I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare
:...
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
That's the point.
We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.
Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.
Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
Indeed so
I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
I agree, but is it that much different from you telling us in post after post after post how useless Starmer is? Mind you, you seem to have stopped doing that now. But there was a time.......
Yes, it is completely different
I am analysing the ratings, and finding, or at least trying, to find historical trends that predict the outcomes of future elections.
Scott just copies and pastes quotes from critics of the government
He calls Boris, Bozo. I never personally insult Sir Keir.
I am a pro gambler, Scott doesn’t know what 4/9 means
The insistence on the "Sir" every single time is passive aggressive insult.
There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.
It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.
It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.
You are making the assumption that most people value those things, recent polls on covid measures seems to indicate at least for the uk people enjoy authoritarianism not liberty and freedom. I believe in both however I would say I have lost faith in representative democracy and would not lift a finger to save it.
What form of government do you favour? I understand you want lots of liberty. Anarchism, in the classic sense of no central government? Or if you do want a central government, how would you like it to be chosen?
Not arguing, just curious. The world seems effectively divided between people who like democracy (though not necessarily the choices) and people who like strong oligarchs (so long as they're THEIR oligarchs). Neither seems very helpful to unlimited personal freedom.
There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.
It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.
It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.
You are making the assumption that most people value those things, recent polls on covid measures seems to indicate at least for the uk people enjoy authoritarianism not liberty and freedom. I believe in both however I would say I have lost faith in representative democracy and would not lift a finger to save it.
That's very sad to hear; I do hope you come to revise your view.
One of my biggest fears is that people are starting to move away from democracy to authoritarianism, either because they prioritise new dogmas above it - and view democracy as an obstacle - or they don't believe it delivers the goods and think a strong leader will.
But, let me ask you this: given that not everyone agrees with each other (but also assume their favoured policies will win out) and there can only be one authoritarian leader at a time, what happens to the rest who oppose them? And, even for those who originally supported them, but subsequently change their minds, how do you think transitions of power would work in an authoritarian system?
Blinks why is it for me to revise my view. When polled the uk public tell us they dont value liberty or freedom and in fact want more authoritarianism with respect to covid restrictions. Should you not be saying you hope they revise their views?
I am all for liberty and freedom, the only thing I am against currently is representative democracy because it fails to deliver for the majority of the country. You have 650 representatives they can be bought and paid for as ours mostly are. We need to shift to direct democracy sooner rather than later and no pr is not direct democracy thats just giving more power to the idiots who think they should decide how we live
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare
:...
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
That's the point.
We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.
Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.
Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
Indeed so
I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.
That is the truth.
And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.
We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
Read an interview this morning with an Afghan man who a month ago was a university student with a boyfriend. Now in fear of summary execution. I think it was worth investing time and money in trying to arrange for him to be in the former situation rather than the latter. Is that a pampered rich sort of thing to think? Do you think our soldiers incapable of forming a view on that point? Do you realise that nobody is currently conscripted into the army?
Conscription would be far better in my view.
A conscripted army would contain the sons and daughters of the middle classes. They would never, never be sent to die in the sand.
If Blair's sons had been in the army, then we would have been spared the warmonger's disastrous interventions in the Middle East.
The problem with your simple diagnosis is that it is not just "time and money" that is involved to rescue the Afghan student.
If "time and money" were enough -- fine, spend the time and the money.
But, don't send others to die while you holiday on St Kilda and read an upsetting article.
Silly. Are you saying Vietnam didn't happen, because it can't have done, because conscription? And why do you think that because people are poor they are necessarily also stupid?
Blinks why is it for me to revise my view. When polled the uk public tell us they dont value liberty or freedom and in fact want more authoritarianism with respect to covid restrictions. Should you not be saying you hope they revise their views?
I am all for liberty and freedom, the only thing I am against currently is representative democracy because it fails to deliver for the majority of the country. You have 650 representatives they can be bought and paid for as ours mostly are. We need to shift to direct democracy sooner rather than later and no pr is not direct democracy thats just giving more power to the idiots who think they should decide how we live
Ah, OK, posted before I saw this. Direct democracy works quite well in Switzerland. But it does give lots of direct unfiltered power to the public, whose views you distrust. I think it possibly works particularly well because the voters are the level-headed Swiss.
There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.
It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.
It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.
You are making the assumption that most people value those things, recent polls on covid measures seems to indicate at least for the uk people enjoy authoritarianism not liberty and freedom. I believe in both however I would say I have lost faith in representative democracy and would not lift a finger to save it.
What form of government do you favour? I understand you want lots of liberty. Anarchism, in the classic sense of no central government? Or if you do want a central government, how would you like it to be chosen?
Not arguing, just curious. The world seems effectively divided between people who like democracy (though not necessarily the choices) and people who like strong oligarchs (so long as they're THEIR oligarchs). Neither seems very helpful to unlimited personal freedom.
I did post a header a while ago Nick with some ideas
There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.
It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.
It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.
You are making the assumption that most people value those things, recent polls on covid measures seems to indicate at least for the uk people enjoy authoritarianism not liberty and freedom. I believe in both however I would say I have lost faith in representative democracy and would not lift a finger to save it.
That's very sad to hear; I do hope you come to revise your view.
One of my biggest fears is that people are starting to move away from democracy to authoritarianism, either because they prioritise new dogmas above it - and view democracy as an obstacle - or they don't believe it delivers the goods and think a strong leader will.
But, let me ask you this: given that not everyone agrees with each other (but also assume their favoured policies will win out) and there can only be one authoritarian leader at a time, what happens to the rest who oppose them? And, even for those who originally supported them, but subsequently change their minds, how do you think transitions of power would work in an authoritarian system?
Democracy is currently in a very bad place. In the west, it is only really Macron that is vaguely inspiring. Everyone else seems to be just about surviving, whilst being mired in various depths in absurd identity politics. Against this, the sad reality is that Putin and the Communist party of China have achieved vast amounts of material progress in 20 years with authoritarian forms of government.
That is what the rest of the world sees, which may explain why at a global level, democracy is in decline.
We also know from the experience of the 20th Century that authoritarianism also fulfills an instinctive human need for security and order, which may explain its success. Thinking about the taliban, it is easy to see why their rule has support in Afghanistan; fundamentalist/traditional Islam is regarded on balance by Afghans as a more coherant set of beliefs than liberal democracy in the form currently touted by the west. We might not like any of this, but it is the reality we face. Unless democracy reinvents itself in some way, it is finished.
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare
:...
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
That's the point.
We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.
Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.
Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
Indeed so
I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.
That is the truth.
And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.
We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
I agree we shouldn't be. But Raab and Johnson still deserve stick for being lax and lazy. They really are a shower.
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare:
"Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million US bounty on him, put in charge of security in new Afghani government as Biden claims terror group “gone” from Afghanistan"
And yet *some* PB-ers focus on the phone calls between Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab.
