allows us to punch above our weight. Membership of the EU gives us clout as well.
Not in military terms, in economic terms maybe.
It is NATO and UN Security Council membership that gives us military clout
I think it makes a difference. Remember how quickly we were able to get military supplies to Argentina from Europe embargoed during the Falklands conflict.
Argentina got much of its Exocet missiles then from France
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I hate phrases like "some estimate". London has a population of approximately nine million people. That would mean that more than 10% of Londoners are illegal immigrants. That would mean that illegal immigrants outnumber legal non-EU immigrants in the capital. So, for every American or Canadian or Australian you meet, there are one and a half illegal immigrants from... errr... where exactly?
Yet these illegal immigrants somehow manage to avoid using the health service in great numbers, or having babies, or being in any way detectable. If more than 10% of the London population was illegal, that would one in sex workers were too.
It would mean that it wouldn't just be Albanian car washers, but every restaurant would contain a number of illegals.
There are, I'm sure a great many illegal immigrants in London. But one million? That is, I suspect, an order of magnitude too high.
O The health service doesn’t check status and doesn’t turn people away that needs treatment ( registration with a GP may be more problematic). IANAE in sex workers but I think that you would find a very high percentage were illegals. Large numbers of “self employed” delivery people are too. We tolerate a large and unpleasant underbelly of illegal employment which only ever seems to come to the surface when something goes wrong like those Chinese cockle pickers or rare prosecutions for modern slavery.
I don’t know how many illegal immigrants live in London but the rate at which London’s population has increased over the last decade is pretty dramatic and illegal immigrants have played a major part.
The NHS does check status routinely, and in Leicester we often refuse non-emergency treatment as a result. Considering the migrant population, very few illegals are unearthed.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
You think we won in Korea? Or Iraq? Or Afghanistan? Or against the Soviets post WW1?
South Korea is still non Communist and free, Iraq is free of Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan is free from the Taliban in power and the Soviets lost the Cold War
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
On the contrary, his is the only moral stance.
Compare and contrast Australia and the EU. The former does not let boats land, and tows them back out to sea. Consequently, migrant flows and drownings are at relatively low levels. The EU rescues migrants, which leads to vastly higher numbers attempting the trip in vessels that are not seaworthy, leading to more deaths overall.
Well-meaning policies can lead to real people dying.
Actually the EU intervention has been to support the Libyan coastguard to return migrants to Libya, and the EU land forces in the Sahel have significantly reduced the numbers arriving in North Africa. The numbers crossing the Med is now back to the figure from a decade ago.
In that case it’s good they saw the light. Better to do the right thing eventually than not at all.
Were a General Election to come about , Labour would simply decline to engage on Brexit to any significant extent. They would seek to change the subject - as happened in both 2017 and February 1974 - by raising other issues to which voters can much more readily relate.The chances of managing that over a six week campaign period seem good to me. People wish to move on!
Wouldn't work for toffee. Firstly, because any upcoming election this year will be called as a 'Brexit election' - called to decide the form it takes and little else. Secondly, because a significant number of their MPs would demand clarity or effectively go freelance. Third, because a significant section of the party's voter-base deeply care about the issue and want clarity on it. They might not desert the party as would have other concerns - but it's absurd to think Labour could get away with not engaging with it. They'd at least have to neutralise the issue with something like a People's Vote or risk being torn apart on it.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
Technicalities don't cut it, we have skedaddled out from plenty with tail between legs, just look at our recent debacles in middle east as an example.
We have liberated Kuwait, got rid of Bin Laden, removed the Taliban and Gaddhafi and Saddam Hussein from power and largely defeated ISIS
Dream on , we were on USA coat tails to try and give them legitimacy, a very very very junior role.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I hate phrases like "some estimate". London has a population of approximately nine million people. That would mean that more than 10% of Londoners are illegal immigrants. That would mean that illegal immigrants outnumber legal non-EU immigrants in the capital. So, for every American or Canadian or Australian you meet, there are one and a half illegal immigrants from... errr... where exactly?
Yet these illegal immigrants somehow manage to avoid using the health service in great numbers, or having babies, or being in any way detectable. If more than 10% of the London population was illegal, that would one in sex workers were too.
It would mean that it wouldn't just be Albanian car washers, but every restaurant would contain a number of illegals.
