Guests at a five-star resort in Crete have rubbished Dominic Raab's claim that he worked intensely through the day as Kabul fell. One tells me he watched Raab lounge in a beach cabana, swim and play paddle tennis for hours, occasionally checking his phone. https://twitter.com/marioledwith/status/1428608032603246599/photo/1
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden's problem is that he looks like he belongs in a care home not the White House.
THE SNP and Scottish Greens have been given a brutal foretaste of the next five years, as their opponents savaged their ground-breaking joint government deal before the ink on it was dry.....
The Scottish Tories said Green “extremists” didn’t belong anywhere near power and the SNP had “lost the plot” if they thought businesses and workers would welcome the move.
Scottish Labour said the Greens would end up as SNP “lackeys”, with the country being run by “a tiny minority of political obsessives”.
Nicola Sturgeon took many in her own party by surprise when she opened talks with the Greens, despite there being no need based on parliamentary arithmetic.
Borrowing figures in today. Look much less awful than most expected. FY borrowing looking to hit around £110-120bn at this rate vs the OBR estimate of £233bn. There is now a scenario where the current budget comes into balance in 2022/23, two years earlier than the OBR said it would.
The next set of debt/deficit projections will give Rishi a lot of breathing room to not implement a lot of expected spending cuts and tax rises. The corporation tax rise specifically should be scrapped. Already companies are looking at their options and UK companies have begun trading at a discount allowing foreign companies to purchase them and make tax inversions to lower tax jurisdictions.
Another day of over 600 cases in NSW. WA Premier complaining about lack of measures in NSW. States in Australia will be locking down their State borders now.
It gets worse. They will likely have to sack the Ambassador for making Raab et al look bad.
People need to look at time scales here
Disaster occurs on Sunday Monday people are asked to go to Kabul at no notice. Tuesday night they arrive - exactly how much quicker do people think they could get people there?
There is a comment earlier about Social media stopping people from becoming politicians. The problem with the general public is that most people think things can be done instantly and they just can't be.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
“The media under direction”? My oh my, @Moonshine, you will have people like Northern_Al claiming you are a conspiracy theorist.
You are aware of the D Notice mechanism right?
Yes. They are less useful now though. I wasn’t taking aim at you, more making a jest
Two Green ministers - will be interesting to see if they get jobs made up for them in suitable departments (presumably one in climate change and another in something like social justice) or if there were effectively portfolios held over in the last reshuffle with this in mind…
Ah so Raab is the guy who could magic up 20k troops to send to Kabul overnight to replace the Americans. That's what everyone who says he should be sacked is implying. That he could have changed what happened in Afghanistan.
For everyone saying he should be sacked, specifically what would have been changed had he been here and not in Crete? Are you also saying that senior politicians can't ever have a holiday in case something happens? I mean he did come back early. Though to what end I'm not sure given we have little to no means to make a difference.
It gets worse. They will likely have to sack the Ambassador for making Raab et al look bad.
People need to look at time scales here
Disaster occurs on Sunday Monday people are asked to go to Kabul at no notice. Tuesday night they arrive - exactly how much quicker do people think they could get people there?
There is a comment earlier about Social media stopping people from becoming politicians. The problem with the general public is that most people think things can be done instantly and they just can't be.
The only instant thing has been how fast the Afghan army disintegrated.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
“The media under direction”? My oh my, @Moonshine, you will have people like Northern_Al claiming you are a conspiracy theorist.
You are aware of the D Notice mechanism right?
D notices are nowhere near as useful as they were...... twitter/social media/iphones and rolling international agencies (al jazeera etc) has almost killed its effectiveness.
Yes which is why we know there are thousands of Brits and Americans stranded, with violence and intimidation being used to prevent them reaching the airport. With flights now leaving reportedly only a fifth full.
My point is that with the airport mission mooted to finish in as soon as 5 days, this might be the defining political event of the era (and it might last an era) and it’s getting almost no attention. Instead you lot are boring on about a phone call and the cost of Raab’s holiday. It has the potential to crush the whole government in weeks.
In a book to be published next Tuesday, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order, British health experts at the time are described as being “oddly pessimistic about their capacity to defeat the virus”, rejecting measures such as a ban on mass gatherings.
“We thought they were out of their minds. We told them it would be an absolutely devastating approach to deal with the pandemic,” one US official told the authors, Thomas Wright, a foreign affairs expert at the Brookings Institution, and Colin Kahl, who is now under secretary of defence for policy. “We thought they were nuts and they thought we were nuts. It turns out, in the end, we were a little more right than they were.”
It gets worse. They will likely have to sack the Ambassador for making Raab et al look bad.
People need to look at time scales here
Disaster occurs on Sunday Monday people are asked to go to Kabul at no notice. Tuesday night they arrive - exactly how much quicker do people think they could get people there?
There is a comment earlier about Social media stopping people from becoming politicians. The problem with the general public is that most people think things can be done instantly and they just can't be.
Raab should have been on the first plane home after the initial tranche of hysterical, ‘the Taliban are the new Khmer Rouge’ posts by Leon. Standard rule of politics.
It gets worse. They will likely have to sack the Ambassador for making Raab et al look bad.
People need to look at time scales here
Disaster occurs on Sunday Monday people are asked to go to Kabul at no notice. Tuesday night they arrive - exactly how much quicker do people think they could get people there?
There is a comment earlier about Social media stopping people from becoming politicians. The problem with the general public is that most people think things can be done instantly and they just can't be.
The only instant thing has been how fast the Afghan army disintegrated.
If your choice is a chance of living or guaranteed death for you and your family (either immediately or in the slightly longer term) what would you do?
Nothing here surprised me, but then again this was obvious to anyone who listens to the WarNerd.
How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:
As the comments below the tweet indicate, he can afford it being rich irrespective of his salary. The bigger question concerns his competence, commitment and judgment.
Thank goodness that our government can still kick out against that Metropolitan elite, from their comfortable £6,000 pound a night villas, complete with Instagramable pool breakfast experience.
Its funny when one of the richest people on PB moans about someone else's wealth.
You do realise that pb is far from representative of the population don't you? Why on earth would you think Foxy is one of the richest with the only evidence being he is a doctor.
Johnson’s misfortune is that the music stopped on his watch, and he had prepared no other song to play in its place. That’s why yesterday was a key test for the PM, to enunciate Britain’s new place in the world now that the US has walked off the pitch. To step up and offer a lead to our other allies who are also now adrift amid the West’s crisis of self-doubt.
Someone must, and that moral responsibility now falls on Britain, as Nato’s second biggest contributor, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and with Johnson the current chair of the G7.
But it was a test Britain’s PM failed, and to his own MPs’ palpable fury. “He was nothing. No substance, no understanding,” pronounced one disappointed senior Tory in the chamber yesterday.
For Afghanistan it is too late. That ship has sailed, as anyone who cares about that country and has spent time there like me must now painfully accept.
But for Johnson it is not yet too late. In an ever more precarious world, the next international disaster is not far away. It will come in Somalia, Mozambique or Nigeria, which are all under the growing threat of Islamist takeover. Or in Taiwan, which Xi Jinping’s China is eyeing up. Or in one of the Baltic states, which fear a Russian incursion like Ukraine’s. Or with Iran and it’s hardliners’ takeover.
Johnson needs to learn how to lead on the international stage, and fast. Before the next Afghanistan erupts and reveals Britain has no foreign policy left at all.
The idea that this phone call to an Aghan government totally focused on finding the first plane out, ideally with some loot, would have made any difference whatsoever is risible.
That's the part that makes it easier for the shitmunchers to understand. Whichever you look at it he was the Foreign Secretary and there was a major foreign policy crisis. His holiday gets sacked off. Hard fucking luck, goes with the job. If he doesn't want that level of responsibility he should go and manage a branch of Carphone Warehouse. A position to which his abilities are probably better suited.
Plenty of people in the services have had holidays and other events ruined at minimal notice for far less pressing matters...
What have you got against the staff at Carphone Warehouse that you would wish Raab on them?
Former Sheffield Hallam MP Jared O'Mara has been charged with seven counts of fraud. South Yorkshire Police said the charges related to a number of alleged fraudulent expenses claims.