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
And I can't help noticing it is the pathetic Remoaners like Scott who bang on and on about this. Like it is some personal revenge that must be satisfied by swords, during the early trench warfare of World War 1. It is instructionally dumb
FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad
You are dead wrong about this, because the more of a fuck I give about Afghanistan, the more of a fuck I give about how little of a fuck the sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers who represent my country give about it .
Then look at the substance, not the trivia. You won't be short of material and it just might have made a difference.
The substance is so inconvenient ** that there's only trivia left.
** The USA wanted out, the Afghans wouldn't fight and the country was full of westerners who wouldn't leave when told to.
Fuck me, was the first _richard as boring and stupid as you are? Thank you for that dim, reductive and wholly inaccurate precis, but why do you despise your own country so much that you regard its handling of the situation as trivial?
You do seem to prefer abusing other PBers than offer constructive suggestions though I'm quite honoured to be treated in the same manner as cyclefree.
Now perhaps you could explain what you found 'wholly inaccurate' in my comment ? That the USA wanted out ? That the Afghans wouldn't fight ? That the country was full of westerners who wouldn't leave when told to ?
As to how this country has handled the situation maybe you can tell us what the UK should be doing ?
You were told by cyclefree that as a male PBer your attitude to women in trouble was "fuck 'em." Either that is true of you, or it is not but you are so extraordinarily dickless that you don't feel able to contradict her. Because she is obviously a clever lady who writes lovely long headers. Lovely long, long, long, long headers. Doesn't really seem worth the effort of debating with you, either way. But are you incapable of understanding that the Americans were at fault for not appreciating that the Afghans wouldn't fight, or that wanting something is different from having a moral justification for doing it? Does it not matter to you that women are raped and gays are murdered?
Yes, people have made mistakes and bad things happen in the world.
That's the inconvenient substance of the issue.
I have no magic wand to make it all better and you don't have any constructive suggestions likewise.
Perhaps you and cyclefree can have your despairing rants together.
There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.
It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.
It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.
You are making the assumption that most people value those things, recent polls on covid measures seems to indicate at least for the uk people enjoy authoritarianism not liberty and freedom. I believe in both however I would say I have lost faith in representative democracy and would not lift a finger to save it.
What form of government do you favour? I understand you want lots of liberty. Anarchism, in the classic sense of no central government? Or if you do want a central government, how would you like it to be chosen?
Not arguing, just curious. The world seems effectively divided between people who like democracy (though not necessarily the choices) and people who like strong oligarchs (so long as they're THEIR oligarchs). Neither seems very helpful to unlimited personal freedom.
I did post a header a while ago Nick with some ideas
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare
:...
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
That's the point.
We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.
Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.
Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
Indeed so
I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
I agree, but is it that much different from you telling us in post after post after post how useless Starmer is? Mind you, you seem to have stopped doing that now. But there was a time.......
Yes, it is completely different
I am analysing the ratings, and finding, or at least trying, to find historical trends that predict the outcomes of future elections.
Scott just copies and pastes quotes from critics of the government
He calls Boris, Bozo. I never personally insult Sir Keir.
I am a pro gambler, Scott doesn’t know what 4/9 means
The insistence on the "Sir" every single time is passive aggressive insult.
You know this. We know this.
And the deliberate misspelling. Once and for all, it's Sir KIER.
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare
:...
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
That's the point.
We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.
Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.
Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
Indeed so
I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.
That is the truth.
And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.
We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
Read an interview this morning with an Afghan man who a month ago was a university student with a boyfriend. Now in fear of summary execution. I think it was worth investing time and money in trying to arrange for him to be in the former situation rather than the latter. Is that a pampered rich sort of thing to think? Do you think our soldiers incapable of forming a view on that point? Do you realise that nobody is currently conscripted into the army?
Conscription would be far better in my view.
A conscripted army would contain the sons and daughters of the middle classes. They would never, never be sent to die in the sand.
If Blair's sons had been in the army, then we would have been spared the warmonger's disastrous interventions in the Middle East.
The problem with your simple diagnosis is that it is not just "time and money" that is involved to rescue the Afghan student.
If "time and money" were enough -- fine, spend the time and the money.
But, don't send others to die while you holiday on St Kilda and read an upsetting article.
Silly. Are you saying Vietnam didn't happen, because it can't have done, because conscription? And why do you think that because people are poor they are necessarily also stupid?
The Draft was easily evaded by the rich in Vietnam.
As you well know, I did not say the poor were stupid.
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare:
"Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million US bounty on him, put in charge of security in new Afghani government as Biden claims terror group “gone” from Afghanistan"
And yet *some* PB-ers focus on the phone calls between Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab.
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
And I can't help noticing it is the pathetic Remoaners like Scott who bang on and on about this. Like it is some personal revenge that must be satisfied by swords, during the early trench warfare of World War 1. It is instructionally dumb
FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad
You are dead wrong about this, because the more of a fuck I give about Afghanistan, the more of a fuck I give about how little of a fuck the sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers who represent my country give about it .
Then look at the substance, not the trivia. You won't be short of material and it just might have made a difference.
The substance is so inconvenient ** that there's only trivia left.
** The USA wanted out, the Afghans wouldn't fight and the country was full of westerners who wouldn't leave when told to.
Fuck me, was the first _richard as boring and stupid as you are? Thank you for that dim, reductive and wholly inaccurate precis, but why do you despise your own country so much that you regard its handling of the situation as trivial?
You do seem to prefer abusing other PBers than offer constructive suggestions though I'm quite honoured to be treated in the same manner as cyclefree.
Now perhaps you could explain what you found 'wholly inaccurate' in my comment ? That the USA wanted out ? That the Afghans wouldn't fight ? That the country was full of westerners who wouldn't leave when told to ?
As to how this country has handled the situation maybe you can tell us what the UK should be doing ?
You were told by cyclefree that as a male PBer your attitude to women in trouble was "fuck 'em." Either that is true of you, or it is not but you are so extraordinarily dickless that you don't feel able to contradict her. Because she is obviously a clever lady who writes lovely long headers. Lovely long, long, long, long headers. Doesn't really seem worth the effort of debating with you, either way. But are you incapable of understanding that the Americans were at fault for not appreciating that the Afghans wouldn't fight, or that wanting something is different from having a moral justification for doing it? Does it not matter to you that women are raped and gays are murdered?
Yes, people have made mistakes and bad things happen in the world.
That's the inconvenient substance of the issue.
I have no magic wand to make it all better and you don't have any constructive suggestions likewise.
Perhaps you and cyclefree can have your despairing rants together.
You seem to have changed allegiance there in a sleight-of-handy kind of way. As far as I can see you are the one defending her allegation that your reaction to women in trouble is "fuck 'em," and indeed that seems to encapsulate your view of Afghanistan.
Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?
What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.
It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
I find @DougSeal an interesting poster -- but whatever -- the point is he has only posted a couple of times on this thread.
@Scott_xP had produced a stream of wailing posts that say the same thing again and again and again and again.
Without wit, without insight, without intelligence.
It is spam.
Relentless, tedious, excessive, boring posting of the same thing again and again is spam.
Wearisome is exactly the right word.
I don't agree. I find both Scott and HYUFD useful, precisely because they pick up interesting stuff off Twitter, saving me the trouble. We're old enough to make up our own minds what we think of it (or to skip if we've seen enough).
There is a difference in the use of language and to be fair, and I do not often agree with @HYUFD, but he does not use bad language to make his points
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare
:...
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
That's the point.
We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.
Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.
Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
Indeed so
I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.
That is the truth.
And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.
We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
Read an interview this morning with an Afghan man who a month ago was a university student with a boyfriend. Now in fear of summary execution. I think it was worth investing time and money in trying to arrange for him to be in the former situation rather than the latter. Is that a pampered rich sort of thing to think? Do you think our soldiers incapable of forming a view on that point? Do you realise that nobody is currently conscripted into the army?
Conscription would be far better in my view.
A conscripted army would contain the sons and daughters of the middle classes. They would never, never be sent to die in the sand.
If Blair's sons had been in the army, then we would have been spared the warmonger's disastrous interventions in the Middle East.
The problem with your simple diagnosis is that it is not just "time and money" that is involved to rescue the Afghan student.
If "time and money" were enough -- fine, spend the time and the money.
But, don't send others to die while you holiday on St Kilda and read an upsetting article.
Silly. Are you saying Vietnam didn't happen, because it can't have done, because conscription? And why do you think that because people are poor they are necessarily also stupid?
The Draft was easily evaded by the rich in Vietnam.
As you well know, I did not say the poor were stupid.
Yes you did
"And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand."
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare
:...
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
That's the point.
We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.
Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.
Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
Indeed so
I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.
That is the truth.
And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.
We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
I agree we shouldn't be. But Raab and Johnson still deserve stick for being lax and lazy. They really are a shower.
A few thoughts:
1) The 'political sin' is appearing lax and lazy when they don't need to.
2) So much of politics now is via the internet, text messages etc that they don't realise they are being, or appearing to be, lax and lazy.
3) As much as Conservative politicians all profess to admire Thatcher few of them emulate her workrate.
Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?
What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.
It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
Yep. That's the real "Boris Derangement Syndrome".
The sufferers are Leavers so grateful to him for delivering their Brexit that they've suspended all critical faculties where he is concerned.
There's always been a 'my man good, your man bad' aspect to politics.
As to Boris here's a blend of emotions I feel regarding him:
1) Amusement as to how deranged he makes his enemies 2) Envy of his luck 3) Exasperation as to his mistakes 4) Aggravation that he doesn't learn from previous mistakes 5) Resignation about the possible alternatives
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare
:...
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
That's the point.
We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.
Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.
Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
Indeed so
I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.
That is the truth.
And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.
We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
Read an interview this morning with an Afghan man who a month ago was a university student with a boyfriend. Now in fear of summary execution. I think it was worth investing time and money in trying to arrange for him to be in the former situation rather than the latter. Is that a pampered rich sort of thing to think? Do you think our soldiers incapable of forming a view on that point? Do you realise that nobody is currently conscripted into the army?
Conscription would be far better in my view.
A conscripted army would contain the sons and daughters of the middle classes. They would never, never be sent to die in the sand.
If Blair's sons had been in the army, then we would have been spared the warmonger's disastrous interventions in the Middle East.
The problem with your simple diagnosis is that it is not just "time and money" that is involved to rescue the Afghan student.
If "time and money" were enough -- fine, spend the time and the money.
But, don't send others to die while you holiday on St Kilda and read an upsetting article.
Silly. Are you saying Vietnam didn't happen, because it can't have done, because conscription? And why do you think that because people are poor they are necessarily also stupid?
The Draft was easily evaded by the rich in Vietnam.
As you well know, I did not say the poor were stupid.
Yes you did
"And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand."
There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.
It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.
It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.
You are making the assumption that most people value those things, recent polls on covid measures seems to indicate at least for the uk people enjoy authoritarianism not liberty and freedom. I believe in both however I would say I have lost faith in representative democracy and would not lift a finger to save it.
What form of government do you favour? I understand you want lots of liberty. Anarchism, in the classic sense of no central government? Or if you do want a central government, how would you like it to be chosen?
Not arguing, just curious. The world seems effectively divided between people who like democracy (though not necessarily the choices) and people who like strong oligarchs (so long as they're THEIR oligarchs). Neither seems very helpful to unlimited personal freedom.
I did post a header a while ago Nick with some ideas
NBC NEWS: The US is tracking specific threats from ISIS against Kabul Airport and against Americans and others trying to get to the airport, according to two defense officials.
and remember for all the discourse not one of us is in Kabul witnessing
'man's inhumanity to man'
Good night
And by the way my eldest son in Canada broke down on the phone tonight as he described in graphic detail his trauma at ground zero in Christchurch NZ in 2011
It is hard to listen to his PTSD and be so far away
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare
:...
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
That's the point.
We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.
Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.
Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
Indeed so
I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.
That is the truth.
And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.
We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
I agree we shouldn't be. But Raab and Johnson still deserve stick for being lax and lazy. They really are a shower.
A few thoughts:
1) The 'political sin' is appearing lax and lazy when they don't need to.
2) So much of politics now is via the internet, text messages etc that they don't realise they are being, or appearing to be, lax and lazy.
3) As much as Conservative politicians all profess to admire Thatcher few of them emulate her workrate.
Ok, so I guess the laxity isn't purely because Boris Johnson is PM - but I'm convinced that's at the root of it. He sets the tone.
1) The 'political sin' is appearing lax and lazy when they don't need to.
2) So much of politics now is via the internet, text messages etc that they don't realise they are being, or appearing to be, lax and lazy.
3) As much as Conservative politicians all profess to admire Thatcher few of them emulate her workrate.
An odd thing about politics is that you can get away with being lazy 95% of the time. I knew a chap who delegated ALL his correspondence and ALL his press statements to assistants, and nursed a career outside politics, occasionally giving a mildly controversial TV interview to keep up appearances. He was generally respected and had a moderately senior position. Those of us who saw politics as a totally full-time thing eyed him with bemusement - perfectly nice guy, we thought, but really WTF, why is he doing the job at all? The whips didn't care as he voted the way they wanted, and the voters didn't care as he had their preferred colour. Eventually he decided he didn't care either, and stepped down.
But if there's something big going on in your area, you do need to be on the ball. Even he knew that. Some of today's crop think they can get away with nonchalance all the time, and that doesn't work.
