To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
In a sense Biden is going to have a breeze of a presidency. Every daily act of normality will be seen as restoring the calm governance of the republic.
On the other hand the future expects him to put in place constitutional changes that will stop someone with Trump's conditions every able to get near the Oval office again.
Biden is putting together a dreary cabinet. The two appointees lined up for tomorrow are Waldorf and Statler. And that sums it up beautifully.
What is actually going to happen, this presidency will remind everyone exactly why they voted Trump in the first place and Boris in U.K. Lazy misadventures over seas, wokeism, socialism, but overall just no clear sense what they want to do in the world.
I don't see how it is compatible that it will be both a dreary cabinet and one full of wokeism and socialism, since those are not known brands of Biden's dreary approach.
I’ll be clearer for you, as I am surprised anyone could challenge this fact
1). Biden cabinet dreary 2.) the other wings of the democratic government both woke and socialist.
I’ll deal in specifics. Biden spent the campaign running away and hiding from two questions.
Firstly, do you have a policy to extend the SC by appointing 5 liberal judges? Secondly, do you intend to gerrymander US senate elections by making DC a state?
If you are going to take all the electoral pain and not go through with those policies, then why not answer no to them at some point in the campaign?
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
Good to see a handful of Brexiters finally concede it is economically damaging, albeit not worth worrying about because Covid.
Frustratingly, they (Alanbrooke, Leon) are also quite elderly and so unlikely to have to really experience the shitty mess they voted to deliver.
SeanT's kids will though
Who is this SeanT? I see him much talked about. He appears to loom large in your mind, like a kind of much younger, more virile, more handsome Trump, who is also f*cking your wife
LOL Leon. I guess you are the new SeanT.
This incarnation has all the manifold downsides of Sean without any of the upsides (of which, there were, admittedly, many).
‘Leon’ is a third-rare doom pornographer with zero sense of humour, and a boring, repetitive tone.
Time for a reboot - the other Seans were excellent on travel, London pubs, and wine.
But do rather like the whole stone-age sex-toy schtick.
For some reason, whenever I see "Leon" pop up on PB, immediately think of Leon Trotsky. Then Leon Redbone.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
But the labour camps do have spas, massages, and nail salons, right?
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
In a sense Biden is going to have a breeze of a presidency. Every daily act of normality will be seen as restoring the calm governance of the republic.
On the other hand the future expects him to put in place constitutional changes that will stop someone with Trump's conditions every able to get near the Oval office again.
Biden is putting together a dreary cabinet. The two appointees lined up for tomorrow are Waldorf and Statler. And that sums it up beautifully.
What is actually going to happen, this presidency will remind everyone exactly why they voted Trump in the first place and Boris in U.K. Lazy misadventures over seas, wokeism, socialism, but overall just no clear sense what they want to do in the world.
I don't see how it is compatible that it will be both a dreary cabinet and one full of wokeism and socialism, since those are not known brands of Biden's dreary approach.
I’ll be clearer for you, as I am surprised anyone could challenge this fact
1). Biden cabinet dreary 2.) the other wings of the democratic government both woke and socialist.
I’ll deal in specifics. Biden spent the campaign running away and hiding from two questions.
Firstly, do you have a policy to extend the SC by appointing 5 liberal judges? Secondly, do you intend to gerrymander US senate elections by making DC a state?
If you are going to take all the electoral pain and not go through with those policies, then why not answer no to them at some point in the campaign?
The challenge was around it seeming to suggest BIden was woke and socialist, that it was a point about the other wings makes more sense.
As to the question, it's quite easy to think why he would not just say no to those - if he felt a failure to answer would cost him less votes than saying no. It might be thought a needless worry, but some of those other wings really don't seem to like him, and in some states it was very close and you could see why he would be worries about them staying home.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
BoZo wants to be Trump which makes the comparison apt
Whoa. Did Boris Johnson actually just condemn Donald Trump for subverting democracy?
He did. Shocked he was so candid, but it was needed.
I think he broke my jaw. There was a sharp pain as it hit the floor.
You’re right he needed to, but I never thought he’d do it.
Trump is a nobody now. A dangerous nobody, but a nobody. I think he knows perfectly well how people only respected him because he was the President, but will still be shocked when people start condemning him. People who disliked him still having to kiss his arse seems like the primary perk of the job for a man like him.
Dangerously naive. The polling above seems like the perfect recipe for a civil war, to me. Many MILLIONS of Americans - generally white, highly armed - agree with the attempted storming of the Capitol
Millions of Brits supported the riots that led to the defacing of the Cenotaph.
Civil wars usually require (a) an actual attack on the rights of a minority of the populations, and (b) a charismatic an organised leader.
I don't think we're there yet in the US, although that might change.
One of the biggest challenges the West has over the next 50 years IMHO is moving peacefully to societies where Whites are no longer the majority.
Professor Eric Kaufman has written convincingly about this in his book Whiteshift.
Basically, right now many Whites feel threatened by that - and we're in a transition period where we have a large minority of minorities but still a clear white majority - but with little mixing.
We will get to a majority mixed race population by 2100, with whites at c.10-15% only of the population, and the key there is for that population to successfully inherit the cultural and political traditions of the national story *notwithstanding* its racial heritage.
This is a very delicate subject but it's one we don't talk enough about.
Genuine question: what exactly is there to discuss?
Being a minority is not a problem, if minorities are treated equally.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I don't think Leon has underplayed the Chinese problem previously, but it was a rather silly takeaway given the circumstances.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
BoZo wants to be Trump which makes the comparison apt
No, BoZo knows that he is a joke and fraud. He has the advantage over Trump of having insight.
In a sense Biden is going to have a breeze of a presidency. Every daily act of normality will be seen as restoring the calm governance of the republic.
On the other hand the future expects him to put in place constitutional changes that will stop someone with Trump's conditions every able to get near the Oval office again.
Biden is putting together a dreary cabinet. The two appointees lined up for tomorrow are Waldorf and Statler. And that sums it up beautifully.
What is actually going to happen, this presidency will remind everyone exactly why they voted Trump in the first place and Boris in U.K. Lazy misadventures over seas, wokeism, socialism, but overall just no clear sense what they want to do in the world.
I don't see how it is compatible that it will be both a dreary cabinet and one full of wokeism and socialism, since those are not known brands of Biden's dreary approach.
I’ll be clearer for you, as I am surprised anyone could challenge this fact
1). Biden cabinet dreary 2.) the other wings of the democratic government both woke and socialist.
I’ll deal in specifics. Biden spent the campaign running away and hiding from two questions.
Firstly, do you have a policy to extend the SC by appointing 5 liberal judges? Secondly, do you intend to gerrymander US senate elections by making DC a state?
If you are going to take all the electoral pain and not go through with those policies, then why not answer no to them at some point in the campaign?
Surely somewhat premature to judge the success or failure of the Biden administration at this point?
He has surprised me with on the upside with his pronouncements since the election, though.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
BoZo wants to be Trump which makes the comparison apt
More like Trump wants to be Boris: someone who actually wins elections.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
You do know how orthodox, conservative Islam works for women in Afghanistan, Sudan, Iran, Saudi, etc? Where they can be raped with impunity, stoned to death, are forced to wear black shrouds covering their entire bodies?
How does this differ from prison?
I am not defending China one scintilla. It is an evil force in the world. But on this quite significant point, they have a point, Chinese women are much freer than women in conservative Islamic countries.
I accept this is like saying Mussolini's Italy is better than Hitler's Germany, for Jews, but the fact is: that was true
Say what you like about the Met but in the aftermath of a terrorist incident, they do lift everyone on their Wishlist, just to be on the safe side.
I guess the absence of non-white faces in the Capitol storming videos makes a 'round up the usual suspects' approach a bit tricky for the US cops.
Come on, this bunch of hillbillies will have a bunch of previous. The Mail have got hold of a rap sheet for the 'ex military hero' woman who got shot already.