Mr O'Mara, 39, is charged alongside former aide Gareth Arnold, who faces six counts of fraud, and a third man, John Woodliff, who faces a single charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act. They will appear before magistrates in Sheffield on 24 September.
The offences are said to have occurred between October 2018 and February 2020. The force said the charges brought against Mr O'Mara, of Walker Close, Sheffield, related to expenses claims submitted to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.
"The charge relates to an allegation he made fraudulent invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority jointly with Gareth Arnold, who is also charged with six counts of the same offence."
What a miserable specimen he was all round. Really reflects badly on Labour's processes for selecting candidates.
Did O'Mara ever speak in the Commons when he was an MP? One thing he did do was change the dress rules in the chamber. Apparently he had a health condition that made it difficult to wear a tie and exception for all MPs were agreed by Bercow.
Armed forces James Heappey @JSHeappey tells @BBCr4today that the 100 British embassy GardaWorld employees are in the process of being evacuated out of Kabul airport
It gets worse. They will likely have to sack the Ambassador for making Raab et al look bad.
People need to look at time scales here
Disaster occurs on Sunday Monday people are asked to go to Kabul at no notice. Tuesday night they arrive - exactly how much quicker do people think they could get people there?
There is a comment earlier about Social media stopping people from becoming politicians. The problem with the general public is that most people think things can be done instantly and they just can't be.
The only instant thing has been how fast the Afghan army disintegrated.
If your choice is a chance of living or guaranteed death for you and your family (either immediately or in the slightly longer term) what would you do?
Nothing here surprised me, but then again this was obvious to anyone who listens to the WarNerd.
People watch 24 and The Unit - they think that teams of "Operatives" complete with plot armour are already onsite in every country on the planet.
The emerging story behind what happened seemed to be this -
- The Afghan government (or parts thereof) looked at the Trump deal - They collectively saw they were being abandoned. - At the same time, overtures were made by the Taliban/their backers in Pakistan - Hamid Karzai was involved in this - The Afghan government (or parts thereof) agreed to stand down the Army - lots of reports of soldiers being ordered not to fight. - They then exited stage right, with bags of cash.
Ah so Raab is the guy who could magic up 20k troops to send to Kabul overnight to replace the Americans. That's what everyone who says he should be sacked is implying. That he could have changed what happened in Afghanistan.
For everyone saying he should be sacked, specifically what would have been changed had he been here and not in Crete? Are you also saying that senior politicians can't ever have a holiday in case something happens? I mean he did come back early. Though to what end I'm not sure given we have little to no means to make a difference.
Media reports suggest he was advised by his officials not to go.
And he is on record as having said that, with hindsight, going away was a mistake.
Johnson’s misfortune is that the music stopped on his watch, and he had prepared no other song to play in its place. That’s why yesterday was a key test for the PM, to enunciate Britain’s new place in the world now that the US has walked off the pitch. To step up and offer a lead to our other allies who are also now adrift amid the West’s crisis of self-doubt.
Someone must, and that moral responsibility now falls on Britain, as Nato’s second biggest contributor, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and with Johnson the current chair of the G7.
But it was a test Britain’s PM failed, and to his own MPs’ palpable fury. “He was nothing. No substance, no understanding,” pronounced one disappointed senior Tory in the chamber yesterday.
For Afghanistan it is too late. That ship has sailed, as anyone who cares about that country and has spent time there like me must now painfully accept.
But for Johnson it is not yet too late. In an ever more precarious world, the next international disaster is not far away. It will come in Somalia, Mozambique or Nigeria, which are all under the growing threat of Islamist takeover. Or in Taiwan, which Xi Jinping’s China is eyeing up. Or in one of the Baltic states, which fear a Russian incursion like Ukraine’s. Or with Iran and it’s hardliners’ takeover.
Johnson needs to learn how to lead on the international stage, and fast. Before the next Afghanistan erupts and reveals Britain has no foreign policy left at all.
More save the world fantasising.
How much blood and money does the Standard think the UK's middle classes are willing to pay ?
In a book to be published next Tuesday, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order, British health experts at the time are described as being “oddly pessimistic about their capacity to defeat the virus”, rejecting measures such as a ban on mass gatherings.
“We thought they were out of their minds. We told them it would be an absolutely devastating approach to deal with the pandemic,” one US official told the authors, Thomas Wright, a foreign affairs expert at the Brookings Institution, and Colin Kahl, who is now under secretary of defence for policy. “We thought they were nuts and they thought we were nuts. It turns out, in the end, we were a little more right than they were.”
It isn't about Cheltenham per se - the allegation is that for a period at the beginning of the crisis, the UK plan was to allow everyone to get it (which those of us who watched the very first PM's broadcast will remember was pretty much what they said). Hence no events ban and Cheltenham was allowed to go ahead.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
Can he be impeached just for being a bit crap or making mistake?
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden's problem is that he looks like he belongs in a care home not the White House.
And likely to grow worse during the next year.
And at risk of sounding like a stuck record, that’s still better than his predecessor who behaved like he belonged in a lunatic asylum.
It gets worse. They will likely have to sack the Ambassador for making Raab et al look bad.
People need to look at time scales here
Disaster occurs on Sunday Monday people are asked to go to Kabul at no notice. Tuesday night they arrive - exactly how much quicker do people think they could get people there?
There is a comment earlier about Social media stopping people from becoming politicians. The problem with the general public is that most people think things can be done instantly and they just can't be.
Raab should have been on the first plane home after the initial tranche of hysterical, ‘the Taliban are the new Khmer Rouge’ posts by Leon. Standard rule of politics.
If Ministers had to return every time Sean panicked about something (aka 'just relaying concerns'), they'd be better off never leaving their offices.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
Can he be impeached just for being a bit crap or making mistake?
RAF globemaster just landed in Kabul.
Come off it. You can’t even be impeached for sexually assaulting your interns or trying to overthrow the government by force.
It gets worse. They will likely have to sack the Ambassador for making Raab et al look bad.
People need to look at time scales here
Disaster occurs on Sunday Monday people are asked to go to Kabul at no notice. Tuesday night they arrive - exactly how much quicker do people think they could get people there?
There is a comment earlier about Social media stopping people from becoming politicians. The problem with the general public is that most people think things can be done instantly and they just can't be.
Raab should have been on the first plane home after the initial tranche of hysterical, ‘the Taliban are the new Khmer Rouge’ posts by Leon. Standard rule of politics.
If Ministers had to return every time Sean panicked about something (aka 'just relaying concerns'), they'd be better off never leaving their offices.
We can’t have that, the sooner this lot leave their offices the better.
I find Raab dull, wooden and boring but it is worth bearing in mind that it is not that long since he was thought to have done a good job when Boris was off with Covid.
I also think that it is important that politicians have some sort of normal in their lives and are able to spend time with their families. People who are willing to expose themselves in the way politicians have to are weird enough in the first place and we do not want to encourage them to get any weirder. It really doesn't say much for the FO if it cannot operate without the FS for a week when other ministers are available.
The backlash he is suffering is a consequence of this being an undoubted humiliation both in the total failure of the mission and the way in which the outcome was dumped on us by the US without consultation. That is fair enough, this has been a disastrous episode, but the focus on the trivia of this call and his week off is typical of the way that our politics is distorted.
The idea that this phone call to an Aghan government totally focused on finding the first plane out, ideally with some loot, would have made any difference whatsoever is risible. Where there were failures is to assess the situation on the ground, realise that things could collapse quickly, making contingency plans for that scenario and getting all non essential personnel out of the country. We dragged our feet on the interpreters for far too long and now it is beyond our power. This is a significant failure of government but we focus on the trivia.
The trivia are often emblematic of the substance, though. I keep harping in about it, but a detailed select committee report at the beginning of this year raised the possibility of collapse in Afghanistan as a result of the 2020 withdrawal agreement. They were extremely uncomplimentary about government contingency planning, and raised pertinent questions for ministers to answer. It's clear from the course of events that the report was ignored. The Foreign Office is not, of course, the only department which bears responsibility, but the phone call does seem a very fair representation of Raab's utility.
The key phrase there is that this rapid capitulation was just a possible scenario, not the most plausible scenario.