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare:
"Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million US bounty on him, put in charge of security in new Afghani government as Biden claims terror group “gone” from Afghanistan"
And yet *some* PB-ers focus on the phone calls between Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab.
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
And I can't help noticing it is the pathetic Remoaners like Scott who bang on and on about this. Like it is some personal revenge that must be satisfied by swords, during the early trench warfare of World War 1. It is instructionally dumb
FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad
You are dead wrong about this, because the more of a fuck I give about Afghanistan, the more of a fuck I give about how little of a fuck the sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers who represent my country give about it .
Then look at the substance, not the trivia. You won't be short of material and it just might have made a difference.
The substance is so inconvenient ** that there's only trivia left.
** The USA wanted out, the Afghans wouldn't fight and the country was full of westerners who wouldn't leave when told to.
Fuck me, was the first _richard as boring and stupid as you are? Thank you for that dim, reductive and wholly inaccurate precis, but why do you despise your own country so much that you regard its handling of the situation as trivial?
You do seem to prefer abusing other PBers than offer constructive suggestions though I'm quite honoured to be treated in the same manner as cyclefree.
Now perhaps you could explain what you found 'wholly inaccurate' in my comment ? That the USA wanted out ? That the Afghans wouldn't fight ? That the country was full of westerners who wouldn't leave when told to ?
As to how this country has handled the situation maybe you can tell us what the UK should be doing ?
You were told by cyclefree that as a male PBer your attitude to women in trouble was "fuck 'em." Either that is true of you, or it is not but you are so extraordinarily dickless that you don't feel able to contradict her. Because she is obviously a clever lady who writes lovely long headers. Lovely long, long, long, long headers. Doesn't really seem worth the effort of debating with you, either way. But are you incapable of understanding that the Americans were at fault for not appreciating that the Afghans wouldn't fight, or that wanting something is different from having a moral justification for doing it? Does it not matter to you that women are raped and gays are murdered?
Yes, people have made mistakes and bad things happen in the world.
That's the inconvenient substance of the issue.
I have no magic wand to make it all better and you don't have any constructive suggestions likewise.
Perhaps you and cyclefree can have your despairing rants together.
You seem to have changed allegiance there in a sleight-of-handy kind of way. As far as I can see you are the one defending her allegation that your reaction to women in trouble is "fuck 'em," and indeed that seems to encapsulate your view of Afghanistan.
I'm neither defending nor attacking her views.
As with many PBers on many issues I think she might be right in parts and not so in other parts.
But I don't have the inclination nor the knowledge to have in depth analyses.
Likewise for the Afghans I have differing views on differing groups involved.
As to the whole country I think the only realistic option is to partition it among the neighbouring countries - whether that is a viable option or would even be acceptable to the neighbouring countries I don't know.
1) The 'political sin' is appearing lax and lazy when they don't need to.
2) So much of politics now is via the internet, text messages etc that they don't realise they are being, or appearing to be, lax and lazy.
3) As much as Conservative politicians all profess to admire Thatcher few of them emulate her workrate.
An odd thing about politics is that you can get away with being lazy 95% of the time. I knew a chap who delegated ALL his correspondence and ALL his press statements to assistants, and nursed a career outside politics, occasionally giving a mildly controversial TV interview to keep up appearances. He was generally respected and had a moderately senior position. Those of us who saw politics as a totally full-time thing eyed him with bemusement - perfectly nice guy, we thought, but really WTF, why is he doing the job at all? The whips didn't care as he voted the way they wanted, and the voters didn't care as he had their preferred colour. Eventually he decided he didn't care either, and stepped down.
But if there's something big going on in your area, you do need to be on the ball. Even he knew that. Some of today's crop think they can get away with nonchalance all the time, and that doesn't work.
Ron Reagan surely had it right: “They say hard work never killed anyone. But I figure, why take the chance?”
There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.
It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.
It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.
You are making the assumption that most people value those things, recent polls on covid measures seems to indicate at least for the uk people enjoy authoritarianism not liberty and freedom. I believe in both however I would say I have lost faith in representative democracy and would not lift a finger to save it.
Ummmm:
Does this mean that when the similar measures were enacted to deal with the Spanish flu that the British / Americans [Delete as Appropriate] had lost their taste for freedom?
Or does it mean that during wars and pandemics, there can be support for extraordinary measures?
and remember for all the discourse not one of us is in Kabul witnessing
'man's inhumanity to man'
Good night
And by the way my eldest son in Canada broke down on the phone tonight as he described in graphic detail his trauma at ground zero in Christchurch NZ in 2011
It is hard to listen to his PTSD and be so far away
Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?
What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.
It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
I find @DougSeal an interesting poster -- but whatever -- the point is he has only posted a couple of times on this thread.
@Scott_xP had produced a stream of wailing posts that say the same thing again and again and again and again.
Without wit, without insight, without intelligence.
It is spam.
Relentless, tedious, excessive, boring posting of the same thing again and again is spam.
Wearisome is exactly the right word.
I don't agree. I find both Scott and HYUFD useful, precisely because they pick up interesting stuff off Twitter, saving me the trouble. We're old enough to make up our own minds what we think of it (or to skip if we've seen enough).
I find Scott and HYUFD "useful", indeed, I find them beyond useful. I find their opinions valuable, cherishable, precious, and more
Because they give me an insight into a Remainer centrist ex Tory brain, and a true Tory unionist brain.
Likewise NPXMP shows me what an old eurocommie Labour loyalist ex-MP thinks, Roger tells me what a rich old europhile lefty in France thinks, Stuart Dickson tells me what a fierce expat blood n soil Scot Nat in Sweden thinks (plus he gives persuasive insights into Swedish life), TSE tells me what a sort-of ex Tory failed Muslim geeky Liverpool football fan thinks, kle tells me what a man who rarely tells us what he really thinks thinks, Pagan2 tells us what an aspiring working class native Cornish speaking linguistic-ceolacanth thinks, kinabalu tells us about his birthday, Robert Smithson tells us what a car park entrepreneur Tory Brexiteer based in Santa Monica thinks, Carnyx tells us what an urbane Scot Nat classicist with a yearning for an Athenian villa thinks, Cyclefree tells us what a newly Cumbrian lawyer with firm views of Islam, restaurants, feminism and Europe thinks, Dura Ace tells us what a greenie anti vaxxing suicidal ex-army affluent motorhead with a remarkable vocabulary thinks...
On and on. I could mention 50 more. So. Preserve. Don't ban anyone. This site is an amazing resource of human wisdom, bigotry, insight, foolishness, knowledge, wittiness, comedy, charm, madness, friendliness and entertaining inanity. Also good for bets.
Hats off to the Smithsons pere et fils. This site should have a Grade 1listing on the internet. I am entirely serious. Malcolm G would be the unsightly medieval "garderobe" toilet that must also be kept, for authenticity
There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.