Whoa. Did Boris Johnson actually just condemn Donald Trump for subverting democracy?
He did. Shocked he was so candid, but it was needed.
I think he broke my jaw. There was a sharp pain as it hit the floor.
You’re right he needed to, but I never thought he’d do it.
Trump is a nobody now. A dangerous nobody, but a nobody. I think he knows perfectly well how people only respected him because he was the President, but will still be shocked when people start condemning him. People who disliked him still having to kiss his arse seems like the primary perk of the job for a man like him.
Dangerously naive. The polling above seems like the perfect recipe for a civil war, to me. Many MILLIONS of Americans - generally white, highly armed - agree with the attempted storming of the Capitol
Millions of Brits supported the riots that led to the defacing of the Cenotaph.
Civil wars usually require (a) an actual attack on the rights of a minority of the populations, and (b) a charismatic an organised leader.
I don't think we're there yet in the US, although that might change.
One of the biggest challenges the West has over the next 50 years IMHO is moving peacefully to societies where Whites are no longer the majority.
Professor Eric Kaufman has written convincingly about this in his book Whiteshift.
Basically, right now many Whites feel threatened by that - and we're in a transition period where we have a large minority of minorities but still a clear white majority - but with little mixing.
We will get to a majority mixed race population by 2100, with whites at c.10-15% only of the population, and the key there is for that population to successfully inherit the cultural and political traditions of the national story *notwithstanding* its racial heritage.
This is a very delicate subject but it's one we don't talk enough about.
Genuine question: what exactly is there to discuss?
That the make up of society will be changing. It shouldn't matter, but it seems undeniable that matters of race and ethnicity do matter to a lot of people, and some think it needs to be discussed even more than it is. Bookshops right now are full of publishers seeking to capitalise on how much these things matter by increasing the available content. People just don't agree on how much or what, if anything, needs doing and by whom. There's a lot of good stuff out there to spark discussion I have no doubt.
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
It's not a perfect comparison either way, which is why people need to stop working so hard to make it seem like there are exact equivalents.
Boris is Trump. Forget the personal and look at the politics.
Consider that recent political eras might be classed as cold war, up to Thatcher and Reagan, followed by globalist, typified by Blair and Clinton, and most recently populists who court votes from those left behind as skilled jobs disappear, who blame foreigners whether in China or Europe, and who are charismatic leaders already familiar through media appearances. Like, say, Boris and Trump.
That is why it matters, not as a crude insult of one man or the other, or even to point at obvious personal parallels, but because they mark political changes from what went before. The question is not whether Boris is Trump -- clearly he is by this analysis -- but whether Starmer is Biden. Will populists inevitably be succeeded by dull centrists, if indeed that is what they are?
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
It does say "or attempted". So it may not have been actual murder.
Should murderers be rewarded for incompetence?
"Attempted" murderers should indeed be rewarded for their own incompetence, the skill of trauma surgeons, and even the speed of dialling 999 or 911, as discussed earlier.
Good to see a handful of Brexiters finally concede it is economically damaging, albeit not worth worrying about because Covid.
Frustratingly, they (Alanbrooke, Leon) are also quite elderly and so unlikely to have to really experience the shitty mess they voted to deliver.
SeanT's kids will though
Who is this SeanT? I see him much talked about. He appears to loom large in your mind, like a kind of much younger, more virile, more handsome Trump, who is also f*cking your wife
LOL Leon. I guess you are the new SeanT.
This incarnation has all the manifold downsides of Sean without any of the upsides (of which, there were, admittedly, many).
‘Leon’ is a third-rare doom pornographer with zero sense of humour, and a boring, repetitive tone.
Time for a reboot - the other Seans were excellent on travel, London pubs, and wine.
But do rather like the whole stone-age sex-toy schtick.
For some reason, whenever I see "Leon" pop up on PB, immediately think of Leon Trotsky. Then Leon Redbone.
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
It's not a perfect comparison either way, which is why people need to stop working so hard to make it seem like there are exact equivalents.
Boris is Trump. Forget the personal and look at the politics.
Consider that recent political eras might be classed as cold war, up to Thatcher and Reagan, followed by globalist, typified by Blair and Clinton, and most recently populists who court votes from those left behind as skilled jobs disappear, who blame foreigners whether in China or Europe, and who are charismatic leaders already familiar through media appearances. Like, say, Boris and Trump.
That is why it matters, not as a crude insult of one man or the other, or even to point at obvious personal parallels, but because they mark political changes from what went before. The question is not whether Boris is Trump -- clearly he is by this analysis -- but whether Starmer is Biden. Will populists inevitably be succeeded by dull centrists, if indeed that is what they are?
It only works in the most broad brush styles and is inevitably overdone. I think any usefulness of drawing such parallels is vastly outweighed by people engaging in 'I don't like X, look at the similarity to Y, who I also do not like'.
We don't need to think if, in this context, Boris is Trump and whether Starmer is Biden, the individual circumstances of each nation are different enough that as broad labels they are just unhelpful in restricting how we think about them both and respond to them.
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
And I speak as a former subscriber.
And by what measure was Johnson an "Oxford star"?
President of the Union is generally thought to qualify. And he attended a college that rejected both Clinton and Blair.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
You do know how orthodox, conservative Islam works for women in Afghanistan, Sudan, Iran, Saudi, etc? Where they can be raped with impunity, stoned to death, are forced to wear black shrouds covering their entire bodies?
How does this differ from prison?
I am not defending China one scintilla. It is an evil force in the world. But on this quite significant point, they have a point, Chinese women are much freer than women in conservative Islamic countries.
I accept this is like saying Mussolini's Italy is better than Hitler's Germany, for Jews, but the fact is: that was true
Except that the Uighurs are, or were, amongst the least orthodox and Conservative of Islamic societies. They've done the same in Tibet, too.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I don't think Leon has underplayed the Chinese problem previously, but it was a rather silly takeaway given the circumstances.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
BoZo wants to be Trump which makes the comparison apt
No, BoZo knows that he is a joke and fraud. He has the advantage over Trump of having insight.
You have nailed the key difference. The clown’s is an act, designed to deflect scrutiny and criticism, and hide his other flaws such as laziness and indecision. Whereas with Trump we are seeing the real deal, without any attempt to cover up his inadequacies whatsoever.
@Leon Last time I went to London Zone 1 was to Liverpool Street station on 27th February last year. Primary goal was to spot a brand new Class 745 express train (success!), but I went upstairs for lunch and had a Leon Love Burger - yes, it was vegan, but tasty
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I have a friend who actually knows a Uyghur from Sinkiang who has "disappeared" apparently to one of the camps (if not something worse). That brings the situation home in a way that just reading about it does not.\
Here in Seattle, much of the economy has been built over the past decades by doing massive trade with China, and bending over backwards to keep it flowing.
From time to time, our leaders have criticized China. For example, former Governor and Ambassador Gary Locke, a Chinese American who made himself virtually persona non grata. Ironically, he's been characterized as a Chinese agent by Trumpskite liars (sorry for redundancy!) BUT even Gary' governorship was characterized by free-trade frenzy to sell airplanes and apples and computers, with human rights being a neglected step-child. AND also short-changed our own workers and companies trying to compete with China on an uneven playing field.
In other words, WE have been complicit. And as a result, helped give Trumpsky his biggest opening.
This will be a MAJOR challenge for the Biden Administration, and think he knows it.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
BoZo wants to be Trump which makes the comparison apt
No, BoZo knows that he is a joke and fraud. He has the advantage over Trump of having insight.
No, BoZo knows that he is a joke and fraud. He has the advantage over Trump of having insight.
Into what?
He constantly, continuously, infallibly, unendingly, inevitably, does the worst possible thing at the worst possible moment.
Insight into his own useless fecklessness.
You can see a certain deadness in BoZo's eyes, knowing what he is saying is bollocks, because he couldn't be arsed to do his homework, again. Trump actually believes his own bullshit.
