Trump has not laid any kind of cunning trap. Public support for impeachment grows every day.
The only people who can fuck this up are dumb Democrats who want to get the impeachment process done quickly.
With the Republicans in control of the Senate there is no chance of it voting to convict Trump anyway even if the House which is controlled by the Democrats votes to impeach him
Yes, the point is not to get Trump removed, its to get Purple state Republican Senators to vote against conviction.
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
What if people can’t afford to see the Dr? Genuine question.
Not sure about France but in Japan the level of your copay depends on your income, and there's also a cap on the total you have to pay if you're very sick (also income-linked IIRC). It's not quite perfect in Japan - the welfare system in general has a lot of holes - but there are very few people who end up not being able to get the care they need, IIUC.
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
Which would give Parliament a clear Noel Edmonds choice following the EU summit.
The problem of course being that discussions of extension within the EU would happen after the Commons have voted down the deal - which they will if they don’t think No-Deal will happen.
For this to work, EU leaders need to say at the summit, or beforehand, that there’s definitely no further extension possible.
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
It would go against the consistent Fidesz government line, see eg:
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
Which would give Parliament a clear Noel Edmonds choice following the EU summit.
The problem of course being that discussions of extension within the EU would happen after the Commons have voted down the deal - which they will if they don’t think No-Deal will happen.
For this to work, EU leaders need to say at the summit, or beforehand, that there’s definitely no further extension possible.
Then maybe we finally get past this.
Provided the EU also agrees to remove the backstop or enough Labour MPs agree to back the Withdrawal Agreement and a Northern Ireland only backstop to overcome DUP opposition.
I still think both unlikely and it would need a Tory majority after the next general election to pass the latter
OT. I had an extraordinary experience yesterday morning. I went to what we would describe as an accident and emergency department at Le Pasteur Hospital in Nice which I found on line. A pleasant new building.
Despite arriving without a passport or any means of identificatin or even appearing to have anything wrong with me I was seen iwithin a couple of minutes by a receptionist. Then after a two minute wait I was taken to regstration and put on a bed.
A porter took me to a private ward where a nurse asked me several questions. A doctor arrived shortly after the nurse left and gave me an ECG and several other tests. Within half an hour the tests were finished and I was on my way. (I'd thought I might have a DVT but they thought not).
They gave me a number to call if if anything else occured.
I have been with BUPA for years and I have never encountered anything as efficient or cool as this. No one asked for money or details beyond my address in France and England.
Just a timely reminder of what we are going to lose when Boris gets Brexit done
Also I know British people don't like to hear this but the NHS is kind of shite. There's really no need for all the waiting and stuff that happens in Britain - most developed countries are way better (but not America obviously).
It’s no coincidence the NHS is always compared to America.
In France you have to pay to see the Dr, that's why there are no queues. Many people who go to see the doctor don't need to. My late wife was a GP and said as much. Loads of time is wasted by people not turning up to appointments. Fine then for that too.
What if people can’t afford to see the Dr? Genuine question.
I think costs can be claimed back. Their outcomes are better than the UK which is the key point.
I'm surprised by the churlish response to Fishing's excellent article, which seems to be being largely ignored. It deserves better.
Churlish is a bit harsh, Richard, though it’s certainly worth discussion.
The first Senate firewall is actually Senate majority leader McConnell - he might give any vote to impeach the Merrick Garland treatment, and simply refuse to bring it to trial in the Senate. What happens then is unclear, since the Constitution. doesn’t state explicitly the Senate must do so, and precedent doesn’t provide much of a guide, either.
The Constitution states that the Chief Justice “presides” over Senate trials of the President, which implies to me that the CJ has the power to schedule the trial if no-one else will.
One possible wrinkle is Congress voting to impeach both Trump and Pence. Is it possible there might be a handful of Republican Senators who might then fancy their chances for the nomination ? Seems unlikely, but we live in strange times.
No, because it would hand the Presidency for the election year to Nancy Pelosi! A double impeachment won’t fly for that reason for anything short of Trump and Pence urinating on the American flag while bragging about selling the country to Putin on live TV.
Trump has not laid any kind of cunning trap. Public support for impeachment grows every day.
The only people who can fuck this up are dumb Democrats who want to get the impeachment process done quickly.
With the Republicans in control of the Senate there is no chance of it voting to convict Trump anyway even if the House which is controlled by the Democrats votes to impeach him
Yes, the point is not to get Trump removed, its to get Purple state Republican Senators to vote against conviction.
Crazy as the GOP are, they are still presumably capable of counting to 66. Some of the more vulnerable Rep senators may be allowed to vote for convict.
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
It would go against the consistent Fidesz government line, see eg:
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
Which would give Parliament a clear Noel Edmonds choice following the EU summit.
The problem of course being that discussions of extension within the EU would happen after the Commons have voted down the deal - which they will if they don’t think No-Deal will happen.
For this to work, EU leaders need to say at the summit, or beforehand, that there’s definitely no further extension possible.
Then maybe we finally get past this.
Provided the EU also agrees to remove the backstop or enough Labour MPs agree to back the Withdrawal Agreement and a Northern Ireland only backstop to overcome DUP opposition.
I still think both unlikely and it would need a Tory majority after the next general election to pass the latter
Do you think Labour vote against the deal, if the EU make it clear there’s no extension on offer and it’s either deal or no deal?
The other alternative is that the EU offer only a very long extension, two or three years. This serves dual purposes (for them) of getting it out of the news and increasing U.K. uncertainty.
Interesting piece on the struggles of the young in Hong Kong:
Competition for a place in one of Hong Kong's top universities is fierce, but even if you do get a spot and graduate, a good job or stable income isn't guaranteed.
Increasingly, Hong Kongers are also competing for jobs with Chinese students.
Chan Wai-Keung, a lecturer at Hong Kong Polytechnic, says in the 1990s, the salary starting point of fresh graduates was around HK$25,000 ($3,188; £2,594). Nowadays he says it is maybe just HK$28,000.
Mr Chan published a report looking at wage growth and living costs for Hong Kong's youth over the last 30 years.
He found that while starting salaries have stagnated, property prices have gone up tenfold.
"Our education programme is old fashioned," Mr Chan told me. "Our economy is dominated by a handful of powerful families, who made a fortune in the property market. They are reluctant to invest in high tech industries or innovative ideas.
"Our government pays lip service to the high-tech development. Even if young people want to get into this new industry there's not a lot of good chances for them."
There must be a chance that the EU will refuse an extension surely? The temptation to get rid of a troublesome neighbour going through a political crisis must be there, especially if they think that Britain will come back chastened seeking some sort of deal.
Alternatively they could offer an extension much longer than 3 months, tell us to have a GE/referendum, decide what the hell we want and only come back and bother them when we have a properly worked out proposal.
All these short-term extensions help no-one really.
Why don’t Americans instal proper level crossings? The noise of trains hooting as they cross each road echoes across every railway town in the States, day or night. Here I am on the veranda trying to enjoy a quiet glass of wine in searing heat (still above 30C at 5pm) whilst looking across at Chatanooga, and some impossibly long and noisy choo choo is slowly inching out of town.
A professional friend of mine left Atlanta because the miserably hot and humid summers were “never-ending”. He said that every year he’d convince himself that it would all be over by the end of September, sometimes to be confronted by 90 degree heat for another fortnight!
It’s tough, isn’t it. We moan about our miserable UK weather, yet come somewhere like this where I am sweating profusely just sitting here out in the open, with walking around even slowly at lunchtime worse still, and it doesn’t take long to appreciate the benefits of a mild climate. Before mentioning the supersize mozzies. People here say it isn’t normally like this in early Fall, but looking back at recent years, increasingly it is.
SE England must have one of the most underrated climates in the world. Rather dry, but enough rain to keep the land green. Generally pleasantly warm summers. Rarely hot, and even when hot the heatwaves last only two or three days at most. Long summer evenings to make the heart sing.
There must be a chance that the EU will refuse an extension surely? The temptation to get rid of a troublesome neighbour going through a political crisis must be there, especially if they think that Britain will come back chastened seeking some sort of deal.
Alternatively they could offer an extension much longer than 3 months, tell us to have a GE/referendum, decide what the hell we want and only come back and bother them when we have a properly worked out proposal.