So the CIA was painting a prettier picture than the likely reality.
More that as the scenarios filtered up the system, the undesirable ones are shuffled to the bottom of the pile.
The use of best-medium-worst case methodology to cover people in a hierarchy from blame is an interesting phenomenon. You can say that "I did say", while at the same time not offend the senior people by giving them a report they don't want to read.
Giving the people at the top information they don't want to have seen, is often considered the most offensive thing you can do. Short of their-wife-on-board-room-table scenarios.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden's problem is that he looks like he belongs in a care home not the White House.
And likely to grow worse during the next year.
And at risk of sounding like a stuck record, that’s still better than his predecessor who behaved like he belonged in a lunatic asylum.
On Topic, is it the case that BoJo hates sacking people? Both the summer 2019 and early 2020 reshuffles were pretty brutal- or was that a Cummings effect?
What might be the case is that Johnson's sackings are more personal than normal. The only thing that really gets you into trouble is disagreeing with the boss (whether that boss is Cummings, Carrie or maybe even Boris.)
In which case being diminished in this way (and surely Raab is diminished- even a 1% chance of making things a bit better was surely worth a personal phone call... It's not as if he had anything else on) possibly makes Raabish more useful to the PM, not less.
How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:
As the comments below the tweet indicate, he can afford it being rich irrespective of his salary. The bigger question concerns his competence, commitment and judgment.
Thank goodness that our government can still kick out against that Metropolitan elite, from their comfortable £6,000 pound a night villas, complete with Instagramable pool breakfast experience.
Its funny when one of the richest people on PB moans about someone else's wealth.
You do realise that pb is far from representative of the population don't you? Why on earth would you think Foxy is one of the richest with the only evidence being he is a doctor.
There is ample evidence he is a very canny investor too! But there seem to be some very rich people on here, and plenty of comfortably off, so one of the richest is indeed a giant leap of faith.
Totally credible article. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst is an old adage, but one which, recently, seems to have been forgotten.
I also don't get the impression that the Taliban are what we would recognise as a military force; very great latitude is either allowed to, or can easily be taken by, commanders on the ground.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden's problem is that he looks like he belongs in a care home not the White House.
And likely to grow worse during the next year.
And at risk of sounding like a stuck record, that’s still better than his predecessor who behaved like he belonged in a lunatic asylum.
Being 'slightly' better than the worst president of all time really isn't all that good.
It gets worse. They will likely have to sack the Ambassador for making Raab et al look bad.
People need to look at time scales here
Disaster occurs on Sunday Monday people are asked to go to Kabul at no notice. Tuesday night they arrive - exactly how much quicker do people think they could get people there?
There is a comment earlier about Social media stopping people from becoming politicians. The problem with the general public is that most people think things can be done instantly and they just can't be.
I thought the story here is that the FCDO and Border Force staff who had been in Afghanistan processing visa applications were all on the first plane out of there?
Totally credible article. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst is an old adage, but one which, recently, seems to have been forgotten.
I also don't get the impression that the Taliban are what we would recognise as a military force; very great latitude is either allowed to, or can easily be taken by, commanders on the ground.
Islam itself is much more of a franchise than a centralised system, so makes sense.
In a book to be published next Tuesday, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order, British health experts at the time are described as being “oddly pessimistic about their capacity to defeat the virus”, rejecting measures such as a ban on mass gatherings.
“We thought they were out of their minds. We told them it would be an absolutely devastating approach to deal with the pandemic,” one US official told the authors, Thomas Wright, a foreign affairs expert at the Brookings Institution, and Colin Kahl, who is now under secretary of defence for policy. “We thought they were nuts and they thought we were nuts. It turns out, in the end, we were a little more right than they were.”
It isn't about Cheltenham per se - the allegation is that for a period at the beginning of the crisis, the UK plan was to allow everyone to get it (which those of us who watched the very first PM's broadcast will remember was pretty much what they said). Hence no events ban and Cheltenham was allowed to go ahead.
It would also have to have be Labour/LibDem's plan, as well.
There were in power in Wales & they allowed events like the Stereophonics to play a huge gig at Cardiff's Motorpoint Arena (14th March) after Cheltenham (10-13th March) .
Or ... maybe, we could just acccept that at the outbreak of a completely new disease, no-one knew the best strategy -- even the LibDems.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden's problem is that he looks like he belongs in a care home not the White House.
And likely to grow worse during the next year.
And at risk of sounding like a stuck record, that’s still better than his predecessor who behaved like he belonged in a lunatic asylum.
You could say the same about Raab tbf
While he is hardly a latter day Marquis of Salisbury, Jeremy Hunt does not behave like an escaped inmate.
If he was in the hotel pool, that suggests he was in one of the normal hotel rooms or suites which are £200-£1000 per night
I would imagine such expensive accommodation might not always be sold out and people get upgraded from cheaper rooms. If a hotel has a UK Foreign Secretary staying in a £1k or £2k room and there is a £5k room available they must be very likely to be offered the upgrade.
I wonder if that might have happened here? Would a minister/MP have to declare such an upgrade?
Probably according to the letter of the rules? But perhaps not in the spirit of the rules, given hotel upgrades at some point are not at all unusual.
On Topic, is it the case that BoJo hates sacking people? Both the summer 2019 and early 2020 reshuffles were pretty brutal- or was that a Cummings effect?
What might be the case is that Johnson's sackings are more personal than normal. The only thing that really gets you into trouble is disagreeing with the boss (whether that boss is Cummings, Carrie or maybe even Boris.)
In which case being diminished in this way (and surely Raab is diminished- even a 1% chance of making things a bit better was surely worth a personal phone call... It's not as if he had anything else on) possibly makes Raabish more useful to the PM, not less.
Boris does seem to be remarkably tolerant of people who cause him trouble.
There are two key considerations here. One is how much revenue Scotland generates. GERS finds that, even taking into consideration a geographical share of oil and gas production, Scotland raised £382 less per person in revenue than the UK average. This is despite the Scottish Government being given the power to create a Scottish Rate of Income Tax and ministers using it to introduce a higher-rate band than the rest of the UK, so that top-rate payers are liable for 46 per cent in taxation. Handed a licence to print money, the Scottish Government has ended up bringing in less of it.
Totally credible article. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst is an old adage, but one which, recently, seems to have been forgotten.
I also don't get the impression that the Taliban are what we would recognise as a military force; very great latitude is either allowed to, or can easily be taken by, commanders on the ground.
I wonder if Panglossian Johnsonian gormlessness has now infected all levels of HMG accompanied by ‘what’s the effing point’ despair from those that have a clue? Time they produced some antibodies.
On Topic, is it the case that BoJo hates sacking people? Both the summer 2019 and early 2020 reshuffles were pretty brutal- or was that a Cummings effect?
What might be the case is that Johnson's sackings are more personal than normal. The only thing that really gets you into trouble is disagreeing with the boss (whether that boss is Cummings, Carrie or maybe even Boris.)
In which case being diminished in this way (and surely Raab is diminished- even a 1% chance of making things a bit better was surely worth a personal phone call... It's not as if he had anything else on) possibly makes Raabish more useful to the PM, not less.
Boris does seem to be remarkably tolerant of people who cause him trouble.
It gets worse. They will likely have to sack the Ambassador for making Raab et al look bad.
People need to look at time scales here
Disaster occurs on Sunday Monday people are asked to go to Kabul at no notice. Tuesday night they arrive - exactly how much quicker do people think they could get people there?
There is a comment earlier about Social media stopping people from becoming politicians. The problem with the general public is that most people think things can be done instantly and they just can't be.
Yep. "Disaster occurs on Sunday" with absolutely no clue or warning that it was about to happen...
The key phrase there is that this rapid capitulation was just a possible scenario, not the most plausible scenario.
So the CIA was painting a prettier picture than the likely reality.
More that as the scenarios filtered up the system, the undesirable ones are shuffled to the bottom of the pile.
The use of best-medium-worst case methodology to cover people in a hierarchy from blame is an interesting phenomenon. You can say that "I did say", while at the same time not offend the senior people by giving them a report they don't want to read.
Giving the people at the top information they don't want to have seen, is often considered the most offensive thing you can do. Short of their-wife-on-board-room-table scenarios.
