We do not have to be in the EU to have strong defence ties with France and Germany and Nato
The UK certainly has and can have defence ties with France and Germany but European defence cooperation is shifting from NATO to PESCO and the UK is always going to be outside that until they rejoin.
One of the few things the leavers didn't lie about was the imminence and importance of the 'EU Army'. The UK knew it was coming, knew it would be the focus of European defence and decided to have nothing to do with it. The UK also left the European Defence Agency so 'strong defence ties' are going to be an uphill slog from here.
Still, you got the freedom to impose roaming charges. 🇬🇧👊
And so did the non-British Europeans, roaming charges I mean.
America is not a reliable ally, and the world has just become a less safe place.
To be honest this news is shocking and poses profound questions for the west
It can't be a surprise; you've had enough warning in the form of Obama's Pacific pivot and Trump's frank disinterest. Macron told us all NATO was brain dead two years ago but nobody listened.
Being somebody who actually knows what they're talking about in the area of defence I would ask you what you think that the UK should (and, perhaps more importantly,) should not be aspiring to do in future
I wrote a header about it a few years ago. See the last part 'Do Less With More'.
After 9/11, invading Afghanistan gave the US what it needed most: time. 20 years on, it has a homeland that is (pretty much) secure. It has had the opportunity and the space and the money to build intelligence structures that can keep the domestic US safe. Where Biden - and the wider political system - will be in trouble is after all that cost, if turns out that al Qaeda or whoever can still pierce their shield.
I do worry that the 20th anniversary is the moment for long-planned spectaculars to be unleashed. Biden will be at the same point in his stint as President as George W Bush - but with no appetite for the foreign interventions after 9/11. And a President with fewer faculties.
America in a box, tight within its own borders. That would be a big win for al Qaeda.
No, America has a world wide empire still, on which the sun never sets. Its bases in client states can bomb and drone almost anywhere with ease. There are 800 in around 80 countries and territories. The 50 biggest are listed here:
Overnight Australia has reported over 800 Covid cases. In the entire pandemic they had never gone above 700 before. It was 600ish yesterday. Vast majority of cases are around Sydney. Admission from NSW that Delta is now uncontrollable.
NZ had 21 cases too, almost doubling from the day before. They are going to struggle.to contain Delta now too.
Likely to be a very difficult few months for them.
Tragic incompetence at the top in both countries. They should have used the time they’d bought to vaccinate their populations. There will be very severe consequences.
It's hard to work out why they were not able to do that - we are not talking about poor countries with huge populations. Europe has done a much better job in that respect at least.
The initial hotspots were China, Iran and Italy. In retrospect we were probably lucky that the horrors of the Italian Alps scared the shit out of Europeans. Fear can be a fantastic motivator.*
(*as long as one doesn’t cry wolf too often. Ahem fearmongers.)
The unopposed appointment of Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP as new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats was about item no 15 on the news yesterday. Talk about picking a bad day for that announcement! Totally drowned out by Afghanistan, the SNP/Green government launch and lots of other things. The brief clip of his annoying pseudo-oration was a real stinker.
For a small party, the SLDs used to have a lot of talent. These days they are in the same boat as Scottish Labour: a talent desert.
Funnily enough, Tory leader Douglas Ross is fast overtaking SLab MP Ian Murray as the sanest and most persuasive Unionist spokesperson. Never thought I’d see that!
By far the best and most credible recovery for the Unionists would be a resurgence of the old coalition pals SLab and SLD. Judging by their two new leaders that ain’t happening any time soon.
It will be interesting to see how the all new Starmer Labour party copes with such ideas. Labour were happy with the idea of the LibDems propping Labour up but having then propped the Tories up it was Consternation and Uproar.
Supposedly Labour have moved towards support for proportionate voting systems. If they have then they will have to accept the idea of coalitions and some of those won't involve Labour. Are they grown ups now or illogical partisan hacks?
My guesstimate:
Labour Party in England 40% grown ups 20% illogical partisan hacks 40% Citizen Smiths
Welsh Labour 50% grown ups 30% illogical partisan hacks 10% Citizen Smiths 10% last of the true Britons
Almost getting the impression that SLD is getting to be a local equivalent of the kind of 'Independent' which is a Tory without a blue rosette. Albeit largely remainer, tbf.
On Slab, the interesting thing is that it was historically in large part a Roman Catholic immigrant (ie Irish) party in reaction to the Protestant-nativist Unionist Tories and the more right wing home rulers such as Gibb. I expect you have heard the stories of Labour activists going round the housing schemes and telling any wifies with Irish surnames and Celtic shirts on the washing lines that they'd be deported as soon as the SNP came into power. Of course now they have lost much of that demographic to you know who, hence (in my perception) some of their utter hatred for the SNP. But I certainly was surprised, a few years ago, to find a Labour councils actively trying to fund Orange activities:
I seem to recall that that was reverse-ferreted, but even to make the attempt was quite something. A lot of the eastern Central Belt folks really, really do not like sectarian marches of either ilk in their towns, especially when half the rentamarch types in the West (and NI) seem to pile in for the day.
Trump was America First, Biden appears to be Only America.
The lack of even name checking the likes of UK and France last night was telling....Biden saying only America can airlift people out of Afghanistan. I am sure all the special forces from UK, France, etc on the ground in Afghanistan really appreciate this take.
After 9/11, invading Afghanistan gave the US what it needed most: time. 20 years on, it has a homeland that is (pretty much) secure. It has had the opportunity and the space and the money to build intelligence structures that can keep the domestic US safe. Where Biden - and the wider political system - will be in trouble is after all that cost, if turns out that al Qaeda or whoever can still pierce their shield.
I do worry that the 20th anniversary is the moment for long-planned spectaculars to be unleashed. Biden will be at the same point in his stint as President as George W Bush - but with no appetite for the foreign interventions after 9/11. And a President with fewer faculties.
America in a box, tight within its own borders. That would be a big win for al Qaeda.
No, America has a world wide empire still, on which the sun never sets. Its bases in client states can bomb and drone almost anywhere with ease. There are 800 in around 80 countries and territories. The 50 biggest are listed here:
Morning all! Biden is toast, but as I never expected him to be more than a caretaker that isn't a surprise. The challenge for America is simple. Too many of the GOP voters are dumb and like being lied to.
We know for a fact that Trump signed a deal to hand Afghanistan over to the Taliban by May this year, yet GOP cheerleaders like HYUFD still point to the % under Taliban rule under Trump and what it is now and try to claim that Biden "lost Afghanistan".
Watch Trump come back. Yes it was Trump's idea and Trump signed the deal and Trump was boasting just weeks ago that he should get all the credit and now they have deleted all the social media of this. Morons will believe the lie that Trump didn't do it and its all Biden.
However doddering and decrepit President Biden is (and he really is) the answer is not to re-elect President doddering and decrepit and psychotic.
Yes, the American public wanted to get troops out of Afghanistan after 20 years (which is what’s driven Biden presumably)
But knowing America, the worse outcome for them is it be made to look weak and indecisive. That’s where they are now - and I think that outweighs any possible gains that there were there politically from a swift withdrawal
After 9/11, invading Afghanistan gave the US what it needed most: time. 20 years on, it has a homeland that is (pretty much) secure. It has had the opportunity and the space and the money to build intelligence structures that can keep the domestic US safe. Where Biden - and the wider political system - will be in trouble is after all that cost, if turns out that al Qaeda or whoever can still pierce their shield.
I do worry that the 20th anniversary is the moment for long-planned spectaculars to be unleashed. Biden will be at the same point in his stint as President as George W Bush - but with no appetite for the foreign interventions after 9/11. And a President with fewer faculties.
America in a box, tight within its own borders. That would be a big win for al Qaeda.
America is not a reliable ally, and the world has just become a less safe place.
To be honest this news is shocking and poses profound questions for the west
It can't be a surprise; you've had enough warning in the form of Obama's Pacific pivot and Trump's frank disinterest. Macron told us all NATO was brain dead two years ago but nobody listened.
Being somebody who actually knows what they're talking about in the area of defence I would ask you what you think that the UK should (and, perhaps more importantly,) should not be aspiring to do in future
I wrote a header about it a few years ago. See the last part 'Do Less With More'.
That’s a very well written piece, eloquently argued.
Indeed, in particular this observation/advice:
The most important and central plank of the new policy should be to face reality and reverse the now decades old doctrine of doing more with less. The focus of the UK forces should be overwhelmingly on the North Atlantic, the GIUK gap and the British Isles. Call it the East of Skegness Policy. British forces have been in more or less constant combat in the Middle East for 26 years. It is now safe to conclude that whatever it is that we are doing there isn’t improving the situation and that we should stop. This strategic pivot would end long out of area deployments and thus greatly improve morale and retention.
In my own, admittedly amateur and not particularly well informed opinion, the UK is too small to do everything so should concentrate on doing a limited range of activities well, and that (logically, given that we're an island and so are our remaining overseas territories,) means a focus on naval strength, accompanied by a modest air force, drones, cruise missiles and precision-guided munitions. Territorial defence and a deterrent capability to project kinetic force remotely. I'm not at all sure that this country needs tanks anymore, for example, and if there's an argument left for maintaining a sizeable army then it's probably just to provide a sufficiently large recruitment pool for the special forces, and to be deployed mostly in humanitarian emergencies rather than combat.
Quite besides anything else, concentrating on ships at sea rather than boots on the ground might help to dissuade any future return to "something must be done-ism" the next time a Prime Minister spies some new group of Islamist nasties and develops an itchy trigger finger - something which could well result in a similarly lengthy and ultimately futile deployment to that in Afghanistan.
After 9/11, invading Afghanistan gave the US what it needed most: time. 20 years on, it has a homeland that is (pretty much) secure. It has had the opportunity and the space and the money to build intelligence structures that can keep the domestic US safe. Where Biden - and the wider political system - will be in trouble is after all that cost, if turns out that al Qaeda or whoever can still pierce their shield.
I do worry that the 20th anniversary is the moment for long-planned spectaculars to be unleashed. Biden will be at the same point in his stint as President as George W Bush - but with no appetite for the foreign interventions after 9/11. And a President with fewer faculties.
America in a box, tight within its own borders. That would be a big win for al Qaeda.
No, America has a world wide empire still, on which the sun never sets. Its bases in client states can bomb and drone almost anywhere with ease. There are 800 in around 80 countries and territories. The 50 biggest are listed here:
On New Zealand and Australia, I'm not sure we're in a position to be quite so critical. According to Worldometers:
New Zealand: 26 deaths, 5 per million population. Australia: 975 deaths, 38 per million population. UK: 131,487 deaths, 1,925 per million population.
Looks to me like their strategy has worked somewhat better than ours (and most others) thus far. Yes, their figures are likely to get (much) worse, but I doubt that they'll get anywhere near our death rate (per million). By playing for time they should be able to benefit more from vaccines and treatment.
That’s a very well written piece, eloquently argued.
Yes, that's a great article. I think we tend to underestimate Dura because he strays towards the malcolm_g tendency of pure invective at times. More like this would be really good.
The unopposed appointment of Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP as new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats was about item no 15 on the news yesterday. Talk about picking a bad day for that announcement! Totally drowned out by Afghanistan, the SNP/Green government launch and lots of other things. The brief clip of his annoying pseudo-oration was a real stinker.
For a small party, the SLDs used to have a lot of talent. These days they are in the same boat as Scottish Labour: a talent desert.
Funnily enough, Tory leader Douglas Ross is fast overtaking SLab MP Ian Murray as the sanest and most persuasive Unionist spokesperson. Never thought I’d see that!
By far the best and most credible recovery for the Unionists would be a resurgence of the old coalition pals SLab and SLD. Judging by their two new leaders that ain’t happening any time soon.
It will be interesting to see how the all new Starmer Labour party copes with such ideas. Labour were happy with the idea of the LibDems propping Labour up but having then propped the Tories up it was Consternation and Uproar.
Supposedly Labour have moved towards support for proportionate voting systems. If they have then they will have to accept the idea of coalitions and some of those won't involve Labour. Are they grown ups now or illogical partisan hacks?
My guesstimate:
Labour Party in England 40% grown ups 20% illogical partisan hacks 40% Citizen Smiths
Welsh Labour 50% grown ups 30% illogical partisan hacks 10% Citizen Smiths 10% last of the true Britons
I think you have overestimated "grown ups" in all categories. Certainly in my days in the Camden Labour Party back in the 80s, "grown ups" would have been lucky to touch double figures. Citizen Smith's were certainly the majority grouping.
Mind you, if PB is a microcosm of reality the Conservative Party must be almost full to the brim with "partisan hacks".