There are, I'm sure a great many illegal immigrants in London. But one million? That is, I suspect, an order of magnitude too high.
O The health service doesn’t check status and doesn’t turn people away that needs treatment ( registration with a GP may be more problematic). IANAE in sex workers but I think that you would find a very high percentage were illegals. Large numbers of “self employed” delivery people are too. We tolerate a large and unpleasant underbelly of illegal employment which only ever seems to come to the surface when something goes wrong like those Chinese cockle pickers or rare prosecutions for modern slavery.
I don’t know how many illegal immigrants live in London but the rate at which London’s population has increased over the last decade is pretty dramatic and illegal immigrants have played a major part.
I - umm - meant one-in-six workers!
One million is simply not a plausible number. There simply aren't that many casual jobs you can get without paperwork. (And don't forget, you need to get paid in cash, as you can't easily get a bank account without documentation. And of course, there will be people with decently forged ID. But one million?)
In the old days, illegal immigrants could probably work as minicab drivers, recieving cash and simply driving an uninsured vehicle. But these days, they'd need to register with Uber and Lyft and get a proper commercial driving license, and have a bank account. As cash becomes less and less common, it becomes harder and harder to work out the system.
That's quite an incredible comment. The cost and complexities of a fixed link between NI and mainland Scotland are fantastic, and would make the Channel Tunnel look easy. The economics of it are p*ss poor as well, especially as you'd have to build the link from Kintyre to the Central Belt.
It'd be from Galloway if they ever did it. Apparently something like £20bn, including dealing with the old WW2 explosives dump :-)
There are two options from Scotland: from Kintyre and Galloway. There are other options further south, which, despite being longer, might be more economical as they take people where they really want to go (i.e. England and then Europe).
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
Mr. Kinabalu, I think that's recognition of the immense difficulty of May's task (but not recognition of her, nevertheless, buggering it up tremendously).
Fair enough. I think that's right.
But when listening to some of the vox pops praise from the general public, I did get a strong sense that her being a woman was a factor. 'Plucky Gal', was kind of the flavour.
Which is ok, I suppose. Nothing to get het up about. Not compared to all the things to get het up about.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
That's true. But you are leaving out the other big factor that allows us to punch above our weight. Membership of the EU gives us clout as well.
Not in military terms, in economic terms maybe.
It is NATO and UN Security Council membership that gives us military clout
I think it makes a difference. Remember how quickly we were able to get military supplies to Argentina from Europe embargoed during the Falklands conflict.
Argentina got much of its Exocet missiles then from France
#Ohgodpleaseletsnotdothisagain
...and most of its bombs from the Americans, and its planes from the Americans and French, and its ships from the Americans and the French and the British. Now somebody's going to bring up that bloke who worked for Dassault, then we mention Jean Kirkpatrick, I finish things off with that quote from Margaret Thatcher about Mitterrand, and then things quiet down until the next time. Aaargh!
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
That's true. But you are leaving out the other big factor that allows us to punch above our weight. Membership of the EU gives us clout as well.
Not in military terms, in economic terms maybe.
It is NATO and UN Security Council membership that gives us military clout
I think it makes a difference. Remember how quickly we were able to get military supplies to Argentina from Europe embargoed during the Falklands conflict.
Argentina got much of its Exocet missiles then from France
#Ohgodpleaseletsnotdothisagain
...and most of its bombs from the Americans, and its planes from the Americans and French, and its ships from the Americans and the French and the British. Now somebody's going to bring up that bloke who worked for Dassault, then we mention Jean Kirkpatrick, I finish things off with that quote from Margaret Thatcher about Mitterrand, and then things quiet down until the next time. Aaargh!
Were a General Election to come about , Labour would simply decline to engage on Brexit to any significant extent. They would seek to change the subject - as happened in both 2017 and February 1974 - by raising other issues to which voters can much more readily relate.The chances of managing that over a six week campaign period seem good to me. People wish to move on!
Wouldn't work for toffee. Firstly, because any upcoming election this year will be called as a 'Brexit election' - called to decide the form it takes and little else. Secondly, because a significant number of their MPs would demand clarity or effectively go freelance. Third, because a significant section of the party's voter-base deeply care about the issue and want clarity on it. They might not desert the party as would have other concerns - but it's absurd to think Labour could get away with not engaging with it. They'd at least have to neutralise the issue with something like a People's Vote or risk being torn apart on it.