That is the only photo I have seen of what I would class as Group 2. Perhaps they were a lot smarter than Group 1 and didn't spend their time getting selfies and live streaming themselves on DLive.
O/T Can anyone recommend the best solution for over-ear headphones, primarily for calls not music, for the iPhone 12.
Just upgraded from iPhone 6 and of course the 3.5mm jack plug socket is no more. Bought a cheap adapter from ebay which works fine for music but not recognised for phone calls (grrr!).
Bluetooth headphones? Wired headphones with a lightning socket? Better quality 3.5mm to lightning adapter?
Any help gratefully accepted. (This is GadgetProblemsolving.com right?)
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
And I speak as a former subscriber.
And by what measure was Johnson an "Oxford star"?
President of the Union is generally thought to qualify. And he attended a college that rejected both Clinton and Blair.
You have nailed the key difference. The clown’s is an act, designed to deflect scrutiny and criticism, and hide his other flaws such as laziness and indecision. Whereas with Trump we are seeing the real deal, without any attempt to cover up his inadequacies whatsoever.
But BoZo the clown is all there is too
There is no genius hiding behind the curtain. Every action is a prat fall. Every announcement a punchline. Even death is met with a painted smile. He really does have the presence of a man with his trousers full of whitewash
O/T Can anyone recommend the best solution for over-ear headphones, primarily for calls not music, for the iPhone 12.
Just upgraded from iPhone 6 and of course the 3.5mm jack plug socket is no more. Bought a cheap adapter from ebay which works fine for music but not recognised for phone calls (grrr!).
Bluetooth headphones? Wired headphones with a lightning socket? Better quality 3.5mm to lightning adapter?
Any help gratefully accepted. (This is GadgetProblemsolving.com right?)
How much is your budget? If just for calls, any particular reason why you want over the ear? Normally they are for music, as you are isolating the outside noise and bigger drivers for better sound.
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
And I speak as a former subscriber.
And by what measure was Johnson an "Oxford star"?
Have any PBers actually tried reading one of Boris Johnson's "books"?
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
You do know how orthodox, conservative Islam works for women in Afghanistan, Sudan, Iran, Saudi, etc? Where they can be raped with impunity, stoned to death, are forced to wear black shrouds covering their entire bodies?
How does this differ from prison?
I am not defending China one scintilla. It is an evil force in the world. But on this quite significant point, they have a point, Chinese women are much freer than women in conservative Islamic countries.
I accept this is like saying Mussolini's Italy is better than Hitler's Germany, for Jews, but the fact is: that was true
I disagree strongly with ultra-conservative Islam and it's repression of women.
That doesn't mean it's acceptable to put ethnic and religious minorities in forced labour camps and commit genocide against them as justification.
And I think you're deluding yourself if you think non ethnic-Han are going to ever be as "free" as Chinese women are to the limited extent that applies in their repressive communist state. They will be sterilised, ghettoised and progressively eliminated.
Of course, you know this, and you've said similar before, so I can only conclude you've decided to double-down on every possible controversy under your new moniker as a means to provoke others and entertain yourself.
O/T Can anyone recommend the best solution for over-ear headphones, primarily for calls not music, for the iPhone 12.
Just upgraded from iPhone 6 and of course the 3.5mm jack plug socket is no more. Bought a cheap adapter from ebay which works fine for music but not recognised for phone calls (grrr!).
Bluetooth headphones? Wired headphones with a lightning socket? Better quality 3.5mm to lightning adapter?
Any help gratefully accepted. (This is GadgetProblemsolving.com right?)
Apple Airpods are universally well-regarded. They are not, of course, over-ear headphones.
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
And I speak as a former subscriber.
And by what measure was Johnson an "Oxford star"?
Have any PBers actually tried reading one of Boris Johnson's "books"?
No, but I gifted one to someone for Christmas. They have reported back as yet.
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
And I speak as a former subscriber.
Well, it is the oldest weekly magazine in the world
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
And I speak as a former subscriber.
And by what measure was Johnson an "Oxford star"?
President of the Union is generally thought to qualify. And he attended a college that rejected both Clinton and Blair.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I have a friend who actually knows a Uyghur from Sinkiang who has "disappeared" apparently to one of the camps (if not something worse). That brings the situation home in a way that just reading about it does not.\
Here in Seattle, much of the economy has been built over the past decades by doing massive trade with China, and bending over backwards to keep it flowing.
From time to time, our leaders have criticized China. For example, former Governor and Ambassador Gary Locke, a Chinese American who made himself virtually persona non grata. Ironically, he's been characterized as a Chinese agent by Trumpskite liars (sorry for redundancy!) BUT even Gary' governorship was characterized by free-trade frenzy to sell airplanes and apples and computers, with human rights being a neglected step-child. AND also short-changed our own workers and companies trying to compete with China on an uneven playing field.
In other words, WE have been complicit. And as a result, helped give Trumpsky his biggest opening.
This will be a MAJOR challenge for the Biden Administration, and think he knows it.
IIRC (and correct me if I'm mistaken), not a single Muslim majority nation has actually condemned China for its treatment of the Uighurs.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I don't think Leon has underplayed the Chinese problem previously, but it was a rather silly takeaway given the circumstances.
Yes, I don't know why he's said it.
His anti-Muslim bigotry having a fight with his anti-Chinese bigotry and winning this time? Just a guess.
O/T Can anyone recommend the best solution for over-ear headphones, primarily for calls not music, for the iPhone 12.
Just upgraded from iPhone 6 and of course the 3.5mm jack plug socket is no more. Bought a cheap adapter from ebay which works fine for music but not recognised for phone calls (grrr!).
Bluetooth headphones? Wired headphones with a lightning socket? Better quality 3.5mm to lightning adapter?
Any help gratefully accepted. (This is GadgetProblemsolving.com right?)
Apple make a lightning to lightning+USB adapter which should let you plug a USB headset in
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I have a friend who actually knows a Uyghur from Sinkiang who has "disappeared" apparently to one of the camps (if not something worse). That brings the situation home in a way that just reading about it does not.\
Here in Seattle, much of the economy has been built over the past decades by doing massive trade with China, and bending over backwards to keep it flowing.
From time to time, our leaders have criticized China. For example, former Governor and Ambassador Gary Locke, a Chinese American who made himself virtually persona non grata. Ironically, he's been characterized as a Chinese agent by Trumpskite liars (sorry for redundancy!) BUT even Gary' governorship was characterized by free-trade frenzy to sell airplanes and apples and computers, with human rights being a neglected step-child. AND also short-changed our own workers and companies trying to compete with China on an uneven playing field.
In other words, WE have been complicit. And as a result, helped give Trumpsky his biggest opening.
This will be a MAJOR challenge for the Biden Administration, and think he knows it.
Yes. Of course we've been complicit. Massively. We wanted their cheap stuff and to make money.
Time to wake up. Yes, that will cost us a bit. It risks costing us everything if we do nothing.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I have a friend who actually knows a Uyghur from Sinkiang who has "disappeared" apparently to one of the camps (if not something worse). That brings the situation home in a way that just reading about it does not.\
Here in Seattle, much of the economy has been built over the past decades by doing massive trade with China, and bending over backwards to keep it flowing.
From time to time, our leaders have criticized China. For example, former Governor and Ambassador Gary Locke, a Chinese American who made himself virtually persona non grata. Ironically, he's been characterized as a Chinese agent by Trumpskite liars (sorry for redundancy!) BUT even Gary' governorship was characterized by free-trade frenzy to sell airplanes and apples and computers, with human rights being a neglected step-child. AND also short-changed our own workers and companies trying to compete with China on an uneven playing field.
In other words, WE have been complicit. And as a result, helped give Trumpsky his biggest opening.
This will be a MAJOR challenge for the Biden Administration, and think he knows it.