On New Zealand and Australia, I'm not sure we're in a position to be quite so critical. According to Worldometers:
New Zealand: 26 deaths, 5 per million population. Australia: 975 deaths, 38 per million population. UK: 131,487 deaths, 1,925 per million population.
Looks to me like their strategy has worked somewhat better than ours (and most others) thus far. Yes, their figures are likely to get (much) worse, but I doubt that they'll get anywhere near our death rate (per million). By playing for time they should be able to benefit more from vaccines and treatment.
It’s a marathon not a sprint, mate.
They have not got anywhere near the numbers jabbed they need to and we will see what happens in the next couple of months.
Overnight Australia has reported over 800 Covid cases. In the entire pandemic they had never gone above 700 before. It was 600ish yesterday. Vast majority of cases are around Sydney. Admission from NSW that Delta is now uncontrollable.
NZ had 21 cases too, almost doubling from the day before. They are going to struggle.to contain Delta now too.
Likely to be a very difficult few months for them.
All the unvaccinated will get it in the end, and probably the rest of us too.
Double jabbed (AZ) friend in Scotland has just had it - described it as like a bad flu but happily on the mend. Prior to vaccination co-morbidities could easily have led to a much more serious outcome.
Morning all! Biden is toast, but as I never expected him to be more than a caretaker that isn't a surprise. The challenge for America is simple. Too many of the GOP voters are dumb and like being lied to.
We know for a fact that Trump signed a deal to hand Afghanistan over to the Taliban by May this year, yet GOP cheerleaders like HYUFD still point to the % under Taliban rule under Trump and what it is now and try to claim that Biden "lost Afghanistan".
Watch Trump come back. Yes it was Trump's idea and Trump signed the deal and Trump was boasting just weeks ago that he should get all the credit and now they have deleted all the social media of this. Morons will believe the lie that Trump didn't do it and its all Biden.
However doddering and decrepit President Biden is (and he really is) the answer is not to re-elect President doddering and decrepit and psychotic.
Yes, the American public wanted to get troops out of Afghanistan after 20 years (which is what’s driven Biden presumably)
But knowing America, the worse outcome for them is it be made to look weak and indecisive. That’s where they are now - and I think that outweighs any possible gains that there were there politically from a swift withdrawal
For good or ill, the administration will have weighed that against the political cost of reneging on Trump’s deal and seeing the war continue. The state of comparative peace since the deal (with the notable exception of regular assassination of significant Afghan leaders who might have opposed the Taliban) was not something which would have continued.
In domestic political terms, Biden probably made the right decision. But he has botched its execution horribly.
Trump was America First, Biden appears to be Only America.
The lack of even name checking the likes of UK and France last night was telling....Biden saying only America can airlift people out of Afghanistan. I am sure all the special forces from UK, France, etc on the ground in Afghanistan really appreciate this take.
The crew of the RAF Globemaster on approach to KBL thankfully disagree with the President.
That’s a very well written piece, eloquently argued.
Yes, that's a great article. I think we tend to underestimate Dura because he strays towards the malcolm_g tendency of pure invective at times. More like this would be really good.
No, his invective is precision guided rather than mass barrage.
The unopposed appointment of Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP as new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats was about item no 15 on the news yesterday. Talk about picking a bad day for that announcement! Totally drowned out by Afghanistan, the SNP/Green government launch and lots of other things. The brief clip of his annoying pseudo-oration was a real stinker.
For a small party, the SLDs used to have a lot of talent. These days they are in the same boat as Scottish Labour: a talent desert.
Funnily enough, Tory leader Douglas Ross is fast overtaking SLab MP Ian Murray as the sanest and most persuasive Unionist spokesperson. Never thought I’d see that!
By far the best and most credible recovery for the Unionists would be a resurgence of the old coalition pals SLab and SLD. Judging by their two new leaders that ain’t happening any time soon.
It will be interesting to see how the all new Starmer Labour party copes with such ideas. Labour were happy with the idea of the LibDems propping Labour up but having then propped the Tories up it was Consternation and Uproar.
Supposedly Labour have moved towards support for proportionate voting systems. If they have then they will have to accept the idea of coalitions and some of those won't involve Labour. Are they grown ups now or illogical partisan hacks?
My guesstimate:
Labour Party in England 40% grown ups 20% illogical partisan hacks 40% Citizen Smiths
Welsh Labour 50% grown ups 30% illogical partisan hacks 10% Citizen Smiths 10% last of the true Britons
SLAB, you may be right from your perch in Sweden 😀. Welsh Labour, I don't think so.
Llafur:
20% grown ups -- in which category we can put the uninspiring, but reasonably sincere, Drakeford
70% self-interested -- In Wales, there is no working economy. Many hundreds of millions of pounds of public money is used in providing sinecures for Labour cronies, in return for which these people support Labour in any way they can. In the South Wales Valleys, the choices for life improvement are either (i) emigration, (ii) a life of crime or (iii) a life in the Labour party. A typical specimen is the vacuous Sophie Howe, the very well-paid Future Generations Commissioner. Sje tweets every now and then, for ~100k a year.
10 % failures -- normally English. These are people like Jane Davidson, who have no connection to Wales, failed to have a political career in England because of general incompetence & fuckwittery, and so moved to Wales, where they prospered in the low-grade atmosphere of Llafur. It is Small Pond Syndrome.
Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.
That one thing has enabled it to remain in power for 20 years.
The unopposed appointment of Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP as new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats was about item no 15 on the news yesterday. Talk about picking a bad day for that announcement! Totally drowned out by Afghanistan, the SNP/Green government launch and lots of other things. The brief clip of his annoying pseudo-oration was a real stinker.
For a small party, the SLDs used to have a lot of talent. These days they are in the same boat as Scottish Labour: a talent desert.
Funnily enough, Tory leader Douglas Ross is fast overtaking SLab MP Ian Murray as the sanest and most persuasive Unionist spokesperson. Never thought I’d see that!
By far the best and most credible recovery for the Unionists would be a resurgence of the old coalition pals SLab and SLD. Judging by their two new leaders that ain’t happening any time soon.
It will be interesting to see how the all new Starmer Labour party copes with such ideas. Labour were happy with the idea of the LibDems propping Labour up but having then propped the Tories up it was Consternation and Uproar.
Supposedly Labour have moved towards support for proportionate voting systems. If they have then they will have to accept the idea of coalitions and some of those won't involve Labour. Are they grown ups now or illogical partisan hacks?
My guesstimate:
Labour Party in England 40% grown ups 20% illogical partisan hacks 40% Citizen Smiths
Welsh Labour 50% grown ups 30% illogical partisan hacks 10% Citizen Smiths 10% last of the true Britons
Almost getting the impression that SLD is getting to be a local equivalent of the kind of 'Independent' which is a Tory without a blue rosette. Albeit largely remainer, tbf.
On Slab, the interesting thing is that it was historically in large part a Roman Catholic immigrant (ie Irish) party in reaction to the Protestant-nativist Unionist Tories and the more right wing home rulers such as Gibb. I expect you have heard the stories of Labour activists going round the housing schemes and telling any wifies with Irish surnames and Celtic shirts on the washing lines that they'd be deported as soon as the SNP came into power. Of course now they have lost much of that demographic to you know who, hence (in my perception) some of their utter hatred for the SNP. But I certainly was surprised, a few years ago, to find a Labour councils actively trying to fund Orange activities:
I seem to recall that that was reverse-ferreted, but even to make the attempt was quite something. A lot of the eastern Central Belt folks really, really do not like sectarian marches of either ilk in their towns, especially when half the rentamarch types in the West (and NI) seem to pile in for the day.
Fascinating post. Before possibly Grimond, and certainly before Thorpe one could have said much the same about the Libs I came across. One phrase that I recall from then was that 'one could run politics like a University Rag Day' (For those who recall such events!)
Britain’s MPs this week uttered one long howl of anguish over Afghanistan. Their immediate targets were Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, politicians who just happened to be on the watch when Kabul’s pack of cards collapsed. But their real concern was that a collective 20-year experiment in “exporting western values” to Afghanistan had fallen into chaos. MPs wanted someone other than themselves to blame. A politician is never so angry as when proved wrong.
We seldom agree but this is right. There is a profound conflict between western values and those espoused by the Taliban et al. It's clear that in Afghanistan, Pakistan and some African countries there appears to be little common ground and more 'Crusades' are not the answer. I'm not sure how importing large numbers of migrants to the west [beyond those to whom a direct debt is owed] from these places helps, now that the experiment of 'exporting' western values has failed.
There's a substantial cohort of people in the Western world who believe all of the following:
*Blairite "Liberal interventionism" must be rejected: it is imperialist, colonialist and war is not the answer *We should not attempt to impose our values on other cultures *Misogyny, homophobia and all kinds of other -phobias and -isms are evil and must be rejected *Borders are discriminatory and wicked: everyone who wants to come and live here should be allowed in with no questions asked
The fact that some of these beliefs are in direct contradiction with one another doesn't trouble them at all.
I'm not sure there are many who really, truly, believe point 4. Speaking for myself (and I'm not untypical of one segment of the electorate), I'm up for the first 3 (recognising that they can conflict somewhat) , but on 4 I simply think that we are OTT on border control and we could ease up a bit without ending British civilisation. We should let in as many talented/deserving/desperate people as we can reasonably absorb, which to my mind is about 200 per constituency per year, about double the current level.
On the first three, it's not inconsistent with disliking Taleban policies towards women while thinking it both undesirable and unwise to try to bomb them into seeing it our way.
After 9/11, invading Afghanistan gave the US what it needed most: time. 20 years on, it has a homeland that is (pretty much) secure. It has had the opportunity and the space and the money to build intelligence structures that can keep the domestic US safe. Where Biden - and the wider political system - will be in trouble is after all that cost, if turns out that al Qaeda or whoever can still pierce their shield.
I do worry that the 20th anniversary is the moment for long-planned spectaculars to be unleashed. Biden will be at the same point in his stint as President as George W Bush - but with no appetite for the foreign interventions after 9/11. And a President with fewer faculties.
America in a box, tight within its own borders. That would be a big win for al Qaeda.
No, America has a world wide empire still, on which the sun never sets. Its bases in client states can bomb and drone almost anywhere with ease. There are 800 in around 80 countries and territories. The 50 biggest are listed here:
Notable just how many of those are in Japan and South Korea.
And after a bit of nose holding over Duterte, they’ll likely continue their presence in the Philippines. All handy for Taiwan, although whether China sees that as a deterrent or a challenge is another question.
After 9/11, invading Afghanistan gave the US what it needed most: time. 20 years on, it has a homeland that is (pretty much) secure. It has had the opportunity and the space and the money to build intelligence structures that can keep the domestic US safe. Where Biden - and the wider political system - will be in trouble is after all that cost, if turns out that al Qaeda or whoever can still pierce their shield.
I do worry that the 20th anniversary is the moment for long-planned spectaculars to be unleashed. Biden will be at the same point in his stint as President as George W Bush - but with no appetite for the foreign interventions after 9/11. And a President with fewer faculties.
America in a box, tight within its own borders. That would be a big win for al Qaeda.
No, America has a world wide empire still, on which the sun never sets. Its bases in client states can bomb and drone almost anywhere with ease. There are 800 in around 80 countries and territories. The 50 biggest are listed here:
Britain’s MPs this week uttered one long howl of anguish over Afghanistan. Their immediate targets were Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, politicians who just happened to be on the watch when Kabul’s pack of cards collapsed. But their real concern was that a collective 20-year experiment in “exporting western values” to Afghanistan had fallen into chaos. MPs wanted someone other than themselves to blame. A politician is never so angry as when proved wrong.
We seldom agree but this is right. There is a profound conflict between western values and those espoused by the Taliban et al. It's clear that in Afghanistan, Pakistan and some African countries there appears to be little common ground and more 'Crusades' are not the answer. I'm not sure how importing large numbers of migrants to the west [beyond those to whom a direct debt is owed] from these places helps, now that the experiment of 'exporting' western values has failed.
There's a substantial cohort of people in the Western world who believe all of the following:
*Blairite "Liberal interventionism" must be rejected: it is imperialist, colonialist and war is not the answer *We should not attempt to impose our values on other cultures *Misogyny, homophobia and all kinds of other -phobias and -isms are evil and must be rejected *Borders are discriminatory and wicked: everyone who wants to come and live here should be allowed in with no questions asked
The fact that some of these beliefs are in direct contradiction with one another doesn't trouble them at all.