The recruitment and promotion processes in our society are biased against pessimists, so people inclined to ponder the worst-case scenario don't make it high up the hierarchy, and avoidable disasters become experienced disasters.
Boris Johnson is the living embodiment of this problem - but I am still confident that his jovial optimism will see him safely home at the next general election.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden's problem is that he looks like he belongs in a care home not the White House.
And likely to grow worse during the next year.
And at risk of sounding like a stuck record, that’s still better than his predecessor who behaved like he belonged in a lunatic asylum.
Sure.
But its still not good.
How the USA ended up with this gerontocracy is worthy of study - their current 'leaders' weren't that impressive even when they were in their prime.
In a book to be published next Tuesday, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order, British health experts at the time are described as being “oddly pessimistic about their capacity to defeat the virus”, rejecting measures such as a ban on mass gatherings.
“We thought they were out of their minds. We told them it would be an absolutely devastating approach to deal with the pandemic,” one US official told the authors, Thomas Wright, a foreign affairs expert at the Brookings Institution, and Colin Kahl, who is now under secretary of defence for policy. “We thought they were nuts and they thought we were nuts. It turns out, in the end, we were a little more right than they were.”
It isn't about Cheltenham per se - the allegation is that for a period at the beginning of the crisis, the UK plan was to allow everyone to get it (which those of us who watched the very first PM's broadcast will remember was pretty much what they said). Hence no events ban and Cheltenham was allowed to go ahead.
It would also have to have be Labour/LibDem's plan, as well.
There were in power in Wales & they allowed events like the Stereophonics to play a huge gig at Cardiff's Motorpoint Arena (14th March) after Cheltenham (10-13th March) .
Or ... maybe, we could just acccept that at the outbreak of a completely new disease, no-one knew the best strategy -- even the LibDems.
The big issue with the initial herd immunity plan was the gaslighting that there was never a herd immunity plan.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden's problem is that he looks like he belongs in a care home not the White House.
And likely to grow worse during the next year.
And at risk of sounding like a stuck record, that’s still better than his predecessor who behaved like he belonged in a lunatic asylum.
You could say the same about Raab tbf
While he is hardly a latter day Marquis of Salisbury, Jeremy Hunt does not behave like an escaped inmate.
There are two key considerations here. One is how much revenue Scotland generates. GERS finds that, even taking into consideration a geographical share of oil and gas production, Scotland raised £382 less per person in revenue than the UK average. This is despite the Scottish Government being given the power to create a Scottish Rate of Income Tax and ministers using it to introduce a higher-rate band than the rest of the UK, so that top-rate payers are liable for 46 per cent in taxation. Handed a licence to print money, the Scottish Government has ended up bringing in less of it.
The key phrase there is that this rapid capitulation was just a possible scenario, not the most plausible scenario.
So the CIA was painting a prettier picture than the likely reality.
More that as the scenarios filtered up the system, the undesirable ones are shuffled to the bottom of the pile.
The use of best-medium-worst case methodology to cover people in a hierarchy from blame is an interesting phenomenon. You can say that "I did say", while at the same time not offend the senior people by giving them a report they don't want to read.
Giving the people at the top information they don't want to have seen, is often considered the most offensive thing you can do. Short of their-wife-on-board-room-table scenarios.
The recruitment and promotion processes in our society are biased against pessimists, so people inclined to ponder the worst-case scenario don't make it high up the hierarchy, and avoidable disasters become experienced disasters.
Boris Johnson is the living embodiment of this problem - but I am still confident that his jovial optimism will see him safely home at the next general election.
Very early in my career I was asked a question by someone very very senior. So I told him the truth.
My boss sat me down to explain what I had done - by telling the Big Boss the truth, in front of people, was a tremendous slap in the face for him. Because the Big Boss couldn't go against the consensus of his peers. But now, since he Knew, he could be blamed when things went wrong. Unless he started insulting everyone by telling them what he had been told.
The real problem is that people presenting data that contradicts The Policy are considered to be the problem. See Herman Kahn etc..
It gets worse. They will likely have to sack the Ambassador for making Raab et al look bad.
People need to look at time scales here
Disaster occurs on Sunday Monday people are asked to go to Kabul at no notice. Tuesday night they arrive - exactly how much quicker do people think they could get people there?
There is a comment earlier about Social media stopping people from becoming politicians. The problem with the general public is that most people think things can be done instantly and they just can't be.
Yep. "Disaster occurs on Sunday" with absolutely no clue or warning that it was about to happen...
In this case although I thought back on Wednesday / Thursday last week, this won't take long, it's not surprising that a lot of people didn't think the same thing (see @Malmesbury comment below about awkward positions being hidden by optimistic ones as reports get passed upwards.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden's problem is that he looks like he belongs in a care home not the White House.
And likely to grow worse during the next year.
And at risk of sounding like a stuck record, that’s still better than his predecessor who behaved like he belonged in a lunatic asylum.
Sure.
But its still not good.
How the USA ended up with this gerontocracy is worthy of study - their current 'leaders' weren't that impressive even when they were in their prime.
It’s a worldwide phenomenon. Look at the likes of Putin, Xi, Duterte, Modi, Obrador, Bolsonaro, Maduro, Macron, whatever idiot they come up with in Germany, Erdogan, Johnson, recently Varadkar, Orban...
The truth is that we as a planet are appallingly badly served right now by politicians in general. Biden is if anything rather above average, and as you note he’s a poor president who was until 2009 a long serving but rather undistinguished senator.
In a book to be published next Tuesday, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order, British health experts at the time are described as being “oddly pessimistic about their capacity to defeat the virus”, rejecting measures such as a ban on mass gatherings.
“We thought they were out of their minds. We told them it would be an absolutely devastating approach to deal with the pandemic,” one US official told the authors, Thomas Wright, a foreign affairs expert at the Brookings Institution, and Colin Kahl, who is now under secretary of defence for policy. “We thought they were nuts and they thought we were nuts. It turns out, in the end, we were a little more right than they were.”
It isn't about Cheltenham per se - the allegation is that for a period at the beginning of the crisis, the UK plan was to allow everyone to get it (which those of us who watched the very first PM's broadcast will remember was pretty much what they said). Hence no events ban and Cheltenham was allowed to go ahead.
It would also have to have be Labour/LibDem's plan, as well.
There were in power in Wales & they allowed events like the Stereophonics to play a huge gig at Cardiff's Motorpoint Arena (14th March) after Cheltenham (10-13th March) .
Or ... maybe, we could just acccept that at the outbreak of a completely new disease, no-one knew the best strategy -- even the LibDems.
The big issue with the initial herd immunity plan was the gaslighting that there was never a herd immunity plan.
'Gaslighting' --- well, if there is/was any gaslighting, it extends to politicians in Wales as well.
Johnson’s misfortune is that the music stopped on his watch, and he had prepared no other song to play in its place. That’s why yesterday was a key test for the PM, to enunciate Britain’s new place in the world now that the US has walked off the pitch. To step up and offer a lead to our other allies who are also now adrift amid the West’s crisis of self-doubt.
Someone must, and that moral responsibility now falls on Britain, as Nato’s second biggest contributor, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and with Johnson the current chair of the G7.
But it was a test Britain’s PM failed, and to his own MPs’ palpable fury. “He was nothing. No substance, no understanding,” pronounced one disappointed senior Tory in the chamber yesterday.
For Afghanistan it is too late. That ship has sailed, as anyone who cares about that country and has spent time there like me must now painfully accept.
But for Johnson it is not yet too late. In an ever more precarious world, the next international disaster is not far away. It will come in Somalia, Mozambique or Nigeria, which are all under the growing threat of Islamist takeover. Or in Taiwan, which Xi Jinping’s China is eyeing up. Or in one of the Baltic states, which fear a Russian incursion like Ukraine’s. Or with Iran and it’s hardliners’ takeover.
Johnson needs to learn how to lead on the international stage, and fast. Before the next Afghanistan erupts and reveals Britain has no foreign policy left at all.
More save the world fantasising.
How much blood and money does the Standard think the UK's middle classes are willing to pay ?