We believed that we would set an example to the PRC which would civilise them and lead them to democracy. Basically a Soviet Union mark 2. In our greed to milk huge profits from them, they have corrupted us. No politician, nation or party is responsible. But an arrogant, myopic groupthink is.
O/T Can anyone recommend the best solution for over-ear headphones, primarily for calls not music, for the iPhone 12.
Just upgraded from iPhone 6 and of course the 3.5mm jack plug socket is no more. Bought a cheap adapter from ebay which works fine for music but not recognised for phone calls (grrr!).
Bluetooth headphones? Wired headphones with a lightning socket? Better quality 3.5mm to lightning adapter?
Any help gratefully accepted. (This is GadgetProblemsolving.com right?)
How much is your budget? If just for calls, any particular reason why you want over the ear? Normally they are for music, as you are isolating the outside noise and bigger drivers for better sound.
Fair point. I used to prefer over-ear because of (sorry about this) sweaty ear-canal issues. But that was back when I was working and stuck on calls for hours at a time. Maybe airpods are the way to go.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
BoZo wants to be Trump which makes the comparison apt
More like Trump wants to be Boris: someone who actually wins elections.
They've both won one each. (Unless you give BJ sole credit for Brexit vote?)
As for US, winning the Electoral College IS the election for US presidency, not winning a majority of popular votes cast - that's how Lincoln got in, among others.
Of course we KNOW that Trumpsky lost in 2020, and ditto the GA runoffs day before yesterday.
Whereas future electoral fortune of Johnson (if any) is yet to be determined.
That is the only photo I have seen of what I would class as Group 2. Perhaps they were a lot smarter than Group 1 and didn't spend their time getting selfies and live streaming themselves on DLive.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I have a friend who actually knows a Uyghur from Sinkiang who has "disappeared" apparently to one of the camps (if not something worse). That brings the situation home in a way that just reading about it does not.\
Here in Seattle, much of the economy has been built over the past decades by doing massive trade with China, and bending over backwards to keep it flowing.
From time to time, our leaders have criticized China. For example, former Governor and Ambassador Gary Locke, a Chinese American who made himself virtually persona non grata. Ironically, he's been characterized as a Chinese agent by Trumpskite liars (sorry for redundancy!) BUT even Gary' governorship was characterized by free-trade frenzy to sell airplanes and apples and computers, with human rights being a neglected step-child. AND also short-changed our own workers and companies trying to compete with China on an uneven playing field.
In other words, WE have been complicit. And as a result, helped give Trumpsky his biggest opening.
This will be a MAJOR challenge for the Biden Administration, and think he knows it.
IIRC (and correct me if I'm mistaken), not a single Muslim majority nation has actually condemned China for its treatment of the Uighurs.
O/T Can anyone recommend the best solution for over-ear headphones, primarily for calls not music, for the iPhone 12.
Just upgraded from iPhone 6 and of course the 3.5mm jack plug socket is no more. Bought a cheap adapter from ebay which works fine for music but not recognised for phone calls (grrr!).
Bluetooth headphones? Wired headphones with a lightning socket? Better quality 3.5mm to lightning adapter?
Any help gratefully accepted. (This is GadgetProblemsolving.com right?)
Apple make a lightning to lightning+USB adapter which should let you plug a USB headset in
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream... [snip]
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts.
Reluctantly I must admit that Trump is a better communicator than Boris. Like Boris, he is an excellent writer in his chosen medium (of Twitter). While I abhor Trump’s views he knows how to press the right buttons and does it well.
O/T Can anyone recommend the best solution for over-ear headphones, primarily for calls not music, for the iPhone 12.
Just upgraded from iPhone 6 and of course the 3.5mm jack plug socket is no more. Bought a cheap adapter from ebay which works fine for music but not recognised for phone calls (grrr!).
Bluetooth headphones? Wired headphones with a lightning socket? Better quality 3.5mm to lightning adapter?
Any help gratefully accepted. (This is GadgetProblemsolving.com right?)
How much is your budget? If just for calls, any particular reason why you want over the ear? Normally they are for music, as you are isolating the outside noise and bigger drivers for better sound.
Fair point. I used to prefer over-ear because of (sorry about this) sweaty ear-canal issues. But that was back when I was working and stuck on calls for hours at a time. Maybe airpods are the way to go.
Given you have an iPhone and you don't care about music quality, airpods probably want you want. Although there are plenty of cheap bluetooth airpod type clones on the market these days, no idea what they are like for call quality...my guess would be not great.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I have a friend who actually knows a Uyghur from Sinkiang who has "disappeared" apparently to one of the camps (if not something worse). That brings the situation home in a way that just reading about it does not.\
Here in Seattle, much of the economy has been built over the past decades by doing massive trade with China, and bending over backwards to keep it flowing.
From time to time, our leaders have criticized China. For example, former Governor and Ambassador Gary Locke, a Chinese American who made himself virtually persona non grata. Ironically, he's been characterized as a Chinese agent by Trumpskite liars (sorry for redundancy!) BUT even Gary' governorship was characterized by free-trade frenzy to sell airplanes and apples and computers, with human rights being a neglected step-child. AND also short-changed our own workers and companies trying to compete with China on an uneven playing field.
In other words, WE have been complicit. And as a result, helped give Trumpsky his biggest opening.
This will be a MAJOR challenge for the Biden Administration, and think he knows it.
IIRC (and correct me if I'm mistaken), not a single Muslim majority nation has actually condemned China for its treatment of the Uighurs.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I have a friend who actually knows a Uyghur from Sinkiang who has "disappeared" apparently to one of the camps (if not something worse). That brings the situation home in a way that just reading about it does not.\
Here in Seattle, much of the economy has been built over the past decades by doing massive trade with China, and bending over backwards to keep it flowing.
From time to time, our leaders have criticized China. For example, former Governor and Ambassador Gary Locke, a Chinese American who made himself virtually persona non grata. Ironically, he's been characterized as a Chinese agent by Trumpskite liars (sorry for redundancy!) BUT even Gary' governorship was characterized by free-trade frenzy to sell airplanes and apples and computers, with human rights being a neglected step-child. AND also short-changed our own workers and companies trying to compete with China on an uneven playing field.
In other words, WE have been complicit. And as a result, helped give Trumpsky his biggest opening.
This will be a MAJOR challenge for the Biden Administration, and think he knows it.
He may know it but if he runs his policy like the Obama administration, China will continue its challenge unopposed. The West and the US in particular have considerable power to put China in its box. It will get dirty but it can be done.
Forget the Europeans, waste of fucking space on this issue, same as they are on Russia. The coalescing of the Anglosphere with East Asian & South East Asian nations and India is strategically capable of putting China firmly on the back foot but it needs the US to lead.
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
And I speak as a former subscriber.
And by what measure was Johnson an "Oxford star"?
Have any PBers actually tried reading one of Boris Johnson's "books"?
Quite.
Boris is not a great speaker, and not even a terribly good writer. Dare I say it, Leon of this parish is far superior.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I have a friend who actually knows a Uyghur from Sinkiang who has "disappeared" apparently to one of the camps (if not something worse). That brings the situation home in a way that just reading about it does not.\
Here in Seattle, much of the economy has been built over the past decades by doing massive trade with China, and bending over backwards to keep it flowing.
From time to time, our leaders have criticized China. For example, former Governor and Ambassador Gary Locke, a Chinese American who made himself virtually persona non grata. Ironically, he's been characterized as a Chinese agent by Trumpskite liars (sorry for redundancy!) BUT even Gary' governorship was characterized by free-trade frenzy to sell airplanes and apples and computers, with human rights being a neglected step-child. AND also short-changed our own workers and companies trying to compete with China on an uneven playing field.
In other words, WE have been complicit. And as a result, helped give Trumpsky his biggest opening.
This will be a MAJOR challenge for the Biden Administration, and think he knows it.