I'm not sure there are many who really, truly, believe point 4. Speaking for myself (and I'm not untypical of one segment of the electorate), I'm up for the first 3 (recognising that they can conflict somewhat) , but on 4 I simply think that we are OTT on border control and we could ease up a bit without ending British civilisation. We should let in as many talented/deserving/desperate people as we can reasonably absorb, which to my mind is about 200 per constituency per year, about double the current level.
On the first three, it's not inconsistent with disliking Taleban policies towards women while thinking it both undesirable and unwise to try to bomb them into seeing it our way.
Very understated, that last para. I suspect (?fear?) that we're going to have to wait for the world to roll on a bit before we get much 'liberalisation' among the top Taliban. I suspect though, that the internet might help a bit. Even the Taliban elders aren't immortal.
The unopposed appointment of Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP as new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats was about item no 15 on the news yesterday. Talk about picking a bad day for that announcement! Totally drowned out by Afghanistan, the SNP/Green government launch and lots of other things. The brief clip of his annoying pseudo-oration was a real stinker.
For a small party, the SLDs used to have a lot of talent. These days they are in the same boat as Scottish Labour: a talent desert.
Funnily enough, Tory leader Douglas Ross is fast overtaking SLab MP Ian Murray as the sanest and most persuasive Unionist spokesperson. Never thought I’d see that!
By far the best and most credible recovery for the Unionists would be a resurgence of the old coalition pals SLab and SLD. Judging by their two new leaders that ain’t happening any time soon.
It will be interesting to see how the all new Starmer Labour party copes with such ideas. Labour were happy with the idea of the LibDems propping Labour up but having then propped the Tories up it was Consternation and Uproar.
Supposedly Labour have moved towards support for proportionate voting systems. If they have then they will have to accept the idea of coalitions and some of those won't involve Labour. Are they grown ups now or illogical partisan hacks?
My guesstimate:
Labour Party in England 40% grown ups 20% illogical partisan hacks 40% Citizen Smiths
Welsh Labour 50% grown ups 30% illogical partisan hacks 10% Citizen Smiths 10% last of the true Britons
SLAB, you may be right from your perch in Sweden 😀. Welsh Labour, I don't think so.
Llafur:
20% grown ups -- in which category we can put the uninspiring, but reasonably sincere, Drakeford
70% self-interested -- In Wales, there is no working economy. Many hundreds of millions of pounds of public money is used in providing sinecures for Labour cronies, in return for which these people support Labour in any way they can. In the South Wales Valleys, the choices for life improvement are either (i) emigration, (ii) a life of crime or (iii) a life in the Labour party. A typical specimen is the vacuous Sophie Howe, the very well-paid Future Generations Commissioner. Sje tweets every now and then, for ~100k a year.
10 % failures -- normally English. These are people like Jane Davidson, who have no connection to Wales, failed to have a political career in England because of general incompetence & fuckwittery, and so moved to Wales, where they prospered in the low-grade atmosphere of Llafur. It is Small Pond Syndrome.
Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.
That one thing has enabled it to remain in power for 20 years.
‘Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
The unopposed appointment of Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP as new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats was about item no 15 on the news yesterday. Talk about picking a bad day for that announcement! Totally drowned out by Afghanistan, the SNP/Green government launch and lots of other things. The brief clip of his annoying pseudo-oration was a real stinker.
For a small party, the SLDs used to have a lot of talent. These days they are in the same boat as Scottish Labour: a talent desert.
Funnily enough, Tory leader Douglas Ross is fast overtaking SLab MP Ian Murray as the sanest and most persuasive Unionist spokesperson. Never thought I’d see that!
By far the best and most credible recovery for the Unionists would be a resurgence of the old coalition pals SLab and SLD. Judging by their two new leaders that ain’t happening any time soon.
It will be interesting to see how the all new Starmer Labour party copes with such ideas. Labour were happy with the idea of the LibDems propping Labour up but having then propped the Tories up it was Consternation and Uproar.
Supposedly Labour have moved towards support for proportionate voting systems. If they have then they will have to accept the idea of coalitions and some of those won't involve Labour. Are they grown ups now or illogical partisan hacks?
My guesstimate:
Labour Party in England 40% grown ups 20% illogical partisan hacks 40% Citizen Smiths
Welsh Labour 50% grown ups 30% illogical partisan hacks 10% Citizen Smiths 10% last of the true Britons
SLAB, you may be right from your perch in Sweden 😀. Welsh Labour, I don't think so.
Llafur:
20% grown ups -- in which category we can put the uninspiring, but reasonably sincere, Drakeford
70% self-interested -- In Wales, there is no working economy. Many hundreds of millions of pounds of public money is used in providing sinecures for Labour cronies, in return for which these people support Labour in any way they can. In the South Wales Valleys, the choices for life improvement are either (i) emigration, (ii) a life of crime or (iii) a life in the Labour party. A typical specimen is the vacuous Sophie Howe, the very well-paid Future Generations Commissioner. Sje tweets every now and then, for ~100k a year.
10 % failures -- normally English. These are people like Jane Davidson, who have no connection to Wales, failed to have a political career in England because of general incompetence & fuckwittery, and so moved to Wales, where they prospered in the low-grade atmosphere of Llafur. It is Small Pond Syndrome.
Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.
That one thing has enabled it to remain in power for 20 years.
‘Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.’
That is a massive one thing though.
The one thing Joe Biden had in his favour, is that he wasn’t Donald Trump. The one thing Boris Johnson had in his favour, is that he wasn’t Jeremy Corbyn.
That’s a very well written piece, eloquently argued.
Yes, that's a great article. I think we tend to underestimate Dura because he strays towards the malcolm_g tendency of pure invective at times. More like this would be really good.
It’s an excellent piece, I’ve not been here that long. I’m amazed it’s the same guy who posts below the line comments. I find it hard to disagree with any of the comments really.
The unopposed appointment of Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP as new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats was about item no 15 on the news yesterday. Talk about picking a bad day for that announcement! Totally drowned out by Afghanistan, the SNP/Green government launch and lots of other things. The brief clip of his annoying pseudo-oration was a real stinker.
For a small party, the SLDs used to have a lot of talent. These days they are in the same boat as Scottish Labour: a talent desert.
Funnily enough, Tory leader Douglas Ross is fast overtaking SLab MP Ian Murray as the sanest and most persuasive Unionist spokesperson. Never thought I’d see that!
By far the best and most credible recovery for the Unionists would be a resurgence of the old coalition pals SLab and SLD. Judging by their two new leaders that ain’t happening any time soon.
It will be interesting to see how the all new Starmer Labour party copes with such ideas. Labour were happy with the idea of the LibDems propping Labour up but having then propped the Tories up it was Consternation and Uproar.
Supposedly Labour have moved towards support for proportionate voting systems. If they have then they will have to accept the idea of coalitions and some of those won't involve Labour. Are they grown ups now or illogical partisan hacks?
My guesstimate:
Labour Party in England 40% grown ups 20% illogical partisan hacks 40% Citizen Smiths
Welsh Labour 50% grown ups 30% illogical partisan hacks 10% Citizen Smiths 10% last of the true Britons
SLAB, you may be right from your perch in Sweden 😀. Welsh Labour, I don't think so.
Llafur:
20% grown ups -- in which category we can put the uninspiring, but reasonably sincere, Drakeford
70% self-interested -- In Wales, there is no working economy. Many hundreds of millions of pounds of public money is used in providing sinecures for Labour cronies, in return for which these people support Labour in any way they can. In the South Wales Valleys, the choices for life improvement are either (i) emigration, (ii) a life of crime or (iii) a life in the Labour party. A typical specimen is the vacuous Sophie Howe, the very well-paid Future Generations Commissioner. Sje tweets every now and then, for ~100k a year.
10 % failures -- normally English. These are people like Jane Davidson, who have no connection to Wales, failed to have a political career in England because of general incompetence & fuckwittery, and so moved to Wales, where they prospered in the low-grade atmosphere of Llafur. It is Small Pond Syndrome.
Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.
That one thing has enabled it to remain in power for 20 years.
‘Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.’
That is a massive one thing though.
What on earth has happened to the Welsh Liberal (Democrat) Party?
Britain’s MPs this week uttered one long howl of anguish over Afghanistan. Their immediate targets were Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, politicians who just happened to be on the watch when Kabul’s pack of cards collapsed. But their real concern was that a collective 20-year experiment in “exporting western values” to Afghanistan had fallen into chaos. MPs wanted someone other than themselves to blame. A politician is never so angry as when proved wrong.
We seldom agree but this is right. There is a profound conflict between western values and those espoused by the Taliban et al. It's clear that in Afghanistan, Pakistan and some African countries there appears to be little common ground and more 'Crusades' are not the answer. I'm not sure how importing large numbers of migrants to the west [beyond those to whom a direct debt is owed] from these places helps, now that the experiment of 'exporting' western values has failed.
There's a substantial cohort of people in the Western world who believe all of the following:
*Blairite "Liberal interventionism" must be rejected: it is imperialist, colonialist and war is not the answer *We should not attempt to impose our values on other cultures *Misogyny, homophobia and all kinds of other -phobias and -isms are evil and must be rejected *Borders are discriminatory and wicked: everyone who wants to come and live here should be allowed in with no questions asked
The fact that some of these beliefs are in direct contradiction with one another doesn't trouble them at all.
I'm not sure there are many who really, truly, believe point 4. Speaking for myself (and I'm not untypical of one segment of the electorate), I'm up for the first 3 (recognising that they can conflict somewhat) , but on 4 I simply think that we are OTT on border control and we could ease up a bit without ending British civilisation. We should let in as many talented/deserving/desperate people as we can reasonably absorb,
I'm sure you're correct that that is what most people mean, which is why its infuriating that for reasons of passion or carelessness many give the impression that they take the far more extreme position of being anti borders entirely - conflating issues of asylum with economic migration, objecting to standard immigration control measures, playing on emotion around 'wouldn't you want to come here' etc.
All that is fine so long as it is what people intend to argue, but too often it seems the clear implication that any immigration control measures or limits are wrong, not the intention, which undermines the argument of 'loosen things up, but it's not a free for all' that many more hold.
A touch tetchy at times. As if someone had disturbed his midday nap.
The President knows he's been caught red-handed; there is no defence and hardly any mitigation.
I did have a good chuckle though at the surreal suggestion Trump was a better president than Biden because he was so incompetent he couldn’t organise a coup properly.
Had he been able to I probably wouldn’t have been laughing…
I’m also amazed, given his pathetic response to North Korea and indeed the Taleban breaking every clause every clause of the deals he brokered with them before the ink was even dry that they think he would have been more feared than Biden.
None of which in any way excuses the quite extraordinary incompetence of the Biden administration over the last month, given they were elected to clear up the mess not make it worse.
A great précis of the story so far.
I am amazed that so many on PB seem to think that Biden's enormous fiasco wipes the Trump slate clean.
It doesn't.The last decade has seen the giant of the western world for so many years become a pygmy. Heaven knows what the consequences will be. I'm unclear that Europe is at all either able or willing to step up to the plate and fearful that Vlad almost certainly knows this. LL&E, Ukraine & maybe some of the Balkan states cannot be comfortable places to live right now.
One can't help feeling that a defensive alliance built around the EU would be less of a 'Bull in a china shop' than the one dominated by the US with the UK as its poodle. The days of 'Shock and Awe' and similar verbal obscenities would certainly go.
Trump was America First, Biden appears to be Only America.
The lack of even name checking the likes of UK and France last night was telling....Biden saying only America can airlift people out of Afghanistan. I am sure all the special forces from UK, France, etc on the ground in Afghanistan really appreciate this take.
He even said he had flown out French citizens
And I note the betrayal by Biden happened at the G7 and Nato meeting in June where he gave assurances to all the allies and to which he reneged on
The leaked note must have been part of the record of that meeting and to be fair the daily mail have commented on it
It follows that the allies planning would have been around Biden's commitments and the chaos we are witnessing today is due to Bidens betrayal
On topic... If Biden manages to avoid a US hostage crisis ,and don't forget it was that combined WITH the debacle of Eagle Claw that did for Carter, I don't think Carry On Kabul harms Biden significantly in the long term. Most Americans will just be glad to have their troops and tax dollars extracted. Women's rights in Herat or the lack thereof don't shift many votes in the Rust Belt.
Biden also gets a partial pass on being fucking gaga for now because of his well documented speech impediment.
On New Zealand and Australia, I'm not sure we're in a position to be quite so critical. According to Worldometers:
New Zealand: 26 deaths, 5 per million population. Australia: 975 deaths, 38 per million population. UK: 131,487 deaths, 1,925 per million population.