All these short-term extensions help no-one really.
The EU will need a narrative to agree to an extension. It's not yet clear what that narrative will be and those wanting one will need to supply one.
Interesting piece on the struggles of the young in Hong Kong:
Competition for a place in one of Hong Kong's top universities is fierce, but even if you do get a spot and graduate, a good job or stable income isn't guaranteed.
Increasingly, Hong Kongers are also competing for jobs with Chinese students.
Chan Wai-Keung, a lecturer at Hong Kong Polytechnic, says in the 1990s, the salary starting point of fresh graduates was around HK$25,000 ($3,188; £2,594). Nowadays he says it is maybe just HK$28,000.
Mr Chan published a report looking at wage growth and living costs for Hong Kong's youth over the last 30 years.
He found that while starting salaries have stagnated, property prices have gone up tenfold.
"Our education programme is old fashioned," Mr Chan told me. "Our economy is dominated by a handful of powerful families, who made a fortune in the property market. They are reluctant to invest in high tech industries or innovative ideas.
"Our government pays lip service to the high-tech development. Even if young people want to get into this new industry there's not a lot of good chances for them."
Do we have any PB experts able to confirm if things are as bleak as this claims ?
The salaries, as is common in Asia, are given per month rather than per year.
Cost of living is very high in HK, close to that in London, and there’s now more universities in China producing more and better graduates every year.
The lack of jobs for the young is quite probably contributing to the protests. Most of the tech jobs are in mainland China, and HKers don’t want to move there and work in stealing Western IP or setting up ‘social credit’ schemes.
There must be a chance that the EU will refuse an extension surely? The temptation to get rid of a troublesome neighbour going through a political crisis must be there, especially if they think that Britain will come back chastened seeking some sort of deal.
Alternatively they could offer an extension much longer than 3 months, tell us to have a GE/referendum, decide what the hell we want and only come back and bother them when we have a properly worked out proposal.
All these short-term extensions help no-one really.
The EU will need a narrative to agree to an extension. It's not yet clear what that narrative will be and those wanting one will need to supply one.
The ratings for the finale of “Brexit” (ending on the Supreme Court cliffhanger) were certainly high enough to support another season.
Why don’t Americans instal proper level crossings? The noise of trains hooting as they cross each road echoes across every railway town in the States, day or night. Here I am on the veranda trying to enjoy a quiet glass of wine in searing heat (still above 30C at 5pm) whilst looking across at Chatanooga, and some impossibly long and noisy choo choo is slowly inching out of town.
A professional friend of mine left Atlanta because the miserably hot and humid summers were “never-ending”. He said that every year he’d convince himself that it would all be over by the end of September, sometimes to be confronted by 90 degree heat for another fortnight!
It’s tough, isn’t it. We moan about our miserable UK weather, yet come somewhere like this where I am sweating profusely just sitting here out in the open, with walking around even slowly at lunchtime worse still, and it doesn’t take long to appreciate the benefits of a mild climate. Before mentioning the supersize mozzies. People here say it isn’t normally like this in early Fall, but looking back at recent years, increasingly it is.
SE England must have one of the most underrated climates in the world. Rather dry, but enough rain to keep the land green. Generally pleasantly warm summers. Rarely hot, and even when hot the heatwaves last only two or three days at most. Long summer evenings to make the heart sing.
And if you go a few hundred miles north the climate deteriorates markedly. It must be one of the reasons for our persistent north-south divide (speaking as someone who has made the move south and would struggle to return).
There must be a chance that the EU will refuse an extension surely? The temptation to get rid of a troublesome neighbour going through a political crisis must be there, especially if they think that Britain will come back chastened seeking some sort of deal.
Alternatively they could offer an extension much longer than 3 months, tell us to have a GE/referendum, decide what the hell we want and only come back and bother them when we have a properly worked out proposal.
All these short-term extensions help no-one really.
Agreed.
No extensions and no changes to the May deal leave Boris in something of a bind. Although the Benn Act would have been shredded, he would go to the Commons with Shit Deal or No Deal. Shit Deal wins the day. Boris is left trying to make a virtue of doing what May could not - getting her deal through Parliament. I'm sure plenty on both sides would enjoy that.....
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
I'm surprised by the churlish response to Fishing's excellent article, which seems to be being largely ignored. It deserves better.
Churlish is a bit harsh, Richard, though it’s certainly worth discussion.
The first Senate firewall is actually Senate majority leader McConnell - he might give any vote to impeach the Merrick Garland treatment, and simply refuse to bring it to trial in the Senate. What happens then is unclear, since the Constitution. doesn’t state explicitly the Senate must do so, and precedent doesn’t provide much of a guide, either.
The Constitution states that the Chief Justice “presides” over Senate trials of the President, which implies to me that the CJ has the power to schedule the trial if no-one else will.
One possible wrinkle is Congress voting to impeach both Trump and Pence. Is it possible there might be a handful of Republican Senators who might then fancy their chances for the nomination ? Seems unlikely, but we live in strange times.
No, because it would hand the Presidency for the election year to Nancy Pelosi! A double impeachment won’t fly for that reason for anything short of Trump and Pence urinating on the American flag while bragging about selling the country to Putin on live TV.
Trump has not laid any kind of cunning trap. Public support for impeachment grows every day.
The only people who can fuck this up are dumb Democrats who want to get the impeachment process done quickly.
With the Republicans in control of the Senate there is no chance of it voting to convict Trump anyway even if the House which is controlled by the Democrats votes to impeach him
Yes, the point is not to get Trump removed, its to get Purple state Republican Senators to vote against conviction.
Crazy as the GOP are, they are still presumably capable of counting to 66. Some of the more vulnerable Rep senators may be allowed to vote for convict.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Trump has not laid any kind of cunning trap. Public support for impeachment grows every day.
The only people who can fuck this up are dumb Democrats who want to get the impeachment process done quickly.
With the Republicans in control of the Senate there is no chance of it voting to convict Trump anyway even if the House which is controlled by the Democrats votes to impeach him
Yes, the point is not to get Trump removed, its to get Purple state Republican Senators to vote against conviction.
I still think the Dems are as motivated by getting rid of Biden, an old man and showing clear signs of it, as they are about getting rid of Trump.
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
Isn't the risk then a sequence that goes 1. VONC and emergency government. 2. Revoke "while the new government works out what's going on" 3. Publication of the deal with Hungary 4. Can't see Boris's popularity surviving that
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
Yep. The head of a foreign government overriding the will of our own parliament.
Not exactly taking back control now is it.
You and I as patriotic Remainers must act to prevent it happening.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Why don’t Americans instal proper level crossings? The noise of trains hooting as they cross each road echoes across every railway town in the States, day or night. Here I am on the veranda trying to enjoy a quiet glass of wine in searing heat (still above 30C at 5pm) whilst looking across at Chatanooga, and some impossibly long and noisy choo choo is slowly inching out of town.
A professional friend of mine left Atlanta because the miserably hot and humid summers were “never-ending”. He said that every year he’d convince himself that it would all be over by the end of September, sometimes to be confronted by 90 degree heat for another fortnight!
It’s tough, isn’t it. We moan about our miserable UK weather, yet come somewhere like this where I am sweating profusely just sitting here out in the open, with walking around even slowly at lunchtime worse still, and it doesn’t take long to appreciate the benefits of a mild climate. Before mentioning the supersize mozzies. People here say it isn’t normally like this in early Fall, but looking back at recent years, increasingly it is.
SE England must have one of the most underrated climates in the world. Rather dry, but enough rain to keep the land green. Generally pleasantly warm summers. Rarely hot, and even when hot the heatwaves last only two or three days at most. Long summer evenings to make the heart sing.
And if you go a few hundred miles north the climate deteriorates markedly. It must be one of the reasons for our persistent north-south divide (speaking as someone who has made the move south and would struggle to return).
Indeed. Me too. The climate is vastly superior here.
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
Yep. The head of a foreign government overriding the will of our own parliament.
Not exactly taking back control now is it.
You and I as patriotic Remainers must act to prevent it happening.
Now that’s unfair, HYUFD is a *diehard* patriotic Remainer.