It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.
It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.
You are making the assumption that most people value those things, recent polls on covid measures seems to indicate at least for the uk people enjoy authoritarianism not liberty and freedom. I believe in both however I would say I have lost faith in representative democracy and would not lift a finger to save it.
Ummmm:
Does this mean that when the similar measures were enacted to deal with the Spanish flu that the British / Americans [Delete as Appropriate] had lost their taste for freedom?
Or does it mean that during wars and pandemics, there can be support for extraordinary measures?
Support for extraordinary issues is fine, but even when we have so many double jabbed they are still in favour of limiting liberty, cf vaccine passports to go to the pub etc. I supported lockdowns before we had the vulnerable jabbed as they were necessary. Now we have a huge amount double jabbed we really need to get on with things however polls still indicate people favour authoritarian measures
and remember for all the discourse not one of us is in Kabul witnessing
'man's inhumanity to man'
Good night
And by the way my eldest son in Canada broke down on the phone tonight as he described in graphic detail his trauma at ground zero in Christchurch NZ in 2011
It is hard to listen to his PTSD and be so far away
Ex MP moves on from sex worker scandal after 'accepting sexuality and marrying lover' - 15 years after being outed by a newspaper for a liaison with a male sex worker, Mark [Oaten, former Liberal Democrat MP], 57, says he is living his 'second life' – after marrying the man he met six years ago
Ex MP moves on from sex worker scandal after 'accepting sexuality and marrying lover' - 15 years after being outed by a newspaper for a liaison with a male sex worker, Mark [Oaten, former Liberal Democrat MP], 57, says he is living his 'second life' – after marrying the man he met six years ago
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare
:...
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
That's the point.
We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.
Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.
Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
Indeed so
I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.
That is the truth.
And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.
We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
Read an interview this morning with an Afghan man who a month ago was a university student with a boyfriend. Now in fear of summary execution. I think it was worth investing time and money in trying to arrange for him to be in the former situation rather than the latter. Is that a pampered rich sort of thing to think? Do you think our soldiers incapable of forming a view on that point? Do you realise that nobody is currently conscripted into the army?
Conscription would be far better in my view.
A conscripted army would contain the sons and daughters of the middle classes. They would never, never be sent to die in the sand.
If Blair's sons had been in the army, then we would have been spared the warmonger's disastrous interventions in the Middle East.
The problem with your simple diagnosis is that it is not just "time and money" that is involved to rescue the Afghan student.
If "time and money" were enough -- fine, spend the time and the money.
But, don't send others to die while you holiday on St Kilda and read an upsetting article.
Hmmm: the US had the draft, and yet there didn't seem to be any shortage of ways for the well off and well connected to avoid dying in a ditch.
Ex MP moves on from sex worker scandal after 'accepting sexuality and marrying lover' - 15 years after being outed by a newspaper for a liaison with a male sex worker, Mark [Oaten, former Liberal Democrat MP], 57, says he is living his 'second life' – after marrying the man he met six years ago
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare
:...
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
That's the point.
We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.
Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.
Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
Indeed so
I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.
That is the truth.
And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.
We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
Read an interview this morning with an Afghan man who a month ago was a university student with a boyfriend. Now in fear of summary execution. I think it was worth investing time and money in trying to arrange for him to be in the former situation rather than the latter. Is that a pampered rich sort of thing to think? Do you think our soldiers incapable of forming a view on that point? Do you realise that nobody is currently conscripted into the army?
Conscription would be far better in my view.
A conscripted army would contain the sons and daughters of the middle classes. They would never, never be sent to die in the sand.
If Blair's sons had been in the army, then we would have been spared the warmonger's disastrous interventions in the Middle East.
The problem with your simple diagnosis is that it is not just "time and money" that is involved to rescue the Afghan student.
If "time and money" were enough -- fine, spend the time and the money.
But, don't send others to die while you holiday on St Kilda and read an upsetting article.
Hmmm: the US had the draft, and yet there didn't seem to be any shortage of ways for the well off and well connected to avoid dying in a ditch.
In the uk during the second world war was it the same? I genuinely have no idea so just wondered
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare
:...
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
That's the point.
We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.
Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.
Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
Indeed so
I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
I agree, but is it that much different from you telling us in post after post after post how useless Starmer is? Mind you, you seem to have stopped doing that now. But there was a time.......
Yes, it is completely different
I am analysing the ratings, and finding, or at least trying, to find historical trends that predict the outcomes of future elections.
Scott just copies and pastes quotes from critics of the government
He calls Boris, Bozo. I never personally insult Sir Keir.
I am a pro gambler, Scott doesn’t know what 4/9 means
It means that the Southern Brave are batting, right?
I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare
:...
Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.
That's the point.
We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.
Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.
Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
Indeed so
I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.
That is the truth.
And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.
We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
Read an interview this morning with an Afghan man who a month ago was a university student with a boyfriend. Now in fear of summary execution. I think it was worth investing time and money in trying to arrange for him to be in the former situation rather than the latter. Is that a pampered rich sort of thing to think? Do you think our soldiers incapable of forming a view on that point? Do you realise that nobody is currently conscripted into the army?
Conscription would be far better in my view.
A conscripted army would contain the sons and daughters of the middle classes. They would never, never be sent to die in the sand.
If Blair's sons had been in the army, then we would have been spared the warmonger's disastrous interventions in the Middle East.
The problem with your simple diagnosis is that it is not just "time and money" that is involved to rescue the Afghan student.
If "time and money" were enough -- fine, spend the time and the money.
But, don't send others to die while you holiday on St Kilda and read an upsetting article.
Hmmm: the US had the draft, and yet there didn't seem to be any shortage of ways for the well off and well connected to avoid dying in a ditch.
In the uk during the second world war was it the same? I genuinely have no idea so just wondered
It's an excellent question, and the answer is the well off or well connected could not avoid being conscripted, but could usually avoid ending up as cannon fodder. If you knew the right people, or greased the right palms, you could make sure that you avoided all but the most basic of training and ended up in the Army Film and Photographic Unit. (Or a 100 other areas that ensured you'd be very far from the front.)
There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.
It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.
It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.
You are making the assumption that most people value those things, recent polls on covid measures seems to indicate at least for the uk people enjoy authoritarianism not liberty and freedom. I believe in both however I would say I have lost faith in representative democracy and would not lift a finger to save it.
Ummmm:
Does this mean that when the similar measures were enacted to deal with the Spanish flu that the British / Americans [Delete as Appropriate] had lost their taste for freedom?
Or does it mean that during wars and pandemics, there can be support for extraordinary measures?
