Here's a prediction. Biden will not be harmed politically (domestically) by this, in fact he may even get a boost. And within a few short weeks Trump will be back claiming credit for the withdrawal.
It all depends how the next few days go. The avoidance of US casualties is the key.
If everyone gets home safely, the narrative that 20 years and billions of USD brought no benefit, just an army that capitulated in 20 seconds, so no point throwing good money after bad, might well work.
On tonight's Morning Consult poll a clear plurality of Americans say they would have opposed the withdrawal if it leads to the return of AQ and terrorists to Afghanistan, so Biden is taking a big risk
But as @rcs1000 has already explained Afghanistan and the Taliban were not the root cause of international Islamic terror.
So in order to defund international Islamic terror, what plans have you for the House of Saud?
Bin Laden based himself in Afghanistan and then fled to Pakistan not Saudi, indeed the House of Saud have become more wary of AQ and its affiliates as they know that Bin Laden wanted to replace them too.
Check the date of your WSJ article. Fifteen years after 9/11.
I again refer you to @rcs1000 's analysis of why Bin Ladin was hiding in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Rather more to do with the geography rather than the politics as I recall.
Yes and since 9/11 the House of Saud have made clear they have no truck with AQ and IS.
Topple the House of Saud and you would end up with something far worse, a Sunni version of the Islamic revolution in Iran on steroids maybe even ending up with a supreme leader looking not too dissimilar to Bin Laden
I asked you what your plans were for the House of Saud. I did not imply their overthrow. I was just interested how, in your bid to rid the world of Islamic terrorist groups how you proposed dealing with the Saudi Royal Family.
THE Scottish Government will today begin work on a multi-billion pound plan to provide every household with a minimum level of income to help tackle poverty. Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison will co-chair the first meeting of a steering group to develop the policy, which could necessitate massive tax rises. Ms Robison has also launched a month-long public consultation on how a revolutionary “minimum income guarantee” could be designed and delivered in Scotland.......
A recent report by the IPPR thinktank suggested a monthly core entitlement of £1,244 for a couple household, and £792 for a single person household, plus additional payments for children, could cost £7billion in Scotland in 2022/23, a sixth of the Holyrood budget.
Finally got around to reading The Machine Stops, a novella by EM Forster. Can't recommend it enough, despite being released in 1909 the dystopian story of a society degraded by dependence on technology feels incredibly relevant and, unlike some comparable books, it's very easy to read and not a slog *cough*1984/BraveNewWorld*cough* at any point.
Ordered from library. Ta.
I remember reading "A machine stops" at school in the 70s. It was part of a selection which we did for O Level. "20th Century Short Stories" I think. It also included A secret life of Walter Mitty, and The Destructors, a story by Graeme Greene about a gang of kids who destroy a house on a bomb site, and also "Dark they were and Golden-eyed", a scifi story by an author I've forgotten.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
I fully expect HMG will accept Afghan refugees especially those who have helped together with women and children
However, no matter how generous HMG may be the need is far bigger than anything the UK as a whole could accept and it is essential the EU and the US step up to the plate
I understand Germany only took 7 out yesterday and if that is true it is shocking and inexcusable
We need an international response where we take our fair share. As we refused to do that with Syrians why do you think we will do so with Afghans now that we have left the international community arrangements for refugees?
Sadly the good people of England have been hardened against human suffering and that smirking cow Patel will instead double down on restrictions so that we don't get future Home Secretary Patels.
Home Secretary Priti Patel is in serious trouble this morning over the plight of Afghan interpreters who helped British forces and have now had their asylum applications rejected by the Home Office. The Times’ Manveen Rana and Larisa Brown tell the story of Ahmadzai, who had his permission to come to the U.K. revoked last week. Now he’s in hiding after the Taliban raided his home in Kabul. It is hard to exaggerate the strength of feeling among Tory MPs over Afghan interpreters being denied the right to come to Britain by the Home Office. You can imagine Patel could find herself in an extremely difficult position over the coming days.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Home Secretary Priti Patel is in serious trouble this morning over the plight of Afghan interpreters who helped British forces and have now had their asylum applications rejected by the Home Office. The Times’ Manveen Rana and Larisa Brown tell the story of Ahmadzai, who had his permission to come to the U.K. revoked last week. Now he’s in hiding after the Taliban raided his home in Kabul. It is hard to exaggerate the strength of feeling among Tory MPs over Afghan interpreters being denied the right to come to Britain by the Home Office. You can imagine Patel could find herself in an extremely difficult position over the coming days.
When he says “denied by the Home Office”, that seems to be giving the PM too much of a free pass. This sort of situation is exactly why we have Cabinet government. Was it really not discussed by the group?
Finally got around to reading The Machine Stops, a novella by EM Forster. Can't recommend it enough, despite being released in 1909 the dystopian story of a society degraded by dependence on technology feels incredibly relevant and, unlike some comparable books, it's very easy to read and not a slog *cough*1984/BraveNewWorld*cough* at any point.
Ordered from library. Ta.
I remember reading "A machine stops" at school in the 70s. It was part of a selection which we did for O Level. "20th Century Short Stories" I think. It also included A secret life of Walter Mitty, and The Destructors, a story by Graeme Greene about a gang of kids who destroy a house on a bomb site, and also "Dark they were and Golden-eyed", a scifi story by an author I've forgotten.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
Mr. Z, aye, I forgot the copyright stuff probably meant there'd be a free version somewhere. Still, 72p isn't the end of the world.
King Cole, it's one of the things I find fascinating, just how basic items being made easily has utterly transformed the world. Videos on rope-making and books like Jeffrey L. Singman's The Middle Ages (Everyday Life) highlight an unspoken but enormous gulf between modern times and the distant past. Things just cost a fortune. The average person in the 13th century, say, only had two full sets of clothes. But labour was incredibly cheap.
It does make me smile, remembering of the Milibandit youth tweeting from his iPad about his poverty.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
Not often I agree with HYUFD but I think he’s spot on here.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
I fully expect HMG will accept Afghan refugees especially those who have helped together with women and children
However, no matter how generous HMG may be the need is far bigger than anything the UK as a whole could accept and it is essential the EU and the US step up to the plate
I understand Germany only took 7 out yesterday and if that is true it is shocking and inexcusable
It's not shocking - in the sense of surprising. You can hear some interesting things when you give Germans a few beers and they think that no non-Europeans are about.
This is probably very biased but does reflect the views of Austria
Yes, I've heard that stuff. When I worked for a major oil company, we got quite a few people moving directly from country X to London. Because of the nature of the oil business, these were often not ultra westernised people. They were educated professionals, but not necessarily cosmopolitan.
What was interesting was the adjustment process - some needed serious amounts of head time to process their new environment. A number couldn't deal with a liberal society and went home.
It reminded me of something I read in Winds Sand and Stars....
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
Fine but how do we check none of them are jihadi militants who as soon as they arrive will fade into the background and set up a terror cell?
THE Scottish Government will today begin work on a multi-billion pound plan to provide every household with a minimum level of income to help tackle poverty. Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison will co-chair the first meeting of a steering group to develop the policy, which could necessitate massive tax rises. Ms Robison has also launched a month-long public consultation on how a revolutionary “minimum income guarantee” could be designed and delivered in Scotland.......
A recent report by the IPPR thinktank suggested a monthly core entitlement of £1,244 for a couple household, and £792 for a single person household, plus additional payments for children, could cost £7billion in Scotland in 2022/23, a sixth of the Holyrood budget.
THE Scottish Government will today begin work on a multi-billion pound plan to provide every household with a minimum level of income to help tackle poverty. Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison will co-chair the first meeting of a steering group to develop the policy, which could necessitate massive tax rises. Ms Robison has also launched a month-long public consultation on how a revolutionary “minimum income guarantee” could be designed and delivered in Scotland.......
A recent report by the IPPR thinktank suggested a monthly core entitlement of £1,244 for a couple household, and £792 for a single person household, plus additional payments for children, could cost £7billion in Scotland in 2022/23, a sixth of the Holyrood budget.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
I fully expect HMG will accept Afghan refugees especially those who have helped together with women and children
However, no matter how generous HMG may be the need is far bigger than anything the UK as a whole could accept and it is essential the EU and the US step up to the plate
I understand Germany only took 7 out yesterday and if that is true it is shocking and inexcusable
We need an international response where we take our fair share. As we refused to do that with Syrians why do you think we will do so with Afghans now that we have left the international community arrangements for refugees?
Sadly the good people of England have been hardened against human suffering and that smirking cow Patel will instead double down on restrictions so that we don't get future Home Secretary Patels.
I cannot support Patel in her post not least because she has been an utter failure and should have been replaced long ago
However, let us wait and see just what Boris and HMG propose and we both agree this needs an international response
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
The main news from that new Morning Consult poll is that 58% of Republican voters now think the withdrawal from Afghanistan was wrong.
If the withdrawal creates an opening for Al Qaeda and other terrorist operations to establish operations in Afghanistan again then US voters by 48% to 35% agree the US should not have withdrawn its military operations in Afghanistan https://morningconsult.com/2021/08/16/afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-polling/
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
Fine but how do we check none of them are jihadi militants who as soon as they arrive will fade into the background and set up a terror cell?
The new leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was interrogated for years at Guantanamo and still talked his way out claiming he wanted to work in his father’s shop. What do you reckon can be done in this urgent situation? There might well be some wronguns who slip through the net but that’s the price the West will have to pay for doing what it’s done.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Mr. kjh, I was very pleasantly surprised just how well the story/theme chimes with the modern world. Not to mention the writer predicts (effectively) the internet and instant messaging in 1909.
I sometimes watch the Modern History TV channel on Youtube. I forget the precise way to make a toothbrush from a twig, but do know how to make (pretty basic) soap. Things like waxed linen and rush lights/reed lights were also especially interesting.
We'd be utterly lost without technology. It's not a bad thing to progress scientifically, but we do need to be wary of overreliance.
Seem to dimly really how to make a toothbrush from a twig from Scouting for Boys, or similar.