Why don’t Americans instal proper level crossings? The noise of trains hooting as they cross each road echoes across every railway town in the States, day or night. Here I am on the veranda trying to enjoy a quiet glass of wine in searing heat (still above 30C at 5pm) whilst looking across at Chatanooga, and some impossibly long and noisy choo choo is slowly inching out of town.
A professional friend of mine left Atlanta because the miserably hot and humid summers were “never-ending”. He said that every year he’d convince himself that it would all be over by the end of September, sometimes to be confronted by 90 degree heat for another fortnight!
It’s tough, isn’t it. We moan about our miserable UK weather, yet come somewhere like this where I am sweating profusely just sitting here out in the open, with walking around even slowly at lunchtime worse still, and it doesn’t take long to appreciate the benefits of a mild climate. Before mentioning the supersize mozzies. People here say it isn’t normally like this in early Fall, but looking back at recent years, increasingly it is.
SE England must have one of the most underrated climates in the world. Rather dry, but enough rain to keep the land green. Generally pleasantly warm summers. Rarely hot, and even when hot the heatwaves last only two or three days at most. Long summer evenings to make the heart sing.
Sometimes Germans ask me if it is cold in England. I reply "No, it's noweher near as cold as Berlin! In South England we hardly get any snow and almost never goes below -5. In Berlin the temperature usually goes under -15 at some point in the winter."
This usually brings genuine surprise to people who needed to ask in the first place. Of course they are thinking of England being cold in summer, and it's true that eastern Germany is hotter and drier than all of the UK in the summer.
Having said that the weather here in Berlin today is horrible. Like a typical November day on the Pennines!
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
Why don’t Americans instal proper level crossings? The noise of trains hooting as they cross each road echoes across every railway town in the States, day or night. Here I am on the veranda trying to enjoy a quiet glass of wine in searing heat (still above 30C at 5pm) whilst looking across at Chatanooga, and some impossibly long and noisy choo choo is slowly inching out of town.
A professional friend of mine left Atlanta because the miserably hot and humid summers were “never-ending”. He said that every year he’d convince himself that it would all be over by the end of September, sometimes to be confronted by 90 degree heat for another fortnight!
It’s tough, isn’t it. We moan about our miserable UK weather, yet come somewhere like this where I am sweating profusely just sitting here out in the open, with walking around even slowly at lunchtime worse still, and it doesn’t take long to appreciate the benefits of a mild climate. Before mentioning the supersize mozzies. People here say it isn’t normally like this in early Fall, but looking back at recent years, increasingly it is.
SE England must have one of the most underrated climates in the world. Rather dry, but enough rain to keep the land green. Generally pleasantly warm summers. Rarely hot, and even when hot the heatwaves last only two or three days at most. Long summer evenings to make the heart sing.
And if you go a few hundred miles north the climate deteriorates markedly. It must be one of the reasons for our persistent north-south divide (speaking as someone who has made the move south and would struggle to return).
WIMP PS I lived in the south for years and weather was just as crap , loads of rain and hot and sticky in summer , plus it was so crowded you could get nowhere on holidays. A decent day in Scotland beats down south any time , and even if not as many really hot days you can at least enjoy holidays without being stuck in a herd of basking seals.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
OT. I had an extraordinary experience yesterday morning. I went to what we would describe as an accident and emergency department at Le Pasteur Hospital in Nice which I found on line. A pleasant new building.
Despite arriving without a passport or any means of identificatin or even appearing to have anything wrong with me I was seen iwithin a couple of minutes by a receptionist. Then after a two minute wait I was taken to regstration and put on a bed.
A porter took me to a private ward where a nurse asked me several questions. A doctor arrived shortly after the nurse left and gave me an ECG and several other tests. Within half an hour the tests were finished and I was on my way. (I'd thought I might have a DVT but they thought not).
They gave me a number to call if if anything else occured.
I have been with BUPA for years and I have never encountered anything as efficient or cool as this. No one asked for money or details beyond my address in France and England.
Just a timely reminder of what we are going to lose when Boris gets Brexit done
Also I know British people don't like to hear this but the NHS is kind of shite. There's really no need for all the waiting and stuff that happens in Britain - most developed countries are way better (but not America obviously).
America is way better, depending who and where you are. We should notice that almost every new discovery or innovation comes from the United States, thanks to all those dollars sloshing round the system paying for research.
If you have good insurance it’s fantastic, but if you don’t it can be a nightmare. Try not being able to change your job because you have a sick child and insurance is tied to employment.
Healthcare costs are responsible for 62% of bankruptcies in the US, while drug companies spend lavish marking budgets on direct-to-consumer TV ads for prescription medications and entertaining doctors at resort ‘conferences’.
The public Medicare and Medicaid programmes are banned from negotiating prices with drug companies, they have to accept the prices they are given.
Doctors also have to spend $250-300k per year on malpractice insurance, as everyone sues everyone else for millions whenever something goes wrong, which is why the doctor has to charge $300 or $500 an hour for his time.
What Trump is trying to do it to reduce the supernormal profits from US customers, so that drug companies raise their prices in other markets to compensate.
But drugs are only around 10% of US healthcare costs, I think ?
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
If this happened, she should go to the police rather than announce it to the world on Twatter.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
If this happened, she should go to the police rather than announce it to the world on Twatter.
She has no obligation to handle this in the way of your choosing. How arrogant of you to think you know what's best in this situation.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
If this happened, she should go to the police rather than announce it to the world on Twatter.
You know full well that the police will do nothing.
Trump has not laid any kind of cunning trap. Public support for impeachment grows every day.
The only people who can fuck this up are dumb Democrats who want to get the impeachment process done quickly.
With the Republicans in control of the Senate there is no chance of it voting to convict Trump anyway even if the House which is controlled by the Democrats votes to impeach him
Yes, the point is not to get Trump removed, its to get Purple state Republican Senators to vote against conviction.
I still think the Dems are as motivated by getting rid of Biden, an old man and showing clear signs of it, as they are about getting rid of Trump.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
If this happened, she should go to the police rather than announce it to the world on Twatter.
You know full well that the police will do nothing.
It's a 2 people case with zero evidence. As with a lot of abuse cases it only becomes obvious there is a problem after a few complaints.
While I know the No10leaks twitter feed probably isn't accurate the first picture here shows what Parliament is like
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
So you would prefer that only people with permitted views are allowed to comment and nobody ever allowed to ask inconvenient questions.
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
Yep. The head of a foreign government overriding the will of our own parliament.
Not exactly taking back control now is it.
You and I as patriotic Remainers must act to prevent it happening.
Now that’s unfair, HYUFD is a *diehard* patriotic Remainer.
Apols. I couldn't choose between diehard and die hard.
Why don’t Americans instal proper level crossings? The noise of trains hooting as they cross each road echoes across every railway town in the States, day or night. Here I am on the veranda trying to enjoy a quiet glass of wine in searing heat (still above 30C at 5pm) whilst looking across at Chatanooga, and some impossibly long and noisy choo choo is slowly inching out of town.
A professional friend of mine left Atlanta because the miserably hot and humid summers were “never-ending”. He said that every year he’d convince himself that it would all be over by the end of September, sometimes to be confronted by 90 degree heat for another fortnight!
It’s tough, isn’t it. We moan about our miserable UK weather, yet come somewhere like this where I am sweating profusely just sitting here out in the open, with walking around even slowly at lunchtime worse still, and it doesn’t take long to appreciate the benefits of a mild climate. Before mentioning the supersize mozzies. People here say it isn’t normally like this in early Fall, but looking back at recent years, increasingly it is.
SE England must have one of the most underrated climates in the world. Rather dry, but enough rain to keep the land green. Generally pleasantly warm summers. Rarely hot, and even when hot the heatwaves last only two or three days at most. Long summer evenings to make the heart sing.
And if you go a few hundred miles north the climate deteriorates markedly. It must be one of the reasons for our persistent north-south divide (speaking as someone who has made the move south and would struggle to return).
WIMP PS I lived in the south for years and weather was just as crap , loads of rain and hot and sticky in summer , plus it was so crowded you could get nowhere on holidays. A decent day in Scotland beats down south any time , and even if not as many really hot days you can at least enjoy holidays without being stuck in a herd of basking seals.