I agree it's mostly fantasy - "let me think of all the stuff that could go wrong" with a nebulous demand to "lead". Obviously crises will occur from time to time, but none of Taiwan, Baltic States, Mozambique or Nigeria are under imminent existential threat, and Somalia's plight has been ongoing for a long time but it's not suddenly got much more critical. We absolutely shouldn't be sending troops to any of them. Or what else does "lead" mean? Make a concerned speech?
If he reversed the foreign aid cuts that would at least be useful. And much cheaper than another military commitment.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden might be able to avoid another terrorist attack on US soil.
However he will still have allowed the Taliban to return to Afghanistan on his watch
In a book to be published next Tuesday, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order, British health experts at the time are described as being “oddly pessimistic about their capacity to defeat the virus”, rejecting measures such as a ban on mass gatherings.
“We thought they were out of their minds. We told them it would be an absolutely devastating approach to deal with the pandemic,” one US official told the authors, Thomas Wright, a foreign affairs expert at the Brookings Institution, and Colin Kahl, who is now under secretary of defence for policy. “We thought they were nuts and they thought we were nuts. It turns out, in the end, we were a little more right than they were.”
It isn't about Cheltenham per se - the allegation is that for a period at the beginning of the crisis, the UK plan was to allow everyone to get it (which those of us who watched the very first PM's broadcast will remember was pretty much what they said). Hence no events ban and Cheltenham was allowed to go ahead.
It would also have to have be Labour/LibDem's plan, as well.
There were in power in Wales & they allowed events like the Stereophonics to play a huge gig at Cardiff's Motorpoint Arena (14th March) after Cheltenham (10-13th March) .
Or ... maybe, we could just acccept that at the outbreak of a completely new disease, no-one knew the best strategy -- even the LibDems.
The big issue with the initial herd immunity plan was the gaslighting that there was never a herd immunity plan.
'Gaslighting' --- well, if there is/was any gaslighting, it extends to politicians in Wales as well.
I have no idea as I am not Welsh, and don't follow their politics. If the Welsh govt publicly said the policy was herd immunity, and then a week later and forever after denied that they ever said this despite the record being clear, then yes they were gaslighting too.
In a book to be published next Tuesday, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order, British health experts at the time are described as being “oddly pessimistic about their capacity to defeat the virus”, rejecting measures such as a ban on mass gatherings.
“We thought they were out of their minds. We told them it would be an absolutely devastating approach to deal with the pandemic,” one US official told the authors, Thomas Wright, a foreign affairs expert at the Brookings Institution, and Colin Kahl, who is now under secretary of defence for policy. “We thought they were nuts and they thought we were nuts. It turns out, in the end, we were a little more right than they were.”
It isn't about Cheltenham per se - the allegation is that for a period at the beginning of the crisis, the UK plan was to allow everyone to get it (which those of us who watched the very first PM's broadcast will remember was pretty much what they said). Hence no events ban and Cheltenham was allowed to go ahead.
It would also have to have be Labour/LibDem's plan, as well.
There were in power in Wales & they allowed events like the Stereophonics to play a huge gig at Cardiff's Motorpoint Arena (14th March) after Cheltenham (10-13th March) .
Or ... maybe, we could just acccept that at the outbreak of a completely new disease, no-one knew the best strategy -- even the LibDems.
The big issue with the initial herd immunity plan was the gaslighting that there was never a herd immunity plan.
Well, it was one issue. Not the only one.
It does say quite a lot about the moral and intellectual cowardice of say, Cummings and Johnson that having pushed that policy they are now disavowing it and pretending somebody else came up with it while they wisely said it was bullshit ab initio.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden might be able to avoid another terrorist attack on US soil.
However he will still have allowed the Taliban to return to Afghanistan on his watch
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden's problem is that he looks like he belongs in a care home not the White House.
And likely to grow worse during the next year.
And at risk of sounding like a stuck record, that’s still better than his predecessor who behaved like he belonged in a lunatic asylum.
Sure.
But its still not good.
How the USA ended up with this gerontocracy is worthy of study - their current 'leaders' weren't that impressive even when they were in their prime.
It’s a worldwide phenomenon. Look at the likes of Putin, Xi, Duterte, Modi, Obrador, Bolsonaro, Maduro, Macron, whatever idiot they come up with in Germany, Erdogan, Johnson, recently Varadkar, Orban...
The truth is that we as a planet are appallingly badly served right now by politicians in general. Biden is if anything rather above average, and as you note he’s a poor president who was until 2009 a long serving but rather undistinguished senator.
Voters elect the politicians they want.
Most of those leaders were at least elected, Xi was just appointed by the Communist party hierarchy having risen through the ranks
Here's the Owen Jones polemic on the US/UK and Afghanistan. It's imo a good counterpoint to all the Tugendhat tosh and a view that at least belongs in the PB mix:
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden might be able to avoid another terrorist attack on US soil.
However he will still have allowed the Taliban to return to Afghanistan on his watch
The key phrase there is that this rapid capitulation was just a possible scenario, not the most plausible scenario.
So the CIA was painting a prettier picture than the likely reality.
More that as the scenarios filtered up the system, the undesirable ones are shuffled to the bottom of the pile.
The use of best-medium-worst case methodology to cover people in a hierarchy from blame is an interesting phenomenon. You can say that "I did say", while at the same time not offend the senior people by giving them a report they don't want to read.
Giving the people at the top information they don't want to have seen, is often considered the most offensive thing you can do. Short of their-wife-on-board-room-table scenarios.
The recruitment and promotion processes in our society are biased against pessimists, so people inclined to ponder the worst-case scenario don't make it high up the hierarchy, and avoidable disasters become experienced disasters.
Boris Johnson is the living embodiment of this problem - but I am still confident that his jovial optimism will see him safely home at the next general election.
Very early in my career I was asked a question by someone very very senior. So I told him the truth.
My boss sat me down to explain what I had done - by telling the Big Boss the truth, in front of people, was a tremendous slap in the face for him. Because the Big Boss couldn't go against the consensus of his peers. But now, since he Knew, he could be blamed when things went wrong. Unless he started insulting everyone by telling them what he had been told.
The real problem is that people presenting data that contradicts The Policy are considered to be the problem. See Herman Kahn etc..
There is an advert currently running on TV where what is obviously a junior employee is acting as a cricket umpire and has to give the boss out LBW. He does, the boss is furious, the umpire is worried but the bowler (a lowly female employee???) is delighted. I can remember the advert but not who or what it is for!
In a book to be published next Tuesday, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order, British health experts at the time are described as being “oddly pessimistic about their capacity to defeat the virus”, rejecting measures such as a ban on mass gatherings.
“We thought they were out of their minds. We told them it would be an absolutely devastating approach to deal with the pandemic,” one US official told the authors, Thomas Wright, a foreign affairs expert at the Brookings Institution, and Colin Kahl, who is now under secretary of defence for policy. “We thought they were nuts and they thought we were nuts. It turns out, in the end, we were a little more right than they were.”
It isn't about Cheltenham per se - the allegation is that for a period at the beginning of the crisis, the UK plan was to allow everyone to get it (which those of us who watched the very first PM's broadcast will remember was pretty much what they said). Hence no events ban and Cheltenham was allowed to go ahead.
It would also have to have be Labour/LibDem's plan, as well.
There were in power in Wales & they allowed events like the Stereophonics to play a huge gig at Cardiff's Motorpoint Arena (14th March) after Cheltenham (10-13th March) .
Or ... maybe, we could just acccept that at the outbreak of a completely new disease, no-one knew the best strategy -- even the LibDems.
The big issue with the initial herd immunity plan was the gaslighting that there was never a herd immunity plan.
'Gaslighting' --- well, if there is/was any gaslighting, it extends to politicians in Wales as well.
I have no idea as I am not Welsh, and don't follow their politics. If the Welsh govt publicly said the policy was herd immunity, and then a week later and forever after denied that they ever said this despite the record being clear, then yes they were gaslighting too.
Well, their policy at the outset was extreme reluctance to cancel large events. Even after Cheltenham.
E.g., the Wales versus Scotland 6N match in Cardiff was the very last to be cancelled. All the other 6N matches that weekend had been cancelled before Wales finally and reluctantly followed suit.