Wonder if one can still buy that. Might have some useful tips.
Home Secretary Priti Patel is in serious trouble this morning over the plight of Afghan interpreters who helped British forces and have now had their asylum applications rejected by the Home Office. The Times’ Manveen Rana and Larisa Brown tell the story of Ahmadzai, who had his permission to come to the U.K. revoked last week. Now he’s in hiding after the Taliban raided his home in Kabul. It is hard to exaggerate the strength of feeling among Tory MPs over Afghan interpreters being denied the right to come to Britain by the Home Office. You can imagine Patel could find herself in an extremely difficult position over the coming days.
Fair play to him, acting as the captain of his ship. Best of British.
Quite some career he’s had too, was the Russian ambassador at the time of the Salisbury poisonings.
What honour can you give to someone who already has a KCMG?
God Calls Me God....
Woolley: In the [civil] service, CMG stands for "Call Me God". And KCMG for "Kindly Call Me God". Hacker: What does GCMG stand for? Woolley (deadpan): "God Calls Me God".
Former US President George W Bush 'Laura and I have been watching the tragic events unfolding in Afghanistan with deep sadness. Our hearts are heavy for both the Afghan people who have suffered so much and for the Americans and NATO allies who have sacrificed so much.
The Afghans now at the greatest risk are the same ones who have been on the forefront of progress inside their nation. President Biden has promised to evacuate these Afghans, along with American citizens and our allies. The United States government has the legal authority to cut the red tape for refugees during urgent humanitarian crises. And we have the responsibility and the resources to secure safe passage for them now, without bureaucratic delay. Our most stalwart allies, along with private NGOs, are ready to help....' https://www.bushcenter.org/about-the-center/newsroom/press-releases/2021/08/statement-president-and-mrs-bush-afghanistan.html
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
The main news from that new Morning Consult poll is that 58% of Republican voters now think the withdrawal from Afghanistan was wrong.
If the withdrawal creates an opening for Al Qaeda and other terrorist operations to establish operations in Afghanistan again then US voters by 48% to 35% agree the US should not have withdrawn its military operations in Afghanistan https://morningconsult.com/2021/08/16/afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-polling/
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
Fine but how do we check none of them are jihadi militants who as soon as they arrive will fade into the background and set up a terror cell?
THE Scottish Government will today begin work on a multi-billion pound plan to provide every household with a minimum level of income to help tackle poverty. Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison will co-chair the first meeting of a steering group to develop the policy, which could necessitate massive tax rises. Ms Robison has also launched a month-long public consultation on how a revolutionary “minimum income guarantee” could be designed and delivered in Scotland.......
A recent report by the IPPR thinktank suggested a monthly core entitlement of £1,244 for a couple household, and £792 for a single person household, plus additional payments for children, could cost £7billion in Scotland in 2022/23, a sixth of the Holyrood budget.
THE Scottish Government will today begin work on a multi-billion pound plan to provide every household with a minimum level of income to help tackle poverty. Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison will co-chair the first meeting of a steering group to develop the policy, which could necessitate massive tax rises. Ms Robison has also launched a month-long public consultation on how a revolutionary “minimum income guarantee” could be designed and delivered in Scotland.......
A recent report by the IPPR thinktank suggested a monthly core entitlement of £1,244 for a couple household, and £792 for a single person household, plus additional payments for children, could cost £7billion in Scotland in 2022/23, a sixth of the Holyrood budget.
Good! Let’s hope the UK government has the decency to follow suit.
Lets see how popular it is with the voters who have to pay for it - but it is a "brave" change from a government which has historically focussed on subsidising the middle classes....
Mr. Z, aye, I forgot the copyright stuff probably meant there'd be a free version somewhere. Still, 72p isn't the end of the world.
King Cole, it's one of the things I find fascinating, just how basic items being made easily has utterly transformed the world. Videos on rope-making and books like Jeffrey L. Singman's The Middle Ages (Everyday Life) highlight an unspoken but enormous gulf between modern times and the distant past. Things just cost a fortune. The average person in the 13th century, say, only had two full sets of clothes. But labour was incredibly cheap.
It does make me smile, remembering of the Milibandit youth tweeting from his iPad about his poverty.
I read somewhere that up until about 1935 or so your average 14thC British peasant could have been fast forwarded to the 20thC and been able to work on a farm, since many, if not most of the implements used to have been familiar. Threshing machines would have been the only exceptions.
Interestingly it was about then that my farmer grandfather was, apparently, persuaded to buy his first tractor.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
I fully expect HMG will accept Afghan refugees especially those who have helped together with women and children
However, no matter how generous HMG may be the need is far bigger than anything the UK as a whole could accept and it is essential the EU and the US step up to the plate
I understand Germany only took 7 out yesterday and if that is true it is shocking and inexcusable
We need an international response where we take our fair share. As we refused to do that with Syrians why do you think we will do so with Afghans now that we have left the international community arrangements for refugees?
Sadly the good people of England have been hardened against human suffering and that smirking cow Patel will instead double down on restrictions so that we don't get future Home Secretary Patels.
Surely you mean that Ms Patel is smirkin'
She does have a rather unfortunate way of speaking. I’m sure JRM grimaces at every missing consonant.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
I believe you are right.
Starmer, Mercer and HYUFD wailing on about Britain's dereliction of duty in Afghanistan will not play well to the RedWall crowd. Priti (following Macron's lead) is busy stamping "rejected" in red against visa applications for interpreters and this will also play well where it matters.
Johnson is a lucky General, and without doing anything other than attend some meetings yesterday that he doubtless slept through, he has again played a political blinder.*
* All this is on the assumption we get our boys and girls back safely and quickly.
Fair play to him, acting as the captain of his ship. Best of British.
Quite some career he’s had too, was the Russian ambassador at the time of the Salisbury poisonings.
What honour can you give to someone who already has a KCMG?
God Calls Me God....
Woolley: In the [civil] service, CMG stands for "Call Me God". And KCMG for "Kindly Call Me God". Hacker: What does GCMG stand for? Woolley (deadpan): "God Calls Me God".
Ah, yes. I thought there might be one more. It will be well deserved in this case, if things can go somewhat according to plan over the coming weeks.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
The main news from that new Morning Consult poll is that 58% of Republican voters now think the withdrawal from Afghanistan was wrong.
If the withdrawal creates an opening for Al Qaeda and other terrorist operations to establish operations in Afghanistan again then US voters by 48% to 35% agree the US should not have withdrawn its military operations in Afghanistan https://morningconsult.com/2021/08/16/afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-polling/
So Biden and Harris are taking a huge gamble
And how is that different to Trump
It is different in that Republican voters are now moving back in a neocon direction, which is hugely significant ahead of the 2024 GOP primaries and means Trump will have to toughen his line too if he wants to win the Republican nomination again
I see the Germany has been far too welcoming to refugees lads have pivoted.
At least Germany have been consistent.
They disagreed with Cameron's plan to airlift the most vulnerable refugees out of the refugee camps preferring a policy that led directly to thousands dying trying to reach Europe and now they are refusing to help out with airlifting refugees out of Kabul, preferring to let them die at the hands of the Taliban.
Merkel and Reinfeldt had inner principles and morality. Cameron didn’t.
Yes, Germany and Sweden made mistakes, but - to be old-fashioned about it - they were acting as good Christians. To err is human.
England has caused countless tragedies throughout the world, and left it to other, better nations to clear up their mess.
Hmmm. I might remind you of Germany's fairly recent past wrt 'countless tragedies', and I doubt the Sami people would say Sweden has been prefect.
And Scotland was very complicit in some of the crime you probably place upon the 'English'. A lot of Glasgow's wealth came from the slave trade, for instance.
The jingo bells always get round to blaming it on the Scots, never fails.
I was replying to a jingoistic chap attempting to blame it all on the English, actually.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
Fine but how do we check none of them are jihadi militants who as soon as they arrive will fade into the background and set up a terror cell?
The new leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was interrogated for years at Guantanamo and still talked his way out claiming he wanted to work in his father’s shop. What do you reckon can be done in this urgent situation? There might well be some wronguns who slip through the net but that’s the price the West will have to pay for doing what it’s done.
Mr. Z, aye, I forgot the copyright stuff probably meant there'd be a free version somewhere. Still, 72p isn't the end of the world.
King Cole, it's one of the things I find fascinating, just how basic items being made easily has utterly transformed the world. Videos on rope-making and books like Jeffrey L. Singman's The Middle Ages (Everyday Life) highlight an unspoken but enormous gulf between modern times and the distant past. Things just cost a fortune. The average person in the 13th century, say, only had two full sets of clothes. But labour was incredibly cheap.
It does make me smile, remembering of the Milibandit youth tweeting from his iPad about his poverty.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
Not often I agree with HYUFD but I think he’s spot on here.
While I agree this is appalling for Biden (and far more important Afghanistan) how can people have so short memories. Trump challenged a democratic election and supported an invasion of the country's parliament and took his country to the verge of civil war yet Biden becomes the worst for 100 years?
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
I believe you are right.
Starmer, Mercer and HYUFD wailing on about Britain's dereliction of duty in Afghanistan will not play well to the RedWall crowd. Priti (following Macron's lead) is busy stamping "rejected" in red against visa applications for interpreters and this will also play well where it matters.
Johnson is a lucky General, and without doing anything other than attend some meetings yesterday that he doubtless slept through, he has again played a political blinder.*
* All this is on the assumption we get our boys and girls back safely and quickly.
Do you really think it wise to have a PM sleeping through meetings when servicemen and women are in mortal danger? The Clown is no Churchill.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
I believe you are right.
Starmer, Mercer and HYUFD wailing on about Britain's dereliction of duty in Afghanistan will not play well to the RedWall crowd. Priti (following Macron's lead) is busy stamping "rejected" in red against visa applications for interpreters and this will also play well where it matters.
Johnson is a lucky General, and without doing anything other than attend some meetings yesterday that he doubtless slept through, he has again played a political blinder.*
* All this is on the assumption we get our boys and girls back safely and quickly.