Looks to me like their strategy has worked somewhat better than ours (and most others) thus far. Yes, their figures are likely to get (much) worse, but I doubt that they'll get anywhere near our death rate (per million). By playing for time they should be able to benefit more from vaccines and treatment.
It’s a marathon not a sprint, mate.
They have not got anywhere near the numbers jabbed they need to and we will see what happens in the next couple of months.
According to OWID, Australia is at about 40% of people with at least 1 jab, 20% fully jabbed. That's roughly where the UK was in mid-April, and Western Europe was at the end of May. Not good, but they've done the most vulnerable in terms of preventing deaths.
The unopposed appointment of Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP as new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats was about item no 15 on the news yesterday. Talk about picking a bad day for that announcement! Totally drowned out by Afghanistan, the SNP/Green government launch and lots of other things. The brief clip of his annoying pseudo-oration was a real stinker.
For a small party, the SLDs used to have a lot of talent. These days they are in the same boat as Scottish Labour: a talent desert.
Funnily enough, Tory leader Douglas Ross is fast overtaking SLab MP Ian Murray as the sanest and most persuasive Unionist spokesperson. Never thought I’d see that!
By far the best and most credible recovery for the Unionists would be a resurgence of the old coalition pals SLab and SLD. Judging by their two new leaders that ain’t happening any time soon.
It will be interesting to see how the all new Starmer Labour party copes with such ideas. Labour were happy with the idea of the LibDems propping Labour up but having then propped the Tories up it was Consternation and Uproar.
Supposedly Labour have moved towards support for proportionate voting systems. If they have then they will have to accept the idea of coalitions and some of those won't involve Labour. Are they grown ups now or illogical partisan hacks?
My guesstimate:
Labour Party in England 40% grown ups 20% illogical partisan hacks 40% Citizen Smiths
Welsh Labour 50% grown ups 30% illogical partisan hacks 10% Citizen Smiths 10% last of the true Britons
SLAB, you may be right from your perch in Sweden 😀. Welsh Labour, I don't think so.
Llafur:
20% grown ups -- in which category we can put the uninspiring, but reasonably sincere, Drakeford
70% self-interested -- In Wales, there is no working economy. Many hundreds of millions of pounds of public money is used in providing sinecures for Labour cronies, in return for which these people support Labour in any way they can. In the South Wales Valleys, the choices for life improvement are either (i) emigration, (ii) a life of crime or (iii) a life in the Labour party. A typical specimen is the vacuous Sophie Howe, the very well-paid Future Generations Commissioner. Sje tweets every now and then, for ~100k a year.
10 % failures -- normally English. These are people like Jane Davidson, who have no connection to Wales, failed to have a political career in England because of general incompetence & fuckwittery, and so moved to Wales, where they prospered in the low-grade atmosphere of Llafur. It is Small Pond Syndrome.
Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.
That one thing has enabled it to remain in power for 20 years.
You dont like Wales Llafur much do you? Do you still live in Cymru?
On topic... If Biden manages to avoid a US hostage crisis ,and don't forget it was that combined WITH the debacle of Eagle Claw that did for Carter, I don't think Carry On Kabul harms Biden significantly in the long term. Most Americans will just be glad to have their troops and tax dollars extracted. Women's rights in Herat or the lack thereof don't shift many votes in the Rust Belt.
Biden also gets a partial pass on being fucking gaga for now because of his well documented speech impediment.
That’s a very big IF. What happens in the coming weeks will determine how this episode is seen in the long term, that much is definitely true.
Britain’s MPs this week uttered one long howl of anguish over Afghanistan. Their immediate targets were Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, politicians who just happened to be on the watch when Kabul’s pack of cards collapsed. But their real concern was that a collective 20-year experiment in “exporting western values” to Afghanistan had fallen into chaos. MPs wanted someone other than themselves to blame. A politician is never so angry as when proved wrong.
We seldom agree but this is right. There is a profound conflict between western values and those espoused by the Taliban et al. It's clear that in Afghanistan, Pakistan and some African countries there appears to be little common ground and more 'Crusades' are not the answer. I'm not sure how importing large numbers of migrants to the west [beyond those to whom a direct debt is owed] from these places helps, now that the experiment of 'exporting' western values has failed.
There's a substantial cohort of people in the Western world who believe all of the following:
*Blairite "Liberal interventionism" must be rejected: it is imperialist, colonialist and war is not the answer *We should not attempt to impose our values on other cultures *Misogyny, homophobia and all kinds of other -phobias and -isms are evil and must be rejected *Borders are discriminatory and wicked: everyone who wants to come and live here should be allowed in with no questions asked
The fact that some of these beliefs are in direct contradiction with one another doesn't trouble them at all.
I'm not sure there are many who really, truly, believe point 4. Speaking for myself (and I'm not untypical of one segment of the electorate), I'm up for the first 3 (recognising that they can conflict somewhat) , but on 4 I simply think that we are OTT on border control and we could ease up a bit without ending British civilisation. We should let in as many talented/deserving/desperate people as we can reasonably absorb, which to my mind is about 200 per constituency per year, about double the current level.
On the first three, it's not inconsistent with disliking Taleban policies towards women while thinking it both undesirable and unwise to try to bomb them into seeing it our way.
Very understated, that last para. I suspect (?fear?) that we're going to have to wait for the world to roll on a bit before we get much 'liberalisation' among the top Taliban. I suspect though, that the internet might help a bit. Even the Taliban elders aren't immortal.
The problem with most regimes of this kind is that the violent misogynist old men enable the violent misogynist young men who become the next generation of violent misogynist old men. C.f. the "incel" culture in the West, which started out "young" and will in time become old, enabling the young (if it hasn't already). It comes from the same psychological root.
Morning all! Biden is toast, but as I never expected him to be more than a caretaker that isn't a surprise. The challenge for America is simple. Too many of the GOP voters are dumb and like being lied to.
We know for a fact that Trump signed a deal to hand Afghanistan over to the Taliban by May this year, yet GOP cheerleaders like HYUFD still point to the % under Taliban rule under Trump and what it is now and try to claim that Biden "lost Afghanistan".
Watch Trump come back. Yes it was Trump's idea and Trump signed the deal and Trump was boasting just weeks ago that he should get all the credit and now they have deleted all the social media of this. Morons will believe the lie that Trump didn't do it and its all Biden.
However doddering and decrepit President Biden is (and he really is) the answer is not to re-elect President doddering and decrepit and psychotic.
Yes, the American public wanted to get troops out of Afghanistan after 20 years (which is what’s driven Biden presumably)
But knowing America, the worse outcome for them is it be made to look weak and indecisive. That’s where they are now - and I think that outweighs any possible gains that there were there politically from a swift withdrawal
For good or ill, the administration will have weighed that against the political cost of reneging on Trump’s deal and seeing the war continue. The state of comparative peace since the deal (with the notable exception of regular assassination of significant Afghan leaders who might have opposed the Taliban) was not something which would have continued.
In domestic political terms, Biden probably made the right decision. But he has botched its execution horribly.
I think that's a really important point. If Biden had reneged on Trump's Doha deal, Afghanistan may well have exploded into all-out war. It's in a bad place now, but it would probably have been much worse if the Taliban had seen a 'good faith' agreement torn to shreds.
The unopposed appointment of Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP as new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats was about item no 15 on the news yesterday. Talk about picking a bad day for that announcement! Totally drowned out by Afghanistan, the SNP/Green government launch and lots of other things. The brief clip of his annoying pseudo-oration was a real stinker.
For a small party, the SLDs used to have a lot of talent. These days they are in the same boat as Scottish Labour: a talent desert.
Funnily enough, Tory leader Douglas Ross is fast overtaking SLab MP Ian Murray as the sanest and most persuasive Unionist spokesperson. Never thought I’d see that!
By far the best and most credible recovery for the Unionists would be a resurgence of the old coalition pals SLab and SLD. Judging by their two new leaders that ain’t happening any time soon.
It will be interesting to see how the all new Starmer Labour party copes with such ideas. Labour were happy with the idea of the LibDems propping Labour up but having then propped the Tories up it was Consternation and Uproar.
Supposedly Labour have moved towards support for proportionate voting systems. If they have then they will have to accept the idea of coalitions and some of those won't involve Labour. Are they grown ups now or illogical partisan hacks?
My guesstimate:
Labour Party in England 40% grown ups 20% illogical partisan hacks 40% Citizen Smiths
Welsh Labour 50% grown ups 30% illogical partisan hacks 10% Citizen Smiths 10% last of the true Britons
SLAB, you may be right from your perch in Sweden 😀. Welsh Labour, I don't think so.
Llafur:
20% grown ups -- in which category we can put the uninspiring, but reasonably sincere, Drakeford
70% self-interested -- In Wales, there is no working economy. Many hundreds of millions of pounds of public money is used in providing sinecures for Labour cronies, in return for which these people support Labour in any way they can. In the South Wales Valleys, the choices for life improvement are either (i) emigration, (ii) a life of crime or (iii) a life in the Labour party. A typical specimen is the vacuous Sophie Howe, the very well-paid Future Generations Commissioner. Sje tweets every now and then, for ~100k a year.
10 % failures -- normally English. These are people like Jane Davidson, who have no connection to Wales, failed to have a political career in England because of general incompetence & fuckwittery, and so moved to Wales, where they prospered in the low-grade atmosphere of Llafur. It is Small Pond Syndrome.
Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.
That one thing has enabled it to remain in power for 20 years.
My impression is that Earth Mother Jane has quite successfully f*cked the future of the Port Talbot steelworks.
But I'll admit to being biased against 'green' panjandrums.
On New Zealand and Australia, I'm not sure we're in a position to be quite so critical. According to Worldometers:
New Zealand: 26 deaths, 5 per million population. Australia: 975 deaths, 38 per million population. UK: 131,487 deaths, 1,925 per million population.
Looks to me like their strategy has worked somewhat better than ours (and most others) thus far. Yes, their figures are likely to get (much) worse, but I doubt that they'll get anywhere near our death rate (per million). By playing for time they should be able to benefit more from vaccines and treatment.
I don't think you've got the hang of this at all. Johnson's government has been showing the rest of the world how to do it. You can nit-pick as much as you like. Those are the facts.
On topic... If Biden manages to avoid a US hostage crisis ,and don't forget it was that combined WITH the debacle of Eagle Claw that did for Carter, I don't think Carry On Kabul harms Biden significantly in the long term. Most Americans will just be glad to have their troops and tax dollars extracted. Women's rights in Herat or the lack thereof don't shift many votes in the Rust Belt.
Biden also gets a partial pass on being fucking gaga for now because of his well documented speech impediment.
His performance last night had nothing to do with any speech impedement...it was for the large part rambling nonsense. As was the car crash interview with ABC, that they editted out some of the lowlights.
Morning all! Biden is toast, but as I never expected him to be more than a caretaker that isn't a surprise. The challenge for America is simple. Too many of the GOP voters are dumb and like being lied to.
We know for a fact that Trump signed a deal to hand Afghanistan over to the Taliban by May this year, yet GOP cheerleaders like HYUFD still point to the % under Taliban rule under Trump and what it is now and try to claim that Biden "lost Afghanistan".
Watch Trump come back. Yes it was Trump's idea and Trump signed the deal and Trump was boasting just weeks ago that he should get all the credit and now they have deleted all the social media of this. Morons will believe the lie that Trump didn't do it and its all Biden.
However doddering and decrepit President Biden is (and he really is) the answer is not to re-elect President doddering and decrepit and psychotic.
Yes, the American public wanted to get troops out of Afghanistan after 20 years (which is what’s driven Biden presumably)
But knowing America, the worse outcome for them is it be made to look weak and indecisive. That’s where they are now - and I think that outweighs any possible gains that there were there politically from a swift withdrawal
He'll cancel that out when he bombs somebody else though, no?
The unopposed appointment of Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP as new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats was about item no 15 on the news yesterday. Talk about picking a bad day for that announcement! Totally drowned out by Afghanistan, the SNP/Green government launch and lots of other things. The brief clip of his annoying pseudo-oration was a real stinker.
For a small party, the SLDs used to have a lot of talent. These days they are in the same boat as Scottish Labour: a talent desert.
Funnily enough, Tory leader Douglas Ross is fast overtaking SLab MP Ian Murray as the sanest and most persuasive Unionist spokesperson. Never thought I’d see that!
By far the best and most credible recovery for the Unionists would be a resurgence of the old coalition pals SLab and SLD. Judging by their two new leaders that ain’t happening any time soon.
It will be interesting to see how the all new Starmer Labour party copes with such ideas. Labour were happy with the idea of the LibDems propping Labour up but having then propped the Tories up it was Consternation and Uproar.