Must admit, I am inclined to cut all our politicians a lot of slack at the beginning of the pandemic. It was genuinely unclear what the best policy is/was.
There are two key considerations here. One is how much revenue Scotland generates. GERS finds that, even taking into consideration a geographical share of oil and gas production, Scotland raised £382 less per person in revenue than the UK average. This is despite the Scottish Government being given the power to create a Scottish Rate of Income Tax and ministers using it to introduce a higher-rate band than the rest of the UK, so that top-rate payers are liable for 46 per cent in taxation. Handed a licence to print money, the Scottish Government has ended up bringing in less of it.
GERS is a con-trick intended to make Scotland look bad... with a title conveniently arranged to match the commonly used name of Scotland’s main Unionist football team, as if it’s [sic] political bias was not already apparent...
what really interests me is why this document continues to be published by the Scottish Government. It’s not as if it has to produce it, after all. It does not actually refer to its own activities. Despite that, it appears to endorse it, which is not something I would choose to do. More than that though, I am not sure why a serious counter-attack on this Unionist nonsense is not being mounted by the SNP government.
The obvious answer - that GERS is the best available indication of the finances of an independent Scotland, as indeed all the Scottish separatists argued when it showed them with a budget surplus - seems to have escaped Mr Murphy. But then, he's always been better at doxxing insightful independent critics and putting pressure on their employers than he has been with analysis.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden's problem is that he looks like he belongs in a care home not the White House.
And likely to grow worse during the next year.
And at risk of sounding like a stuck record, that’s still better than his predecessor who behaved like he belonged in a lunatic asylum.
Sure.
But its still not good.
How the USA ended up with this gerontocracy is worthy of study - their current 'leaders' weren't that impressive even when they were in their prime.
It’s a worldwide phenomenon. Look at the likes of Putin, Xi, Duterte, Modi, Obrador, Bolsonaro, Maduro, Macron, whatever idiot they come up with in Germany, Erdogan, Johnson, recently Varadkar, Orban...
The truth is that we as a planet are appallingly badly served right now by politicians in general. Biden is if anything rather above average, and as you note he’s a poor president who was until 2009 a long serving but rather undistinguished senator.
My theory is that the technology of advertising and persuasion has just got too good for our collective good.
Smart politicians, ones who want to win, outsource all the campaigning stuff to others- starting with the Saatchis and ending with weirdos manipulating social media algorithms.
Trouble is that those interactions between actual politicians and real people in real space and time are an important part of the job of politics itself and essential in grounding political thinking in some sort of reality.
You can't replace experience of real people with a data dashboard.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden's problem is that he looks like he belongs in a care home not the White House.
And likely to grow worse during the next year.
And at risk of sounding like a stuck record, that’s still better than his predecessor who behaved like he belonged in a lunatic asylum.
Sure.
But its still not good.
How the USA ended up with this gerontocracy is worthy of study - their current 'leaders' weren't that impressive even when they were in their prime.
It’s a worldwide phenomenon. Look at the likes of Putin, Xi, Duterte, Modi, Obrador, Bolsonaro, Maduro, Macron, whatever idiot they come up with in Germany, Erdogan, Johnson, recently Varadkar, Orban...
The truth is that we as a planet are appallingly badly served right now by politicians in general. Biden is if anything rather above average, and as you note he’s a poor president who was until 2009 a long serving but rather undistinguished senator.
In what way is Xi Jinping a bad leader? He’s a ruthless autocratic bastard, but that’s his aim. He’d see that as a compliment. And under his watch the Chinese are replacing the USA as the ultimate superpower, he’s retaken Hong Kong without firing a shot, and there’s a good chance he will shortly devour Taiwan, as well.
He will be seen as a ‘great’ Chinese leader. Not to our taste. Not popular in Xinjiang or many other places. But not a farcical clown like Trump, or Bolsanaro, not responsible for disasters, like Biden
Same goes for Putin, Erdogan, Modi and even Orban - successful autocrats in different forms.
The really poor leadership is, sadly, concentrated in the West
We are the only country in the world ACTIVELY pursuing a mass infection strategy in schools. Johnson’s govt have scrapped bubbles, the requirement for close contacts to self-isolate (even if +ve case at home) and now there’s a “threshold” before covid-safe measures can be taken https://twitter.com/Zubhaque/status/1428625201260994560
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden might be able to avoid another terrorist attack on US soil.
However he will still have allowed the Taliban to return to Afghanistan on his watch
They never left it.
They forced back to their heartlands, Biden reopened the doors to their return.
A good comment on that Owen Jones article Kinabulu linked to captures it (happy birthday by the way)
'South Korea 70 years USA defending a nation that could not alone defend itself. USA stays in Europe . But 20 years in Afghanistan ? Bidens moral cowardice and snidy insult to Afghan army A 'woke' president abandons women and children to rapist murdees . Never again dare to pontificate about human rights or solidarity with opressed peole The left and woke have met hard reality and now indulge in cognitive dissocence and whataboutery. Like walking past a house hearing the screams of a battered wife and screaming child .. .Nothing do with me guv . And now the virtue signaling lefty wokes all bid to outdo each other in how many refugees we take. Hypocrites all. A shambles of a decision from morally corrupt selfish nation that is now humbled . But lefty wokes pontificating is the most nauseating of all. What do we wanyt? womens rights...err well apart from Afghan women ..nowt do with us guv we should have stayed out. anyhow gives the woke brigade something to maul and dissect..they'l soon be back to protesting over offensive photos on packets of rice etc.'
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden might be able to avoid another terrorist attack on US soil.
However he will still have allowed the Taliban to return to Afghanistan on his watch
They never left it.
And 'foreign affairs', especially if American troops are not involved, are very low in American voters priorities. Avoiding an attack on American soil ranks far, far higher.
Johnson’s misfortune is that the music stopped on his watch, and he had prepared no other song to play in its place. That’s why yesterday was a key test for the PM, to enunciate Britain’s new place in the world now that the US has walked off the pitch. To step up and offer a lead to our other allies who are also now adrift amid the West’s crisis of self-doubt.
Someone must, and that moral responsibility now falls on Britain, as Nato’s second biggest contributor, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and with Johnson the current chair of the G7.
But it was a test Britain’s PM failed, and to his own MPs’ palpable fury. “He was nothing. No substance, no understanding,” pronounced one disappointed senior Tory in the chamber yesterday.
For Afghanistan it is too late. That ship has sailed, as anyone who cares about that country and has spent time there like me must now painfully accept.
But for Johnson it is not yet too late. In an ever more precarious world, the next international disaster is not far away. It will come in Somalia, Mozambique or Nigeria, which are all under the growing threat of Islamist takeover. Or in Taiwan, which Xi Jinping’s China is eyeing up. Or in one of the Baltic states, which fear a Russian incursion like Ukraine’s. Or with Iran and it’s hardliners’ takeover.
Johnson needs to learn how to lead on the international stage, and fast. Before the next Afghanistan erupts and reveals Britain has no foreign policy left at all.
More save the world fantasising.
How much blood and money does the Standard think the UK's middle classes are willing to pay ?
I agree it's mostly fantasy - "let me think of all the stuff that could go wrong" with a nebulous demand to "lead". Obviously crises will occur from time to time, but none of Taiwan, Baltic States, Mozambique or Nigeria are under imminent existential threat, and Somalia's plight has been ongoing for a long time but it's not suddenly got much more critical. We absolutely shouldn't be sending troops to any of them. Or what else does "lead" mean? Make a concerned speech?
If he reversed the foreign aid cuts that would at least be useful. And much cheaper than another military commitment.
I'm a general supporter of foreign aid, and think the 0.7% target is sensible. However it becomes a classic conservative question of whether the money is being spent well. The fact the ex-Afghan president fled with $169 million indicates that, all too often, money is diverted before it gets to the people who would benefit most from it.
It's also massively complex. Whilst not directly foreign aid, as a child, Mrs J was a massive user of the British Council library in Ankara. She had spent a few years in the UK before this, but toned her language skills in the library (reading books she admits were (ahem) adult for her age). She is therefore very much for funding the British Council.