Those who call an election do not control the priorities of the voters. Theresa May found that out in 2017 - as did Ted Heath before her in February 1974. People on this Board - and the commentariat more widely - can be as obsessed as they wish re-Brexit, but - IMHO - that does not reflect the views of the public at large. Most people are sick to death of the subject , and are highly likely to respond in a positive way to any attempt to raise issues & problems which are far less technical and much more directly relevant to their daily lives. To repeat a point I have made before here - far too many commentators fail to distinguish between an issue being 'highly important ' - which Brexit clearly is - and 'salient' which I believe not to be the case electorally.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
"just behind"
US Navy escorts:230 RN escorts: 17
Geography means we aren't that well integrated with the preeminent commonwealth military (Australia) so we rarely exercise with them.
I would have thought the pre-eminent Commonwealth military is India?
Yes and democratic India will be a key bulwark against Communist China and in containing extremists in Pakistan
A very interesting and prescient TED talk by Paddy Ashdown in 2011, pre Brexit and pre Trump, about the coming turbulence and the need for flexibility in choosing our allies.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
That's true. But you are leaving out the other big factor that allows us to punch above our weight. Membership of the EU gives us clout as well.
Not in military terms, in economic terms maybe.
It is NATO and UN Security Council membership that gives us military clout
I think it makes a difference. Remember how quickly we were able to get military supplies to Argentina from Europe embargoed during the Falklands conflict.
Argentina got much of its Exocet missiles then from France
#Ohgodpleaseletsnotdothisagain
...and most of its bombs from the Americans, and its planes from the Americans and French, and its ships from the Americans and the French and the British. Now somebody's going to bring up that bloke who worked for Dassault, then we mention Jean Kirkpatrick, I finish things off with that quote from Margaret Thatcher about Mitterrand, and then things quiet down until the next time. Aaargh!
Spot on. The French did every single thing we could have asked of them as an ally short of actually sending their own forces to help - which of course we never asked for. The myth of French cowardice and duplicity is one I have absolutely no time for given they have been our allies since the 1850s.
And I really hope that sentence pisses off the Francophobe TSE.
There was a vox pop on the radio this am with some diddy saying 'they might be terrorists, they look like families but who knows?'
Javid may be crap on all available evidence, but he's certainly attuned to the dog whistles de jour.
221 since the start of November according to the BBC. Which is still a small number when some estimate that there may be 1m illegal immigrants in London alone.
I quite like Javid but I thought that his decision not to deploy further ships in the Channel was pretty disgusting. He is basically saying I would rather people drown than us risk more coming on the back of an improved prospect of rescue. It is profoundly immoral.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
We are “just behind” the United States in the same way as Accrington Stanley are just behind Man City. We don’t have even 1/10th of their capability or reach and we are deluding ourselves to pretend otherwise.
We are still a UN Security Council, nuclear power with the strongest military outside the US of any western power besides France. Indeed as the US withdraws from Syria it is the UK and France who will keep a western presence there.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
LOL, unable to stop a handful of Iranians , we are a joke of a country.
Given we stayed out of Vietnam the UK has not actually lost a War since the US War of Independence
Cough cough first Boer War cough cough.
One could also say we lost the Russian Civil War since we sent troops to back the losing side.
We will only leave on 29 March if either the deal passes or we crash out. So by implication, punters rate the chance of crashing out with no deal as precisely zero.
Were a General Election to come about , Labour would simply decline to engage on Brexit to any significant extent. They would seek to change the subject - as happened in both 2017 and February 1974 - by raising other issues to which voters can much more readily relate.The chances of managing that over a six week campaign period seem good to me. People wish to move on!
Wouldn't work for toffee. Firstly, because any upcoming election this year will be called as a 'Brexit election' - called to decide the form it takes and little else. Secondly, because a significant number of their MPs would demand clarity or effectively go freelance. Third, because a significant section of the party's voter-base deeply care about the issue and want clarity on it. They might not desert the party as would have other concerns - but it's absurd to think Labour could get away with not engaging with it. They'd at least have to neutralise the issue with something like a People's Vote or risk being torn apart on it.