For now, if we get another terrorist attack in the UK by terrorists who originally came from Afghanistan it would be a different story
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
I believe you are right.
Starmer, Mercer and HYUFD wailing on about Britain's dereliction of duty in Afghanistan will not play well to the RedWall crowd. Priti (following Macron's lead) is busy stamping "rejected" in red against visa applications for interpreters and this will also play well where it matters.
Johnson is a lucky General, and without doing anything other than attend some meetings yesterday that he doubtless slept through, he has again played a political blinder.*
* All this is on the assumption we get our boys and girls back safely and quickly.
Suggest that 'What were our boys doing fighting and dying there?' might be heard along the Red Wall as well. And Red Wallers usually pay their debts, so abandoning the 'people who helped' might not go down very well, either.
THE Scottish Government will today begin work on a multi-billion pound plan to provide every household with a minimum level of income to help tackle poverty. Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison will co-chair the first meeting of a steering group to develop the policy, which could necessitate massive tax rises. Ms Robison has also launched a month-long public consultation on how a revolutionary “minimum income guarantee” could be designed and delivered in Scotland.......
A recent report by the IPPR thinktank suggested a monthly core entitlement of £1,244 for a couple household, and £792 for a single person household, plus additional payments for children, could cost £7billion in Scotland in 2022/23, a sixth of the Holyrood budget.
Ah, Universal Basic Income again. The totally unviable idea that people can’t let die.
Easier and simpler way of paying benefits surely, anyone with moneys gets it taken back in tax.Must be an improvement on the horrible unfair system in place at present.
Cabinet splits have emerged over Afghanistan, with the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, accusing the Foreign Office of evacuating diplomats while leaving soldiers and Ministry of Defence staff to handle the fallout of the Taliban takeover. The frustrated minister told colleagues he believed there would be “a reckoning” for the Foreign Office after the crisis, sources told the Guardian.
He complained that diplomats had been “on the first plane out”, with MoD officials having to replace them and bear the brunt of processing resettlement claims for people trying to flee the Afghan capital......Wallace told senior colleagues he was frustrated at “18-year-old squaddies having to process visa applications of incredible complexity at speed” in an effort to get Afghans who helped the British during the 20-year conflict out of the country.
Wallace’s criticism came as the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, was under fire for being on holiday as the crisis unfolded in the past week. Raab and Boris Johnson curtailed breaks in Cyprus and Somerset respectively this weekend after holidaying at the same time.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
Fine but how do we check none of them are jihadi militants who as soon as they arrive will fade into the background and set up a terror cell?
Two options: 1. Properly resource our security service, our border agency and anti-radicalisation programs, or more likely 2. Accept the inference that all muslims (and anyone who looks "muslim" are potential terrorists and seek to not let any of them in. A nice off-shore camp somewhere like Bagram AFB perhaps to deter them as they are all scroungers here to take all the jobs and claim benefits and set up a terror cell. "We don't want them here."
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
Not often I agree with HYUFD but I think he’s spot on here.
While I agree this is appalling for Biden (and far more important Afghanistan) how can people have so short memories. Trump challenged a democratic election and supported an invasion of the country's parliament and took his country to the verge of civil war yet Biden becomes the worst for 100 years?
It took 4 years for Trump to plunge to those depths. Grandpa Joe is just getting started…
Cabinet splits have emerged over Afghanistan, with the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, accusing the Foreign Office of evacuating diplomats while leaving soldiers and Ministry of Defence staff to handle the fallout of the Taliban takeover. The frustrated minister told colleagues he believed there would be “a reckoning” for the Foreign Office after the crisis, sources told the Guardian.
He complained that diplomats had been “on the first plane out”, with MoD officials having to replace them and bear the brunt of processing resettlement claims for people trying to flee the Afghan capital......Wallace told senior colleagues he was frustrated at “18-year-old squaddies having to process visa applications of incredible complexity at speed” in an effort to get Afghans who helped the British during the 20-year conflict out of the country.
Wallace’s criticism came as the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, was under fire for being on holiday as the crisis unfolded in the past week. Raab and Boris Johnson curtailed breaks in Cyprus and Somerset respectively this weekend after holidaying at the same time.
To be fair (see my comment earlier about the Mail) I'm inclined to take stories about severe, or potentially severe, problems for the Tories in the Guardian with a pinch of salt as well.
Just watched Auschwitz on TV. Only place ever affected me the way Culloden does. Both represent the attempt to exterminate a people & their culture. Names at Culloden my family names. Nameless at Auchwitz belong to all of us. Unfortunately world has learned little
Another Scotch expert appears, perhaps in your mind 3 out of 17 battalions was mainly Scots right enough and led by that famous Scot Butcher Cumberland son of the English King.
Home Secretary Priti Patel is in serious trouble this morning over the plight of Afghan interpreters who helped British forces and have now had their asylum applications rejected by the Home Office. The Times’ Manveen Rana and Larisa Brown tell the story of Ahmadzai, who had his permission to come to the U.K. revoked last week. Now he’s in hiding after the Taliban raided his home in Kabul. It is hard to exaggerate the strength of feeling among Tory MPs over Afghan interpreters being denied the right to come to Britain by the Home Office. You can imagine Patel could find herself in an extremely difficult position over the coming days.
When he says “denied by the Home Office”, that seems to be giving the PM too much of a free pass. This sort of situation is exactly why we have Cabinet government. Was it really not discussed by the group?
The Tory Cabinet don’t work as a team. How can they when they lack leadership?
The principles of teamwork are simple, but fiendishly difficult in practice. The Conservatives lack the necessary culture of mutual respect, which is the very foundation everything else is built upon.
Mr. Z, aye, I forgot the copyright stuff probably meant there'd be a free version somewhere. Still, 72p isn't the end of the world.
King Cole, it's one of the things I find fascinating, just how basic items being made easily has utterly transformed the world. Videos on rope-making and books like Jeffrey L. Singman's The Middle Ages (Everyday Life) highlight an unspoken but enormous gulf between modern times and the distant past. Things just cost a fortune. The average person in the 13th century, say, only had two full sets of clothes. But labour was incredibly cheap.
It does make me smile, remembering of the Milibandit youth tweeting from his iPad about his poverty.
I read somewhere that up until about 1935 or so your average 14thC British peasant could have been fast forwarded to the 20thC and been able to work on a farm, since many, if not most of the implements used to have been familiar. Threshing machines would have been the only exceptions.
Interestingly it was about then that my farmer grandfather was, apparently, persuaded to buy his first tractor.
As a young lad in about 1950, my dad learnt to plough with a horse. They had a couple of tractors on the farm he was living on at the time, but horse-ploughing was still seen as a useful backup on poor-quality land. I believe a nearby farm still had steam ploughs they used. Given his later life, I don't think he particularly took to it, and much preferred tractors.
As for your central point: I'm unsure it'd be that late. Mechanisation and improved processes came in much earlier, hence why employment in agriculture in the UK decreased massively. I'm surprised by the chart below, which shows agricultural employment decreasing as early as 1500, though.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
Not often I agree with HYUFD but I think he’s spot on here.
While I agree this is appalling for Biden (and far more important Afghanistan) how can people have so short memories. Trump challenged a democratic election and supported an invasion of the country's parliament and took his country to the verge of civil war yet Biden becomes the worst for 100 years?
It took 4 years for Trump to plunge to those depths. Grandpa Joe is just getting started…
So you think Biden is just building up to a dictatorship then? Really?
Just watched Auschwitz on TV. Only place ever affected me the way Culloden does. Both represent the attempt to exterminate a people & their culture. Names at Culloden my family names. Nameless at Auchwitz belong to all of us. Unfortunately world has learned little
Another Scotch expert appears, perhaps in your mind 3 out of 17 battalions was mainly Scots right enough and led by that famous Scot Butcher Cumberland son of the English King.
Don’t waste your time Malcolm. For them ethnic cleansing is just another jolly imperial jape.
King Cole, well, there's a slight fashion for living history and the like so said time travelling peasantry could always find work there.
They'd probably be bemused by the lack of violence and small pitches for football, though.
Kingdom Come Deliverance is a fantastic game high on historical accuracy, set in a small corner of Bohemia (Czech Republic). One of the most initially odd things was how often God was referenced in day to day life (not that that's entirely vanished).
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
Not often I agree with HYUFD but I think he’s spot on here.
While I agree this is appalling for Biden (and far more important Afghanistan) how can people have so short memories. Trump challenged a democratic election and supported an invasion of the country's parliament and took his country to the verge of civil war yet Biden becomes the worst for 100 years?
It took 4 years for Trump to plunge to those depths. Grandpa Joe is just getting started…
So you think Biden is just building up to a dictatorship then? Really?
Strangely enough, no I do not think that. But I do think when looked at over the long arc of history, his administration will likely end up causing more harm to Western civilisation than Trump did. Hopefully he proves me wrong.
THE Scottish Government will today begin work on a multi-billion pound plan to provide every household with a minimum level of income to help tackle poverty. Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison will co-chair the first meeting of a steering group to develop the policy, which could necessitate massive tax rises. Ms Robison has also launched a month-long public consultation on how a revolutionary “minimum income guarantee” could be designed and delivered in Scotland.......
A recent report by the IPPR thinktank suggested a monthly core entitlement of £1,244 for a couple household, and £792 for a single person household, plus additional payments for children, could cost £7billion in Scotland in 2022/23, a sixth of the Holyrood budget.
Ah, Universal Basic Income again. The totally unviable idea that people can’t let die.
Easier and simpler way of paying benefits surely, anyone with moneys gets it taken back in tax.Must be an improvement on the horrible unfair system in place at present.
But you end up with insanely high tax rates to pay for it. Which would then discourage people from working.
@Philip_Thompson has commented in the past over the impact that the taper relief has on universal credit and that would be nothing compared to the levels required for a Universal Basic Income.
So it's a scheme that looks great on paper but would die on implementation unless our Government was way smaller...