Yes. Of course we've been complicit. Massively. We wanted their cheap stuff and to make money.
Time to wake up. Yes, that will cost us a bit. It risks costing us everything if we do nothing.
C'mon man!
We handed over the Hong Kong population to the PRC, just a few short years after their regime drove tanks over protesting students in Tiananmen Square. As if we cared a jot...
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
You do know how orthodox, conservative Islam works for women in Afghanistan, Sudan, Iran, Saudi, etc? Where they can be raped with impunity, stoned to death, are forced to wear black shrouds covering their entire bodies?
How does this differ from prison?
I am not defending China one scintilla. It is an evil force in the world. But on this quite significant point, they have a point, Chinese women are much freer than women in conservative Islamic countries.
I accept this is like saying Mussolini's Italy is better than Hitler's Germany, for Jews, but the fact is: that was true
I disagree strongly with ultra-conservative Islam and it's repression of women.
That doesn't mean it's acceptable to put ethnic and religious minorities in forced labour camps and commit genocide against them as justification.
And I think you're deluding yourself if you think non ethnic-Han are going to ever be as "free" as Chinese women are to the limited extent that applies in their repressive communist state. They will be sterilised, ghettoised and progressively eliminated.
Of course, you know this, and you've said similar before, so I can only conclude you've decided to double-down on every possible controversy under your new moniker as a means to provoke others and entertain yourself.
Don't be daft. I have severely condemned China on multiple occasions.
I said last night, in fact, that China was our worst nightmare: a malignant superpower, like the Soviet Union, but this time too big to fight and too rich to be opposed. We have to trade with a regime we find repellent
But I have also travelled widely across China, as I have travelled widely across the Muslim world. For decades.
In all honesty, I would rather be a woman in Xi's China than a woman in, say, Saudi or Afghanistan. You have greater freedoms, and you have more respect from wider society. You are not automatically regarded as severely inferior.
This is my personal western opinion as a white male. I may be entirely wrong.
And, in no way, am I exonerating China for its appalling crimes against women (like forced abortions and forced sterilisations, and worse)
But, as I say, it is like comparing Mussolini's Italy to Hitler's Germany, for the treatment of Jews.
On over ear phones front, I bought a cheap pair just for the pain cave...not ruining £350 Sony or Sennheisers ones I have with masses of sweat.
Off Amazon, DOQAUS Ones. Only cost £25 and although no Sennheiser they are surprisingly very good sound quality and have an exceptional battery life. Probably made by forced labour in China though for that price. but way better than any other non-premium brand headphone I have used.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I have a friend who actually knows a Uyghur from Sinkiang who has "disappeared" apparently to one of the camps (if not something worse). That brings the situation home in a way that just reading about it does not.\
Here in Seattle, much of the economy has been built over the past decades by doing massive trade with China, and bending over backwards to keep it flowing.
From time to time, our leaders have criticized China. For example, former Governor and Ambassador Gary Locke, a Chinese American who made himself virtually persona non grata. Ironically, he's been characterized as a Chinese agent by Trumpskite liars (sorry for redundancy!) BUT even Gary' governorship was characterized by free-trade frenzy to sell airplanes and apples and computers, with human rights being a neglected step-child. AND also short-changed our own workers and companies trying to compete with China on an uneven playing field.
In other words, WE have been complicit. And as a result, helped give Trumpsky his biggest opening.
This will be a MAJOR challenge for the Biden Administration, and think he knows it.
We believed that we would set an example to the PRC which would civilise them and lead them to democracy. Basically a Soviet Union mark 2. In our greed to milk huge profits from them, they have corrupted us. No politician, nation or party is responsible. But an arrogant, myopic groupthink is.
Nicely put. The Chinese observed after the fall of the Soviet Union that communism was never going to beat capitalism, so the only way to defeat the West was to become better at capitalism than we are...
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
BoZo wants to be Trump which makes the comparison apt
More like Trump wants to be Boris: someone who actually wins elections.
They've both won one each. (Unless you give BJ sole credit for Brexit vote?)
As for US, winning the Electoral College IS the election for US presidency, not winning a majority of popular votes cast - that's how Lincoln got in, among others.
No, Lincoln wasn't one of the FIVE popular vote losers to win the Electoral College.
1824 (unusual given there were THREE main candidates) 1876 Republican lost the popular vote 1888 Republican lost the popular vote 2000 Republican lost the popular vote 2016 Republican lost the popular vote
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
BoZo wants to be Trump which makes the comparison apt
More like Trump wants to be Boris: someone who actually wins elections.
They've both won one each. (Unless you give BJ sole credit for Brexit vote?)
As for US, winning the Electoral College IS the election for US presidency, not winning a majority of popular votes cast - that's how Lincoln got in, among others.
Of course we KNOW that Trumpsky lost in 2020, and ditto the GA runoffs day before yesterday.
Whereas future electoral fortune of Johnson (if any) is yet to be determined.
2019 - Boris won 365 seats to Labour's 202 and won the popular vote by 3.7 million (winning over a third more than Labour's vote). 2016 - Trump won 306 to 232 but lost the popular vote by 2.9 million.
Whoa. Did Boris Johnson actually just condemn Donald Trump for subverting democracy?
He did. Shocked he was so candid, but it was needed.
I think he broke my jaw. There was a sharp pain as it hit the floor.
You’re right he needed to, but I never thought he’d do it.
Trump is a nobody now. A dangerous nobody, but a nobody. I think he knows perfectly well how people only respected him because he was the President, but will still be shocked when people start condemning him. People who disliked him still having to kiss his arse seems like the primary perk of the job for a man like him.
Dangerously naive. The polling above seems like the perfect recipe for a civil war, to me. Many MILLIONS of Americans - generally white, highly armed - agree with the attempted storming of the Capitol
Millions of Brits supported the riots that led to the defacing of the Cenotaph.
Civil wars usually require (a) an actual attack on the rights of a minority of the populations, and (b) a charismatic an organised leader.
I don't think we're there yet in the US, although that might change.
One of the biggest challenges the West has over the next 50 years IMHO is moving peacefully to societies where Whites are no longer the majority.
Professor Eric Kaufman has written convincingly about this in his book Whiteshift.
Basically, right now many Whites feel threatened by that - and we're in a transition period where we have a large minority of minorities but still a clear white majority - but with little mixing.
We will get to a majority mixed race population by 2100, with whites at c.10-15% only of the population, and the key there is for that population to successfully inherit the cultural and political traditions of the national story *notwithstanding* its racial heritage.
This is a very delicate subject but it's one we don't talk enough about.
Genuine question: what exactly is there to discuss?
That the make up of society will be changing. It shouldn't matter, but it seems undeniable that matters of race and ethnicity do matter to a lot of people, and some think it needs to be discussed even more than it is. Bookshops right now are full of publishers seeking to capitalise on how much these things matter by increasing the available content. People just don't agree on how much or what, if anything, needs doing and by whom. There's a lot of good stuff out there to spark discussion I have no doubt.
I appreciate that but I still don't understand what there is discuss considering there's no going back now. The racial make-up of Britain especially is just what it is now and over time we will inter-reproduce and assimilate as we have done for thousands of years. Given enough time "minorities" will no longer be considered "minorities". For example: the Irish.
My entire family is non-native, albeit white European, and you would never know other than from my surname.
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
And I speak as a former subscriber.
And by what measure was Johnson an "Oxford star"?
Have any PBers actually tried reading one of Boris Johnson's "books"?
Quite.
Boris is not a great speaker, and not even a terribly good writer. Dare I say it, Leon of this parish is far superior.
Yes, the problem is that a fair proportion of Britons find clowning incompetence endearing. I don't think that I have met a foreigner who understands his appeal to the English.
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
And I speak as a former subscriber.
And by what measure was Johnson an "Oxford star"?
Have any PBers actually tried reading one of Boris Johnson's "books"?
Quite.