Those who call an election do not control the priorities of the voters. Theresa May found that out in 2017 - as did Ted Heath before her in February 1974. People on this Board - and the commentariat more widely - can be as obsessed as they wish re-Brexit, but - IMHO - that does not reflect the views of the public at large. Most people are sick to death of the subject , and are highly likely to respond in a positive way to any attempt to raise issues & problems which are far less technical and much more directly relevant to their daily lives. To repeat a point I have made before here - far too many commentators fail to distinguish between an issue being 'highly important ' - which Brexit clearly is - and 'salient' which I believe not to be the case electorally.
+1 - that expresses it well. Of course the manifeso would need to have a Brexit policy - probably "seek to improve the detailed terms and then offer voters a choice between the package and remaining members" - but it's unlikely that the issue would monopolise public attention. The Heath example was instructive - the miners' strike clearly was affecting everyday life in a big way (unlike Brexit, so far), but trying to turn the election into an abstraction on the nature of power foundered - the answer to "Who Governs Britain?" was "Doesn't seem to be you, mate." If May sought a popular mandate for her style of government, she might have a similar difficulty.
There won’t be a VONC unless May loses the vote on Brexit deal. Getting that done first is the priority because her deal has nothing going for it. May would almost certainly resign following that. She’d have lost her flagship policy having lost her majority in the snap election she called. That would pave the way for a new Tory leader who could rebuild the relationship with the DUP and start to put daylight between the Tories and this disgraceful Labour Party.
It’s only if May hangs on having lost her deal that a Gov she heads up realistically faces the prospect of a VONC and in those circumstances they would deserve to lose. It would a Gov bankrupt of ideas and mandate. Neither the ERG nor the Remain extremists like Grieve, Greening, Morgan, Soubry etc could be relied upon and neither could the DUP.
Trying to hang on in those circumstances would be foolish. There would certainly be a backlash from the electorate even if the Tories managed to find some common ground and not split. May’s legacy would be a Corbyn Gov.
Just watched "Leave No Trace" about a former US Vet with PTSD and his daughter living off the grid. The performance of the daughter by 18 year old Thomasin Mackenzie is the best performance I have seen this year.
Tehe film is rated at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (along with Paddington 2).
FPT @Charles forgive me, I did not mean to be rude. My answer would be very lengthy and I didn’t think anyone would be much interested.
In brief, I would start from identifying the system’s capabilities. The Home Office is famously poor at processing immigration applications and adding another 3 million would seem unwise in the extreme unless absolutely necessary.
On that basis I would have told EU residents that none needed to make a positive application now but that they should keep a documentary record of their pre-referendum residency in the UK, listing appropriate documents that the government would accept in future should the matter become important, and that they could apply now if they so wished.
Would there be some abuse? Of course. Would it matter? Not really. Britain is not going to be deporting EU citizens except in very unusual circumstances.
Makes a lot of sense. Also Brexit really is all about the extra red tape. If I were a Leaver I would want to rise above such pettiness.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
That's true. B.
Not in military terms, in economic terms maybe.
It is NATO and UN Security Council membership that gives us military clout
I think it makes a difference. Remember how quickly we were able to get military supplies to Argentina from Europe embargoed during the Falklands conflict.
Argentina got much of its Exocet missiles then from France
#Ohgodpleaseletsnotdothisagain
...and most of its bombs from the Americans, and its planes from the Americans and French, and its ships from the Americans and the French and the British. Now somebody's going to bring up that bloke who worked for Dassault, then we mention Jean Kirkpatrick, I finish things off with that quote from Margaret Thatcher about Mitterrand, and then things quiet down until the next time. Aaargh!
Spot on. The French did every single thing we could have asked of them as an ally short of actually sending their own forces to help - which of course we never asked for. The myth of French cowardice and duplicity is one I have absolutely no time for given they have been our allies since the 1850s.
And I really hope that sentence pisses off the Francophobe TSE.
Between 1940 and 1942 we fought several land battles against French government forces, notably in Syria and Madagascar. There were several thousand casualties.
Those who call an election do not control the priorities of the voters. Theresa May found that out in 2017 - as did Ted Heath before her in February 1974. People on this Board - and the commentariat more widely - can be as obsessed as they wish re-Brexit, but - IMHO - that does not reflect the views of the public at large. Most people are sick to death of the subject , and are highly likely to respond in a positive way to any attempt to raise issues & problems which are far less technical and much more directly relevant to their daily lives. To repeat a point I have made before here - far too many commentators fail to distinguish between an issue being 'highly important ' - which Brexit clearly is - and 'salient' which I believe not to be the case electorally.