It is true, I have become a wimp. When I was a teenager I'd happily walk around my Scottish home town in a t shirt in December. Now when I go home I'd have a wooly hat and scarf and still be freezing. I agree Scotland looks beautiful in the summer, and the long evenings are great, but you can count the number of genuinely warm days - the sort you get down here for weeks on end between May and September - on the fingers of one hand most years. The key to beating the crowds is to get up early.
What chance Ms Oakeshott might already have a few numbers of other mistresses of the PM in her phone book?
The more interesting question is why have British female journos been so slow in raising this skeleton in the Johnson closet.
The creep sexually harassed a member of my family 15 years ago - and we did nothing about it because: i. The behaviour was pretty much standard among entitled shits like him back then, and it didn't affect anyone ii. He was only a Tory MP (not ours), so we got our revenge by campaigning - often successfully - against the Tories. Till that moment, we'd been politically inactive The power relationship, in effect, worked against him iii. We're not journos, and didn't really have access to ways of publicising the event
But in the post MeToo world, there must be an entire army of similarly dischuffed, mildly seething, articulate women across England.
I'm told by several female friends that harassment (in the sense of persistent sexual touching even after it was clear it was unwelcome) was common in their teens - they vary only in that some thought it was tiresome but they could deal with it, some found it very upsetting. None of them feel that all men were like that, but there was always some bloke around who was.
But as Cyclefree says, what we're hearing about Johnson is triggering mild dislike, but it's seen as quite distinct from the stuff alleged about Weinstein. Some are even prepared to vote for him, in the same way that evangelicals vote Trump, because they like his Leavishness - "I wouldn't get into a taxi with him but he's not going to grope me in the polling booth", as one said.
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
Yep. The head of a foreign government overriding the will of our own parliament.
Not exactly taking back control now is it.
You and I as patriotic Remainers must act to prevent it happening.
No more undemocratic than our Parliament overriding the will of 17 million people to Leave the EU
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Yes I agree but inexplicably I have mislaid my guide to the relative seriousness of different types of sexual assaults so had been unable to comment.
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
Which would give Parliament a clear Noel Edmonds choice following the EU summit.
The problem of course being that discussions of extension within the EU would happen after the Commons have voted down the deal - which they will if they don’t think No-Deal will happen.
For this to work, EU leaders need to say at the summit, or beforehand, that there’s definitely no further extension possible.
Then maybe we finally get past this.
Provided the EU also agrees to remove the backstop or enough Labour MPs agree to back the Withdrawal Agreement and a Northern Ireland only backstop to overcome DUP opposition.
I still think both unlikely and it would need a Tory majority after the next general election to pass the latter
Do you think Labour vote against the deal, if the EU make it clear there’s no extension on offer and it’s either deal or no deal?
The other alternative is that the EU offer only a very long extension, two or three years. This serves dual purposes (for them) of getting it out of the news and increasing U.K. uncertainty.
Yes Labour will only vote for a Labour magic Brexit Deal bar a few patriots like Flint
Trump has not laid any kind of cunning trap. Public support for impeachment grows every day.
The only people who can fuck this up are dumb Democrats who want to get the impeachment process done quickly.
With the Republicans in control of the Senate there is no chance of it voting to convict Trump anyway even if the House which is controlled by the Democrats votes to impeach him
Yes, the point is not to get Trump removed, its to get Purple state Republican Senators to vote against conviction.
I still think the Dems are as motivated by getting rid of Biden, an old man and showing clear signs of it, as they are about getting rid of Trump.
I don't follow the logic of that at all.
The impeachment involves the actions of Joe Biden and his family and so Sandpit is suggesting this impeachment Against Trump is really a way of forcing Biden out of the Nomination race by having embaressing/scandalous stuff about his son or him be revealed.
This is an arse about tits reading of the situation. The Dems are actually impeaching because Trump went after one of their own. Generic traitorous behaviour in collaboration with Russia is a shoulder shrug, trying to take down a member of the Dem ruling class is a big no no.
The core comment in that article which I remember from when I first read it was this bit
“The major miscalculation was that opposition parties who have called for an election repeatedly would vote for one when given the opportunity,” said a senior minister. “They didn’t.”
Which is ironic as various people on here (including me) said from July that the opposition would be mad to and also wouldn't be stupid enough to give Boris an election before October 31st.
Cummings really didn't war game this if he thought he would get an election.
Boris will go into opposition rather than stay PM and agree to extend
That opens up the great unknown - as there always needs to be a PM how does Boris resign as he will remain as PM until someone willingly takes on the job.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
If this happened, she should go to the police rather than announce it to the world on Twatter.
Difficult for the police to take action without significant corroborating evidence, given the time that’s passed. Even if it were yesterday, a fleeting hand on a leg at a party is difficult to prosecute as a sexual assault.
Much better (from her perspective) to put it out there in a newspaper as evidence of how this guy behaves, in the hope that others will also come forward.
From a political view, I can’t see low-level stuff like this affecting Johnson too much, but if there were more serious allegations that might change things. The Sunday Times splashed big on the other lady, but seemingly couldn’t make the financial stuff stand up - it’s the financial stuff that will get him.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
So you would prefer that only people with permitted views are allowed to comment and nobody ever allowed to ask inconvenient questions.
The not_on_fire road to thoughtcrime.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than instinctively assuming a distressing allegation from which the victim stands to gain little has been made up.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
If this happened, she should go to the police rather than announce it to the world on Twatter.
She has no obligation to handle this in the way of your choosing. How arrogant of you to think you know what's best in this situation.
Who needs the law when you can have twatter lynchings.
Trump has not laid any kind of cunning trap. Public support for impeachment grows every day.
The only people who can fuck this up are dumb Democrats who want to get the impeachment process done quickly.
With the Republicans in control of the Senate there is no chance of it voting to convict Trump anyway even if the House which is controlled by the Democrats votes to impeach him
Yes, the point is not to get Trump removed, its to get Purple state Republican Senators to vote against conviction.
I still think the Dems are as motivated by getting rid of Biden, an old man and showing clear signs of it, as they are about getting rid of Trump.
I don't follow the logic of that at all.
The impeachment involves the actions of Joe Biden and his family and so Sandpit is suggesting this impeachment Against Trump is really a way of forcing Biden out of the Nomination race by having embaressing/scandalous stuff about his son or him be revealed.
This is an arse about tits reading of the situation. The Dems are actually impeaching because Trump went after one of their own. Generic traitorous behaviour in collaboration with Russia is a shoulder shrug, trying to take down a member of the Dem ruling class is a big no no.
Except no. The Dems have been building to impeachment for some weeks. The Ukraine quid pro quo allegations have merely catalysed the process. IMO they have been wrong to go softly softly; they should have been all guns blazing by the spring. But it's wrong to imply there was no process and that impeachment wouldn't have happened without this whistleblower.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
Which would give Parliament a clear Noel Edmonds choice following the EU summit.
The problem of course being that discussions of extension within the EU would happen after the Commons have voted down the deal - which they will if they don’t think No-Deal will happen.
For this to work, EU leaders need to say at the summit, or beforehand, that there’s definitely no further extension possible.
Then maybe we finally get past this.
Provided the EU also agrees to remove the backstop or enough Labour MPs agree to back the Withdrawal Agreement and a Northern Ireland only backstop to overcome DUP opposition.
I still think both unlikely and it would need a Tory majority after the next general election to pass the latter
Do you think Labour vote against the deal, if the EU make it clear there’s no extension on offer and it’s either deal or no deal?
The other alternative is that the EU offer only a very long extension, two or three years. This serves dual purposes (for them) of getting it out of the news and increasing U.K. uncertainty.
Yes Labour will only vote for a Labour magic Brexit Deal bar a few patriots like Flint
A tacit agreement with the EU or with any one of the 27 to rule out an extension is the only thing which explains Boris;s extraordinary confidence, IMO. All the stuff about defying the law and the CCA is a false flag IMO. Such a scenario would be a blessing as it would force a conclusion to the whole sorry saga: revoke, deal or crash out - take it or leave it.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
If this happened, she should go to the police rather than announce it to the world on Twatter.