Supposedly Labour have moved towards support for proportionate voting systems. If they have then they will have to accept the idea of coalitions and some of those won't involve Labour. Are they grown ups now or illogical partisan hacks?
My guesstimate:
Labour Party in England 40% grown ups 20% illogical partisan hacks 40% Citizen Smiths
Welsh Labour 50% grown ups 30% illogical partisan hacks 10% Citizen Smiths 10% last of the true Britons
SLAB, you may be right from your perch in Sweden 😀. Welsh Labour, I don't think so.
Llafur:
20% grown ups -- in which category we can put the uninspiring, but reasonably sincere, Drakeford
70% self-interested -- In Wales, there is no working economy. Many hundreds of millions of pounds of public money is used in providing sinecures for Labour cronies, in return for which these people support Labour in any way they can. In the South Wales Valleys, the choices for life improvement are either (i) emigration, (ii) a life of crime or (iii) a life in the Labour party. A typical specimen is the vacuous Sophie Howe, the very well-paid Future Generations Commissioner. Sje tweets every now and then, for ~100k a year.
10 % failures -- normally English. These are people like Jane Davidson, who have no connection to Wales, failed to have a political career in England because of general incompetence & fuckwittery, and so moved to Wales, where they prospered in the low-grade atmosphere of Llafur. It is Small Pond Syndrome.
Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.
That one thing has enabled it to remain in power for 20 years.
‘Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.’
That is a massive one thing though.
What on earth has happened to the Welsh Liberal (Democrat) Party?
On New Zealand and Australia, I'm not sure we're in a position to be quite so critical. According to Worldometers:
New Zealand: 26 deaths, 5 per million population. Australia: 975 deaths, 38 per million population. UK: 131,487 deaths, 1,925 per million population.
Looks to me like their strategy has worked somewhat better than ours (and most others) thus far. Yes, their figures are likely to get (much) worse, but I doubt that they'll get anywhere near our death rate (per million). By playing for time they should be able to benefit more from vaccines and treatment.
It’s a marathon not a sprint, mate.
They have not got anywhere near the numbers jabbed they need to and we will see what happens in the next couple of months.
According to OWID, Australia is at about 40% of people with at least 1 jab, 20% fully jabbed. That's roughly where the UK was in mid-April, and Western Europe was at the end of May. Not good, but they've done the most vulnerable in terms of preventing deaths.
The vaccines have been approved since the turn of the year. The percentages is misleading. Their populations are far smaller than ours. They’ve achieved, with a far smaller population, in 8 months what we achieved in 4 months. Same with NZ and their population is less than Greater London.
On New Zealand and Australia, I'm not sure we're in a position to be quite so critical. According to Worldometers:
New Zealand: 26 deaths, 5 per million population. Australia: 975 deaths, 38 per million population. UK: 131,487 deaths, 1,925 per million population.
Looks to me like their strategy has worked somewhat better than ours (and most others) thus far. Yes, their figures are likely to get (much) worse, but I doubt that they'll get anywhere near our death rate (per million). By playing for time they should be able to benefit more from vaccines and treatment.
I don't think you've got the hang of this at all. Johnson's government has been showing the rest of the world how to do it. You can nit-pick as much as you like. Those are the facts.
Yes, sorry I forgot. I meant to say that Johnson's government's response to Covid has been world-beating, they've worked tirelessly round the clock, 24/7, they've done whatever it takes, they've wrapped their arms around the British people (especially those in care homes who had a protective shield)............ So much better than all the other muppet countries around the world.
The unopposed appointment of Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP as new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats was about item no 15 on the news yesterday. Talk about picking a bad day for that announcement! Totally drowned out by Afghanistan, the SNP/Green government launch and lots of other things. The brief clip of his annoying pseudo-oration was a real stinker.
For a small party, the SLDs used to have a lot of talent. These days they are in the same boat as Scottish Labour: a talent desert.
Funnily enough, Tory leader Douglas Ross is fast overtaking SLab MP Ian Murray as the sanest and most persuasive Unionist spokesperson. Never thought I’d see that!
By far the best and most credible recovery for the Unionists would be a resurgence of the old coalition pals SLab and SLD. Judging by their two new leaders that ain’t happening any time soon.
It will be interesting to see how the all new Starmer Labour party copes with such ideas. Labour were happy with the idea of the LibDems propping Labour up but having then propped the Tories up it was Consternation and Uproar.
Supposedly Labour have moved towards support for proportionate voting systems. If they have then they will have to accept the idea of coalitions and some of those won't involve Labour. Are they grown ups now or illogical partisan hacks?
My guesstimate:
Labour Party in England 40% grown ups 20% illogical partisan hacks 40% Citizen Smiths
Welsh Labour 50% grown ups 30% illogical partisan hacks 10% Citizen Smiths 10% last of the true Britons
SLAB, you may be right from your perch in Sweden 😀. Welsh Labour, I don't think so.
Llafur:
20% grown ups -- in which category we can put the uninspiring, but reasonably sincere, Drakeford
70% self-interested -- In Wales, there is no working economy. Many hundreds of millions of pounds of public money is used in providing sinecures for Labour cronies, in return for which these people support Labour in any way they can. In the South Wales Valleys, the choices for life improvement are either (i) emigration, (ii) a life of crime or (iii) a life in the Labour party. A typical specimen is the vacuous Sophie Howe, the very well-paid Future Generations Commissioner. Sje tweets every now and then, for ~100k a year.
10 % failures -- normally English. These are people like Jane Davidson, who have no connection to Wales, failed to have a political career in England because of general incompetence & fuckwittery, and so moved to Wales, where they prospered in the low-grade atmosphere of Llafur. It is Small Pond Syndrome.
Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.
That one thing has enabled it to remain in power for 20 years.
‘Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.’
That is a massive one thing though.
What on earth has happened to the Welsh Liberal (Democrat) Party?
On topic... If Biden manages to avoid a US hostage crisis ,and don't forget it was that combined WITH the debacle of Eagle Claw that did for Carter, I don't think Carry On Kabul harms Biden significantly in the long term. Most Americans will just be glad to have their troops and tax dollars extracted. Women's rights in Herat or the lack thereof don't shift many votes in the Rust Belt.
Biden also gets a partial pass on being fucking gaga for now because of his well documented speech impediment.
His performance last night had nothing to do with any speech impedement...it was for the large part rambling nonsense. As was the car crash interview with ABC, that they editted out some of the lowlights.
The ABC interview debacle is yet another clear illustration of how journalistic standards have dropped, and how partisanship has taken over from truth-seeking and holding those in power to account.
The UK equivalent would have been Boris sitting on the sofa with Holly and Philip last week, but recorded in advance and with the PM’s team having editorial control over the final broadcast version.
On topic... If Biden manages to avoid a US hostage crisis ,and don't forget it was that combined WITH the debacle of Eagle Claw that did for Carter, I don't think Carry On Kabul harms Biden significantly in the long term. Most Americans will just be glad to have their troops and tax dollars extracted. Women's rights in Herat or the lack thereof don't shift many votes in the Rust Belt.
Biden also gets a partial pass on being fucking gaga for now because of his well documented speech impediment.
His performance last night had nothing to do with any speech impedement...it was for the large part rambling nonsense. As was the car crash interview with ABC, that they editted out some of the lowlights.
The ABC interview debacle is yet another clear illustration of how journalistic standards have dropped, and how partisanship has taken over from truth-seeking and holding those in power to account.
The UK equivalent would have been Boris sitting on the sofa with Holly and Philip last week, but recorded in advance and with the PM’s team having editorial control over the final broadcast version.
Interesting article by Franz J. Marty just appeared on the Guardian website: 'I was in Kabul when it fell to the Taliban. The speed of the collapse stunned me'
His final paragraph is 'Apart from some vague general statements, the Taliban have still not explained the path forward that they envision. As a result, the same situation persists: the old system has been overthrown with people wondering – or fearing – what the future might bring.'
Well my day has taken a turn for the better. Had to take our diabetic cat to the emergency vet last night after he had a fit and was told he was probably permanently blind due to detached retinas caused by high blood pressure; after spending the night there it appears to have been temporary caused by a hypo. Also he was so enraged they weren’t able to do any of the suggested monitoring, which halves the cost of £700-1000 (!).
I shall attempt to be sweet natured for the rest of the day.
Well my day has taken a turn for the better. After having to take our diabetic cat to the emergency vet last night after he had a fit and being told he was probably permanently blind due to detached retinas caused by high blood pressure, after spending the night there it appears to have been temporary caused by a hypo. Also he was so enraged they weren’t able to do any of the suggested monitoring which halves the cost of £700-1000 (!).
I shall attempt to be sweet natured for the rest of the day.
Very pleased to hear your news - we have in the past had cats and helped the cats protection league
On New Zealand and Australia, I'm not sure we're in a position to be quite so critical. According to Worldometers:
New Zealand: 26 deaths, 5 per million population. Australia: 975 deaths, 38 per million population. UK: 131,487 deaths, 1,925 per million population.
Looks to me like their strategy has worked somewhat better than ours (and most others) thus far. Yes, their figures are likely to get (much) worse, but I doubt that they'll get anywhere near our death rate (per million). By playing for time they should be able to benefit more from vaccines and treatment.
I don't think you've got the hang of this at all. Johnson's government has been showing the rest of the world how to do it. You can nit-pick as much as you like. Those are the facts.
Yes, sorry I forgot. I meant to say that Johnson's government's response to Covid has been world-beating, they've worked tirelessly round the clock, 24/7, they've done whatever it takes, they've wrapped their arms around the British people (especially those in care homes who had a protective shield)............ So much better than all the other muppet countries around the world.
I really don’t know what you are going on about. No on is claiming Johnson has done a good job, least of all me however the one thing he got right was the appointment of Kate Bingham who’s been a revelation. however New Zealand and Australia have been consistently held up as best in class and have had a strategy of lockdown to break transmission while vaccinating people and both have vaccinated nowhere near enough and it looks like in both the Delta variant has arrived.
If you seriously think lockdown in perpetuity are the solution to this then you’re deluded.
The 120 Embassy guards will receive visas to come to the UK and their evacuation is active now
Excellent news, but this is the 2nd time (that I am aware of) where the Govt has crassly made heartless decisions (the other being the scholarship students blocked from coming) which have been reversed. How many other crass cruel decisions have been made that don't hit the press so we are unaware of and therefore the lack of outrage doesn't cause a reversal.
One of the many, many problems in Afghanistan is that an entire generation has grown up learning nothing but how to fight. There is no economy other than a bit of drugs and the money that has been pumped in to keep the various armies and militias going. Most of that, especially the US dollars is about to dry up.
In those 20 years the population has almost doubled and there is nothing productive for them to do. The number of refugees this is going to generate is going to be destabilising for adjoining countries and cause wave after wave of immigrants further west.
The 120 Embassy guards will receive visas to come to the UK and their evacuation is active now
Excellent news, but this is the 2nd time (that I am aware of) where the Govt has crassly made heartless decisions (the other being the scholarship students blocked from coming) which have been reversed. How many other crass cruel decisions have been made that don't hit the press so we are unaware of and therefore the lack of outrage doesn't cause a reversal.
These scenarios should have been no brainers.
This govt does it all the time. It’s inept. They did the same with Marcus Rashford.
The 120 Embassy guards will receive visas to come to the UK and their evacuation is active now
Excellent news, but this is the 2nd time (that I am aware of) where the Govt has crassly made heartless decisions (the other being the scholarship students blocked from coming) which have been reversed. How many other crass cruel decisions have been made that don't hit the press so we are unaware of and therefore the lack of outrage doesn't cause a reversal.
These scenarios should have been no brainers.
Maybe we should just be pleased with the good news
On New Zealand and Australia, I'm not sure we're in a position to be quite so critical. According to Worldometers:
New Zealand: 26 deaths, 5 per million population. Australia: 975 deaths, 38 per million population. UK: 131,487 deaths, 1,925 per million population.
Looks to me like their strategy has worked somewhat better than ours (and most others) thus far. Yes, their figures are likely to get (much) worse, but I doubt that they'll get anywhere near our death rate (per million). By playing for time they should be able to benefit more from vaccines and treatment.
I don't think you've got the hang of this at all. Johnson's government has been showing the rest of the world how to do it. You can nit-pick as much as you like. Those are the facts.
Yes, sorry I forgot. I meant to say that Johnson's government's response to Covid has been world-beating, they've worked tirelessly round the clock, 24/7, they've done whatever it takes, they've wrapped their arms around the British people (especially those in care homes who had a protective shield)............ So much better than all the other muppet countries around the world.