I can believe this.
Brexit for me is consuming and highly enjoyable, I will be sorry to see the back of it, but I am not an ordinary person. I bet that out there in the land of the living there is an appetite to have it over with and to move on. Once the deed is done on 29/03/19 it would not surprise me if the EU fades quite quickly as an issue in the UK.
Not completely of course, the FTA talks will rumble on for decades, but the passion will have gone. It sounds rather sad and melancholy, doesn't it, when put like that, sounds a bit like that 1980s tear-jerker by Chicago, massive that was, massive, but it isn't really. It isn't sad. It's ... well I don't know what it is, it just is.
There won’t be a VONC unless May loses the vote on Brexit deal. Getting that done first is the priority because her deal has nothing going for it. May would almost certainly resign following that. She’d have lost her flagship policy having lost her majority in the snap election she called. That would pave the way for a new Tory leader who could rebuild the relationship with the DUP and start to put daylight between the Tories and this disgraceful Labour Party.
It’s only if May hangs on having lost her deal that a Gov she heads up realistically faces the prospect of a VONC and in those circumstances they would deserve to lose. It would a Gov bankrupt of ideas and mandate. Neither the ERG nor the Remain extremists like Grieve, Greening, Morgan, Soubry etc could be relied upon and neither could the DUP.
Trying to hang on in those circumstances would be foolish. There would certainly be a backlash from the electorate even if the Tories managed to find some common ground and not split. May’s legacy would be a Corbyn Gov.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
That's true. B.
Not in military terms, in economic terms maybe.
It is NATO and UN Security Council membership that gives us military clout
I think it makes a difference. Remember how quickly we were able to get military supplies to Argentina from Europe embargoed during the Falklands conflict.
Argentina got much of its Exocet missiles then from France
#Ohgodpleaseletsnotdothisagain
...and most of its bombs from the Americans, and its planes from the Americans and French, and its ships from the Americans and the French and the British. Now somebody's going to bring up that bloke who worked for Dassault, then we mention Jean Kirkpatrick, I finish things off with that quote from Margaret Thatcher about Mitterrand, and then things quiet down until the next time. Aaargh!
Spot on. The French did every single thing we could have asked of them as an ally short of actually sending their own forces to help - which of course we never asked for. The myth of French cowardice and duplicity is one I have absolutely no time for given they have been our allies since the 1850s.
And I really hope that sentence pisses off the Francophobe TSE.
Between 1940 and 1942 we fought several land battles against French government forces, notably in Syria and Madagascar. There were several thousand casualties.
It is NATO and UN Security Council membership that gives us military clout
I think it makes a difference. Remember how quickly we were able to get military supplies to Argentina from Europe embargoed during the Falklands conflict.
Argentina got much of its Exocet missiles then from France
#Ohgodpleaseletsnotdothisagain
...and most of its bombs from the Americans, and its planes from the Americans and French, and its ships from the Americans and the French and the British. Now somebody's going to bring up that bloke who worked for Dassault, then we mention Jean Kirkpatrick, I finish things off with that quote from Margaret Thatcher about Mitterrand, and then things quiet down until the next time. Aaargh!
Spot on. The French did every single thing we could have asked of them as an ally short of actually sending their own forces to help - which of course we never asked for. The myth of French cowardice and duplicity is one I have absolutely no time for given they have been our allies since the 1850s.
And I really hope that sentence pisses off the Francophobe TSE.
Between 1940 and 1942 we fought several land battles against French government forces, notably in Syria and Madagascar. There were several thousand casualties.
It is NATO and UN Security Council membership that gives us military clout
I think it makes a difference. Remember how quickly we were able to get military supplies to Argentina from Europe embargoed during the Falklands conflict.
Argentina got much of its Exocet missiles then from France
#Ohgodpleaseletsnotdothisagain
...and most of its bombs from the Americans, and its planes from the Americans and French, and its ships from the Americans and the French and the British. Now somebody's going to bring up that blokrgh!
Spot on. The French did every single thing we could have asked of them as an ally short of actually sending their own forces to help - which of course we never asked for. The myth of French cowardice and duplicity is one I have absolutely no time for given they have been our allies since the 1850s.
And I really hope that sentence pisses off the Francophobe TSE.