Boris is not a great speaker, and not even a terribly good writer. Dare I say it, Leon of this parish is far superior.
I own three of Boris's books (Churchill, Virgins, London) and two of Donald Trump's (Art of the Deal and Think Like a Billionaire).
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
BoZo wants to be Trump which makes the comparison apt
More like Trump wants to be Boris: someone who actually wins elections.
They've both won one each. (Unless you give BJ sole credit for Brexit vote?)
As for US, winning the Electoral College IS the election for US presidency, not winning a majority of popular votes cast - that's how Lincoln got in, among others.
Of course we KNOW that Trumpsky lost in 2020, and ditto the GA runoffs day before yesterday.
Whereas future electoral fortune of Johnson (if any) is yet to be determined.
You've forgotten (or are ignoring) the two mayoralty elections. Which were some achievement, given no other Tory has ever managed to win London, or even get particularly close.
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
And I speak as a former subscriber.
And by what measure was Johnson an "Oxford star"?
Have any PBers actually tried reading one of Boris Johnson's "books"?
Quite.
Boris is not a great speaker, and not even a terribly good writer. Dare I say it, Leon of this parish is far superior.
I own three of Boris's books (Churchill, Virgins, London) and two of Donald Trump's (Art of the Deal and Think Like a Billionaire).
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
And I speak as a former subscriber.
And by what measure was Johnson an "Oxford star"?
Have any PBers actually tried reading one of Boris Johnson's "books"?
Quite.
Boris is not a great speaker, and not even a terribly good writer. Dare I say it, Leon of this parish is far superior.
Yes, the problem is that a fair proportion of Britons find clowning incompetence endearing. I don't think that I have met a foreigner who understands his appeal to the English.
English ios the operational word. He really horrifies even the most rightwing and reactionary Scots. An elderly relativce, utterly Unionist and deferential to his betters, was appalled that a 'clown' could become PM. It's an interesting and highly indicative cultural difference.
Whoa. Did Boris Johnson actually just condemn Donald Trump for subverting democracy?
He did. Shocked he was so candid, but it was needed.
I think he broke my jaw. There was a sharp pain as it hit the floor.
You’re right he needed to, but I never thought he’d do it.
Trump is a nobody now. A dangerous nobody, but a nobody. I think he knows perfectly well how people only respected him because he was the President, but will still be shocked when people start condemning him. People who disliked him still having to kiss his arse seems like the primary perk of the job for a man like him.
Dangerously naive. The polling above seems like the perfect recipe for a civil war, to me. Many MILLIONS of Americans - generally white, highly armed - agree with the attempted storming of the Capitol
Millions of Brits supported the riots that led to the defacing of the Cenotaph.
Civil wars usually require (a) an actual attack on the rights of a minority of the populations, and (b) a charismatic an organised leader.
I don't think we're there yet in the US, although that might change.
One of the biggest challenges the West has over the next 50 years IMHO is moving peacefully to societies where Whites are no longer the majority.
Professor Eric Kaufman has written convincingly about this in his book Whiteshift.
Basically, right now many Whites feel threatened by that - and we're in a transition period where we have a large minority of minorities but still a clear white majority - but with little mixing.
We will get to a majority mixed race population by 2100, with whites at c.10-15% only of the population, and the key there is for that population to successfully inherit the cultural and political traditions of the national story *notwithstanding* its racial heritage.
This is a very delicate subject but it's one we don't talk enough about.
Genuine question: what exactly is there to discuss?
That the make up of society will be changing. It shouldn't matter, but it seems undeniable that matters of race and ethnicity do matter to a lot of people, and some think it needs to be discussed even more than it is. Bookshops right now are full of publishers seeking to capitalise on how much these things matter by increasing the available content. People just don't agree on how much or what, if anything, needs doing and by whom. There's a lot of good stuff out there to spark discussion I have no doubt.
I appreciate that but I still don't understand what there is discuss considering there's no going back now. The racial make-up of Britain especially is just what it is now and over time we will inter-reproduce and assimilate as we have done for thousands of years. Given enough time "minorities" will no longer be considered "minorities". For example: the Irish.
My entire family is non-native, albeit white European, and you would never know other than from my surname.
I don't think a great deal of discussion need be had. But a lot of people get very upset about race, from various directions, despite there being 'no going back', so much as it'd be nice to think it could be entirely ignored as a non-issue, I don't think that is likely given race seems to be increasing as an issue, to some people's despair and other people's joy.
I think that's the point though. Trump is no longer the de facto President of the United States of America.
There is no coup, there is no invocation of the 25th amendment and there is no impeachment. But the grown ups have got together and defanged him. They've removed his communications, they're making their own orders.
Trump seems to effectively be a prisoner within his own White House without any external communication. He has been dethroned in all but name while the grown ups move on without him.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I have a friend who actually knows a Uyghur from Sinkiang who has "disappeared" apparently to one of the camps (if not something worse). That brings the situation home in a way that just reading about it does not.\
Here in Seattle, much of the economy has been built over the past decades by doing massive trade with China, and bending over backwards to keep it flowing.
From time to time, our leaders have criticized China. For example, former Governor and Ambassador Gary Locke, a Chinese American who made himself virtually persona non grata. Ironically, he's been characterized as a Chinese agent by Trumpskite liars (sorry for redundancy!) BUT even Gary' governorship was characterized by free-trade frenzy to sell airplanes and apples and computers, with human rights being a neglected step-child. AND also short-changed our own workers and companies trying to compete with China on an uneven playing field.
In other words, WE have been complicit. And as a result, helped give Trumpsky his biggest opening.
This will be a MAJOR challenge for the Biden Administration, and think he knows it.
We believed that we would set an example to the PRC which would civilise them and lead them to democracy. Basically a Soviet Union mark 2. In our greed to milk huge profits from them, they have corrupted us. No politician, nation or party is responsible. But an arrogant, myopic groupthink is.
Nicely put. The Chinese observed after the fall of the Soviet Union that communism was never going to beat capitalism, so the only way to defeat the West was to become better at capitalism than we are...
Or at the least ensure that it did not break their own control. They've taken that lesson very seriously to heart.
Talking of press secretaries, has the mystery of why Allegra’s job, which she is supposed to take up next week, appears recently to have been advertised as vacant?
O/T Can anyone recommend the best solution for over-ear headphones, primarily for calls not music, for the iPhone 12.
Just upgraded from iPhone 6 and of course the 3.5mm jack plug socket is no more. Bought a cheap adapter from ebay which works fine for music but not recognised for phone calls (grrr!).
Bluetooth headphones? Wired headphones with a lightning socket? Better quality 3.5mm to lightning adapter?
Any help gratefully accepted. (This is GadgetProblemsolving.com right?)
Apple make a lightning to lightning+USB adapter which should let you plug a USB headset in
Cheers, not thought of that.
The Apple EarPods (lightning connector) which used to come in the box, can still be bought and are fine for voice stuff like calls/meetings, I also use them to record audio.
If you're looking to go wireless, the AirPods and Pro are both good, if costly. There are plenty of decent competitors, though.
To be fair to the Chinese, I can well believe that emancipation from conservative Islam would be genuinely liberating for many women.
Denying this is futile.
You know they're in labour camps where they're subject to forced abortions, sterilisation, compulsory "re-education" and torture for dissenters, right?
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
I have a friend who actually knows a Uyghur from Sinkiang who has "disappeared" apparently to one of the camps (if not something worse). That brings the situation home in a way that just reading about it does not.\
Here in Seattle, much of the economy has been built over the past decades by doing massive trade with China, and bending over backwards to keep it flowing.
From time to time, our leaders have criticized China. For example, former Governor and Ambassador Gary Locke, a Chinese American who made himself virtually persona non grata. Ironically, he's been characterized as a Chinese agent by Trumpskite liars (sorry for redundancy!) BUT even Gary' governorship was characterized by free-trade frenzy to sell airplanes and apples and computers, with human rights being a neglected step-child. AND also short-changed our own workers and companies trying to compete with China on an uneven playing field.