THE Scottish Government will today begin work on a multi-billion pound plan to provide every household with a minimum level of income to help tackle poverty. Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison will co-chair the first meeting of a steering group to develop the policy, which could necessitate massive tax rises. Ms Robison has also launched a month-long public consultation on how a revolutionary “minimum income guarantee” could be designed and delivered in Scotland.......
A recent report by the IPPR thinktank suggested a monthly core entitlement of £1,244 for a couple household, and £792 for a single person household, plus additional payments for children, could cost £7billion in Scotland in 2022/23, a sixth of the Holyrood budget.
Ah, Universal Basic Income again. The totally unviable idea that people can’t let die.
Easier and simpler way of paying benefits surely, anyone with moneys gets it taken back in tax.Must be an improvement on the horrible unfair system in place at present.
There are a lot more losers than winners from such a policy, and to make it work one has to eliminate all other benefits, including personal allowances, housing benefit and state pensions. The payment is simply too low to live in a lot of cities, so one effect will be migration away from these areas.
The main advantages are huge savings in the means testing infrastructure, job centres can be closed etc. The financial savings are not enough to avoid huge rises in headline income tax rates.
The current system isn’t perfect, but is a massive improvement from the previous system, where working a few extra hours a week could cost you hundreds in benefits.
Nope. In the moron stakes you easily out-class Philip.
I disagree with Philip on lots of things, but I reluctantly agree that he is bloody good. He has the knowledge and he has the arguments.
You on the other hand are a classic moron. You misunderstand, you misrepresent, you often fail to answer straight questions, you sometimes talk gibberish and you unwittingly let things slip. Your only use is as an example of all that is foul about the Conservative Party. And the cherry on the cake is that you are a thug, always sticking up for the biggest bullies in any given scenario. Trump, PP, DUP, the Saudis, the Catalonian solution to the Scottish problem of hitting old ladies at polling stations, the list is endless.
The reason you hate Philip is that he is a better man than you.
I used to read an awful lot of Dilbert. In my mind’s eye, you are the Pointy-haired Boss. I bet your work colleagues can’t stand you.
Good morning everyone. Where has the summer gone? Down to 12.4 degC this am, and thick, unbroken, cloud.
Mr D you have, I'm afraid, gone far too far over the top. Yes, my fellow Essex resident can be a PIA, and yes, he can pick on the wrong, or unimportant, part of a discussion but I don't get the impression that he 'hates' anyone.
So I know it's a bad morning, a dreadful morning, for a lot of people today, but surely we can try to be at least moderately pleasant to each other.
I’m sorry. I did rather go too far there.
Unfortunately, there is good evidence that HYUFD does indeed “hate” Philip and other posters. He also displayed raw hatred on the night when England won the silver medal in the European Championship, which has been screenshot and the acting mod considered would hinder him from ever being a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Conservative Party. These are serious matters.
Where I went too far is in calling him the Pointy-haired Boss. That was unforgivable. Nobody in real life can be *that* big a moron. I’m sure FUDHY’s colleagues think he’s adorable. And his mum loves him. And the gerbil.
I am reminded of his assertion tout court a week or so back that, to my clear recollection*, "Scots don't count" [obviously in the context of the UK polity, else it'd be 'can't']. I queried that at the time as it denied any Scot any role in the democracy of the UK, even such upstanding Tories as David L [edit: invoked her eonly as an example: he was not part of the discussion].
Obviously the LEAST unfortunate explanation is that HYUFD really meant "MPs for Scottish constituencies can be ignored in the current Tory majority situation as far as I am concerned". But that is nonsense as we have several SCUP MPs. If he is being so sloppy with wording and logic ... and he did not, so far as I know, take the opportunity I offered him for a reverse ferret.
*I have just checked back and that conversation appears to have been deleted. The PB search engine is picking up words I know I used, but not that conversation itself.
I've just watched Biden's speech on Afghanistan. I though it was very good, and it was hard to disagree with the content. He doesn't pretend that decisions are easy.
It's good to see a leader just tell it like it is, not pretend the world is perfect, and, most of all, not lie.
THE Scottish Government will today begin work on a multi-billion pound plan to provide every household with a minimum level of income to help tackle poverty. Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison will co-chair the first meeting of a steering group to develop the policy, which could necessitate massive tax rises. Ms Robison has also launched a month-long public consultation on how a revolutionary “minimum income guarantee” could be designed and delivered in Scotland.......
A recent report by the IPPR thinktank suggested a monthly core entitlement of £1,244 for a couple household, and £792 for a single person household, plus additional payments for children, could cost £7billion in Scotland in 2022/23, a sixth of the Holyrood budget.
Ah, Universal Basic Income again. The totally unviable idea that people can’t let die.
Easier and simpler way of paying benefits surely, anyone with moneys gets it taken back in tax.Must be an improvement on the horrible unfair system in place at present.
But you end up with insanely high tax rates to pay for it. Which would then discourage people from working.
How many people paying the insanely high tax rate of 45% also claim universal benefit? Versus the people who pay either zero percent or 20%?
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
The USA is an equivalent of 6,100 refugees, and Canada's take is ~ 35,500 for the UK. The country won't have an issue with taking 36,000 Afghan refugees particularly if women and children are prioritised over fit young men of fighting age who shirked their responsibility to defend their own country.
Mr. Z, aye, I forgot the copyright stuff probably meant there'd be a free version somewhere. Still, 72p isn't the end of the world.
King Cole, it's one of the things I find fascinating, just how basic items being made easily has utterly transformed the world. Videos on rope-making and books like Jeffrey L. Singman's The Middle Ages (Everyday Life) highlight an unspoken but enormous gulf between modern times and the distant past. Things just cost a fortune. The average person in the 13th century, say, only had two full sets of clothes. But labour was incredibly cheap.
It does make me smile, remembering of the Milibandit youth tweeting from his iPad about his poverty.
I read somewhere that up until about 1935 or so your average 14thC British peasant could have been fast forwarded to the 20thC and been able to work on a farm, since many, if not most of the implements used to have been familiar. Threshing machines would have been the only exceptions.
Interestingly it was about then that my farmer grandfather was, apparently, persuaded to buy his first tractor.
As a young lad in about 1950, my dad learnt to plough with a horse. They had a couple of tractors on the farm he was living on at the time, but horse-ploughing was still seen as a useful backup on poor-quality land. I believe a nearby farm still had steam ploughs they used. Given his later life, I don't think he particularly took to it, and much preferred tractors.
As for your central point: I'm unsure it'd be that late. Mechanisation and improved processes came in much earlier, hence why employment in agriculture in the UK decreased massively. I'm surprised by the chart below, which shows agricultural employment decreasing as early as 1500, though.
THE Scottish Government will today begin work on a multi-billion pound plan to provide every household with a minimum level of income to help tackle poverty. Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison will co-chair the first meeting of a steering group to develop the policy, which could necessitate massive tax rises. Ms Robison has also launched a month-long public consultation on how a revolutionary “minimum income guarantee” could be designed and delivered in Scotland.......
A recent report by the IPPR thinktank suggested a monthly core entitlement of £1,244 for a couple household, and £792 for a single person household, plus additional payments for children, could cost £7billion in Scotland in 2022/23, a sixth of the Holyrood budget.
Ah, Universal Basic Income again. The totally unviable idea that people can’t let die.
Easier and simpler way of paying benefits surely, anyone with moneys gets it taken back in tax.Must be an improvement on the horrible unfair system in place at present.
But you end up with insanely high tax rates to pay for it. Which would then discourage people from working.
How many people paying the insanely high tax rate of 45% also claim universal benefit? Versus the people who pay either zero percent or 20%?
Anyone claiming universal credit due to taper relief on their benefits.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
I believe you are right.
Starmer, Mercer and HYUFD wailing on about Britain's dereliction of duty in Afghanistan will not play well to the RedWall crowd. Priti (following Macron's lead) is busy stamping "rejected" in red against visa applications for interpreters and this will also play well where it matters.
Johnson is a lucky General, and without doing anything other than attend some meetings yesterday that he doubtless slept through, he has again played a political blinder.*
* All this is on the assumption we get our boys and girls back safely and quickly.
Do you really think it wise to have a PM sleeping through meetings when servicemen and women are in mortal danger? The Clown is no Churchill.
No I don't. I can't bear Johnson, but I am suggesting how the political perception will play out once the dust settles.
My biggest surprise over the last days is HYUFD's tacit, but nonetheless withering criticism of the UK's role in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
I've just watched Biden's speech on Afghanistan. I though it was very good, and it was hard to disagree with the content. He doesn't pretend that decisions are easy.
It's good to see a leader just tell it like it is, not pretend the world is perfect, and, most of all, not lie.
Each to their own. I found him positively Trumpian with his own version of the truth and army of strawmen behind his back.
Cabinet splits have emerged over Afghanistan, with the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, accusing the Foreign Office of evacuating diplomats while leaving soldiers and Ministry of Defence staff to handle the fallout of the Taliban takeover. The frustrated minister told colleagues he believed there would be “a reckoning” for the Foreign Office after the crisis, sources told the Guardian.
He complained that diplomats had been “on the first plane out”, with MoD officials having to replace them and bear the brunt of processing resettlement claims for people trying to flee the Afghan capital......Wallace told senior colleagues he was frustrated at “18-year-old squaddies having to process visa applications of incredible complexity at speed” in an effort to get Afghans who helped the British during the 20-year conflict out of the country.
Wallace’s criticism came as the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, was under fire for being on holiday as the crisis unfolded in the past week. Raab and Boris Johnson curtailed breaks in Cyprus and Somerset respectively this weekend after holidaying at the same time.
On a tangent, if you are deputy PM, should you not be co-ordinating your holidays so that you are working when the PM is on holiday!? That seems to be an essential part of being deputy PM.
If they can't even manage the basics of responsibility no wonder we have the government we do.