Support for extraordinary issues is fine, but even when we have so many double jabbed they are still in favour of limiting liberty, cf vaccine passports to go to the pub etc. I supported lockdowns before we had the vulnerable jabbed as they were necessary. Now we have a huge amount double jabbed we really need to get on with things however polls still indicate people favour authoritarian measures
But are they really in favour of those measures? In C&A, the LibDems went out on a very "end restrictions" platform, and it did them no harm at all.
Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?
What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.
It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
I find @DougSeal an interesting poster -- but whatever -- the point is he has only posted a couple of times on this thread.
@Scott_xP had produced a stream of wailing posts that say the same thing again and again and again and again.
Without wit, without insight, without intelligence.
It is spam.
Relentless, tedious, excessive, boring posting of the same thing again and again is spam.
Wearisome is exactly the right word.
I don't agree. I find both Scott and HYUFD useful, precisely because they pick up interesting stuff off Twitter, saving me the trouble. We're old enough to make up our own minds what we think of it (or to skip if we've seen enough).
I find Scott and HYUFD "useful", indeed, I find them beyond useful. I find their opinions valuable, cherishable, precious, and more
Because they give me an insight into a Remainer centrist ex Tory brain, and a true Tory unionist brain.
Likewise NPXMP shows me what an old eurocommie Labour loyalist ex-MP thinks, Roger tells me what a rich old europhile lefty in France thinks, Stuart Dickson tells me what a fierce expat blood n soil Scot Nat in Sweden thinks (plus he gives persuasive insights into Swedish life), TSE tells me what a sort-of ex Tory failed Muslim geeky Liverpool football fan thinks, kle tells me what a man who rarely tells us what he really thinks thinks, Pagan2 tells us what an aspiring working class native Cornish speaking linguistic-ceolacanth thinks, kinabalu tells us about his birthday, Robert Smithson tells us what a car park entrepreneur Tory Brexiteer based in Santa Monica thinks, Carnyx tells us what an urbane Scot Nat classicist with a yearning for an Athenian villa thinks, Cyclefree tells us what a newly Cumbrian lawyer with firm views of Islam, restaurants, feminism and Europe thinks, Dura Ace tells us what a greenie anti vaxxing suicidal ex-army affluent motorhead with a remarkable vocabulary thinks...
On and on. I could mention 50 more. So. Preserve. Don't ban anyone. This site is an amazing resource of human wisdom, bigotry, insight, foolishness, knowledge, wittiness, comedy, charm, madness, friendliness and entertaining inanity. Also good for bets.
Hats off to the Smithsons pere et fils. This site should have a Grade 1listing on the internet. I am entirely serious. Malcolm G would be the unsightly medieval "garderobe" toilet that must also be kept, for authenticity
Not all Tory unionists favour a pre-emptive war with Spain.
1) The 'political sin' is appearing lax and lazy when they don't need to.
2) So much of politics now is via the internet, text messages etc that they don't realise they are being, or appearing to be, lax and lazy.
3) As much as Conservative politicians all profess to admire Thatcher few of them emulate her workrate.
An odd thing about politics is that you can get away with being lazy 95% of the time. I knew a chap who delegated ALL his correspondence and ALL his press statements to assistants, and nursed a career outside politics, occasionally giving a mildly controversial TV interview to keep up appearances. He was generally respected and had a moderately senior position. Those of us who saw politics as a totally full-time thing eyed him with bemusement - perfectly nice guy, we thought, but really WTF, why is he doing the job at all? The whips didn't care as he voted the way they wanted, and the voters didn't care as he had their preferred colour. Eventually he decided he didn't care either, and stepped down.
But if there's something big going on in your area, you do need to be on the ball. Even he knew that. Some of today's crop think they can get away with nonchalance all the time, and that doesn't work.
Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?
What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.
It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
I find @DougSeal an interesting poster -- but whatever -- the point is he has only posted a couple of times on this thread.
@Scott_xP had produced a stream of wailing posts that say the same thing again and again and again and again.
Without wit, without insight, without intelligence.
It is spam.
Relentless, tedious, excessive, boring posting of the same thing again and again is spam.
Wearisome is exactly the right word.
I don't agree. I find both Scott and HYUFD useful, precisely because they pick up interesting stuff off Twitter, saving me the trouble. We're old enough to make up our own minds what we think of it (or to skip if we've seen enough).
I find Scott and HYUFD "useful", indeed, I find them beyond useful. I find their opinions valuable, cherishable, precious, and more
Because they give me an insight into a Remainer centrist ex Tory brain, and a true Tory unionist brain.
Likewise NPXMP shows me what an old eurocommie Labour loyalist ex-MP thinks, Roger tells me what a rich old europhile lefty in France thinks, Stuart Dickson tells me what a fierce expat blood n soil Scot Nat in Sweden thinks (plus he gives persuasive insights into Swedish life), TSE tells me what a sort-of ex Tory failed Muslim geeky Liverpool football fan thinks, kle tells me what a man who rarely tells us what he really thinks thinks, Pagan2 tells us what an aspiring working class native Cornish speaking linguistic-ceolacanth thinks, kinabalu tells us about his birthday, Robert Smithson tells us what a car park entrepreneur Tory Brexiteer based in Santa Monica thinks, Carnyx tells us what an urbane Scot Nat classicist with a yearning for an Athenian villa thinks, Cyclefree tells us what a newly Cumbrian lawyer with firm views of Islam, restaurants, feminism and Europe thinks, Dura Ace tells us what a greenie anti vaxxing suicidal ex-army affluent motorhead with a remarkable vocabulary thinks...
On and on. I could mention 50 more. So. Preserve. Don't ban anyone. This site is an amazing resource of human wisdom, bigotry, insight, foolishness, knowledge, wittiness, comedy, charm, madness, friendliness and entertaining inanity. Also good for bets.
Hats off to the Smithsons pere et fils. This site should have a Grade 1listing on the internet. I am entirely serious. Malcolm G would be the unsightly medieval "garderobe" toilet that must also be kept, for authenticity
Not all Tory unionists favour a pre-emptive war with Spain.
That is the unique genius of PB, tho. You have one such. A tory unionist who would send 2 Para into Gretna to prevent Scottish indy
Yet HYUFD is embraced into the PB bosom, and he (she?) is also genuinely acute and wise on matters of polling, psephology, ground level UK politics and more. If I want to know how to strategically deal with Sindyref2 I might not ask HYUFD, but if I want to know who will likely win Aberdeen (South) HYUFD will have a bloody good guess in seconds without googling, and with more acuity
The greatness of this site is that you have acquired all kinds of people with amazingly diverse views and enormous sagacity, and kept them all on board and kept relations generally civil (with the odd temporary banning, of me, inter alia). In the internet age it is a significant and serious achievement.