I really don’t know what you are going on about. No on is claiming Johnson has done a good job, least of all me however the one thing he got right was the appointment of Kate Bingham who’s been a revelation. however New Zealand and Australia have been consistently held up as best in class and have had a strategy of lockdown to break transmission while vaccinating people and both have vaccinated nowhere near enough and it looks like in both the Delta variant has arrived.
If you seriously think lockdown in perpetuity are the solution to this then you’re deluded.
And if you are a Kiwi abroad you are not allowed to re-enter the country before next February at the earliest
The 120 Embassy guards will receive visas to come to the UK and their evacuation is active now
In fairness, after being caught completely flat footed by American incompetence, the UK operation is showing some positive effects. How long we can keep it going is key. There is a small window and we need to do what we can.
The unopposed appointment of Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP as new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats was about item no 15 on the news yesterday. Talk about picking a bad day for that announcement! Totally drowned out by Afghanistan, the SNP/Green government launch and lots of other things. The brief clip of his annoying pseudo-oration was a real stinker.
For a small party, the SLDs used to have a lot of talent. These days they are in the same boat as Scottish Labour: a talent desert.
Funnily enough, Tory leader Douglas Ross is fast overtaking SLab MP Ian Murray as the sanest and most persuasive Unionist spokesperson. Never thought I’d see that!
By far the best and most credible recovery for the Unionists would be a resurgence of the old coalition pals SLab and SLD. Judging by their two new leaders that ain’t happening any time soon.
It will be interesting to see how the all new Starmer Labour party copes with such ideas. Labour were happy with the idea of the LibDems propping Labour up but having then propped the Tories up it was Consternation and Uproar.
Supposedly Labour have moved towards support for proportionate voting systems. If they have then they will have to accept the idea of coalitions and some of those won't involve Labour. Are they grown ups now or illogical partisan hacks?
My guesstimate:
Labour Party in England 40% grown ups 20% illogical partisan hacks 40% Citizen Smiths
Welsh Labour 50% grown ups 30% illogical partisan hacks 10% Citizen Smiths 10% last of the true Britons
I think your Orange Lodge figure is too high. Most of them vote Conservative and UNIONIST. I would go for 3% Orange Lodge, 67% illogical partisan hacks.
A touch tetchy at times. As if someone had disturbed his midday nap.
The President knows he's been caught red-handed; there is no defence and hardly any mitigation.
I did have a good chuckle though at the surreal suggestion Trump was a better president than Biden because he was so incompetent he couldn’t organise a coup properly.
Had he been able to I probably wouldn’t have been laughing…
I’m also amazed, given his pathetic response to North Korea and indeed the Taleban breaking every clause every clause of the deals he brokered with them before the ink was even dry that they think he would have been more feared than Biden.
None of which in any way excuses the quite extraordinary incompetence of the Biden administration over the last month, given they were elected to clear up the mess not make it worse.
A great précis of the story so far.
I am amazed that so many on PB seem to think that Biden's enormous fiasco wipes the Trump slate clean.
It doesn't.The last decade has seen the giant of the western world for so many years become a pygmy. Heaven knows what the consequences will be. I'm unclear that Europe is at all either able or willing to step up to the plate and fearful that Vlad almost certainly knows this. LL&E, Ukraine & maybe some of the Balkan states cannot be comfortable places to live right now.
One can't help feeling that a defensive alliance built around the EU would be less of a 'Bull in a china shop' than the one dominated by the US with the UK as its poodle. The days of 'Shock and Awe' and similar verbal obscenities would certainly go.
Yes but there is not a shred of evidence right now that Germany would commit anything to defending those countries against an aggressor from whom they are receiving a sh**load of power. The idea that EU can unite around a coherent defence policy against big bear has a lot of history against it. I'm unconvinced UVDL is the answer to that question anymore than she was to the vaccine rollout.
On New Zealand and Australia, I'm not sure we're in a position to be quite so critical. According to Worldometers:
New Zealand: 26 deaths, 5 per million population. Australia: 975 deaths, 38 per million population. UK: 131,487 deaths, 1,925 per million population.
Looks to me like their strategy has worked somewhat better than ours (and most others) thus far. Yes, their figures are likely to get (much) worse, but I doubt that they'll get anywhere near our death rate (per million). By playing for time they should be able to benefit more from vaccines and treatment.
I don't think you've got the hang of this at all. Johnson's government has been showing the rest of the world how to do it. You can nit-pick as much as you like. Those are the facts.
Off topic, and by a country mile.
He invented the vaccines (proof? you saw him in a lab coat) saved the world from the Covid19 pandemic, and with no more casualties in the UK than were necessary, and at no cost to the taxpayer (inflation will see to that... but, but it's only 2%= watch this space).
It has been such a successful strategy to the extent that whatever the accusation (perhaps the UK's laughable rate of rape prosecutions) they can all be batted away simply by saying "Labour jabber, Conservatives jab".
The 120 Embassy guards will receive visas to come to the UK and their evacuation is active now
Excellent news, but this is the 2nd time (that I am aware of) where the Govt has crassly made heartless decisions (the other being the scholarship students blocked from coming) which have been reversed. How many other crass cruel decisions have been made that don't hit the press so we are unaware of and therefore the lack of outrage doesn't cause a reversal.
These scenarios should have been no brainers.
Maybe we should just be pleased with the good news
We should be pleased, very pleased, but not just pleased. Imagine if you were aware of some group being heartlessly blocked like these were and you couldn't get the attention of a Telegraph or Guardian journalist. It isn't good enough that we must rely on a newspaper to get them out. It is the job of the Govt. I am sure after this has ended we are going to hear some heartbreaking stories.
After 9/11, invading Afghanistan gave the US what it needed most: time. 20 years on, it has a homeland that is (pretty much) secure. It has had the opportunity and the space and the money to build intelligence structures that can keep the domestic US safe. Where Biden - and the wider political system - will be in trouble is after all that cost, if turns out that al Qaeda or whoever can still pierce their shield.
I do worry that the 20th anniversary is the moment for long-planned spectaculars to be unleashed. Biden will be at the same point in his stint as President as George W Bush - but with no appetite for the foreign interventions after 9/11. And a President with fewer faculties.
America in a box, tight within its own borders. That would be a big win for al Qaeda.
The latest polling from Morning Consult shows that while US voters still support the Afghanistan withdrawal overall by 49% to 37%, that changes if it creates an opening for Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations to establish operations again.
So while Biden may be able to get away with it if it only leads to the Taliban returning in Afghanistan, if there is another Jihadi terrorist attack on US soil on his watch he and Harris are toast in 2024
A touch tetchy at times. As if someone had disturbed his midday nap.
The President knows he's been caught red-handed; there is no defence and hardly any mitigation.
I did have a good chuckle though at the surreal suggestion Trump was a better president than Biden because he was so incompetent he couldn’t organise a coup properly.
Had he been able to I probably wouldn’t have been laughing…
I’m also amazed, given his pathetic response to North Korea and indeed the Taleban breaking every clause every clause of the deals he brokered with them before the ink was even dry that they think he would have been more feared than Biden.
None of which in any way excuses the quite extraordinary incompetence of the Biden administration over the last month, given they were elected to clear up the mess not make it worse.
A great précis of the story so far.
I am amazed that so many on PB seem to think that Biden's enormous fiasco wipes the Trump slate clean.
It doesn't.The last decade has seen the giant of the western world for so many years become a pygmy. Heaven knows what the consequences will be. I'm unclear that Europe is at all either able or willing to step up to the plate and fearful that Vlad almost certainly knows this. LL&E, Ukraine & maybe some of the Balkan states cannot be comfortable places to live right now.
One can't help feeling that a defensive alliance built around the EU would be less of a 'Bull in a china shop' than the one dominated by the US with the UK as its poodle. The days of 'Shock and Awe' and similar verbal obscenities would certainly go.
Yes but there is not a shred of evidence right now that Germany would commit anything to defending those countries against an aggressor from whom they are receiving a sh**load of power. The idea that EU can unite around a coherent defence policy against big bear has a lot of history against it. I'm unconvinced UVDL is the answer to that question anymore than she was to the vaccine rollout.
If UDVL is the answer to anything it was a f****** stupid question.
Well my day has taken a turn for the better. Had to take our diabetic cat to the emergency vet last night after he had a fit and was told he was probably permanently blind due to detached retinas caused by high blood pressure; after spending the night there it appears to have been temporary caused by a hypo. Also he was so enraged they weren’t able to do any of the suggested monitoring, which halves the cost of £700-1000 (!).
I shall attempt to be sweet natured for the rest of the day.
When I was younger we had a diabetic cat. He was diagnosed as such at the age of about 12, and not expected to live another 18 months; he managed another seven years. Following him around the garden with a yoghurt pot lid to try to get a urine sample was always a jolly exercise! But he had a largely good quality of life in his dotage and was always very patient with his injections. Best of luck with your diabetic moggie.
The 120 Embassy guards will receive visas to come to the UK and their evacuation is active now
Excellent news, but this is the 2nd time (that I am aware of) where the Govt has crassly made heartless decisions (the other being the scholarship students blocked from coming) which have been reversed. How many other crass cruel decisions have been made that don't hit the press so we are unaware of and therefore the lack of outrage doesn't cause a reversal.
These scenarios should have been no brainers.
Maybe we should just be pleased with the good news
We should be pleased, very pleased, but not just pleased. Imagine if you were aware of some group being heartlessly blocked like these were and you couldn't get the attention of a Telegraph or Guardian journalist. It isn't good enough that we must rely on a newspaper to get them out. It is the job of the Govt. I am sure after this has ended we are going to hear some heartbreaking stories.
Well my day has taken a turn for the better. Had to take our diabetic cat to the emergency vet last night after he had a fit and was told he was probably permanently blind due to detached retinas caused by high blood pressure; after spending the night there it appears to have been temporary caused by a hypo. Also he was so enraged they weren’t able to do any of the suggested monitoring, which halves the cost of £700-1000 (!).
I shall attempt to be sweet natured for the rest of the day.
Trump was America First, Biden appears to be Only America.
The lack of even name checking the likes of UK and France last night was telling....Biden saying only America can airlift people out of Afghanistan. I am sure all the special forces from UK, France, etc on the ground in Afghanistan really appreciate this take.
Everyone else is “America, almost”
A real ‘some animals are more equal than others’ moment here
“For now, Biden appears to be sticking with the end-August deadline. He said on Friday that “any American who wants to come home -- we will get you home.” He said he would make a similar pledge to Afghan allies still stuck in the country, with a caveat.
The Afghan refugees are “equally important, almost” as the U.S. citizens seeking to leave, he said.”
After 9/11, invading Afghanistan gave the US what it needed most: time. 20 years on, it has a homeland that is (pretty much) secure. It has had the opportunity and the space and the money to build intelligence structures that can keep the domestic US safe. Where Biden - and the wider political system - will be in trouble is after all that cost, if turns out that al Qaeda or whoever can still pierce their shield.
I do worry that the 20th anniversary is the moment for long-planned spectaculars to be unleashed. Biden will be at the same point in his stint as President as George W Bush - but with no appetite for the foreign interventions after 9/11. And a President with fewer faculties.
America in a box, tight within its own borders. That would be a big win for al Qaeda.
The latest polling from Morning Consult shows that while US voters still support the Afghanistan withdrawal overall by 49% to 37%, that changes if it creates an opening for Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations to establish operations again.
So while Biden may be able to get away with it if it only leads to the Taliban returning in Afghanistan, if there is another Jihadi terrorist attack on US soil on his watch he and Harris are toast in 2024
Congratulations on your 2000th post on this subject. I have noticed that your tone is more restrained than it was on post number one.
The 120 Embassy guards will receive visas to come to the UK and their evacuation is active now
Excellent news, but this is the 2nd time (that I am aware of) where the Govt has crassly made heartless decisions (the other being the scholarship students blocked from coming) which have been reversed. How many other crass cruel decisions have been made that don't hit the press so we are unaware of and therefore the lack of outrage doesn't cause a reversal.
These scenarios should have been no brainers.
Maybe we should just be pleased with the good news
On the contrary. Good news and decisions should be recognised, and contrasted with the initial decisions, to encourage the good decision to be made straight away next time.
It would be wrong in my view to hold the initial decision against the government when it has done the right thing mere days later. But there's nothing wrong with noting it and hoping next time there's no need to do a reversal.
Trump was America First, Biden appears to be Only America.
The lack of even name checking the likes of UK and France last night was telling....Biden saying only America can airlift people out of Afghanistan. I am sure all the special forces from UK, France, etc on the ground in Afghanistan really appreciate this take.