THE Scottish Government will today begin work on a multi-billion pound plan to provide every household with a minimum level of income to help tackle poverty. Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison will co-chair the first meeting of a steering group to develop the policy, which could necessitate massive tax rises. Ms Robison has also launched a month-long public consultation on how a revolutionary “minimum income guarantee” could be designed and delivered in Scotland.......
A recent report by the IPPR thinktank suggested a monthly core entitlement of £1,244 for a couple household, and £792 for a single person household, plus additional payments for children, could cost £7billion in Scotland in 2022/23, a sixth of the Holyrood budget.
Mr. Z, aye, I forgot the copyright stuff probably meant there'd be a free version somewhere. Still, 72p isn't the end of the world.
King Cole, it's one of the things I find fascinating, just how basic items being made easily has utterly transformed the world. Videos on rope-making and books like Jeffrey L. Singman's The Middle Ages (Everyday Life) highlight an unspoken but enormous gulf between modern times and the distant past. Things just cost a fortune. The average person in the 13th century, say, only had two full sets of clothes. But labour was incredibly cheap.
It does make me smile, remembering of the Milibandit youth tweeting from his iPad about his poverty.
I read somewhere that up until about 1935 or so your average 14thC British peasant could have been fast forwarded to the 20thC and been able to work on a farm, since many, if not most of the implements used to have been familiar. Threshing machines would have been the only exceptions.
Interestingly it was about then that my farmer grandfather was, apparently, persuaded to buy his first tractor.
As a young lad in about 1950, my dad learnt to plough with a horse. They had a couple of tractors on the farm he was living on at the time, but horse-ploughing was still seen as a useful backup on poor-quality land. I believe a nearby farm still had steam ploughs they used. Given his later life, I don't think he particularly took to it, and much preferred tractors.
As for your central point: I'm unsure it'd be that late. Mechanisation and improved processes came in much earlier, hence why employment in agriculture in the UK decreased massively. I'm surprised by the chart below, which shows agricultural employment decreasing as early as 1500, though.
TBH, I was surprised at the thirties, and as I said, threshing machines were, I think, common by 1900 or so. Employment in agriculture, certainly in S. Wales declined in the 19thC because better wages were available in the mines. Many of my paternal ancestors left the land for the mines from 1840 or so.
My maternal grandfather's obituary, in 1937, said that he was 'a noted judge of ploughing'. Presumably with horses!
Home Secretary Priti Patel is in serious trouble this morning over the plight of Afghan interpreters who helped British forces and have now had their asylum applications rejected by the Home Office. The Times’ Manveen Rana and Larisa Brown tell the story of Ahmadzai, who had his permission to come to the U.K. revoked last week. Now he’s in hiding after the Taliban raided his home in Kabul. It is hard to exaggerate the strength of feeling among Tory MPs over Afghan interpreters being denied the right to come to Britain by the Home Office. You can imagine Patel could find herself in an extremely difficult position over the coming days.
Raab is much more of a moron than Patel. How that absolute dummy ever got a job never mind became a minister is unbelievable. He should be out on his erse tout suite.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
I fully expect HMG will accept Afghan refugees especially those who have helped together with women and children
However, no matter how generous HMG may be the need is far bigger than anything the UK as a whole could accept and it is essential the EU and the US step up to the plate
I understand Germany only took 7 out yesterday and if that is true it is shocking and inexcusable
We need an international response where we take our fair share. As we refused to do that with Syrians why do you think we will do so with Afghans now that we have left the international community arrangements for refugees?
Sadly the good people of England have been hardened against human suffering and that smirking cow Patel will instead double down on restrictions so that we don't get future Home Secretary Patels.
Surely you mean that Ms Patel is smirkin'
She does have a rather unfortunate way of speaking. I’m sure JRM grimaces at every missing consonant.
Actually it was Lord Digby Jones who had a go at Alex Scott (Olympics presenter) for droppin' her "ings", but he didn't have a go at Priti for speakin' exactly the same way.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
The main news from that new Morning Consult poll is that 58% of Republican voters now think the withdrawal from Afghanistan was wrong.
If the withdrawal creates an opening for Al Qaeda and other terrorist operations to establish operations in Afghanistan again then US voters by 48% to 35% agree the US should not have withdrawn its military operations in Afghanistan https://morningconsult.com/2021/08/16/afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-polling/
So Biden and Harris are taking a huge gamble
The withdrawal will also create an Afghan refugee crisis, and, as proved by that remarkable and depressing article linked below, if you allow in a lot of Afghan refugees, you get a lot of rapists. I had not realised the scale of the problem until I did as the article advises - Google the words ‘rape’, ‘Afghan’, ‘refugee’, or ‘asylum’ in some form, particularly in their German equivalents
THE Scottish Government will today begin work on a multi-billion pound plan to provide every household with a minimum level of income to help tackle poverty. Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison will co-chair the first meeting of a steering group to develop the policy, which could necessitate massive tax rises. Ms Robison has also launched a month-long public consultation on how a revolutionary “minimum income guarantee” could be designed and delivered in Scotland.......
A recent report by the IPPR thinktank suggested a monthly core entitlement of £1,244 for a couple household, and £792 for a single person household, plus additional payments for children, could cost £7billion in Scotland in 2022/23, a sixth of the Holyrood budget.
Just watched Auschwitz on TV. Only place ever affected me the way Culloden does. Both represent the attempt to exterminate a people & their culture. Names at Culloden my family names. Nameless at Auchwitz belong to all of us. Unfortunately world has learned little
Another Scotch expert appears, perhaps in your mind 3 out of 17 battalions was mainly Scots right enough and led by that famous Scot Butcher Cumberland son of the English King.
Don’t waste your time Malcolm. For them ethnic cleansing is just another jolly imperial jape.
You really should be banned for posting rubbish like that.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
I believe you are right.
Starmer, Mercer and HYUFD wailing on about Britain's dereliction of duty in Afghanistan will not play well to the RedWall crowd. Priti (following Macron's lead) is busy stamping "rejected" in red against visa applications for interpreters and this will also play well where it matters.
Johnson is a lucky General, and without doing anything other than attend some meetings yesterday that he doubtless slept through, he has again played a political blinder.*
* All this is on the assumption we get our boys and girls back safely and quickly.
Do you really think it wise to have a PM sleeping through meetings when servicemen and women are in mortal danger? The Clown is no Churchill.
No I don't. I can't bear Johnson, but I am suggesting how the political perception will play out once the dust settles.
My biggest surprise over the last days is HYUFD's tacit, but nonetheless withering criticism of the UK's role in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
I fully expect HMG will accept Afghan refugees especially those who have helped together with women and children
However, no matter how generous HMG may be the need is far bigger than anything the UK as a whole could accept and it is essential the EU and the US step up to the plate
I understand Germany only took 7 out yesterday and if that is true it is shocking and inexcusable
We need an international response where we take our fair share. As we refused to do that with Syrians why do you think we will do so with Afghans now that we have left the international community arrangements for refugees?
Sadly the good people of England have been hardened against human suffering and that smirking cow Patel will instead double down on restrictions so that we don't get future Home Secretary Patels.
Surely you mean that Ms Patel is smirkin'
She does have a rather unfortunate way of speaking. I’m sure JRM grimaces at every missing consonant.
Actually it was Lord Digby Jones who had a go at Alex Scott (Olympics presenter) for droppin' her "ings", but he didn't have a go at Priti for speakin' exactly the same way.
It used to be very posh indeed, as in huntin' shootin' and fishin'.
Anecdata, though quite a bit of it: I posted locally on two Facebook forums that we should be willing to welcome Afghan refugees in return for the support they'd given us. Several anti-immigrant posters weighed in (put our people first, we're full up, etc.), and there are now hundreds of replies. They support what I said by over 7-1, with numerous people asking if there are ways they can help. Is there a charity I can refer them too that's doing specifically relevant work?
Rather off topic, but perhaps relevant to some of the exchanges on here.
One the stand out questions in my last job interview was whether or not I can suffer fools gladly. As a general rule it is better to just let people occasionally make fools of themselves and humour them whilst they are doing it. This advice certainly rings true when dealing with half anonymous posters on internet forums.
Anyone in my job who said they didn’t suffer fools gladly would have rather missed the point…
Mr. Dickson, the concept of Boris Johnson possessing foundations implies a degree of forethought which is not necessarily congruent with the past deeds of the man in question.
Just watched Auschwitz on TV. Only place ever affected me the way Culloden does. Both represent the attempt to exterminate a people & their culture. Names at Culloden my family names. Nameless at Auchwitz belong to all of us. Unfortunately world has learned little
Another Scotch expert appears, perhaps in your mind 3 out of 17 battalions was mainly Scots right enough and led by that famous Scot Butcher Cumberland son of the English King.
Don’t waste your time Malcolm. For them ethnic cleansing is just another jolly imperial jape.
You really should be banned for posting rubbish like that.
Really? Pray tell, how was Culloden and its horrific aftermath not state-sanctioned ethnic cleaning?
Some alt history speculation from one of the Bush insiders.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/bin-laden-2001-end-war-afghanistan/619767/ Had the United States caught and killed Osama bin Laden in December 2001, the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan would have faded away almost immediately afterward. I cannot prove that. It’s only an opinion from my vantage point as one of President George W. Bush’s speechwriters in 2001 and 2002.
Yet I strongly believe it. The U.S. stayed for 20 years in Afghanistan because first Bush and then his successors got trapped in a pattern of responding to past failures by redoubling future efforts…
I was listening to R5L during my drive to this morning's run (A beautiful dawn saunter around Sandy Heath, in and around the transmitter), and Dotun Adebayo interviewed an academic who clamed that the cost of 'levelling up' the north of the UK would be about the same as German reunification; that we would have to spend about the same amount Germany has.
It seems a little off to me: is the disparity between the north and south (say Bolton and Crawley) the same as between (say) Dresden and Bremen in 1989, per capita ?
(I don't know enough about Germany to pick equivalent cities.)