Indeed, what you have made with PB seems to me the internet equivalent of the ideal Athenian symposium, or the English coffee or gentleman's club, a place where interested and informed people from all backgrounds can gather, and exchange opinion, without real rancour, and everyone leaves feeling better informed, relieved of their angst, and refreshed and ready for another go
It is a truly human thing, but also a very difficult thing, and we know it is difficult because it so rarely achieved online, or indeed in clubs. I am a member of the Groucho. Which is a nice club. But I don't go there for elevated discourse and real insight from diverse perspectives - I go there to have nice wine and seduce women. I get the intellectual stuff here
PB is a proper achievement. And. as I say hats off to your dad, to you, to TSE, to the header writers, and so on.
I had these thoughts while touring the ancient academies and symposia of Athens last week, and I thought I would kindly let you know, because I am nice and because I hereby hope to avoid my next two yellow cards for swearing at Germans
For road haulage? Well, my guess is that an HGV average 40 mph and manages 10mpg. So, it'll get through 4 gallons of petrol in an hour on average. Which is £20/hour for fuel. So, I'd reckon it's probably:
£40 - labour £20 - fuel £10 - depreciation
But those are wild guesses. (Labour includes all non-wage costs, like NI etc.)
I couldn't find UK, but for the US, per page 21 of this:
Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.
A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.
The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td
Delivery drivers Fruit pickers Factory workers Construction workers Restaurant workers Hotel workers
Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.
Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.
Not necessarily, no. But a minimum wage working class worker in another industry is certainly not going to be happy with increased costs, nor are they a 'middle class whiner'.
Sighs if there is a shortage of workers it will be a shortage over all minimum wage positions in all industries, these are jobs it is reasonably easy to move to, so for example if hospitality staff start earning more than minimum wage and people start moving to do it from other minimum wage jobs that causes a shortage in other industries
Supermarkets are the biggest competitor for labour for care home operators
Just catching up having been away. A couple of comments if I may:
1. Lovely to see so many Tories campaigning so vigorously for significant rises in working people's wages to counter the alleged labour shortage. Something at last that the lefties on here can agree with the Tories about. Strange old world, isn't it? 2. I'd have thought the more radical Tory solution would be to lock more people up. I read on here that prisoners are much sought after. If you imprison a lot more people, then release them early, wouldn't that be a more cost effective solution to labour shortages?
I don't see any tories apart from DavidL saying pay rises for minimum wage folk is a good thing. I am not a tory neither I believe is another richard
“Well it’s none of our concern what goes on beyond our borders. Keep your nose out of trouble and no trouble'll come to you!”
Clever man was Tolkien, tapping into the more deluded sentiments of some of the British.
Hm, I think that's a rather simplistic viewpoint. One country might not want to meddle in the affairs of another, but there is no guarantee that is reciprocated.
Gaffer Gamgee was a parody of a simple rural Englishman
Ex MP moves on from sex worker scandal after 'accepting sexuality and marrying lover' - 15 years after being outed by a newspaper for a liaison with a male sex worker, Mark [Oaten, former Liberal Democrat MP], 57, says he is living his 'second life' – after marrying the man he met six years ago
Oh come on, it wasn't the "male sex worker" that was the interesting part of that story...
Actually, I thought the most interesting part of the story was that Mark Oaten didn't consider 'Lib Dem front bencher' to be a sufficiently 'public eye' position to necessitate the use of an assumed name when engaged in this sort of activity.
Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?
What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.
It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
I find @DougSeal an interesting poster -- but whatever -- the point is he has only posted a couple of times on this thread.
@Scott_xP had produced a stream of wailing posts that say the same thing again and again and again and again.
Without wit, without insight, without intelligence.
It is spam.
Relentless, tedious, excessive, boring posting of the same thing again and again is spam.
Wearisome is exactly the right word.
I don't agree. I find both Scott and HYUFD useful, precisely because they pick up interesting stuff off Twitter, saving me the trouble. We're old enough to make up our own minds what we think of it (or to skip if we've seen enough).
I find Scott and HYUFD "useful", indeed, I find them beyond useful. I find their opinions valuable, cherishable, precious, and more
Because they give me an insight into a Remainer centrist ex Tory brain, and a true Tory unionist brain.
Likewise NPXMP shows me what an old eurocommie Labour loyalist ex-MP thinks, Roger tells me what a rich old europhile lefty in France thinks, Stuart Dickson tells me what a fierce expat blood n soil Scot Nat in Sweden thinks (plus he gives persuasive insights into Swedish life), TSE tells me what a sort-of ex Tory failed Muslim geeky Liverpool football fan thinks, kle tells me what a man who rarely tells us what he really thinks thinks, Pagan2 tells us what an aspiring working class native Cornish speaking linguistic-ceolacanth thinks, kinabalu tells us about his birthday, Robert Smithson tells us what a car park entrepreneur Tory Brexiteer based in Santa Monica thinks, Carnyx tells us what an urbane Scot Nat classicist with a yearning for an Athenian villa thinks, Cyclefree tells us what a newly Cumbrian lawyer with firm views of Islam, restaurants, feminism and Europe thinks, Dura Ace tells us what a greenie anti vaxxing suicidal ex-army affluent motorhead with a remarkable vocabulary thinks...
On and on. I could mention 50 more. So. Preserve. Don't ban anyone. This site is an amazing resource of human wisdom, bigotry, insight, foolishness, knowledge, wittiness, comedy, charm, madness, friendliness and entertaining inanity. Also good for bets.
Hats off to the Smithsons pere et fils. This site should have a Grade 1listing on the internet. I am entirely serious. Malcolm G would be the unsightly medieval "garderobe" toilet that must also be kept, for authenticity
Not all Tory unionists favour a pre-emptive war with Spain.
That is the unique genius of PB, tho. You have one such. A tory unionist who would send 2 Para into Gretna to prevent Scottish indy
Yet HYUFD is embraced into the PB bosom, and he (she?) is also genuinely acute and wise on matters of polling, psephology, ground level UK politics and more. If I want to know how to strategically deal with Sindyref2 I might not ask HYUFD, but if I want to know who will likely win Aberdeen (South) HYUFD will have a bloody good guess in seconds without googling, and with more acuity
The greatness of this site is that you have acquired all kinds of people with amazingly diverse views and enormous sagacity, and kept them all on board and kept relations generally civil (with the odd temporary banning, of me, inter alia). In the internet age it is a significant and serious achievement.
Indeed, what you have made with PB seems to me the internet equivalent of the ideal Athenian symposium, or the English coffee or gentleman's club, a place where interested and informed people from all backgrounds can gather, and exchange opinion, without real rancour, and everyone leaves feeling better informed, relieved of their angst, and refreshed and ready for another go
It is a truly human thing, but also a very difficult thing, and we know it is difficult because it so rarely achieved online, or indeed in clubs. I am a member of the Groucho. Which is a nice club. But I don't go there for elevated discourse and real insight from diverse perspectives - I go there to have nice wine and seduce women. I get the intellectual stuff here
PB is a proper achievement. And. as I say hats off to your dad, to you, to TSE, to the header writers, and so on.