However, she was very middle class, and therefore had easy access to the library. Does funding things like that actually help the people in foreign countries who need it the most? And does throwing millions at top-heavy 'charities' working abroad the most efficient way of helping people, and of promoting our country?
Here's the Owen Jones polemic on the US/UK and Afghanistan. It's imo a good counterpoint to all the Tugendhat tosh and a view that at least belongs in the PB mix:
Here's the Owen Jones polemic on the US/UK and Afghanistan. It's imo a good counterpoint to all the Tugendhat tosh and a view that at least belongs in the PB mix:
Moonshine is right about Kabul. If this evacuation ‘ends’ with thousands of westerners still stranded in a violent, Islamist Afghanistan, the scrutiny of Raab’s hotel room rate is going to seem decadently trivial. Kabul will be a crisis for the ages.
This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.
And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.
Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.
One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.
Very depressing.
Hope I am wrong.
Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
Biden's problem is that he looks like he belongs in a care home not the White House.
And likely to grow worse during the next year.
And at risk of sounding like a stuck record, that’s still better than his predecessor who behaved like he belonged in a lunatic asylum.
Sure.
But its still not good.
How the USA ended up with this gerontocracy is worthy of study - their current 'leaders' weren't that impressive even when they were in their prime.
It’s a worldwide phenomenon. Look at the likes of Putin, Xi, Duterte, Modi, Obrador, Bolsonaro, Maduro, Macron, whatever idiot they come up with in Germany, Erdogan, Johnson, recently Varadkar, Orban...
The truth is that we as a planet are appallingly badly served right now by politicians in general. Biden is if anything rather above average, and as you note he’s a poor president who was until 2009 a long serving but rather undistinguished senator.
In what way is Xi Jinping a bad leader? He’s a ruthless autocratic bastard, but that’s his aim. He’d see that as a compliment. And under his watch the Chinese are replacing the USA as the ultimate superpower, he’s retaken Hong Kong without firing a shot, and there’s a good chance he will shortly devour Taiwan, as well.
He will be seen as a ‘great’ Chinese leader. Not to our taste. Not popular in Xinjiang or many other places. But not a farcical clown like Trump, or Bolsanaro, not responsible for disasters, like Biden
Same goes for Putin, Erdogan, Modi and even Orban - successful autocrats in different forms.
The really poor leadership is, sadly, concentrated in the West
Only because under Biden and Trump we are not willing to confront and take on autocrats and dictators as we were under FDR, JFK, Reagan and Bush.
The leadership of the west comes from the US down, if we have an isolationist there that effects the rest. Ironically the strongest western leader at the moment is probably Macron but he cannot do it alone and even he is not willing to go too hard to counter the likes of Putin
Comments
One tells me he watched Raab lounge in a beach cabana, swim and play paddle tennis for hours, occasionally checking his phone. https://twitter.com/marioledwith/status/1428608032603246599/photo/1
And likely to grow worse during the next year.
The Scottish Tories said Green “extremists” didn’t belong anywhere near power and the SNP had “lost the plot” if they thought businesses and workers would welcome the move.
Scottish Labour said the Greens would end up as SNP “lackeys”, with the country being run by “a tiny minority of political obsessives”.
Nicola Sturgeon took many in her own party by surprise when she opened talks with the Greens, despite there being no need based on parliamentary arithmetic.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19525669.opposition-savage-snp-green-joint-government-deal-ahead-announcement/?ref=twtrec
1) What his advice was?
2) Whether it was listened to?
FCO advice to leave Afghanistan immediately was issued on August 7th.
The next set of debt/deficit projections will give Rishi a lot of breathing room to not implement a lot of expected spending cuts and tax rises. The corporation tax rise specifically should be scrapped. Already companies are looking at their options and UK companies have begun trading at a discount allowing foreign companies to purchase them and make tax inversions to lower tax jurisdictions.
Another day of over 600 cases in NSW. WA Premier complaining about lack of measures in NSW. States in Australia will be locking down their State borders now.
I don't see how NSW can contain this now.
Disaster occurs on Sunday
Monday people are asked to go to Kabul at no notice.
Tuesday night they arrive - exactly how much quicker do people think they could get people there?
There is a comment earlier about Social media stopping people from becoming politicians. The problem with the general public is that most people think things can be done instantly and they just can't be.
But he's just the figurehead for the FO rot and incompetence.
https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1428621679077597189?s=20
For everyone saying he should be sacked, specifically what would have been changed had he been here and not in Crete? Are you also saying that senior politicians can't ever have a holiday in case something happens? I mean he did come back early. Though to what end I'm not sure given we have little to no means to make a difference.
My point is that with the airport mission mooted to finish in as soon as 5 days, this might be the defining political event of the era (and it might last an era) and it’s getting almost no attention. Instead you lot are boring on about a phone call and the cost of Raab’s holiday. It has the potential to crush the whole government in weeks.
It was Trump who was persuaded to change course first, reluctantly agreeing to a three-week shutdown on 11 March, at a time when 150,000 people were attending the Cheltenham horse racing festival in Britain.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/19/us-trump-johnson-herd-immunity-aftershocks-book
In any case, the reason Cheltenham is so prominent in popular memory is (imo) it was used to distract attention from that weekend's England vs Wales rugby match at Twickenham (capacity 82,000) which was attended by the Prime Minister.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8086403/Boris-Johnson-fiancee-Carrie-Symonds-spotted-watching-England-play-rugby-against-Wales.html
Rory Stewart @RoryStewartUK
This is one of the clearest and most detail accounts of how Biden got this so wrong - and what the alternative’s were from CIA’s Former Counterterrorism Chief for the Region: Afghanistan was not an intelligence failure, it was something much worse - https://www.justsecurity.org/77801/cias-former-counterterrorism-chief-for-the-region-afghanistan-not-an-intelligence-failure-something-much-worse/
Nothing here surprised me, but then again this was obvious to anyone who listens to the WarNerd.
Labour has dug out the book Raab co-authored in 2012, which claimed British workers are "among the worst idlers in the world"
"Too many people in Britain prefer a lie-in to hard work," wrote the authors who also included Truss, Patel & Kwarteng
https://twitter.com/johnestevens/status/1428622674029330444?s=20
Interesting article though.
So the CIA was painting a prettier picture than the likely reality.
Johnson’s misfortune is that the music stopped on his watch, and he had prepared no other song to play in its place. That’s why yesterday was a key test for the PM, to enunciate Britain’s new place in the world now that the US has walked off the pitch. To step up and offer a lead to our other allies who are also now adrift amid the West’s crisis of self-doubt.
Someone must, and that moral responsibility now falls on Britain, as Nato’s second biggest contributor, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and with Johnson the current chair of the G7.
But it was a test Britain’s PM failed, and to his own MPs’ palpable fury. “He was nothing. No substance, no understanding,” pronounced one disappointed senior Tory in the chamber yesterday.
For Afghanistan it is too late. That ship has sailed, as anyone who cares about that country and has spent time there like me must now painfully accept.
But for Johnson it is not yet too late. In an ever more precarious world, the next international disaster is not far away. It will come in Somalia, Mozambique or Nigeria, which are all under the growing threat of Islamist takeover. Or in Taiwan, which Xi Jinping’s China is eyeing up. Or in one of the Baltic states, which fear a Russian incursion like Ukraine’s. Or with Iran and it’s hardliners’ takeover.
Johnson needs to learn how to lead on the international stage, and fast. Before the next Afghanistan erupts and reveals Britain has no foreign policy left at all.
The Grand Beach Residence has TWO private pools
https://www.amirandes.com/luxury-accommodation/grand-beach-residence.html
If he was in the hotel pool, that suggests he was in one of the normal hotel rooms or suites which are £200-£1000 per night
But I've spoken to two GardaWorld guards this morning who have heard nothing about an evacuation
https://twitter.com/ameliagentleman/status/1428623089303265285
The emerging story behind what happened seemed to be this -
- The Afghan government (or parts thereof) looked at the Trump deal
- They collectively saw they were being abandoned.
- At the same time, overtures were made by the Taliban/their backers in Pakistan
- Hamid Karzai was involved in this
- The Afghan government (or parts thereof) agreed to stand down the Army - lots of reports of soldiers being ordered not to fight.
- They then exited stage right, with bags of cash.