Everyone else is “America, almost”
A real ‘some animals are more equal than others’ moment here
“For now, Biden appears to be sticking with the end-August deadline. He said on Friday that “any American who wants to come home -- we will get you home.” He said he would make a similar pledge to Afghan allies still stuck in the country, with a caveat.
The Afghan refugees are “equally important, almost” as the U.S. citizens seeking to leave, he said.”
The 120 Embassy guards will receive visas to come to the UK and their evacuation is active now
Excellent news, but this is the 2nd time (that I am aware of) where the Govt has crassly made heartless decisions (the other being the scholarship students blocked from coming) which have been reversed. How many other crass cruel decisions have been made that don't hit the press so we are unaware of and therefore the lack of outrage doesn't cause a reversal.
These scenarios should have been no brainers.
Maybe we should just be pleased with the good news
We should be pleased, very pleased, but not just pleased. Imagine if you were aware of some group being heartlessly blocked like these were and you couldn't get the attention of a Telegraph or Guardian journalist. It isn't good enough that we must rely on a newspaper to get them out. It is the job of the Govt. I am sure after this has ended we are going to hear some heartbreaking stories.
I am sure you are absolutely correct
I do hope I am not.
I was watching on the news this morning and our soldiers were having to hold crowds back. What a rotten job they have to do. I feel very sorry for them. The crowd was made up of people who have no hope of escaping, mixed up with people with British passports who were struggling to get through the crowd. Horrible situation.
Well my day has taken a turn for the better. Had to take our diabetic cat to the emergency vet last night after he had a fit and was told he was probably permanently blind due to detached retinas caused by high blood pressure; after spending the night there it appears to have been temporary caused by a hypo. Also he was so enraged they weren’t able to do any of the suggested monitoring, which halves the cost of £700-1000 (!).
I shall attempt to be sweet natured for the rest of the day.
Glad the problem isn't permanent (for your cat, that is, not your sweet nature...)
However, as a non-pet owner, this does throw up a question. How the **** do the poorer segments of society afford vet fees? Our neighbour has an elderly cat that needs monthly shots, and it is costing them an arm and a leg (not literally). Are there many cats, dogs et al out there not getting proper care because their owners cannot afford the fees?
One of the many, many problems in Afghanistan is that an entire generation has grown up learning nothing but how to fight. There is no economy other than a bit of drugs and the money that has been pumped in to keep the various armies and militias going. Most of that, especially the US dollars is about to dry up.
In those 20 years the population has almost doubled and there is nothing productive for them to do. The number of refugees this is going to generate is going to be destabilising for adjoining countries and cause wave after wave of immigrants further west.
There is a good book can't remember the name about the US trying to build or contribute to an industrial society based IIRC around the Kajaki Dam. This was post war 50s or 60s.
On New Zealand and Australia, I'm not sure we're in a position to be quite so critical. According to Worldometers:
New Zealand: 26 deaths, 5 per million population. Australia: 975 deaths, 38 per million population. UK: 131,487 deaths, 1,925 per million population.
Looks to me like their strategy has worked somewhat better than ours (and most others) thus far. Yes, their figures are likely to get (much) worse, but I doubt that they'll get anywhere near our death rate (per million). By playing for time they should be able to benefit more from vaccines and treatment.
It’s a marathon not a sprint, mate.
They have not got anywhere near the numbers jabbed they need to and we will see what happens in the next couple of months.
According to OWID, Australia is at about 40% of people with at least 1 jab, 20% fully jabbed. That's roughly where the UK was in mid-April, and Western Europe was at the end of May. Not good, but they've done the most vulnerable in terms of preventing deaths.
The vaccines have been approved since the turn of the year. The percentages is misleading. Their populations are far smaller than ours. They’ve achieved, with a far smaller population, in 8 months what we achieved in 4 months. Same with NZ and their population is less than Greater London.
Sure, they're going slower, and that puts them in a position where presumably economic effects will persist for longer as wel which is not nothing, but very low deaths (even if caught in next waves as they have some level of vulnerable protection), greater than average economic harm (if such is what ends up happening), may still be contrasted with places with high deaths and greater than average economic harm, or even high deaths lower than average economic harm.
Britain’s MPs this week uttered one long howl of anguish over Afghanistan. Their immediate targets were Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, politicians who just happened to be on the watch when Kabul’s pack of cards collapsed. But their real concern was that a collective 20-year experiment in “exporting western values” to Afghanistan had fallen into chaos. MPs wanted someone other than themselves to blame. A politician is never so angry as when proved wrong.
An interesting article but the idea that a country gets what it deserves and it isn't for other countries to intervene has it's limitations. The world is a little too interconnected for that and anyway why shouldn't those that have the means help the oppressed whichever country they live in.
Jenkins has been arguing the same for years. He was against sanctions against South Africa and Rhodesia. He would now be against any action-not only military-if the Taliban resumed the rape of 11 year old girls.
One of the many, many problems in Afghanistan is that an entire generation has grown up learning nothing but how to fight. There is no economy other than a bit of drugs and the money that has been pumped in to keep the various armies and militias going. Most of that, especially the US dollars is about to dry up.
In those 20 years the population has almost doubled and there is nothing productive for them to do. The number of refugees this is going to generate is going to be destabilising for adjoining countries and cause wave after wave of immigrants further west.
There is a good book can't remember the name about the US trying to build or contribute to an industrial society based IIRC around the Kajaki Dam. This was post war 50s or 60s.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran Little America: The War within the War for Afghanis
Britain’s MPs this week uttered one long howl of anguish over Afghanistan. Their immediate targets were Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, politicians who just happened to be on the watch when Kabul’s pack of cards collapsed. But their real concern was that a collective 20-year experiment in “exporting western values” to Afghanistan had fallen into chaos. MPs wanted someone other than themselves to blame. A politician is never so angry as when proved wrong.
An interesting article but the idea that a country gets what it deserves and it isn't for other countries to intervene has it's limitations. The world is a little too interconnected for that and anyway why shouldn't those that have the means help the oppressed whichever country they live in.
Jenkins has been arguing the same for years. He was against sanctions against South Africa and Rhodesia. He would now be against any action-not only military-if the Taliban resumed the rape of 11 year old girls.
Of course. Only those who make films and songs are allowed to uncritically have sex with the underaged.
A touch tetchy at times. As if someone had disturbed his midday nap.
The President knows he's been caught red-handed; there is no defence and hardly any mitigation.
I did have a good chuckle though at the surreal suggestion Trump was a better president than Biden because he was so incompetent he couldn’t organise a coup properly.
Had he been able to I probably wouldn’t have been laughing…
I’m also amazed, given his pathetic response to North Korea and indeed the Taleban breaking every clause every clause of the deals he brokered with them before the ink was even dry that they think he would have been more feared than Biden.
None of which in any way excuses the quite extraordinary incompetence of the Biden administration over the last month, given they were elected to clear up the mess not make it worse.
A great précis of the story so far.
I am amazed that so many on PB seem to think that Biden's enormous fiasco wipes the Trump slate clean.
It doesn't.The last decade has seen the giant of the western world for so many years become a pygmy. Heaven knows what the consequences will be. I'm unclear that Europe is at all either able or willing to step up to the plate and fearful that Vlad almost certainly knows this. LL&E, Ukraine & maybe some of the Balkan states cannot be comfortable places to live right now.
One can't help feeling that a defensive alliance built around the EU would be less of a 'Bull in a china shop' than the one dominated by the US with the UK as its poodle. The days of 'Shock and Awe' and similar verbal obscenities would certainly go.
Yes but there is not a shred of evidence right now that Germany would commit anything to defending those countries against an aggressor from whom they are receiving a sh**load of power. The idea that EU can unite around a coherent defence policy against big bear has a lot of history against it. I'm unconvinced UVDL is the answer to that question anymore than she was to the vaccine rollout.
If UDVL is the answer to anything it was a f****** stupid question.
UVDL has ample and relevant experience from her time as German Minister of Defence.
If she builds them creches, the Taliban will become as gentle as kittens.
Well my day has taken a turn for the better. Had to take our diabetic cat to the emergency vet last night after he had a fit and was told he was probably permanently blind due to detached retinas caused by high blood pressure; after spending the night there it appears to have been temporary caused by a hypo. Also he was so enraged they weren’t able to do any of the suggested monitoring, which halves the cost of £700-1000 (!).
I shall attempt to be sweet natured for the rest of the day.
Glad the problem isn't permanent (for your cat, that is, not your sweet nature...)
However, as a non-pet owner, this does throw up a question. How the **** do the poorer segments of society afford vet fees? Our neighbour has an elderly cat that needs monthly shots, and it is costing them an arm and a leg (not literally). Are there many cats, dogs et al out there not getting proper care because their owners cannot afford the fees?
Well my day has taken a turn for the better. Had to take our diabetic cat to the emergency vet last night after he had a fit and was told he was probably permanently blind due to detached retinas caused by high blood pressure; after spending the night there it appears to have been temporary caused by a hypo. Also he was so enraged they weren’t able to do any of the suggested monitoring, which halves the cost of £700-1000 (!).
I shall attempt to be sweet natured for the rest of the day.
Glad the problem isn't permanent (for your cat, that is, not your sweet nature...)
However, as a non-pet owner, this does throw up a question. How the **** do the poorer segments of society afford vet fees? Our neighbour has an elderly cat that needs monthly shots, and it is costing them an arm and a leg (not literally). Are there many cats, dogs et al out there not getting proper care because their owners cannot afford the fees?
There are charities - some help with vet care, discount castration (don't let's get ideas), etc. Hereabouts for instance -
The 120 Embassy guards will receive visas to come to the UK and their evacuation is active now
Excellent news, but this is the 2nd time (that I am aware of) where the Govt has crassly made heartless decisions (the other being the scholarship students blocked from coming) which have been reversed. How many other crass cruel decisions have been made that don't hit the press so we are unaware of and therefore the lack of outrage doesn't cause a reversal.
These scenarios should have been no brainers.
No brainers - sums up our cabinet and their inability to think ahead.
Britain’s MPs this week uttered one long howl of anguish over Afghanistan. Their immediate targets were Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, politicians who just happened to be on the watch when Kabul’s pack of cards collapsed. But their real concern was that a collective 20-year experiment in “exporting western values” to Afghanistan had fallen into chaos. MPs wanted someone other than themselves to blame. A politician is never so angry as when proved wrong.
An interesting article but the idea that a country gets what it deserves and it isn't for other countries to intervene has it's limitations. The world is a little too interconnected for that and anyway why shouldn't those that have the means help the oppressed whichever country they live in.
Jenkins has been arguing the same for years. He was against sanctions against South Africa and Rhodesia. He would now be against any action-not only military-if the Taliban resumed the rape of 11 year old girls.
Of course. Only those who make films and songs are allowed to uncritically have sex with the underaged.
An interesting theory. I haven't heard that one before
Well my day has taken a turn for the better. Had to take our diabetic cat to the emergency vet last night after he had a fit and was told he was probably permanently blind due to detached retinas caused by high blood pressure; after spending the night there it appears to have been temporary caused by a hypo. Also he was so enraged they weren’t able to do any of the suggested monitoring, which halves the cost of £700-1000 (!).
I shall attempt to be sweet natured for the rest of the day.
Glad the problem isn't permanent (for your cat, that is, not your sweet nature...)
However, as a non-pet owner, this does throw up a question. How the **** do the poorer segments of society afford vet fees? Our neighbour has an elderly cat that needs monthly shots, and it is costing them an arm and a leg (not literally). Are there many cats, dogs et al out there not getting proper care because their owners cannot afford the fees?
We had to have our rabbit put down at the emergency vets a few weeks back. Was a bit over £300. Could have done with my M4 being able to shoot something slightly higher calibre than plastic BBs tbh
After 9/11, invading Afghanistan gave the US what it needed most: time. 20 years on, it has a homeland that is (pretty much) secure. It has had the opportunity and the space and the money to build intelligence structures that can keep the domestic US safe. Where Biden - and the wider political system - will be in trouble is after all that cost, if turns out that al Qaeda or whoever can still pierce their shield.
I do worry that the 20th anniversary is the moment for long-planned spectaculars to be unleashed. Biden will be at the same point in his stint as President as George W Bush - but with no appetite for the foreign interventions after 9/11. And a President with fewer faculties.
America in a box, tight within its own borders. That would be a big win for al Qaeda.
The latest polling from Morning Consult shows that while US voters still support the Afghanistan withdrawal overall by 49% to 37%, that changes if it creates an opening for Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations to establish operations again.