You know full well that the police will do nothing.
I am not a huge fan of the police, but that seems unfair.
We have allegations of rape made against an unnamed senior figure in Labour (Bex Bailey).
We have had a PPC accuse (unnamed) political opponents of rape (Emily Owen, PPC for Aberconwy).
For some reason, neither reported matters to the police (they did not, as far as I am aware, give a reason).
In my opinion, with such very serious allegations, it is hugely important that they are reported to the police.
Perhaps the police can now do little -- but even so, accurate reporting of the frequency of rape is itself an important step to ensuring the crime is taking very seriously.
It seems very unlikely that Trump will actually be impeached. But there may - just - be enough for the GOP to force him to stand down as their nominee in 2020. Trump can claim the fake news media has made it impossible for him to run, or something.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
So you would prefer that only people with permitted views are allowed to comment and nobody ever allowed to ask inconvenient questions.
The not_on_fire road to thoughtcrime.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than instinctively assuming a distressing allegation from which the victim stands to gain little has been made up.
I haven't assumed anything, I simply made a relevant comment.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than using racially derogatory abuse to people who point out facts you find inconvenient as humbugger did.
And do you really think people 'stand to gain little' by allegations about top politicians ?
Trump has not laid any kind of cunning trap. Public support for impeachment grows every day.
The only people who can fuck this up are dumb Democrats who want to get the impeachment process done quickly.
With the Republicans in control of the Senate there is no chance of it voting to convict Trump anyway even if the House which is controlled by the Democrats votes to impeach him
Yes, the point is not to get Trump removed, its to get Purple state Republican Senators to vote against conviction.
I still think the Dems are as motivated by getting rid of Biden, an old man and showing clear signs of it, as they are about getting rid of Trump.
I don't follow the logic of that at all.
The impeachment involves the actions of Joe Biden and his family and so Sandpit is suggesting this impeachment Against Trump is really a way of forcing Biden out of the Nomination race by having embaressing/scandalous stuff about his son or him be revealed.
This is an arse about tits reading of the situation. The Dems are actually impeaching because Trump went after one of their own. Generic traitorous behaviour in collaboration with Russia is a shoulder shrug, trying to take down a member of the Dem ruling class is a big no no.
Except no. The Dems have been building to impeachment for some weeks. The Ukraine quid pro quo allegations have merely catalysed the process. IMO they have been wrong to go softly softly; they should have been all guns blazing by the spring. But it's wrong to imply there was no process and that impeachment wouldn't have happened without this whistleblower.
Pelosi has been absolutely craven and timid about impeachment. Every Mueller bombshell was met with "hmm, no" and public spats wit Dems who did want impeachment. Fund raising emails about how terrible trump is but no actions.
The Whistle-blower Biden stuff comes up and she's suddenly "Impeachment Now mother fuckers, hold onto your hats we strapping a rocket booster on this".
I rated Pelosi highly, the way she kept the Dems together from 2000-2006 was incredible but I feel she has really been pretty terrible handling the impeachment process.
Boris will go into opposition rather than stay PM and agree to extend
That opens up the great unknown - as there always needs to be a PM how does Boris resign as he will remain as PM until someone willingly takes on the job.
A civil servant would do the extension request and the Queen would appoint who she thinks as most likely to command the confidence of the Commons following discussions with Boris and party leaders
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
If this happened, she should go to the police rather than announce it to the world on Twatter.
She has no obligation to handle this in the way of your choosing. How arrogant of you to think you know what's best in this situation.
Who needs the law when you can have twatter lynchings.
Well if the accused believes the accusation is vexatious, it should be noted that the law has a solution for that, too, in the form of libel action. We shouldn't reflexively believe or disbelieve accusations like this, nor should we berate putative victims for handling it in ways that you fail to understand. Anyone unacquainted with the situation who advises on how they should or shouldn't respond is, to be blunt, an idiot.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
So you would prefer that only people with permitted views are allowed to comment and nobody ever allowed to ask inconvenient questions.
The not_on_fire road to thoughtcrime.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than instinctively assuming a distressing allegation from which the victim stands to gain little has been made up.
I haven't assumed anything, I simply made a relevant comment.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than using racially derogatory abuse to people who point out facts you find inconvenient as humbugger did.
And do you really think people 'stand to gain little' by allegations about top politicians ?
The individual concerned personally stands to gain very little. I see you are still failing to take her or complaints seriously.
It seems very unlikely that Trump will actually be impeached. But there may - just - be enough for the GOP to force him to stand down as their nominee in 2020. Trump can claim the fake news media has made it impossible for him to run, or something.
I doubt it and Trump's base will not turn out for another Republican if he is prevented from running for re election
Trump has not laid any kind of cunning trap. Public support for impeachment grows every day.
The only people who can fuck this up are dumb Democrats who want to get the impeachment process done quickly.
With the Republicans in control of the Senate there is no chance of it voting to convict Trump anyway even if the House which is controlled by the Democrats votes to impeach him
Yes, the point is not to get Trump removed, its to get Purple state Republican Senators to vote against conviction.
I still think the Dems are as motivated by getting rid of Biden, an old man and showing clear signs of it, as they are about getting rid of Trump.
I don't follow the logic of that at all.
The impeachment involves the actions of Joe Biden and his family and so Sandpit is suggesting this impeachment Against Trump is really a way of forcing Biden out of the Nomination race by having embaressing/scandalous stuff about his son or him be revealed.
This is an arse about tits reading of the situation. The Dems are actually impeaching because Trump went after one of their own. Generic traitorous behaviour in collaboration with Russia is a shoulder shrug, trying to take down a member of the Dem ruling class is a big no no.
Interesting to hear a different perspective. I think that the way the Dems are going about it has a reasonable chance of blowing up in their face, or certainly in Mr Biden’s face.
If it’s not in part designed to get Biden, I hope the Dems have wargamed every scenario carefully - because the Trump-supporting media are understandably going hard on the Biden side of the story.
I think the next 14 months in US politics are going to be much worse than anything we’ve ever seen before.
It seems very unlikely that Trump will actually be impeached. But there may - just - be enough for the GOP to force him to stand down as their nominee in 2020. Trump can claim the fake news media has made it impossible for him to run, or something.
I doubt it and Trump's base will not turn out for another Republican if he is prevented from running for re election
At this point the GOP may conclude the presidency is lost anyway and focus on keeping the senate to block a Dem president’s agenda. In which case, they may as well replace Trump.
Trump has not laid any kind of cunning trap. Public support for impeachment grows every day.
The only people who can fuck this up are dumb Democrats who want to get the impeachment process done quickly.
With the Republicans in control of the Senate there is no chance of it voting to convict Trump anyway even if the House which is controlled by the Democrats votes to impeach him
Yes, the point is not to get Trump removed, its to get Purple state Republican Senators to vote against conviction.
I still think the Dems are as motivated by getting rid of Biden, an old man and showing clear signs of it, as they are about getting rid of Trump.
I don't follow the logic of that at all.
The impeachment involves the actions of Joe Biden and his family and so Sandpit is suggesting this impeachment Against Trump is really a way of forcing Biden out of the Nomination race by having embaressing/scandalous stuff about his son or him be revealed.
This is an arse about tits reading of the situation. The Dems are actually impeaching because Trump went after one of their own. Generic traitorous behaviour in collaboration with Russia is a shoulder shrug, trying to take down a member of the Dem ruling class is a big no no.
Except no. The Dems have been building to impeachment for some weeks. The Ukraine quid pro quo allegations have merely catalysed the process. IMO they have been wrong to go softly softly; they should have been all guns blazing by the spring. But it's wrong to imply there was no process and that impeachment wouldn't have happened without this whistleblower.
Pelosi has been absolutely craven and timid about impeachment. Every Mueller bombshell was met with "hmm, no" and public spats wit Dems who did want impeachment. Fund raising emails about how terrible trump is but no actions.
The Whistle-blower Biden stuff comes up and she's suddenly "Impeachment Now mother fuckers, hold onto your hats we strapping a rocket booster on this".
I rated Pelosi highly, the way she kept the Dems together from 2000-2006 was incredible but I feel she has really been pretty terrible handling the impeachment process.