Between 1940 and 1942 we fought several land battles against French government forces, notably in Syria and Madagascar. There were several thousand casualties.
Brexit for me is consuming and highly enjoyable, I will be sorry to see the back of it, but I am not an ordinary person. I bet that out there in the land of the living there is an appetite to have it over with and to move on. Once the deed is done on 29/03/19 it would not surprise me if the EU fades quite quickly as an issue in the UK.
Not completely of course, the FTA talks will rumble on for decades, but the passion will have gone. It sounds rather sad and melancholy, doesn't it, when put like that, sounds a bit like that 1980s tear-jerker by Chicago, massive that was, massive, but it isn't really. It isn't sad. It's ... well I don't know what it is, it just is.
Nicely put! I think there's a real danger for parties in the next election on any side of the debate being seen to be fighting the last war if they go on about Brexit. Building on it, reversing it, whatever, they'll all be vote-losers.
We will only leave on 29 March if either the deal passes or we crash out. So by implication, punters rate the chance of crashing out with no deal as precisely zero.
Yes, I have noticed that too. Interesting.
I rate it as unlikely but I would not go lower than 10%.
Neither the ERG nor the Remain extremists like Grieve, Greening, Morgan, Soubry etc could be relied upon and neither could the DUP.
Slander!
Supports Brexit.
Having a Pauline conversion to supporting May’s deal does not mean she supports Brexit. May’s deal doesn’t deliver Brexit. Morgan has been every bit as bad as Soubry, Grieve etc so her late conversion is probably for personal career advantage.
Well to be fair in the pecking order of Western military and diplomatic power while the US leads we are just behind, helped by Commonwealth ties, though France under Macron is catching up fast
That's true. B.
Not in military terms, in economic terms maybe.
It is NATO and UN Security Council membership that gives us military clout
I think it makes a difference. Remember how quickly we were able to get military supplies to Argentina from Europe embargoed during the Falklands conflict.
Argentina got much of its Exocet missiles then from France
#Ohgodpleaseletsnotdothisagain
...and most of its bombs from the Americans, and its planes from the Americans and French, and its ships from the Americans and the French and the British. Now somebody's going to bring up that bloke who worked for Dassault, then we mention Jean Kirkpatrick, I finish things off with that quote from Margaret Thatcher about Mitterrand, and then things quiet down until the next time. Aaargh!
Spot on. The French did every single thing we could have asked of them as an ally short of actually sending their own forces to help - which of course we never asked for. The myth of French cowardice and duplicity is one I have absolutely no time for given they have been our allies since the 1850s.
And I really hope that sentence pisses off the Francophobe TSE.
Between 1940 and 1942 we fought several land battles against French government forces, notably in Syria and Madagascar. There were several thousand casualties.
Comments
The 1973-74 crisis gave Sir Humphrey a nervous breakdown
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1058788/Revealed-The-day-Britains-civil-servant-rolled-naked-floor-ranting-end-world.html
but the whole country is now having one.
It needs therapy. Unfortunately, tax-cutting governments have closed all the retreats ...
As a United fan this championship race is looking peculiarly grim. Who do I want to lose the most?
Compare and contrast Australia and the EU. The former does not let boats land, and tows them back out to sea. Consequently, migrant flows and drownings are at relatively low levels. The EU rescues migrants, which leads to vastly higher numbers attempting the trip in vessels that are not seaworthy, leading to more deaths overall.
Well-meaning policies can lead to real people dying.
Remain(er) aspirations? The most important one is surely FOM. Certainly for me that is the best thing of the many good things about the EU. But we are in an enlightened minority. You yourself write frequently on here about how xenophobia drove the Leave vote. I agree with you.
But put that another way. The desire to end FOM was perhaps the single biggest reason why Leave won the referendum.
Now if this is true, and I think it is, then TM was surely correct to have drawn it as a great big thick red line.
The US leads and will always lead the Western Alliance but ourselves and France are the next biggest components of it
Yet these illegal immigrants somehow manage to avoid using the health service in great numbers, or having babies, or being in any way detectable. If more than 10% of the London population was illegal, that would one in six workers were too.
It would mean that it wouldn't just be Albanian car washers, but every restaurant would contain a number of illegals.
There are, I'm sure a great many illegal immigrants in London. But one million? That is, I suspect, an order of magnitude too high.