In other words, WE have been complicit. And as a result, helped give Trumpsky his biggest opening.
This will be a MAJOR challenge for the Biden Administration, and think he knows it.
We believed that we would set an example to the PRC which would civilise them and lead them to democracy. Basically a Soviet Union mark 2. In our greed to milk huge profits from them, they have corrupted us. No politician, nation or party is responsible. But an arrogant, myopic groupthink is.
Nicely put. The Chinese observed after the fall of the Soviet Union that communism was never going to beat capitalism, so the only way to defeat the West was to become better at capitalism than we are...
They drew the lessons of the fall of the Soviet Union in a far more nuanced way than we (the West) did. And then applied them. While we were doing a lap of honour patting ourselves on the back for being spot on 100% right all along.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
BoZo wants to be Trump which makes the comparison apt
More like Trump wants to be Boris: someone who actually wins elections.
They've both won one each. (Unless you give BJ sole credit for Brexit vote?)
As for US, winning the Electoral College IS the election for US presidency, not winning a majority of popular votes cast - that's how Lincoln got in, among others.
Of course we KNOW that Trumpsky lost in 2020, and ditto the GA runoffs day before yesterday.
Whereas future electoral fortune of Johnson (if any) is yet to be determined.
You've forgotten (or are ignoring) the two mayoralty elections. Which were some achievement, given no other Tory has ever managed to win London, or even get particularly close.
That’s because the Tories have generally chosen to put up duffers.
As shit as I believe Boris is, he is certainly less shit than Zac Goldsmith.
Talking of press secretaries, has the mystery of why Allegra’s job, which she is supposed to take up next week, appears recently to have been advertised as vacant?
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
BoZo wants to be Trump which makes the comparison apt
More like Trump wants to be Boris: someone who actually wins elections.
They've both won one each. (Unless you give BJ sole credit for Brexit vote?)
As for US, winning the Electoral College IS the election for US presidency, not winning a majority of popular votes cast - that's how Lincoln got in, among others.
Of course we KNOW that Trumpsky lost in 2020, and ditto the GA runoffs day before yesterday.
Whereas future electoral fortune of Johnson (if any) is yet to be determined.
You've forgotten (or are ignoring) the two mayoralty elections. Which were some achievement, given no other Tory has ever managed to win London, or even get particularly close.
I stand corrected, I did forget the mayoral elections, and you are right, they WERE achievements.
Can remember at the time posting on here that Boris Johnson had as much chance of being elected mayor, as Dick Wittington's cat.
NOT among my finest predictions!
Which also raises the question, could Donald Trumpsky have been elected Mayor of New York City?
My guess is, maybe. After all, Mike Bloomberg was elected as successful businessman, a former registered Democrat who switched parties to make it onto the general election ballot.
Of course Mike B is a REAL business tycoon, not a fake one like The Donald.
Talking of press secretaries, has the mystery of why Allegra’s job, which she is supposed to take up next week, appears recently to have been advertised as vacant?
People don't even hear things when the person they follow and even worship says them.
Despite some similarities as per the cyclefree thread I don't think Corbyn is analagous to Trump, but there were many occasions where Corbyn might say something, and some of his most loyal online supporters would continue to take the contrary line, including defending him on a basis that he himself did not.
Which is not to say that Trump should not unequivocally say such things, and mean it, just that once the genie is out of the bottle it doesn't go back in.
While I condemn utterly the storming of the capitol in no uncertain terms I can't help thinking a lot here are wiffling when they huff and puff about it interrupting legal things.
All revolutions by their nature are illegal. Even the one that toppled Ceacescau and I think most would be applauding that one.
We condemn the capitol because we see it as democracy under threat ad that is currently how we govern ourselves therefore we see it as good. We applaud Ceacescu because it was a dictatorship and we see it as bad because thats not how we do things.
I do wonder though whether we are at the nether end of the representative democratic age, societies seem to polarised now and whoever is elected about half the country feels unrepresented. Look at america with republicans and democrats, brexit with remainers and leavers, the Johnson government where people claiming 53% of people voted against it. Macron and LePen though being french they seem to be more of the mind they don't really care who gets voted in as long as they don't try and implement any of the manifesto they got voted in for.
Is that to say democracy is dead? No but I think representative democracy is perhaps on life support in many places
Democracy needs renewal in a participatory direction, probably a radically participatory one. It's worth defending and preserving, but its flaws at the moment, in countries like the US and Britain, aren't just social and economic, but representational too.
It doesn't have flaws, it is working as intended.
The Americans just got rid of Trump and the Brits avoided his left wing mirror image last year. Two wins for democracy.
Any alternative system a Trump gets into power and he stays in power. Trump is on his way out now thanks to democracy working as it is supposed to do so.
It is Boris not Corbyn who is the British Trump. Charismatic and well-known from media appearances; winning the votes of those who'd lost their manufacturing jobs as the price of globalisation; blaming foreigners in Europe or China and Mexico. Boris is Trump.
No, Corbyn is Trump. Thankfully the Brits rejected him twice.
No, Boris is Trump. In addition to the similarities previously noted, both men are intelligent and highly educated but intellectually lazy; both are notoriously careless with facts; they are thin-skinned and duck accountability.
I hold Boris and Corbyn in very low regard, but if you take the worst halves of them combined, Trump is still in a completely different league of contempt. They both have some clear similarities with him, but also some clear differences.
Yes, quite.
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
The Spectator is not "the most revered political magazine in the world".
And I speak as a former subscriber.
And by what measure was Johnson an "Oxford star"?
Have any PBers actually tried reading one of Boris Johnson's "books"?
Quite.
Boris is not a great speaker, and not even a terribly good writer. Dare I say it, Leon of this parish is far superior.
Yes, the problem is that a fair proportion of Britons find clowning incompetence endearing. I don't think that I have met a foreigner who understands his appeal to the English.
English ios the operational word. He really horrifies even the most rightwing and reactionary Scots. An elderly relativce, utterly Unionist and deferential to his betters, was appalled that a 'clown' could become PM. It's an interesting and highly indicative cultural difference.
Comments
They're not in a friendly women's refuge complete with day trips to Butlins.
1). Biden cabinet dreary
2.) the other wings of the democratic government both woke and socialist.
I’ll deal in specifics. Biden spent the campaign running away and hiding from two questions.
Firstly, do you have a policy to extend the SC by appointing 5 liberal judges?
Secondly, do you intend to gerrymander US senate elections by making DC a state?
If you are going to take all the electoral pain and not go through with those policies, then why not answer no to them at some point in the campaign?
Boris has elements of populism in his persona, but he is also a very smart man, an Eton scholar, Oxford star, speaks Ancient Greek, able to write (when he can be arsed) like a dream, and was a brilliant editor of probably the most revered political magazine in the world.
This is not necessarily the skillset you want in a PM, especially during a plague. Arguably many prior PMs would have handled it better (or not). The Pest has severely tested every leader on earth.
Comparing him to a delusional, narcissistic, demented, quasi-would-be tyrant like Trump is nuts. Boris is bad or or good or mediocre or whatever, but Trump is exceptional.
I cannot think of a worse leader elected by a major (or even minor) western democracy since 1945. Trump is in a class of his own. He makes Berlusconi look like Julius Caesar. I challenge PBers to give me someone inferior, or more damaging, in that era.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRBI1VSO7hc&ab_channel=Movieclips
And I speak as a former subscriber.
As to the question, it's quite easy to think why he would not just say no to those - if he felt a failure to answer would cost him less votes than saying no. It might be thought a needless worry, but some of those other wings really don't seem to like him, and in some states it was very close and you could see why he would be worries about them staying home.
He has surprised me with on the upside with his pronouncements since the election, though.
How does this differ from prison?