I agree wholeheartedly about Pelosi. She's the one who held impeachment back earlier this year and I thought at the time that was a mistake. But it was always a careful and slow approach rather than a firm "never". I'm glad things have finally picked up pace. There's a lot of catching up to do, and a lot of Trump's crimes and misdemeanours to work through.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Excellent interview with Javid by Nick Robinson this morning. Not interested in touching up women but pretty exercised about Islamaphobia. He's getting very good at hitting a politician's trigger points. As incisive as Andrew Neil and much easier on the ear
Trump has not laid any kind of cunning trap. Public support for impeachment grows every day.
The only people who can fuck this up are dumb Democrats who want to get the impeachment process done quickly.
With the Republicans in control of the Senate there is no chance of it voting to convict Trump anyway even if the House which is controlled by the Democrats votes to impeach him
Yes, the point is not to get Trump removed, its to get Purple state Republican Senators to vote against conviction.
I still think the Dems are as motivated by getting rid of Biden, an old man and showing clear signs of it, as they are about getting rid of Trump.
I don't follow the logic of that at all.
Theone o take down a member of the Dem ruling class is a big no no.
Except no. The Dems have been building to impeachment for some weeks. The Ukraine quid pro quo allegations have merely catalysed the process. IMO they have been wrong to go softly softly; they should have been all guns blazing by the spring. But it's wrong to imply there was no process and that impeachment wouldn't have happened without this whistleblower.
Pelosi has been absolutely craven and timid about impeachment. Every Mueller bombshell was met with "hmm, no" and public spats wit Dems who did want impeachment. Fund raising emails about how terrible trump is but no actions.
The Whistle-blower Biden stuff comes up and she's suddenly "Impeachment Now mother fuckers, hold onto your hats we strapping a rocket booster on this".
I rated Pelosi highly, the way she kept the Dems together from 2000-2006 was incredible but I feel she has really been pretty terrible handling the impeachment process.
I agree wholeheartedly about Pelosi. She's the one who held impeachment back earlier this year and I thought at the time that was a mistake. But it was always a careful and slow approach rather than a firm "never". I'm glad things have finally picked up pace. There's a lot of catching up to do, and a lot of Trump's crimes and misdemeanours to work through.
Disagree completely. Pelosi has been waiting for an incident that will actually stand a chance of gaining some traction. I don’t think she expects Trump to be impeached, but it may force some purple state GOP senators to vote to acquit Trump which will be useful ammunition for 2020.
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
Yep. The head of a foreign government overriding the will of our own parliament.
Not exactly taking back control now is it.
You and I as patriotic Remainers must act to prevent it happening.
No more undemocratic than our Parliament overriding the will of 17 million people to Leave the EU
Parliament is chosen by the entire electorate. Not just a subset of it.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
So you would prefer that only people with permitted views are allowed to comment and nobody ever allowed to ask inconvenient questions.
The not_on_fire road to thoughtcrime.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than instinctively assuming a distressing allegation from which the victim stands to gain little has been made up.
I haven't assumed anything, I simply made a relevant comment.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than using racially derogatory abuse to people who point out facts you find inconvenient as humbugger did.
And do you really think people 'stand to gain little' by allegations about top politicians ?
The individual concerned personally stands to gain very little. I see you are still failing to take her or complaints seriously.
If there is an allegation of sexual assault, it should be reported the police.
What I think is undoubtedly true is that there is a swirl of allegations around Boris all made very recently (sex harassment, misuse of public funds, in the pay of hedge funds, etc).
It is not unreasonable to be suspicious of the timing, just as it is not unreasonable to ponder why Justin Trudeau's blackface photos emerged just before the Canadian election, despite being taken decades earlier.
If there are any allegations regarding Johnston's behaviour, they should be reported to the police.
Pelosi has been absolutely craven and timid about impeachment. Every Mueller bombshell was met with "hmm, no" and public spats wit Dems who did want impeachment. Fund raising emails about how terrible trump is but no actions.
The Whistle-blower Biden stuff comes up and she's suddenly "Impeachment Now mother fuckers, hold onto your hats we strapping a rocket booster on this".
I rated Pelosi highly, the way she kept the Dems together from 2000-2006 was incredible but I feel she has really been pretty terrible handling the impeachment process.
I think she's playing it well.
The media got played by Barr on the Mueller Report: They set up a narrative that he'd been cleared, and there was never a resounding flip in the media to persuade people that he hadn't.
This time it was much faster and simpler. They've got a simple case that the voters can understand, with Trump proven guilty by his own words, and by going straight to impeachment they big it up. They also have all the previous stuff from the Mueller Report in their pocket to use it as they need it.
People on the left were obviously frustrated with Pelosi being slow to move, but he result is that people think that now they're moving they must really have a case. That's what matters when it comes to the object of the exercise, which is to keep Trump off balance as the election approaches and damage vulnerable GOP senators.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
So you would prefer that only people with permitted views are allowed to comment and nobody ever allowed to ask inconvenient questions.
The not_on_fire road to thoughtcrime.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than instinctively assuming a distressing allegation from which the victim stands to gain little has been made up.
I haven't assumed anything, I simply made a relevant comment.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than using racially derogatory abuse to people who point out facts you find inconvenient as humbugger did.
And do you really think people 'stand to gain little' by allegations about top politicians ?
The individual concerned personally stands to gain very little. I see you are still failing to take her or complaints seriously.
How do you suppose we should do that ?
My advice would be to report such incidents to the relevant authorities. Has she done that ?
And how seriously are you taking Boris's side of the story ?
Disagree completely. Pelosi has been waiting for an incident that will actually stand a chance of gaining some traction. I don’t think she expects Trump to be impeached, but it may force some purple state GOP senators to vote to acquit Trump which will be useful ammunition for 2020.
Point of order, Pelosi expects impeachment but probably not conviction. The stuff in the Mueller Report is deeply serious, and the fraud investigations currently working their way through NY are explosive. There was already enough there to land with the public, bucketloads of it.
Re Trump: Isn't there an issue that any impeachment proceedings will overshadow the democratic primaries? Also it could backfire and rally round any wavering Republicans.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
So you would prefer that only people with permitted views are allowed to comment and nobody ever allowed to ask inconvenient questions.
The not_on_fire road to thoughtcrime.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than instinctively assuming a distressing allegation from which the victim stands to gain little has been made up.
I haven't assumed anything, I simply made a relevant comment.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than using racially derogatory abuse to people who point out facts you find inconvenient as humbugger did.
And do you really think people 'stand to gain little' by allegations about top politicians ?
The individual concerned personally stands to gain very little. I see you are still failing to take her or complaints seriously.
How do you suppose we should do that ?
My advice would be to report such incidents to the relevant authorities. Has she done that ?
And how seriously are you taking Boris's side of the story ?
A proven liar with a proven history of sexual misconduct?
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
Isn't the risk then a sequence that goes 1. VONC and emergency government. 2. Revoke "while the new government works out what's going on" 3. Publication of the deal with Hungary 4. Can't see Boris's popularity surviving that
Revoke is still a Remainer wet dream. Not happening.
Not when you have a fixed deadline and a deal on the table. Even if it is May's Shit Deal, unaltered.
It seems very unlikely that Trump will actually be impeached. But there may - just - be enough for the GOP to force him to stand down as their nominee in 2020. Trump can claim the fake news media has made it impossible for him to run, or something.
Trump could claim that he's done his job - America is Great Again, the Wall is Built (and it Cost Nothing because Mexico Paid for it), the Swamp is Drained, etc - even if it isn't true, and he never wanted to be President anyway, he's a businessman, time to return to business, and, look, here's this great person to hand over to.
It will be much easier for him to stand aside if he has a say in who replaces him.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
So you would prefer that only people with permitted views are allowed to comment and nobody ever allowed to ask inconvenient questions.
The not_on_fire road to thoughtcrime.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than instinctively assuming a distressing allegation from which the victim stands to gain little has been made up.
I haven't assumed anything, I simply made a relevant comment.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than using racially derogatory abuse to people who point out facts you find inconvenient as humbugger did.
And do you really think people 'stand to gain little' by allegations about top politicians ?