So while Biden may be able to get away with it if it only leads to the Taliban returning in Afghanistan, if there is another Jihadi terrorist attack on US soil on his watch he and Harris are toast in 2024
Living in the past. Any terrorist attack on US soil is far more likely to be of the Trumpy right tendency.
Trump was America First, Biden appears to be Only America.
The lack of even name checking the likes of UK and France last night was telling....Biden saying only America can airlift people out of Afghanistan. I am sure all the special forces from UK, France, etc on the ground in Afghanistan really appreciate this take.
Everyone else is “America, almost”
A real ‘some animals are more equal than others’ moment here
“For now, Biden appears to be sticking with the end-August deadline. He said on Friday that “any American who wants to come home -- we will get you home.” He said he would make a similar pledge to Afghan allies still stuck in the country, with a caveat.
The Afghan refugees are “equally important, almost” as the U.S. citizens seeking to leave, he said.”
The 120 Embassy guards will receive visas to come to the UK and their evacuation is active now
Excellent news, but this is the 2nd time (that I am aware of) where the Govt has crassly made heartless decisions (the other being the scholarship students blocked from coming) which have been reversed. How many other crass cruel decisions have been made that don't hit the press so we are unaware of and therefore the lack of outrage doesn't cause a reversal.
These scenarios should have been no brainers.
This govt does it all the time. It’s inept. They did the same with Marcus Rashford.
Well my day has taken a turn for the better. Had to take our diabetic cat to the emergency vet last night after he had a fit and was told he was probably permanently blind due to detached retinas caused by high blood pressure; after spending the night there it appears to have been temporary caused by a hypo. Also he was so enraged they weren’t able to do any of the suggested monitoring, which halves the cost of £700-1000 (!).
I shall attempt to be sweet natured for the rest of the day.
Glad the problem isn't permanent (for your cat, that is, not your sweet nature...)
However, as a non-pet owner, this does throw up a question. How the **** do the poorer segments of society afford vet fees? Our neighbour has an elderly cat that needs monthly shots, and it is costing them an arm and a leg (not literally). Are there many cats, dogs et al out there not getting proper care because their owners cannot afford the fees?
By skimping in other areas to make the animals their main interest, and by being careful.
And perhaps by being a little less sentimental about long term terminal illnesses.
One of my Ts had 9 bitches, partly in the past for hobby-breeding, and spends the large amounts of money with the vet. I have just helped her switch the tablet-a-day for 2 dogs from £1 a day each with the vet to "vet review and prescription every 3 months + online 34p per tablet". Saving about £400 a year, which is most of a month's rent.
The same lady has previously buried deceased pooches in the back field, rather than paying the vet - there was also an element of 'taking personal care' involved. There are about 3 down there, and it is now going to be a housing estate, so at some point a future gardener may be intrigued.
Comments
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2020/03/09/americas-largest-military-bases-around-the-world-2/
(*as long as one doesn’t cry wolf too often. Ahem fearmongers.)
On Slab, the interesting thing is that it was historically in large part a Roman Catholic immigrant (ie Irish) party in reaction to the Protestant-nativist Unionist Tories and the more right wing home rulers such as Gibb. I expect you have heard the stories of Labour activists going round the housing schemes and telling any wifies with Irish surnames and Celtic shirts on the washing lines that they'd be deported as soon as the SNP came into power. Of course now they have lost much of that demographic to you know who, hence (in my perception) some of their utter hatred for the SNP. But I certainly was surprised, a few years ago, to find a Labour councils actively trying to fund Orange activities:
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14501503.falkirk-council-cover-orange-order-march-costs-worth-thousands-pounds/
I seem to recall that that was reverse-ferreted, but even to make the attempt was quite something. A lot of the eastern Central Belt folks really, really do not like sectarian marches of either ilk in their towns, especially when half the rentamarch types in the West (and NI) seem to pile in for the day.
The lack of even name checking the likes of UK and France last night was telling....Biden saying only America can airlift people out of Afghanistan. I am sure all the special forces from UK, France, etc on the ground in Afghanistan really appreciate this take.
But knowing America, the worse outcome for them is it be made to look weak and indecisive. That’s where they are now - and I think that outweighs any possible gains that there were there politically from a swift withdrawal
Tommy No-Mates
The most important and central plank of the new policy should be to face reality and reverse the now decades old doctrine of doing more with less. The focus of the UK forces should be overwhelmingly on the North Atlantic, the GIUK gap and the British Isles. Call it the East of Skegness Policy. British forces have been in more or less constant combat in the Middle East for 26 years. It is now safe to conclude that whatever it is that we are doing there isn’t improving the situation and that we should stop. This strategic pivot would end long out of area deployments and thus greatly improve morale and retention.
In my own, admittedly amateur and not particularly well informed opinion, the UK is too small to do everything so should concentrate on doing a limited range of activities well, and that (logically, given that we're an island and so are our remaining overseas territories,) means a focus on naval strength, accompanied by a modest air force, drones, cruise missiles and precision-guided munitions. Territorial defence and a deterrent capability to project kinetic force remotely. I'm not at all sure that this country needs tanks anymore, for example, and if there's an argument left for maintaining a sizeable army then it's probably just to provide a sufficiently large recruitment pool for the special forces, and to be deployed mostly in humanitarian emergencies rather than combat.
Quite besides anything else, concentrating on ships at sea rather than boots on the ground might help to dissuade any future return to "something must be done-ism" the next time a Prime Minister spies some new group of Islamist nasties and develops an itchy trigger finger - something which could well result in a similarly lengthy and ultimately futile deployment to that in Afghanistan.
New Zealand: 26 deaths, 5 per million population.
Australia: 975 deaths, 38 per million population.
UK: 131,487 deaths, 1,925 per million population.
Looks to me like their strategy has worked somewhat better than ours (and most others) thus far. Yes, their figures are likely to get (much) worse, but I doubt that they'll get anywhere near our death rate (per million). By playing for time they should be able to benefit more from vaccines and treatment.
Mind you, if PB is a microcosm of reality the Conservative Party must be almost full to the brim with "partisan hacks".
They have not got anywhere near the numbers jabbed they need to and we will see what happens in the next couple of months.
The state of comparative peace since the deal (with the notable exception of regular assassination of significant Afghan leaders who might have opposed the Taliban) was not something which would have continued.
In domestic political terms, Biden probably made the right decision. But he has botched its execution horribly.
Llafur:
20% grown ups -- in which category we can put the uninspiring, but reasonably sincere, Drakeford
70% self-interested -- In Wales, there is no working economy. Many hundreds of millions of pounds of public money is used in providing sinecures for Labour cronies, in return for which these people support Labour in any way they can. In the South Wales Valleys, the choices for life improvement are either (i) emigration, (ii) a life of crime or (iii) a life in the Labour party. A typical specimen is the vacuous Sophie Howe, the very well-paid Future Generations Commissioner. Sje tweets every now and then, for ~100k a year.
10 % failures -- normally English. These are people like Jane Davidson, who have no connection to Wales, failed to have a political career in England because of general incompetence & fuckwittery, and so moved to Wales, where they prospered in the low-grade atmosphere of Llafur. It is Small Pond Syndrome.
Llafur has literally got only ONE thing in its favour.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.
That one thing has enabled it to remain in power for 20 years.
Before possibly Grimond, and certainly before Thorpe one could have said much the same about the Libs I came across.
One phrase that I recall from then was that 'one could run politics like a University Rag Day' (For those who recall such events!)
On the first three, it's not inconsistent with disliking Taleban policies towards women while thinking it both undesirable and unwise to try to bomb them into seeing it our way.
Bases sorted by area in acres.
So the top of the list is the one in Greenland
I suspect (?fear?) that we're going to have to wait for the world to roll on a bit before we get much 'liberalisation' among the top Taliban. I suspect though, that the internet might help a bit. Even the Taliban elders aren't immortal.
It is not the Welsh Conservative Party.’
That is a massive one thing though.
The one thing Boris Johnson had in his favour, is that he wasn’t Jeremy Corbyn.
All that is fine so long as it is what people intend to argue, but too often it seems the clear implication that any immigration control measures or limits are wrong, not the intention, which undermines the argument of 'loosen things up, but it's not a free for all' that many more hold.
And I note the betrayal by Biden happened at the G7 and Nato meeting in June where he gave assurances to all the allies and to which he reneged on
The leaked note must have been part of the record of that meeting and to be fair the daily mail have commented on it
It follows that the allies planning would have been around Biden's commitments and the chaos we are witnessing today is due to Bidens betrayal
Biden also gets a partial pass on being fucking gaga for now because of his well documented speech impediment.
That's roughly where the UK was in mid-April, and Western Europe was at the end of May.
Not good, but they've done the most vulnerable in terms of preventing deaths.
Do you still live in Cymru?
But I'll admit to being biased against 'green' panjandrums.
The immovable object however, objects in fact, are British politicians and British General Staff Officers.
Neither of these two sets of people are prepared to accept the perception of a diminished global role for the UK.
The UK equivalent would have been Boris sitting on the sofa with Holly and Philip last week, but recorded in advance and with the PM’s team having editorial control over the final broadcast version.
'I was in Kabul when it fell to the Taliban. The speed of the collapse stunned me'
His final paragraph is
'Apart from some vague general statements, the Taliban have still not explained the path forward that they envision. As a result, the same situation persists: the old system has been overthrown with people wondering – or fearing – what the future might bring.'
The 120 Embassy guards will receive visas to come to the UK and their evacuation is active now
I shall attempt to be sweet natured for the rest of the day.
If you seriously think lockdown in perpetuity are the solution to this then you’re deluded.
These scenarios should have been no brainers.
In those 20 years the population has almost doubled and there is nothing productive for them to do. The number of refugees this is going to generate is going to be destabilising for adjoining countries and cause wave after wave of immigrants further west.
Somebody has had a word with him, thank God for that. An utter liability
He invented the vaccines (proof? you saw him in a lab coat) saved the world from the Covid19 pandemic, and with no more casualties in the UK than were necessary, and at no cost to the taxpayer (inflation will see to that... but, but it's only 2%= watch this space).
It has been such a successful strategy to the extent that whatever the accusation (perhaps the UK's laughable rate of rape prosecutions) they can all be batted away simply by saying "Labour jabber, Conservatives jab".
Has Biden resigned yet?
If Al Qaeda return then US voters oppose the withdrawal by 48% to 35%.
https://morningconsult.com/2021/08/16/afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-polling/
So while Biden may be able to get away with it if it only leads to the Taliban returning in Afghanistan, if there is another Jihadi terrorist attack on US soil on his watch he and Harris are toast in 2024
A real ‘some animals are more equal than others’ moment here
“For now, Biden appears to be sticking with the end-August deadline. He said on Friday that “any American who wants to come home -- we will get you home.” He said he would make a similar pledge to Afghan allies still stuck in the country, with a caveat.
The Afghan refugees are “equally important, almost” as the U.S. citizens seeking to leave, he said.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-20/biden-assured-allies-in-june-u-s-would-ensure-kabul-s-stability
It would be wrong in my view to hold the initial decision against the government when it has done the right thing mere days later. But there's nothing wrong with noting it and hoping next time there's no need to do a reversal.
I was watching on the news this morning and our soldiers were having to hold crowds back. What a rotten job they have to do. I feel very sorry for them. The crowd was made up of people who have no hope of escaping, mixed up with people with British passports who were struggling to get through the crowd. Horrible situation.
However, as a non-pet owner, this does throw up a question. How the **** do the poorer segments of society afford vet fees? Our neighbour has an elderly cat that needs monthly shots, and it is costing them an arm and a leg (not literally). Are there many cats, dogs et al out there not getting proper care because their owners cannot afford the fees?
Jenkins has been arguing the same for years. He was against sanctions against South Africa and Rhodesia. He would now be against any action-not only military-if the Taliban resumed the rape of 11 year old girls.
Little America: The War within the War for Afghanis
If she builds them creches, the Taliban will become as gentle as kittens.
https://www.pdsa.org.uk/
https://www.dogaidsociety.com/Development/schemes/
And the PDSA of course.
https://www.pdsa.org.uk/
3JOH22A
And perhaps by being a little less sentimental about long term terminal illnesses.
One of my Ts had 9 bitches, partly in the past for hobby-breeding, and spends the large amounts of money with the vet. I have just helped her switch the tablet-a-day for 2 dogs from £1 a day each with the vet to "vet review and prescription every 3 months + online 34p per tablet". Saving about £400 a year, which is most of a month's rent.
The same lady has previously buried deceased pooches in the back field, rather than paying the vet - there was also an element of 'taking personal care' involved. There are about 3 down there, and it is now going to be a housing estate, so at some point a future gardener may be intrigued.