I am not defending China one scintilla. It is an evil force in the world. But on this quite significant point, they have a point, Chinese women are much freer than women in conservative Islamic countries.
I accept this is like saying Mussolini's Italy is better than Hitler's Germany, for Jews, but the fact is: that was true
Consider that recent political eras might be classed as cold war, up to Thatcher and Reagan, followed by globalist, typified by Blair and Clinton, and most recently populists who court votes from those left behind as skilled jobs disappear, who blame foreigners whether in China or Europe, and who are charismatic leaders already familiar through media appearances. Like, say, Boris and Trump.
That is why it matters, not as a crude insult of one man or the other, or even to point at obvious personal parallels, but because they mark political changes from what went before. The question is not whether Boris is Trump -- clearly he is by this analysis -- but whether Starmer is Biden. Will populists inevitably be succeeded by dull centrists, if indeed that is what they are?
He constantly, continuously, infallibly, unendingly, inevitably, does the worst possible thing at the worst possible moment.
https://youtu.be/whKn5nepxh0
We don't need to think if, in this context, Boris is Trump and whether Starmer is Biden, the individual circumstances of each nation are different enough that as broad labels they are just unhelpful in restricting how we think about them both and respond to them.
They've done the same in Tibet, too.
Last time I went to London Zone 1 was to Liverpool Street station on 27th February last year. Primary goal was to spot a brand new Class 745 express train (success!), but I went upstairs for lunch and had a Leon Love Burger - yes, it was vegan, but tasty
Here in Seattle, much of the economy has been built over the past decades by doing massive trade with China, and bending over backwards to keep it flowing.
From time to time, our leaders have criticized China. For example, former Governor and Ambassador Gary Locke, a Chinese American who made himself virtually persona non grata. Ironically, he's been characterized as a Chinese agent by Trumpskite liars (sorry for redundancy!) BUT even Gary' governorship was characterized by free-trade frenzy to sell airplanes and apples and computers, with human rights being a neglected step-child. AND also short-changed our own workers and companies trying to compete with China on an uneven playing field.
In other words, WE have been complicit. And as a result, helped give Trumpsky his biggest opening.
This will be a MAJOR challenge for the Biden Administration, and think he knows it.
You can see a certain deadness in BoZo's eyes, knowing what he is saying is bollocks, because he couldn't be arsed to do his homework, again. Trump actually believes his own bullshit.
Just upgraded from iPhone 6 and of course the 3.5mm jack plug socket is no more. Bought a cheap adapter from ebay which works fine for music but not recognised for phone calls (grrr!).
Bluetooth headphones? Wired headphones with a lightning socket? Better quality 3.5mm to lightning adapter?
Any help gratefully accepted. (This is GadgetProblemsolving.com right?)
There is no genius hiding behind the curtain. Every action is a prat fall. Every announcement a punchline. Even death is met with a painted smile. He really does have the presence of a man with his trousers full of whitewash
That doesn't mean it's acceptable to put ethnic and religious minorities in forced labour camps and commit genocide against them as justification.
And I think you're deluding yourself if you think non ethnic-Han are going to ever be as "free" as Chinese women are to the limited extent that applies in their repressive communist state. They will be sterilised, ghettoised and progressively eliminated.
Of course, you know this, and you've said similar before, so I can only conclude you've decided to double-down on every possible controversy under your new moniker as a means to provoke others and entertain yourself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spectator#:~:text=The Spectator is a weekly,Telegraph newspaper, via Press Holdings.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-spectator-becomes-the-world-s-longest-lived-current-affairs-magazine
And its recent ex-editor - a brilliant commissioner of startling articles - is now the prime minister of the UK.
I struggle to think of any comparable "political magazine" but perhaps you know better.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/donald-harris-obituary-jm7b600l0
Time to wake up. Yes, that will cost us a bit. It risks costing us everything if we do nothing.
Basically a Soviet Union mark 2.
In our greed to milk huge profits from them, they have corrupted us. No politician, nation or party is responsible.
But an arrogant, myopic groupthink is.
https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1347305458856550407
Thanks @DecrepiterJohnL too.
As for US, winning the Electoral College IS the election for US presidency, not winning a majority of popular votes cast - that's how Lincoln got in, among others.
Of course we KNOW that Trumpsky lost in 2020, and ditto the GA runoffs day before yesterday.
Whereas future electoral fortune of Johnson (if any) is yet to be determined.
Yay! Where's the popcorn?
Forget the Europeans, waste of fucking space on this issue, same as they are on Russia. The coalescing of the Anglosphere with East Asian & South East Asian nations and India is strategically capable of putting China firmly on the back foot but it needs the US to lead.
I hope it will but I have my doubts.
Naturally, President Donald Trump was livid. About being locked out of his Twitter feed, that is.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/after-inciting-capitol-riot-trump-whines-to-advisers-why-cant-i-tweet?source=articles&via=rss&traffic_source=Connatix
Boris is not a great speaker, and not even a terribly good writer. Dare I say it, Leon of this parish is far superior.
We handed over the Hong Kong population to the PRC, just a few short years after their regime drove tanks over protesting students in Tiananmen Square. As if we cared a jot...
I said last night, in fact, that China was our worst nightmare: a malignant superpower, like the Soviet Union, but this time too big to fight and too rich to be opposed. We have to trade with a regime we find repellent
But I have also travelled widely across China, as I have travelled widely across the Muslim world. For decades.
In all honesty, I would rather be a woman in Xi's China than a woman in, say, Saudi or Afghanistan. You have greater freedoms, and you have more respect from wider society. You are not automatically regarded as severely inferior.
This is my personal western opinion as a white male. I may be entirely wrong.
And, in no way, am I exonerating China for its appalling crimes against women (like forced abortions and forced sterilisations, and worse)
But, as I say, it is like comparing Mussolini's Italy to Hitler's Germany, for the treatment of Jews.
Off Amazon, DOQAUS Ones. Only cost £25 and although no Sennheiser they are surprisingly very good sound quality and have an exceptional battery life. Probably made by forced labour in China though for that price. but way better than any other non-premium brand headphone I have used.
https://twitter.com/AshleyRParker/status/1347307493387612161
1824 (unusual given there were THREE main candidates)
1876 Republican lost the popular vote
1888 Republican lost the popular vote
2000 Republican lost the popular vote
2016 Republican lost the popular vote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_in_which_the_winner_lost_the_popular_vote
2016 - Trump won 306 to 232 but lost the popular vote by 2.9 million.
Not exactly the same thing at all.
My entire family is non-native, albeit white European, and you would never know other than from my surname.
There is no coup, there is no invocation of the 25th amendment and there is no impeachment. But the grown ups have got together and defanged him. They've removed his communications, they're making their own orders.
Trump seems to effectively be a prisoner within his own White House without any external communication. He has been dethroned in all but name while the grown ups move on without him.
If you're looking to go wireless, the AirPods and Pro are both good, if costly. There are plenty of decent competitors, though.
Sony
Jabra Elite
Anker Soundcore
And then applied them.
While we were doing a lap of honour patting ourselves on the back for being spot on 100% right all along.
As shit as I believe Boris is, he is certainly less shit than Zac Goldsmith.
Can remember at the time posting on here that Boris Johnson had as much chance of being elected mayor, as Dick Wittington's cat.
NOT among my finest predictions!
Which also raises the question, could Donald Trumpsky have been elected Mayor of New York City?
My guess is, maybe. After all, Mike Bloomberg was elected as successful businessman, a former registered Democrat who switched parties to make it onto the general election ballot.
Of course Mike B is a REAL business tycoon, not a fake one like The Donald.
Despite some similarities as per the cyclefree thread I don't think Corbyn is analagous to Trump, but there were many occasions where Corbyn might say something, and some of his most loyal online supporters would continue to take the contrary line, including defending him on a basis that he himself did not.
Which is not to say that Trump should not unequivocally say such things, and mean it, just that once the genie is out of the bottle it doesn't go back in.