The individual concerned personally stands to gain very little. I see you are still failing to take her or complaints seriously.
How do you suppose we should do that ?
My advice would be to report such incidents to the relevant authorities. Has she done that ?
And how seriously are you taking Boris's side of the story ?
A proven liar with a proven history of sexual misconduct?
Clearly there's no need for any action by the police or any other relevant authority as you've pronounced the verdict.
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
Which would give Parliament a clear Noel Edmonds choice following the EU summit.
The problem of course being that discussions of extension within the EU would happen after the Commons have voted down the deal - which they will if they don’t think No-Deal will happen.
For this to work, EU leaders need to say at the summit, or beforehand, that there’s definitely no further extension possible.
Then maybe we finally get past this.
Provided the EU also agrees to remove the backstop or enough Labour MPs agree to back the Withdrawal Agreement and a Northern Ireland only backstop to overcome DUP opposition.
I still think both unlikely and it would need a Tory majority after the next general election to pass the latter
Do you think Labour vote against the deal, if the EU make it clear there’s no extension on offer and it’s either deal or no deal?
The other alternative is that the EU offer only a very long extension, two or three years. This serves dual purposes (for them) of getting it out of the news and increasing U.K. uncertainty.
Isn't the problem here that the WA can't be brought back in this session of parliament?
We would need to prorogue and have a new session, QS etc
Trump has not laid any kind of cunning trap. Public support for impeachment grows every day.
The only people who can fuck this up are dumb Democrats who want to get the impeachment process done quickly.
With the Republicans in control of the Senate there is no chance of it voting to convict Trump anyway even if the House which is controlled by the Democrats votes to impeach him
Yes, the point is not to get Trump removed, its to get Purple state Republican Senators to vote against conviction.
I still think the Dems are as motivated by getting rid of Biden, an old man and showing clear signs of it, as they are about getting rid of Trump.
I don't follow the logic of that at all.
The impeachment involves the actions of Joe Biden and his family and so Sandpit is suggesting this impeachment Against Trump is really a way of forcing Biden out of the Nomination race by having embaressing/scandalous stuff about his son or him be revealed.
This is an arse about tits reading of the situation....
Indeed. It seems absurd on the face of it that the Democrats would undertake so high risk and difficult a process as impeachment just to get rid of someone they could vote out in the primaries.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
So you would prefer that only people with permitted views are allowed to comment and nobody ever allowed to ask inconvenient questions.
The not_on_fire road to thoughtcrime.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than instinctively assuming a distressing allegation from which the victim stands to gain little has been made up.
I haven't assumed anything, I simply made a relevant comment.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than using racially derogatory abuse to people who point out facts you find inconvenient as humbugger did.
And do you really think people 'stand to gain little' by allegations about top politicians ?
The individual concerned personally stands to gain very little. I see you are still failing to take her or complaints seriously.
How do you suppose we should do that ?
My advice would be to report such incidents to the relevant authorities. Has she done that ?
And how seriously are you taking Boris's side of the story ?
A proven liar with a proven history of sexual misconduct?
He may not be lying in claiming that he can't remember the incident. There may be so many ...
Re Trump: Isn't there an issue that any impeachment proceedings will overshadow the democratic primaries? Also it could backfire and rally round any wavering Republicans.
I don't think it'll backfire. It's about throwing sunlight onto the executive. It's not about the Republican party in general. Trump is not a party insider, and there is ample room for the Republicans to distance themselves from him personally whilst maintaining their policy platform and talking points.
Morning everyone. Regardless of the truth of Edwardes allegations against Boris, the alleged incident appears to be towards the less serious spectrum of sexual assaults, and the fact that it's surfaced 20 years after the event and coincides with her joining the Sunday Times may look to some as being self serving and even politically motivated.
Only to gammons who haven’t felt a lady’s legs in years.
Yet it wasn't mentioned two years ago when there multiple stories of this type.
You do realise that attitudes such as this are why women don’t speak out about these kind of incidents in the first place? They know that immediately a small army of men with attitudes like yours will come out to belittle the incident or claim they were lying.
If this happened, she should go to the police rather than announce it to the world on Twatter.
She has no obligation to handle this in the way of your choosing. How arrogant of you to think you know what's best in this situation.
Who needs the law when you can have twatter lynchings.
Rumour on Good Morning Britain from Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire that Boris and Cummings might have persuaded Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to veto further extension of Article 50
It's not completely impossible, but I'm highly sceptical. Viktor Orban is probably the cleverest politician operating in the EU at the moment (and quite possibly the most venal). They'd have to offer him something pretty spectacular for him to risk pissing off the rest of the EU to that extent and it's not at all obvious what that might be.
Maybe some military hardware who knows, it is of course only a rumour and could turn out to be nothing but if they did manage it and Orban did veto further extension it would be a spectacular coup from Boris and Cummings and effectively make the Benn Bill redundant
Which would give Parliament a clear Noel Edmonds choice following the EU summit.
The problem of course being that discussions of extension within the EU would happen after the Commons have voted down the deal - which they will if they don’t think No-Deal will happen.
For this to work, EU leaders need to say at the summit, or beforehand, that there’s definitely no further extension possible.
Then maybe we finally get past this.
Provided the EU also agrees to remove the backstop or enough Labour MPs agree to back the Withdrawal Agreement and a Northern Ireland only backstop to overcome DUP opposition.
I still think both unlikely and it would need a Tory majority after the next general election to pass the latter
Do you think Labour vote against the deal, if the EU make it clear there’s no extension on offer and it’s either deal or no deal?
The other alternative is that the EU offer only a very long extension, two or three years. This serves dual purposes (for them) of getting it out of the news and increasing U.K. uncertainty.
Isn't the problem here that the WA can't be brought back in this session of parliament?
We would need to prorogue and have a new session, QS etc.
Yes, would need to be a new session for the same WA, or a slightly amended WA from the EU summit.
Pelosi has been absolutely craven and timid about impeachment. Every Mueller bombshell was met with "hmm, no" and public spats wit Dems who did want impeachment. Fund raising emails about how terrible trump is but no actions.
The Whistle-blower Biden stuff comes up and she's suddenly "Impeachment Now mother fuckers, hold onto your hats we strapping a rocket booster on this".
I rated Pelosi highly, the way she kept the Dems together from 2000-2006 was incredible but I feel she has really been pretty terrible handling the impeachment process.
I think she's playing it well.
The media got played by Barr on the Mueller Report: They set up a narrative that he'd been cleared, and there was never a resounding flip in the media to persuade people that he hadn't.
This time it was much faster and simpler. They've got a simple case that the voters can understand, with Trump proven guilty by his own words, and by going straight to impeachment they big it up. They also have all the previous stuff from the Mueller Report in their pocket to use it as they need it.
People on the left were obviously frustrated with Pelosi being slow to move, but he result is that people think that now they're moving they must really have a case. That's what matters when it comes to the object of the exercise, which is to keep Trump off balance as the election approaches and damage vulnerable GOP senators.
I think that's right - the facts of the current case are so egregious, it would be impossible not to hold an impeachment investigation.
It seems very unlikely that Trump will actually be impeached. But there may - just - be enough for the GOP to force him to stand down as their nominee in 2020. Trump can claim the fake news media has made it impossible for him to run, or something.
Trump could claim that he's done his job - America is Great Again, the Wall is Built (and it Cost Nothing because Mexico Paid for it), the Swamp is Drained, etc - even if it isn't true, and he never wanted to be President anyway, he's a businessman, time to return to business, and, look, here's this great person to hand over to.
It will be much easier for him to stand aside if he has a say in who replaces him.
If there weren't criminal cases working their way through the states I'd suggest that there's a high chance he could step aside late in his presidency in exchange for a pardon. But presidential pardons only count against federal crimes. And even though the convention on not indicting a sitting president also only counts against federal crimes, Trump is in a stronger place to argue against the legitimacy of the state cases whilst he's in the oval office. I expect him to cling on to the bitter end.
Comments
The problem of course being that discussions of extension within the EU would happen after the Commons have voted down the deal - which they will if they don’t think No-Deal will happen.
For this to work, EU leaders need to say at the summit, or beforehand, that there’s definitely no further extension possible.