Anecdata, though quite a bit of it: I posted locally on two Facebook forums that we should be willing to welcome Afghan refugees in return for the support they'd given us. Several anti-immigrant posters weighed in (put our people first, we're full up, etc.), and there are now hundreds of replies. They support what I said by over 7-1, with numerous people asking if there are ways they can help. Is there a charity I can refer them too that's doing specifically relevant work?
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
Fine but how do we check none of them are jihadi militants who as soon as they arrive will fade into the background and set up a terror cell?
The new leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was interrogated for years at Guantanamo and still talked his way out claiming he wanted to work in his father’s shop. What do you reckon can be done in this urgent situation? There might well be some wronguns who slip through the net but that’s the price the West will have to pay for doing what it’s done.
You do know that the outgoing government styled themselves the "Islamic Republic of Afghanistan"?
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
I believe you are right.
Starmer, Mercer and HYUFD wailing on about Britain's dereliction of duty in Afghanistan will not play well to the RedWall crowd. Priti (following Macron's lead) is busy stamping "rejected" in red against visa applications for interpreters and this will also play well where it matters.
Johnson is a lucky General, and without doing anything other than attend some meetings yesterday that he doubtless slept through, he has again played a political blinder.*
* All this is on the assumption we get our boys and girls back safely and quickly.
Do you really think it wise to have a PM sleeping through meetings when servicemen and women are in mortal danger? The Clown is no Churchill.
No I don't. I can't bear Johnson, but I am suggesting how the political perception will play out once the dust settles.
My biggest surprise over the last days is HYUFD's tacit, but nonetheless withering criticism of the UK's role in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Irony being, of course, that his idea of "taking the fight to the enemy" (his words) is pontificating on PB from an armchair in Epping
Mr. Z, aye, I forgot the copyright stuff probably meant there'd be a free version somewhere. Still, 72p isn't the end of the world.
King Cole, it's one of the things I find fascinating, just how basic items being made easily has utterly transformed the world. Videos on rope-making and books like Jeffrey L. Singman's The Middle Ages (Everyday Life) highlight an unspoken but enormous gulf between modern times and the distant past. Things just cost a fortune. The average person in the 13th century, say, only had two full sets of clothes. But labour was incredibly cheap.
It does make me smile, remembering of the Milibandit youth tweeting from his iPad about his poverty.
I read somewhere that up until about 1935 or so your average 14thC British peasant could have been fast forwarded to the 20thC and been able to work on a farm, since many, if not most of the implements used to have been familiar. Threshing machines would have been the only exceptions.
Interestingly it was about then that my farmer grandfather was, apparently, persuaded to buy his first tractor.
Even in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up on a farm there were a lot of jobs that would have been the same, except the pitchforks had metal tines rather than wood. I’m not sure that there was a huge difference between the educational standards of a 14th century peasant and those of some of the people in the town I grew up in either…
I was listening to R5L during my drive to this morning's run (A beautiful dawn saunter around Sandy Heath, in and around the transmitter), and Dotun Adebayo interviewed an academic who clamed that the cost of 'levelling up' the north of the UK would be about the same as German reunification; that we would have to spend about the same amount Germany has.
It seems a little off to me: is the disparity between the north and south (say Bolton and Crawley) the same as between (say) Dresden and Bremen in 1989, per capita ?
(I don't know enough about Germany to pick equivalent cities.)
Morning, JJ.
Maybe following on from these reports? This gives a price of 2 x 10e12 for both (I think this is what they mean by 2 trillion)
Morning all! Watched the clips from the Biden speech, read comment from my friends on Twitter attacking it and have concluded Biden is largely in the right.
Certain people have banged away on this forum about Biden's shame in leaving people behind. And yet when it comes to the international community taking Afghan refugees we know what the response will be - NO.
As we - the UK as much as the US - are responsible for the Talibanisation of Afghanistan, we have a moral obligation to take people fleeing their theocratic bearded Gilead. America has already said it will take 30,000. Canada 20,000. How many will Britain take?
If England doesn't want them cos bigots send them north of the wall. Scotland will welcome them.
There are said by some to still be thousands of non military US citizens still on the ground. Presumably a mix of security contractors and aid workers. Biden being “right” in the eyes of the American public is very much going to depend on the fate of those people isn’t it?
There's now some US polling, showing what I think most of us expected - Biden has taken a hit, but not a huge hit, and is still in positive teritory - Morning Consult show him down from +14 to +5 after resistance to the Taleban collapsed:
Could evolve further, or reverse if people liked the speech, but overall not that bad.
I would say his speech was factual but it was brutally frank
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
The main news from that new Morning Consult poll is that 58% of Republican voters now think the withdrawal from Afghanistan was wrong.
If the withdrawal creates an opening for Al Qaeda and other terrorist operations to establish operations in Afghanistan again then US voters by 48% to 35% agree the US should not have withdrawn its military operations in Afghanistan https://morningconsult.com/2021/08/16/afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-polling/
So Biden and Harris are taking a huge gamble
And how is that different to Trump
It is different in that Republican voters are now moving back in a neocon direction, which is hugely significant ahead of the 2024 GOP primaries and means Trump will have to toughen his line too if he wants to win the Republican nomination again
Mr. Z, aye, I forgot the copyright stuff probably meant there'd be a free version somewhere. Still, 72p isn't the end of the world.
King Cole, it's one of the things I find fascinating, just how basic items being made easily has utterly transformed the world. Videos on rope-making and books like Jeffrey L. Singman's The Middle Ages (Everyday Life) highlight an unspoken but enormous gulf between modern times and the distant past. Things just cost a fortune. The average person in the 13th century, say, only had two full sets of clothes. But labour was incredibly cheap.
It does make me smile, remembering of the Milibandit youth tweeting from his iPad about his poverty.
I read somewhere that up until about 1935 or so your average 14thC British peasant could have been fast forwarded to the 20thC and been able to work on a farm, since many, if not most of the implements used to have been familiar. Threshing machines would have been the only exceptions.
Interestingly it was about then that my farmer grandfather was, apparently, persuaded to buy his first tractor.
Even in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up on a farm there were a lot of jobs that would have been the same, except the pitchforks had metal tines rather than wood. I’m not sure that there was a huge difference between the educational standards of a 14th century peasant and those of some of the people in the town I grew up in either…
The differences, I take it, would have been especially in animal breeds and plant cultivars, and the use of imported fertiliser rather than home grown middens?
Mr. Z, aye, I forgot the copyright stuff probably meant there'd be a free version somewhere. Still, 72p isn't the end of the world.
King Cole, it's one of the things I find fascinating, just how basic items being made easily has utterly transformed the world. Videos on rope-making and books like Jeffrey L. Singman's The Middle Ages (Everyday Life) highlight an unspoken but enormous gulf between modern times and the distant past. Things just cost a fortune. The average person in the 13th century, say, only had two full sets of clothes. But labour was incredibly cheap.
It does make me smile, remembering of the Milibandit youth tweeting from his iPad about his poverty.
I read somewhere that up until about 1935 or so your average 14thC British peasant could have been fast forwarded to the 20thC and been able to work on a farm, since many, if not most of the implements used to have been familiar. Threshing machines would have been the only exceptions.
Interestingly it was about then that my farmer grandfather was, apparently, persuaded to buy his first tractor.
Even in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up on a farm there were a lot of jobs that would have been the same, except the pitchforks had metal tines rather than wood. I’m not sure that there was a huge difference between the educational standards of a 14th century peasant and those of some of the people in the town I grew up in either…
The differences, I take it, would have been especially in animal breeds and plant cultivars, and the use of imported fertiliser rather than home grown middens?
The plough shapes would have been a revelation to the medievals.....
Some alt history speculation from one of the Bush insiders.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/bin-laden-2001-end-war-afghanistan/619767/ Had the United States caught and killed Osama bin Laden in December 2001, the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan would have faded away almost immediately afterward. I cannot prove that. It’s only an opinion from my vantage point as one of President George W. Bush’s speechwriters in 2001 and 2002.
Yet I strongly believe it. The U.S. stayed for 20 years in Afghanistan because first Bush and then his successors got trapped in a pattern of responding to past failures by redoubling future efforts…
It's interesting because I distinctly remember a shift c.2004-6 towards nation building in Afghanistan and I remember thinking "oh dear". Has anyone asked Biden if he encouraged Obama to withdraw 12 years ago?
Anecdata, though quite a bit of it: I posted locally on two Facebook forums that we should be willing to welcome Afghan refugees in return for the support they'd given us. Several anti-immigrant posters weighed in (put our people first, we're full up, etc.), and there are now hundreds of replies. They support what I said by over 7-1, with numerous people asking if there are ways they can help. Is there a charity I can refer them too that's doing specifically relevant work?
I don't know any charities unfortunately, I have always been sceptical of them as they seem to have a political agenda, associated with open borders. As (i think?) you are a Councillor, I would try and get your officers to advise you on this, find something that is politically neutral and humanitarian and who the Council would want to work with.
Just watched Auschwitz on TV. Only place ever affected me the way Culloden does. Both represent the attempt to exterminate a people & their culture. Names at Culloden my family names. Nameless at Auchwitz belong to all of us. Unfortunately world has learned little
Another Scotch expert appears, perhaps in your mind 3 out of 17 battalions was mainly Scots right enough and led by that famous Scot Butcher Cumberland son of the English King.
Don’t waste your time Malcolm. For them ethnic cleansing is just another jolly imperial jape.
You really should be banned for posting rubbish like that.
Really? Pray tell, how was Culloden and its horrific aftermath not state-sanctioned ethnic cleaning?
Learn your history.
Saying "For them ethnic cleansing is just another jolly imperial jape." is either you defaming turbotubbs, or it is you trolling again. Either way on most forums behaviour like this would normally get you banned.
Mr. Z, aye, I forgot the copyright stuff probably meant there'd be a free version somewhere. Still, 72p isn't the end of the world.
King Cole, it's one of the things I find fascinating, just how basic items being made easily has utterly transformed the world. Videos on rope-making and books like Jeffrey L. Singman's The Middle Ages (Everyday Life) highlight an unspoken but enormous gulf between modern times and the distant past. Things just cost a fortune. The average person in the 13th century, say, only had two full sets of clothes. But labour was incredibly cheap.