And he is on record as having said that, with hindsight, going away was a mistake.
How much blood and money does the Standard think the UK's middle classes are willing to pay ?
RAF globemaster just landed in Kabul.
I keep harping in about it, but a detailed select committee report at the beginning of this year raised the possibility of collapse in Afghanistan as a result of the 2020 withdrawal agreement. They were extremely uncomplimentary about government contingency planning, and raised pertinent questions for ministers to answer. It's clear from the course of events that the report was ignored.
The Foreign Office is not, of course, the only department which bears responsibility, but the phone call does seem a very fair representation of Raab's utility.
The use of best-medium-worst case methodology to cover people in a hierarchy from blame is an interesting phenomenon. You can say that "I did say", while at the same time not offend the senior people by giving them a report they don't want to read.
Giving the people at the top information they don't want to have seen, is often considered the most offensive thing you can do. Short of their-wife-on-board-room-table scenarios.
What might be the case is that Johnson's sackings are more personal than normal. The only thing that really gets you into trouble is disagreeing with the boss (whether that boss is Cummings, Carrie or maybe even Boris.)
In which case being diminished in this way (and surely Raab is diminished- even a 1% chance of making things a bit better was surely worth a personal phone call... It's not as if he had anything else on) possibly makes Raabish more useful to the PM, not less.
Compare the hospital and death numbers in Bulgaria with those in the UK.
And then see how fast Bulgaria's hospital and death numbers are increasing.
Good morning.
Totally credible article. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst is an old adage, but one which, recently, seems to have been forgotten.
I also don't get the impression that the Taliban are what we would recognise as a military force; very great latitude is either allowed to, or can easily be taken by, commanders on the ground.
There were in power in Wales & they allowed events like the Stereophonics to play a huge gig at Cardiff's Motorpoint Arena (14th March) after Cheltenham (10-13th March) .
Or ... maybe, we could just acccept that at the outbreak of a completely new disease, no-one knew the best strategy -- even the LibDems.
I wonder if that might have happened here? Would a minister/MP have to declare such an upgrade?
Probably according to the letter of the rules? But perhaps not in the spirit of the rules, given hotel upgrades at some point are not at all unusual.
Dom, Hancock, Stanley, Jo.
Boris Johnson is the living embodiment of this problem - but I am still confident that his jovial optimism will see him safely home at the next general election.
But its still not good.
How the USA ended up with this gerontocracy is worthy of study - their current 'leaders' weren't that impressive even when they were in their prime.
BoZo refuses to sack anyone that everyone else tells him to.
"No, shan't, you can't make me..."
My boss sat me down to explain what I had done - by telling the Big Boss the truth, in front of people, was a tremendous slap in the face for him. Because the Big Boss couldn't go against the consensus of his peers. But now, since he Knew, he could be blamed when things went wrong. Unless he started insulting everyone by telling them what he had been told.
The real problem is that people presenting data that contradicts The Policy are considered to be the problem. See Herman Kahn etc..
The truth is that we as a planet are appallingly badly served right now by politicians in general. Biden is if anything rather above average, and as you note he’s a poor president who was until 2009 a long serving but rather undistinguished senator.
If he reversed the foreign aid cuts that would at least be useful. And much cheaper than another military commitment.
However he will still have allowed the Taliban to return to Afghanistan on his watch
It does say quite a lot about the moral and intellectual cowardice of say, Cummings and Johnson that having pushed that policy they are now disavowing it and pretending somebody else came up with it while they wisely said it was bullshit ab initio.
Didn’t fire Priti when she broke ministerial code. Or Hancock (though later tried to hint he did after he quit). Or Cummings re Covid rules
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1428632952548773889
Most of those leaders were at least elected, Xi was just appointed by the Communist party hierarchy having risen through the ranks
Here's the Owen Jones polemic on the US/UK and Afghanistan. It's imo a good counterpoint to all the Tugendhat tosh and a view that at least belongs in the PB mix:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/19/afghanistan-crisis-britain-foreign-policy-delusional
Also, special day.
Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday dear Hard Left Social Democrat. Happy birthday to me.
I'm the exact dead arithmetical opposite of sweet 16.
He does, the boss is furious, the umpire is worried but the bowler (a lowly female employee???) is delighted.
I can remember the advert but not who or what it is for!
E.g., the Wales versus Scotland 6N match in Cardiff was the very last to be cancelled. All the other 6N matches that weekend had been cancelled before Wales finally and reluctantly followed suit.
Must admit, I am inclined to cut all our politicians a lot of slack at the beginning of the pandemic. It was genuinely unclear what the best policy is/was.
GERS is a con-trick intended to make Scotland look bad... with a title conveniently arranged to match the commonly used name of Scotland’s main Unionist football team, as if it’s [sic] political bias was not already apparent...
what really interests me is why this document continues to be published by the Scottish Government. It’s not as if it has to produce it, after all. It does not actually refer to its own activities. Despite that, it appears to endorse it, which is not something I would choose to do. More than that though, I am not sure why a serious counter-attack on this Unionist nonsense is not being mounted by the SNP government.
The obvious answer - that GERS is the best available indication of the finances of an independent Scotland, as indeed all the Scottish separatists argued when it showed them with a budget surplus - seems to have escaped Mr Murphy. But then, he's always been better at doxxing insightful independent critics and putting pressure on their employers than he has been with analysis.
Smart politicians, ones who want to win, outsource all the campaigning stuff to others- starting with the Saatchis and ending with weirdos manipulating social media algorithms.
Trouble is that those interactions between actual politicians and real people in real space and time are an important part of the job of politics itself and essential in grounding political thinking in some sort of reality.
You can't replace experience of real people with a data dashboard.
He will be seen as a ‘great’ Chinese leader. Not to our taste. Not popular in Xinjiang or many other places. But not a farcical clown like Trump, or Bolsanaro, not responsible for disasters, like Biden
Same goes for Putin, Erdogan, Modi and even Orban - successful autocrats in different forms.
The really poor leadership is, sadly, concentrated in the West
We are the only country in the world ACTIVELY pursuing a mass infection strategy in schools. Johnson’s govt have scrapped bubbles, the requirement for close contacts to self-isolate (even if +ve case at home) and now there’s a “threshold” before covid-safe measures can be taken
https://twitter.com/Zubhaque/status/1428625201260994560
A good comment on that Owen Jones article Kinabulu linked to captures it (happy birthday by the way)
'South Korea 70 years USA defending a nation that could not alone defend itself.
USA stays in Europe .
But 20 years in Afghanistan ?
Bidens moral cowardice and snidy insult to Afghan army
A 'woke' president abandons women and children to rapist murdees .
Never again dare to pontificate about human rights or solidarity with opressed peole
The left and woke have met hard reality and now indulge in cognitive dissocence and whataboutery.
Like walking past a house hearing the screams of a battered wife and screaming child ..
.Nothing do with me guv .
And now the virtue signaling lefty wokes all bid to outdo each other in how many refugees we take.
Hypocrites all.
A shambles of a decision from morally corrupt selfish nation that is now humbled .
But lefty wokes pontificating is the most nauseating of all.
What do we wanyt? womens rights...err well apart from Afghan women ..nowt do with us guv we should have stayed out.
anyhow gives the woke brigade something to maul and dissect..they'l soon be back to protesting over offensive photos on packets of rice etc.'
Avoiding an attack on American soil ranks far, far higher.
It's also massively complex. Whilst not directly foreign aid, as a child, Mrs J was a massive user of the British Council library in Ankara. She had spent a few years in the UK before this, but toned her language skills in the library (reading books she admits were (ahem) adult for her age). She is therefore very much for funding the British Council.
However, she was very middle class, and therefore had easy access to the library. Does funding things like that actually help the people in foreign countries who need it the most? And does throwing millions at top-heavy 'charities' working abroad the most efficient way of helping people, and of promoting our country?
RAF globemaster about to cross southern Afghan border. If it's the same one that landed about 850 it certainly didnt stay long for loading.
The leadership of the west comes from the US down, if we have an isolationist there that effects the rest. Ironically the strongest western leader at the moment is probably Macron but he cannot do it alone and even he is not willing to go too hard to counter the likes of Putin