Then maybe we finally get past this.
https://www.xpatloop.com/channels/2019/09/hungary-will-not-veto-brexit-extension.html
I still think both unlikely and it would need a Tory majority after the next general election to pass the latter
The other alternative is that the EU offer only a very long extension, two or three years. This serves dual purposes (for them) of getting it out of the news and increasing U.K. uncertainty.
Competition for a place in one of Hong Kong's top universities is fierce, but even if you do get a spot and graduate, a good job or stable income isn't guaranteed.
Increasingly, Hong Kongers are also competing for jobs with Chinese students.
Chan Wai-Keung, a lecturer at Hong Kong Polytechnic, says in the 1990s, the salary starting point of fresh graduates was around HK$25,000 ($3,188; £2,594). Nowadays he says it is maybe just HK$28,000.
Mr Chan published a report looking at wage growth and living costs for Hong Kong's youth over the last 30 years.
He found that while starting salaries have stagnated, property prices have gone up tenfold.
"Our education programme is old fashioned," Mr Chan told me. "Our economy is dominated by a handful of powerful families, who made a fortune in the property market. They are reluctant to invest in high tech industries or innovative ideas.
"Our government pays lip service to the high-tech development. Even if young people want to get into this new industry there's not a lot of good chances for them."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49848073
Do we have any PB experts able to confirm if things are as bleak as this claims ?
Alternatively they could offer an extension much longer than 3 months, tell us to have a GE/referendum, decide what the hell we want and only come back and bother them when we have a properly worked out proposal.
All these short-term extensions help no-one really.
Cost of living is very high in HK, close to that in London, and there’s now more universities in China producing more and better graduates every year.
The lack of jobs for the young is quite probably contributing to the protests. Most of the tech jobs are in mainland China, and HKers don’t want to move there and work in stealing Western IP or setting up ‘social credit’ schemes.
No extensions and no changes to the May deal leave Boris in something of a bind. Although the Benn Act would have been shredded, he would go to the Commons with Shit Deal or No Deal. Shit Deal wins the day. Boris is left trying to make a virtue of doing what May could not - getting her deal through Parliament. I'm sure plenty on both sides would enjoy that.....
1. VONC and emergency government.
2. Revoke "while the new government works out what's going on"
3. Publication of the deal with Hungary
4. Can't see Boris's popularity surviving that
Not exactly taking back control now is it.
You and I as patriotic Remainers must act to prevent it happening.
https://twitter.com/DanielBoffey/status/1178572992525357056?s=20
This usually brings genuine surprise to people who needed to ask in the first place. Of course they are thinking of England being cold in summer, and it's true that eastern Germany is hotter and drier than all of the UK in the summer.
Having said that the weather here in Berlin today is horrible. Like a typical November day on the Pennines!
PS I lived in the south for years and weather was just as crap , loads of rain and hot and sticky in summer , plus it was so crowded you could get nowhere on holidays. A decent day in Scotland beats down south any time , and even if not as many really hot days you can at least enjoy holidays without being stuck in a herd of basking seals.
While I know the No10leaks twitter feed probably isn't accurate the first picture here shows what Parliament is like
https://twitter.com/number10leaks/status/1178555619420393473/photo/1
The not_on_fire road to thoughtcrime.
But as Cyclefree says, what we're hearing about Johnson is triggering mild dislike, but it's seen as quite distinct from the stuff alleged about Weinstein. Some are even prepared to vote for him, in the same way that evangelicals vote Trump, because they like his Leavishness - "I wouldn't get into a taxi with him but he's not going to grope me in the polling booth", as one said.
Could you possibly post a link to a copy.
With thanks.
This is an arse about tits reading of the situation. The Dems are actually impeaching because Trump went after one of their own. Generic traitorous behaviour in collaboration with Russia is a shoulder shrug, trying to take down a member of the Dem ruling class is a big no no.
“The major miscalculation was that opposition parties who have called for an election repeatedly would vote for one when given the opportunity,” said a senior minister. “They didn’t.”
Which is ironic as various people on here (including me) said from July that the opposition would be mad to and also wouldn't be stupid enough to give Boris an election before October 31st.
Cummings really didn't war game this if he thought he would get an election.
Much better (from her perspective) to put it out there in a newspaper as evidence of how this guy behaves, in the hope that others will also come forward.
From a political view, I can’t see low-level stuff like this affecting Johnson too much, but if there were more serious allegations that might change things. The Sunday Times splashed big on the other lady, but seemingly couldn’t make the financial stuff stand up - it’s the financial stuff that will get him.
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1178585270649704448
IMO they have been wrong to go softly softly; they should have been all guns blazing by the spring. But it's wrong to imply there was no process and that impeachment wouldn't have happened without this whistleblower.
Discussed in some detail here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/23/us/why-i-didnt-report-assault-stories.html
We have allegations of rape made against an unnamed senior figure in Labour (Bex Bailey).
We have had a PPC accuse (unnamed) political opponents of rape (Emily Owen, PPC for Aberconwy).
For some reason, neither reported matters to the police (they did not, as far as I am aware, give a reason).
In my opinion, with such very serious allegations, it is hugely important that they are reported to the police.
Perhaps the police can now do little -- but even so, accurate reporting of the frequency of rape is itself an important step to ensuring the crime is taking very seriously.
It would certainly be better if you paused for thought rather than using racially derogatory abuse to people who point out facts you find inconvenient as humbugger did.
And do you really think people 'stand to gain little' by allegations about top politicians ?
The Whistle-blower Biden stuff comes up and she's suddenly "Impeachment Now mother fuckers, hold onto your hats we strapping a rocket booster on this".
I rated Pelosi highly, the way she kept the Dems together from 2000-2006 was incredible but I feel she has really been pretty terrible handling the impeachment process.
We shouldn't reflexively believe or disbelieve accusations like this, nor should we berate putative victims for handling it in ways that you fail to understand. Anyone unacquainted with the situation who advises on how they should or shouldn't respond is, to be blunt, an idiot.
I find it the sensible approach to anything involving politicians.
If it’s not in part designed to get Biden, I hope the Dems have wargamed every scenario carefully - because the Trump-supporting media are understandably going hard on the Biden side of the story.
I think the next 14 months in US politics are going to be much worse than anything we’ve ever seen before.
I'm glad things have finally picked up pace. There's a lot of catching up to do, and a lot of Trump's crimes and misdemeanours to work through.
What I think is undoubtedly true is that there is a swirl of allegations around Boris all made very recently (sex harassment, misuse of public funds, in the pay of hedge funds, etc).
It is not unreasonable to be suspicious of the timing, just as it is not unreasonable to ponder why Justin Trudeau's blackface photos emerged just before the Canadian election, despite being taken decades earlier.
If there are any allegations regarding Johnston's behaviour, they should be reported to the police.
The media got played by Barr on the Mueller Report: They set up a narrative that he'd been cleared, and there was never a resounding flip in the media to persuade people that he hadn't.
This time it was much faster and simpler. They've got a simple case that the voters can understand, with Trump proven guilty by his own words, and by going straight to impeachment they big it up. They also have all the previous stuff from the Mueller Report in their pocket to use it as they need it.
People on the left were obviously frustrated with Pelosi being slow to move, but he result is that people think that now they're moving they must really have a case. That's what matters when it comes to the object of the exercise, which is to keep Trump off balance as the election approaches and damage vulnerable GOP senators.
My advice would be to report such incidents to the relevant authorities. Has she done that ?
And how seriously are you taking Boris's side of the story ?
The stuff in the Mueller Report is deeply serious, and the fraud investigations currently working their way through NY are explosive. There was already enough there to land with the public, bucketloads of it.
Not when you have a fixed deadline and a deal on the table. Even if it is May's Shit Deal, unaltered.
It will be much easier for him to stand aside if he has a say in who replaces him.
Would you now like to pass the sentence.
We would need to prorogue and have a new session, QS etc
It seems absurd on the face of it that the Democrats would undertake so high risk and difficult a process as impeachment just to get rid of someone they could vote out in the primaries.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-29/cash-strapped-booker-says-could-drop-white-house-bid-by-tuesday
Tulsi Gabbard should try something like this but with "give me $1.7 million or I *won't* quit the race".