It does make me smile, remembering of the Milibandit youth tweeting from his iPad about his poverty.
I read somewhere that up until about 1935 or so your average 14thC British peasant could have been fast forwarded to the 20thC and been able to work on a farm, since many, if not most of the implements used to have been familiar. Threshing machines would have been the only exceptions.
Interestingly it was about then that my farmer grandfather was, apparently, persuaded to buy his first tractor.
Even in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up on a farm there were a lot of jobs that would have been the same, except the pitchforks had metal tines rather than wood. I’m not sure that there was a huge difference between the educational standards of a 14th century peasant and those of some of the people in the town I grew up in either…
The differences, I take it, would have been especially in animal breeds and plant cultivars, and the use of imported fertiliser rather than home grown middens?
The plough shapes would have been a revelation to the medievals.....
And steel rather than wood (and a bit of iron) for the business end, I presume, and Clydesdales or shires rather than oxen. But the basic point is there - the work would have been essentially the same.
I see the Germany has been far too welcoming to refugees lads have pivoted.
At least Germany have been consistent.
They disagreed with Cameron's plan to airlift the most vulnerable refugees out of the refugee camps preferring a policy that led directly to thousands dying trying to reach Europe and now they are refusing to help out with airlifting refugees out of Kabul, preferring to let them die at the hands of the Taliban.
Merkel and Reinfeldt had inner principles and morality. Cameron didn’t.
Yes, Germany and Sweden made mistakes, but - to be old-fashioned about it - they were acting as good Christians. To err is human.
England has caused countless tragedies throughout the world, and left it to other, better nations to clear up their mess.
Hmmm. I might remind you of Germany's fairly recent past wrt 'countless tragedies', and I doubt the Sami people would say Sweden has been prefect.
And Scotland was very complicit in some of the crime you probably place upon the 'English'. A lot of Glasgow's wealth came from the slave trade, for instance.
The jingo bells always get round to blaming it on the Scots, never fails.
Because ultimately everything is blamed on the English.
Where’s the evidence that Scotland has “attoned for its sins”?
Nope. In the moron stakes you easily out-class Philip.
I disagree with Philip on lots of things, but I reluctantly agree that he is bloody good. He has the knowledge and he has the arguments.
You on the other hand are a classic moron. You misunderstand, you misrepresent, you often fail to answer straight questions, you sometimes talk gibberish and you unwittingly let things slip. Your only use is as an example of all that is foul about the Conservative Party. And the cherry on the cake is that you are a thug, always sticking up for the biggest bullies in any given scenario. Trump, PP, DUP, the Saudis, the Catalonian solution to the Scottish problem of hitting old ladies at polling stations, the list is endless.
The reason you hate Philip is that he is a better man than you.
I used to read an awful lot of Dilbert. In my mind’s eye, you are the Pointy-haired Boss. I bet your work colleagues can’t stand you.
Good morning everyone. Where has the summer gone? Down to 12.4 degC this am, and thick, unbroken, cloud.
Mr D you have, I'm afraid, gone far too far over the top. Yes, my fellow Essex resident can be a PIA, and yes, he can pick on the wrong, or unimportant, part of a discussion but I don't get the impression that he 'hates' anyone.
So I know it's a bad morning, a dreadful morning, for a lot of people today, but surely we can try to be at least moderately pleasant to each other.
I’m sorry. I did rather go too far there.
Unfortunately, there is good evidence that HYUFD does indeed “hate” Philip and other posters. He also displayed raw hatred on the night when England won the silver medal in the European Championship, which has been screenshot and the acting mod considered would hinder him from ever being a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Conservative Party. These are serious matters.
Where I went too far is in calling him the Pointy-haired Boss. That was unforgivable. Nobody in real life can be *that* big a moron. I’m sure FUDHY’s colleagues think he’s adorable. And his mum loves him. And the gerbil.
What utter rubbish, indeed the polling evidence is most Tory voters agreed with me that Rashford should focus more on politics and less on football as did the vast majority of my fellow Tory members I discussed it with. Indeed an actual Tory MP made a less tactful remark on Rashford and is still very much a Tory MP.
All this shows is how little you understand the Tory Party now. TSE 'the acting mod' of course not only is no longer a Tory member he even votes LD now so doesn't really get Boris' Tory Party either.
However while Labour are my opponents you and your fellow Scottish Nationalists are my enemy so the more I wind you up the better
Just watched Auschwitz on TV. Only place ever affected me the way Culloden does. Both represent the attempt to exterminate a people & their culture. Names at Culloden my family names. Nameless at Auchwitz belong to all of us. Unfortunately world has learned little
Another Scotch expert appears, perhaps in your mind 3 out of 17 battalions was mainly Scots right enough and led by that famous Scot Butcher Cumberland son of the English King.
Don’t waste your time Malcolm. For them ethnic cleansing is just another jolly imperial jape.
You really should be banned for posting rubbish like that.
Really? Pray tell, how was Culloden and its horrific aftermath not state-sanctioned ethnic cleaning?
Learn your history.
Saying "For them ethnic cleansing is just another jolly imperial jape." is either you defaming turbotubbs, or it is you trolling again. Either way on most forums behaviour like this would normally get you banned.
You must be about the tenth member of The Herd calling for me to be banned recently. You’d be better spending your time coming up with valid counter-arguments and with ways to make the Union more attractive to Scots. But feel free to carry on up shitcreek.
Nope. In the moron stakes you easily out-class Philip.
I disagree with Philip on lots of things, but I reluctantly agree that he is bloody good. He has the knowledge and he has the arguments.
You on the other hand are a classic moron. You misunderstand, you misrepresent, you often fail to answer straight questions, you sometimes talk gibberish and you unwittingly let things slip. Your only use is as an example of all that is foul about the Conservative Party. And the cherry on the cake is that you are a thug, always sticking up for the biggest bullies in any given scenario. Trump, PP, DUP, the Saudis, the Catalonian solution to the Scottish problem of hitting old ladies at polling stations, the list is endless.
The reason you hate Philip is that he is a better man than you.
I used to read an awful lot of Dilbert. In my mind’s eye, you are the Pointy-haired Boss. I bet your work colleagues can’t stand you.
Good morning everyone. Where has the summer gone? Down to 12.4 degC this am, and thick, unbroken, cloud.
Mr D you have, I'm afraid, gone far too far over the top. Yes, my fellow Essex resident can be a PIA, and yes, he can pick on the wrong, or unimportant, part of a discussion but I don't get the impression that he 'hates' anyone.
So I know it's a bad morning, a dreadful morning, for a lot of people today, but surely we can try to be at least moderately pleasant to each other.
I’m sorry. I did rather go too far there.
Unfortunately, there is good evidence that HYUFD does indeed “hate” Philip and other posters. He also displayed raw hatred on the night when England won the silver medal in the European Championship, which has been screenshot and the acting mod considered would hinder him from ever being a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Conservative Party. These are serious matters.
Where I went too far is in calling him the Pointy-haired Boss. That was unforgivable. Nobody in real life can be *that* big a moron. I’m sure FUDHY’s colleagues think he’s adorable. And his mum loves him. And the gerbil.
I am reminded of his assertion tout court a week or so back that, to my clear recollection*, "Scots don't count" [obviously in the context of the UK polity, else it'd be 'can't']. I queried that at the time as it denied any Scot any role in the democracy of the UK, even such upstanding Tories as David L [edit: invoked her eonly as an example: he was not part of the discussion].
Obviously the LEAST unfortunate explanation is that HYUFD really meant "MPs for Scottish constituencies can be ignored in the current Tory majority situation as far as I am concerned". But that is nonsense as we have several SCUP MPs. If he is being so sloppy with wording and logic ... and he did not, so far as I know, take the opportunity I offered him for a reverse ferret.
*I have just checked back and that conversation appears to have been deleted. The PB search engine is picking up words I know I used, but not that conversation itself.
Scots only count as part of the UK, not alone, as confirmed by their 55% vote to stay in the UK in the once in a generation 2014 referendum
Nope. In the moron stakes you easily out-class Philip.
I disagree with Philip on lots of things, but I reluctantly agree that he is bloody good. He has the knowledge and he has the arguments.
You on the other hand are a classic moron. You misunderstand, you misrepresent, you often fail to answer straight questions, you sometimes talk gibberish and you unwittingly let things slip. Your only use is as an example of all that is foul about the Conservative Party. And the cherry on the cake is that you are a thug, always sticking up for the biggest bullies in any given scenario. Trump, PP, DUP, the Saudis, the Catalonian solution to the Scottish problem of hitting old ladies at polling stations, the list is endless.
The reason you hate Philip is that he is a better man than you.
I used to read an awful lot of Dilbert. In my mind’s eye, you are the Pointy-haired Boss. I bet your work colleagues can’t stand you.
Good morning everyone. Where has the summer gone? Down to 12.4 degC this am, and thick, unbroken, cloud.
Mr D you have, I'm afraid, gone far too far over the top. Yes, my fellow Essex resident can be a PIA, and yes, he can pick on the wrong, or unimportant, part of a discussion but I don't get the impression that he 'hates' anyone.
So I know it's a bad morning, a dreadful morning, for a lot of people today, but surely we can try to be at least moderately pleasant to each other.
I’m sorry. I did rather go too far there.
Unfortunately, there is good evidence that HYUFD does indeed “hate” Philip and other posters. He also displayed raw hatred on the night when England won the silver medal in the European Championship, which has been screenshot and the acting mod considered would hinder him from ever being a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Conservative Party. These are serious matters.
Where I went too far is in calling him the Pointy-haired Boss. That was unforgivable. Nobody in real life can be *that* big a moron. I’m sure FUDHY’s colleagues think he’s adorable. And his mum loves him. And the gerbil.