I had these thoughts while touring the ancient academies and symposia of Athens last week, and I thought I would kindly let you know, because I am nice and because I hereby hope to avoid my next two yellow cards for swearing at Germans
Not only all that, but pb has been like this for, what, 17 years now? Which in internet terms is like having been around since Hengist and Horsa.
Comments
You know this. We know this.
Not arguing, just curious. The world seems effectively divided between people who like democracy (though not necessarily the choices) and people who like strong oligarchs (so long as they're THEIR oligarchs). Neither seems very helpful to unlimited personal freedom.
I am all for liberty and freedom, the only thing I am against currently is representative democracy because it fails to deliver for the majority of the country. You have 650 representatives they can be bought and paid for as ours mostly are. We need to shift to direct democracy sooner rather than later and no pr is not direct democracy thats just giving more power to the idiots who think they should decide how we live
That is what the rest of the world sees, which may explain why at a global level, democracy is in decline.
We also know from the experience of the 20th Century that authoritarianism also fulfills an instinctive human need for security and order, which may explain its success. Thinking about the taliban, it is easy to see why their rule has support in Afghanistan; fundamentalist/traditional Islam is regarded on balance by Afghans as a more coherant set of beliefs than liberal democracy in the form currently touted by the west. We might not like any of this, but it is the reality we face. Unless democracy reinvents itself in some way, it is finished.
That's the inconvenient substance of the issue.
I have no magic wand to make it all better and you don't have any constructive suggestions likewise.
Perhaps you and cyclefree can have your despairing rants together.
found it
Kier Is Exactly Right is how I remember it.
As you well know, I did not say the poor were stupid.
"And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand."
1) The 'political sin' is appearing lax and lazy when they don't need to.
2) So much of politics now is via the internet, text messages etc that they don't realise they are being, or appearing to be, lax and lazy.
3) As much as Conservative politicians all profess to admire Thatcher few of them emulate her workrate.
NBC NEWS: The US is tracking specific threats from ISIS against Kabul Airport and against Americans and others trying to get to the airport, according to two defense officials.
Hmm Not quite how Biden was selling it ....
and remember for all the discourse not one of us is in Kabul witnessing
'man's inhumanity to man'
Good night
And by the way my eldest son in Canada broke down on the phone tonight as he described in graphic detail his trauma at ground zero in Christchurch NZ in 2011
It is hard to listen to his PTSD and be so far away
But if there's something big going on in your area, you do need to be on the ball. Even he knew that. Some of today's crop think they can get away with nonchalance all the time, and that doesn't work.
As with many PBers on many issues I think she might be right in parts and not so in other parts.
But I don't have the inclination nor the knowledge to have in depth analyses.
Likewise for the Afghans I have differing views on differing groups involved.
As to the whole country I think the only realistic option is to partition it among the neighbouring countries - whether that is a viable option or would even be acceptable to the neighbouring countries I don't know.
Does this mean that when the similar measures were enacted to deal with the Spanish flu that the British / Americans [Delete as Appropriate] had lost their taste for freedom?
Or does it mean that during wars and pandemics, there can be support for extraordinary measures?
Because they give me an insight into a Remainer centrist ex Tory brain, and a true Tory unionist brain.
Likewise NPXMP shows me what an old eurocommie Labour loyalist ex-MP thinks, Roger tells me what a rich old europhile lefty in France thinks, Stuart Dickson tells me what a fierce expat blood n soil Scot Nat in Sweden thinks (plus he gives persuasive insights into Swedish life), TSE tells me what a sort-of ex Tory failed Muslim geeky Liverpool football fan thinks, kle tells me what a man who rarely tells us what he really thinks thinks, Pagan2 tells us what an aspiring working class native Cornish speaking linguistic-ceolacanth thinks, kinabalu tells us about his birthday, Robert Smithson tells us what a car park entrepreneur Tory Brexiteer based in Santa Monica thinks, Carnyx tells us what an urbane Scot Nat classicist with a yearning for an Athenian villa thinks, Cyclefree tells us what a newly Cumbrian lawyer with firm views of Islam, restaurants, feminism and Europe thinks, Dura Ace tells us what a greenie anti vaxxing suicidal ex-army affluent motorhead with a remarkable vocabulary thinks...
On and on. I could mention 50 more. So. Preserve. Don't ban anyone. This site is an amazing resource of human wisdom, bigotry, insight, foolishness, knowledge, wittiness, comedy, charm, madness, friendliness and entertaining inanity. Also good for bets.
Hats off to the Smithsons pere et fils. This site should have a Grade 1listing on the internet. I am entirely serious. Malcolm G would be the unsightly medieval "garderobe" toilet that must also be kept, for authenticity
I feel it's time
Got a picture of you beside me,
got your ****mark still on my coffee ***** ”
Levelling up?
Yet HYUFD is embraced into the PB bosom, and he (she?) is also genuinely acute and wise on matters of polling, psephology, ground level UK politics and more. If I want to know how to strategically deal with Sindyref2 I might not ask HYUFD, but if I want to know who will likely win Aberdeen (South) HYUFD will have a bloody good guess in seconds without googling, and with more acuity
The greatness of this site is that you have acquired all kinds of people with amazingly diverse views and enormous sagacity, and kept them all on board and kept relations generally civil (with the odd temporary banning, of me, inter alia). In the internet age it is a significant and serious achievement.
Indeed, what you have made with PB seems to me the internet equivalent of the ideal Athenian symposium, or the English coffee or gentleman's club, a place where interested and informed people from all backgrounds can gather, and exchange opinion, without real rancour, and everyone leaves feeling better informed, relieved of their angst, and refreshed and ready for another go
It is a truly human thing, but also a very difficult thing, and we know it is difficult because it so rarely achieved online, or indeed in clubs. I am a member of the Groucho. Which is a nice club. But I don't go there for elevated discourse and real insight from diverse perspectives - I go there to have nice wine and seduce women. I get the intellectual stuff here
PB is a proper achievement. And. as I say hats off to your dad, to you, to TSE, to the header writers, and so on.
I had these thoughts while touring the ancient academies and symposia of Athens last week, and I thought I would kindly let you know, because I am nice and because I hereby hope to avoid my next two yellow cards for swearing at Germans
Source: secret life of groceries
@CanadianPolling
Federal Polling:
CPC: 33% (-1)
LPC: 31% (-2)
NDP: 18% (+2)
BQ: 6% (-2)
PPC: 6% (+4)
GPC: 5% (-2)
EKOS / August 20, 2021 / n=1444 / MOE 2.6% / IVR
(% Change With 2019 Federal Election)
Check out all federal polling on @338Canada
at: https://338canada.com/polls.htm"
https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/1429196195294027784