RN escorts: 17
Bet we have more admirals than them though.
The health service doesn’t check status and doesn’t turn people away that needs treatment ( registration with a GP may be more problematic). IANAE in sex workers but I think that you would find a very high percentage were illegals. Large numbers of “self employed” delivery people are too. We tolerate a large and unpleasant underbelly of illegal employment which only ever seems to come to the surface when something goes wrong like those Chinese cockle pickers or rare prosecutions for modern slavery.
I don’t know how many illegal immigrants live in London but the rate at which London’s population has increased over the last decade is pretty dramatic and illegal immigrants have played a major part.
It is NATO and UN Security Council membership that gives us military clout
Only reason we did not lose was because the USA joined in and saved our bacon on others as well.
We've lost to Jewish intifada in Palestine in 1948.
We lost in Aden in the 1960s.
We lost the First Boer War.
We lost wars in Afghanistan in the 19th century.
Wilson was going to withdraw from and decolonise Aden anyway.
We won the Boer War overall.
We were in Afghanistan to keep Russia out and threatening India in which we largely succeeded
One million is simply not a plausible number. There simply aren't that many casual jobs you can get without paperwork. (And don't forget, you need to get paid in cash, as you can't easily get a bank account without documentation. And of course, there will be people with decently forged ID. But one million?)
In the old days, illegal immigrants could probably work as minicab drivers, recieving cash and simply driving an uninsured vehicle. But these days, they'd need to register with Uber and Lyft and get a proper commercial driving license, and have a bank account. As cash becomes less and less common, it becomes harder and harder to work out the system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles_fixed_sea_link_connections#North_Channel_(Kintyre)_route
HYFUD seems to believe that declaring an end then buggering off, ala USA in Vietnam really is a victory.
But when listening to some of the vox pops praise from the general public, I did get a strong sense that her being a woman was a factor. 'Plucky Gal', was kind of the flavour.
Which is ok, I suppose. Nothing to get het up about. Not compared to all the things to get het up about.
...and most of its bombs from the Americans, and its planes from the Americans and French, and its ships from the Americans and the French and the British. Now somebody's going to bring up that bloke who worked for Dassault, then we mention Jean Kirkpatrick, I finish things off with that quote from Margaret Thatcher about Mitterrand, and then things quiet down until the next time. Aaargh!
The Jewish intifada preceded the war you're talking about.
Since HYUFD's comment was about the UK not having lost any wars since 1783, that's the context.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuAj2F54bdo
And I really hope that sentence pisses off the Francophobe TSE.
There two relevant markets. "UK to leave the EU by 29 March". 43% chance
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.130766060
And "When will HOC pass Brexit bill" . 43% chance that it will be before 30 march.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.130766060
We will only leave on 29 March if either the deal passes or we crash out. So by implication, punters rate the chance of crashing out with no deal as precisely zero.
German police seize 850kg of fireworks from Hamburg home
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/30/german-police-seize-850kg-of-fireworks-from-hamburg-home
It’s only if May hangs on having lost her deal that a Gov she heads up realistically faces the prospect of a VONC and in those circumstances they would deserve to lose. It would a Gov bankrupt of ideas and mandate. Neither the ERG nor the Remain extremists like Grieve, Greening, Morgan, Soubry etc could be relied upon and neither could the DUP.
Trying to hang on in those circumstances would be foolish. There would certainly be a backlash from the electorate even if the Tories managed to find some common ground and not split. May’s legacy would be a Corbyn Gov.
Tehe film is rated at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (along with Paddington 2).
For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria–Lebanon_Campaign
Brexit for me is consuming and highly enjoyable, I will be sorry to see the back of it, but I am not an ordinary person. I bet that out there in the land of the living there is an appetite to have it over with and to move on. Once the deed is done on 29/03/19 it would not surprise me if the EU fades quite quickly as an issue in the UK.
Not completely of course, the FTA talks will rumble on for decades, but the passion will have gone. It sounds rather sad and melancholy, doesn't it, when put like that, sounds a bit like that 1980s tear-jerker by Chicago, massive that was, massive, but it isn't really. It isn't sad. It's ... well I don't know what it is, it just is.
Treason doth never prosper
What's the reason?
If it do prosper, none dare call it treason!
Supports Brexit.
I rate it as unlikely but I would not go lower than 10%.