I am reminded of his assertion tout court a week or so back that, to my clear recollection*, "Scots don't count" [obviously in the context of the UK polity, else it'd be 'can't']. I queried that at the time as it denied any Scot any role in the democracy of the UK, even such upstanding Tories as David L [edit: invoked her eonly as an example: he was not part of the discussion].
Obviously the LEAST unfortunate explanation is that HYUFD really meant "MPs for Scottish constituencies can be ignored in the current Tory majority situation as far as I am concerned". But that is nonsense as we have several SCUP MPs. If he is being so sloppy with wording and logic ... and he did not, so far as I know, take the opportunity I offered him for a reverse ferret.
*I have just checked back and that conversation appears to have been deleted. The PB search engine is picking up words I know I used, but not that conversation itself.
Scots only count as part of the UK, not alone, as confirmed by their 55% vote to stay in the UK in the once in a generation 2014 referendum
Mr. Dickson, the concept of Boris Johnson possessing foundations implies a degree of forethought which is not necessarily congruent with the past deeds of the man in question.
I was listening to R5L during my drive to this morning's run (A beautiful dawn saunter around Sandy Heath, in and around the transmitter), and Dotun Adebayo interviewed an academic who clamed that the cost of 'levelling up' the north of the UK would be about the same as German reunification; that we would have to spend about the same amount Germany has.
It seems a little off to me: is the disparity between the north and south (say Bolton and Crawley) the same as between (say) Dresden and Bremen in 1989, per capita ?
(I don't know enough about Germany to pick equivalent cities.)
Morning, JJ.
Maybe following on from these reports? This gives a price of 2 x 10e12 for both (I think this is what they mean by 2 trillion)
Comments
https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-america-first-biden-fk-that-raab-and-patel-in-trouble/
The way he virtually fled from the rostrum without facing the media was very poor, but he has the ultimate get out of jail free card with Trump having made withdrawal his policy
Biden will be forever known as the president who lost Afghanistan but as long as it does not escalate further, than he may get away with it and many both in the US and UK ( myself included) will be relieved at the prospect of no future foreign interventions.
However, the US and the UK really need to strengthen their intelligence and security agencies
And no, I do not agree with @HYUFD that Biden will be seen as the worst US administration for 100 years
King Cole, it's one of the things I find fascinating, just how basic items being made easily has utterly transformed the world. Videos on rope-making and books like Jeffrey L. Singman's The Middle Ages (Everyday Life) highlight an unspoken but enormous gulf between modern times and the distant past. Things just cost a fortune. The average person in the 13th century, say, only had two full sets of clothes. But labour was incredibly cheap.
It does make me smile, remembering of the Milibandit youth tweeting from his iPad about his poverty.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/08/16/britains-ambassador-afghanistan-plans-stay-kabul-long-possible/
What was interesting was the adjustment process - some needed serious amounts of head time to process their new environment. A number couldn't deal with a liberal society and went home.
It reminded me of something I read in Winds Sand and Stars....
However, let us wait and see just what Boris and HMG propose and we both agree this needs an international response
If the withdrawal creates an opening for Al Qaeda and other terrorist operations to establish operations in Afghanistan again then US voters by 48% to 35% agree the US should not have withdrawn its military operations in Afghanistan
https://morningconsult.com/2021/08/16/afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-polling/
So Biden and Harris are taking a huge gamble
Quite some career he’s had too, was the Russian ambassador at the time of the Salisbury poisonings.
What honour can you give to someone who already has a KCMG?
Woolley: In the [civil] service, CMG stands for "Call Me God". And KCMG for "Kindly Call Me God".
Hacker: What does GCMG stand for?
Woolley (deadpan): "God Calls Me God".
'What we are seeing in Afghanistan is an unmitigated disaster. The Biden Administration’s retreat will leave a stain on the reputation of the United States. And it didn’t have to happen this way.'
https://twitter.com/LeaderMcConnell/status/1427373098244923392?s=20
Former US President George W Bush 'Laura and I have been watching the tragic events unfolding in Afghanistan with deep sadness. Our hearts are heavy for both the Afghan people who have suffered so much and for the Americans and NATO allies who have sacrificed so much.
The Afghans now at the greatest risk are the same ones who have been on the forefront of progress inside their nation. President Biden has promised to evacuate these Afghans, along with American citizens and our allies. The United States government has the legal authority to cut the red tape for refugees during urgent humanitarian crises. And we have the responsibility and the resources to secure safe passage for them now, without bureaucratic delay. Our most stalwart allies, along with private NGOs, are ready to help....'
https://www.bushcenter.org/about-the-center/newsroom/press-releases/2021/08/statement-president-and-mrs-bush-afghanistan.html
Interestingly it was about then that my farmer grandfather was, apparently, persuaded to buy his first tractor.
Starmer, Mercer and HYUFD wailing on about Britain's dereliction of duty in Afghanistan will not play well to the RedWall crowd. Priti (following Macron's lead) is busy stamping "rejected" in red against visa applications for interpreters and this will also play well where it matters.
Johnson is a lucky General, and without doing anything other than attend some meetings yesterday that he doubtless slept through, he has again played a political blinder.*
* All this is on the assumption we get our boys and girls back safely and quickly.
My dad's demotion was DC to Lagos. LOL.
He complained that diplomats had been “on the first plane out”, with MoD officials having to replace them and bear the brunt of processing resettlement claims for people trying to flee the Afghan capital......Wallace told senior colleagues he was frustrated at “18-year-old squaddies having to process visa applications of incredible complexity at speed” in an effort to get Afghans who helped the British during the 20-year conflict out of the country.
Wallace’s criticism came as the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, was under fire for being on holiday as the crisis unfolded in the past week. Raab and Boris Johnson curtailed breaks in Cyprus and Somerset respectively this weekend after holidaying at the same time.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/16/row-in-cabinet-over-evacuation-of-uk-diplomats-from-kabul-defence-secretary-foreign-office-mod?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
1. Properly resource our security service, our border agency and anti-radicalisation programs, or more likely
2. Accept the inference that all muslims (and anyone who looks "muslim" are potential terrorists and seek to not let any of them in. A nice off-shore camp somewhere like Bagram AFB perhaps to deter them as they are all scroungers here to take all the jobs and claim benefits and set up a terror cell. "We don't want them here."
The principles of teamwork are simple, but fiendishly difficult in practice. The Conservatives lack the necessary culture of mutual respect, which is the very foundation everything else is built upon.
As for your central point: I'm unsure it'd be that late. Mechanisation and improved processes came in much earlier, hence why employment in agriculture in the UK decreased massively. I'm surprised by the chart below, which shows agricultural employment decreasing as early as 1500, though.
https://ourworldindata.org/employment-in-agriculture
They'd probably be bemused by the lack of violence and small pitches for football, though.
Kingdom Come Deliverance is a fantastic game high on historical accuracy, set in a small corner of Bohemia (Czech Republic). One of the most initially odd things was how often God was referenced in day to day life (not that that's entirely vanished).
@Philip_Thompson has commented in the past over the impact that the taper relief has on universal credit and that would be nothing compared to the levels required for a Universal Basic Income.
So it's a scheme that looks great on paper but would die on implementation unless our Government was way smaller...
The main advantages are huge savings in the means testing infrastructure, job centres can be closed etc. The financial savings are not enough to avoid huge rises in headline income tax rates.
The current system isn’t perfect, but is a massive improvement from the previous system, where working a few extra hours a week could cost you hundreds in benefits.
Obviously the LEAST unfortunate explanation is that HYUFD really meant "MPs for Scottish constituencies can be ignored in the current Tory majority situation as far as I am concerned". But that is nonsense as we have several SCUP MPs. If he is being so sloppy with wording and logic ... and he did not, so far as I know, take the opportunity I offered him for a reverse ferret.
*I have just checked back and that conversation appears to have been deleted. The PB search engine is picking up words I know I used, but not that conversation itself.
It's good to see a leader just tell it like it is, not pretend the world is perfect, and, most of all, not lie.
My biggest surprise over the last days is HYUFD's tacit, but nonetheless withering criticism of the UK's role in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
If they can't even manage the basics of responsibility no wonder we have the government we do.
Employment in agriculture, certainly in S. Wales declined in the 19thC because better wages were available in the mines. Many of my paternal ancestors left the land for the mines from 1840 or so.
My maternal grandfather's obituary, in 1937, said that he was 'a noted judge of ploughing'. Presumably with horses!
My God
Johnson was never going to end well.
He would not be the third of the little pigs.
Learn your history.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/bin-laden-2001-end-war-afghanistan/619767/
Had the United States caught and killed Osama bin Laden in December 2001, the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan would have faded away almost immediately afterward. I cannot prove that. It’s only an opinion from my vantage point as one of President George W. Bush’s speechwriters in 2001 and 2002.
Yet I strongly believe it. The U.S. stayed for 20 years in Afghanistan because first Bush and then his successors got trapped in a pattern of responding to past failures by redoubling future efforts…
I was listening to R5L during my drive to this morning's run (A beautiful dawn saunter around Sandy Heath, in and around the transmitter), and Dotun Adebayo interviewed an academic who clamed that the cost of 'levelling up' the north of the UK would be about the same as German reunification; that we would have to spend about the same amount Germany has.
It seems a little off to me: is the disparity between the north and south (say Bolton and Crawley) the same as between (say) Dresden and Bremen in 1989, per capita ?
(I don't know enough about Germany to pick equivalent cities.)
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/afghanistanappeal
https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1426234055146758148
Maybe following on from these reports? This gives a price of 2 x 10e12 for both (I think this is what they mean by 2 trillion)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/15/the-cost-of-boris-johnsons-levelling-up-2tn-says-uk-thinktank
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/levelling-up-britain-will-cost-as-much-as-reuniting-germany-mpjbm23kf
Where’s the evidence that Scotland has “attoned for its sins”?
All this shows is how little you understand the Tory Party now. TSE 'the acting mod' of course not only is no longer a Tory member he even votes LD now so doesn't really get Boris' Tory Party either.
However while Labour are my opponents you and your fellow Scottish Nationalists are my enemy so the more I wind you up the better
You said they don't count at all.