What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
On average 106 people are shot and killed in the US everyday.
Ha! I was pondering the wisdom of my use of "bet". On a betting site. With informed investors...
But not a million miles out, that said, and I do feel vindicated-ish.
No, you were spectacularly, farcically wrong. You said, and I quote ‘I bet 100 people were killed by firearms in the US in the last 8 minutes’. Referencing the death toll in Kabul airport yesterday.
It turns out about 100 people are killed, in the USA, by firearms, every 24 hours - so every ‘1,440 minutes’, not ‘8 minutes’
Your odd desire to diminish the disaster in Kabul leads you to embarrassing errors. You are not ‘vindicated-ish’. Quite the opposite
Yes that is absolutely true. You are right. I said 100 people in eight minutes and it turns out that it was 100 people every 24 hours.
I was being ridiculously hyperbolic and I am ashamed. 100 people dying by firearms in 24 hours is of course such a low number as to make it irrelevant for discussion purposes and my rhetorical flourish looks mighty silly now.
O/t but anyone seen @isam this morning? In view of his/his girl-friend's possible problems.
Morning
Thanks for asking, Old King Cole
She’s done another test and it’s another negative. She’s got conjunctivitis now though, and the only late night pharmacist open round here yesterday would not sell me anything to sort it because she’s preggers. Doctors appt at 4 and she’s leaning towards having the jab.
Such a tricky decision the jab. She also has chronic migraines and so I worry about blood clotting
Good Morning to you. Surprised she couldn't buy something for conjunctivitis, but some of my one-time colleagues can be over-cautious. At 32 weeks there's unlikely to be any harm which can come to the baby from the vaccine. However, I'm not on the register anymore, so don't have to keep myself up to date. As I said, a chat with the midwife would be my first choice. How long has she been with her current GP? And will it be face to face or telephone?
Wish you ...... all three of you ...... well!
Thanks
She’s got the scan / midwife on Tuesday, so that should help. Docs today is face to face. Been here a couple of years.
Yeah I drive round most of Havering looking for a pharmacy open at 9pm, and when I found one they would serve me!
Pharmacies are getting extremely risk-averse. Many will no longer sell proper cough medicines (ie those with opiates, perfectly legal) and they won't sell potassium citrate to men, so you either have to lie and say it's for your partner or resort to bicarb, which does the job but tastes horrible and makes me feel bloated and constipated
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
"Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians" Really? Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Ken Clarke, Michael Howard, David Lloyd George, Clement Attlee, Asquith (already mentioned). That is just off the top of my head. I think whether you liked them or not they were all "quite" good
Is it not rather that very few politicians are any good ?
haha. Indeed it is a "good" question, but depends on how "good" is defined. I think you can say they were all highly effective. Some argue that Boris Johnson is a "good" politician because of the thing all his fanbois obsess about, namely he seems to win elections. The fact that he has no eye to detail and seems to anyone who knows anything about executive leadership to be an absolute walking fecking disaster area would mean that he is not "good" in my book
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
"Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians" Really? Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Ken Clarke, Michael Howard, David Lloyd George, Clement Attlee, Asquith (already mentioned). That is just off the top of my head. I think whether you liked them or not they were all "quite" good
I didn't say that none of them were good politicians but that few of them were. Given the number of lawyers in Parliament in modern times, how few of them are really successful as politicians.
I've already dealt with Blair and Thatcher who are both the exceptions even though neither of them really practised.
I should have remembered Ken Clarke. Michael Howard is ok but hardly successful when he became leader.
And that's largely it. It seems to me that a lot of the expectations around Starmer are because he was a good lawyer and therefore would have all sorts of forensic skills etc. Ditto re Kamala Harris. But as I've said the skills that make someone a good lawyer don't necessarily translate well to politics. That's all.
In earlier times - 100 years or so ago - it may well have been different.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Mrs Thatcher did practise as a junior in tax law, iirc. I suspect much of the benefit of legal training for any MP is being able to understand bills which are necessarily couched in legal jargon and unintelligible to the lay person or Jim Hacker.
ETA one criticism that has been suggested is that lawyers want to solve every problem by passing new laws. I expect there is a PhD waiting to happen there.
When you say Jim Hacker, I assume you mean Boris Johnson. Oh, hang on that is not fair on Jim Hacker.
HMG policy is to grant indyref2 when the Scots show 60% plus support for it to be held
It seems it is also SNP policy
No need to worry about @HYUFD's tanks, just persuade public opinion and you have indyref2
Mind you getting in league with the Greens is the first real misstep Sturgeon has made and will not help
That's official HMG policy rather than Jack flying yet another kite is it? Given that Jack has previously said that there should be a referendum if there's a majority in Holyrood for it then pivoting to no new ref for 25 years, I think I'll put that in the no one gives a shit what he thinks folder.
Glad to see that you've relegated the SNP voting against the BJ Brexit deal down from real misstep status.
The Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Gove and the SNP all on the same page with a 60% threshold for indyref2 seems to be causing you considerable concern
Maybe try to persuade 60% of your fellow Scots to your cause
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Mrs Thatcher did practise as a junior in tax law, iirc. I suspect much of the benefit of legal training for any MP is being able to understand bills which are necessarily couched in legal jargon and unintelligible to the lay person or Jim Hacker.
ETA one criticism that has been suggested is that lawyers want to solve every problem by passing new laws. I expect there is a PhD waiting to happen there.
Lawyers will be very good at understanding bills and the like, yes. But the vision stuff, leading, articulating what you are about and what you want for the country in a way which resonates with ordinary voters - that takes other skills which lawyers don't necessarily have by virtue of being lawyers.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
I do acknowledge her, without Thatcher there would be no Holyrood, no dominant SNP and the SCons wouldn't be consigned to eternal irrelevance in Scotland. Hail Thatch!
O/t but anyone seen @isam this morning? In view of his/his girl-friend's possible problems.
Morning
Thanks for asking, Old King Cole
She’s done another test and it’s another negative. She’s got conjunctivitis now though, and the only late night pharmacist open round here yesterday would not sell me anything to sort it because she’s preggers. Doctors appt at 4 and she’s leaning towards having the jab.
Such a tricky decision the jab. She also has chronic migraines and so I worry about blood clotting
Good Morning to you. Surprised she couldn't buy something for conjunctivitis, but some of my one-time colleagues can be over-cautious. At 32 weeks there's unlikely to be any harm which can come to the baby from the vaccine. However, I'm not on the register anymore, so don't have to keep myself up to date. As I said, a chat with the midwife would be my first choice. How long has she been with her current GP? And will it be face to face or telephone?
Wish you ...... all three of you ...... well!
Thanks
She’s got the scan / midwife on Tuesday, so that should help. Docs today is face to face. Been here a couple of years.
Yeah I drive round most of Havering looking for a pharmacy open at 9pm, and when I found one they would serve me!
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Edmundintokyo has some Trump-deranged infatuation with Biden, which has unfortunately turned him into an idiot (on this issue). It is sad. I hope and believe he will recover soon
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm. You could see it in his sad, confused, rather rheumy eyes last night. However this certainly doesn’t mean the Return of Trump. The Democrats need to get a grip and find anew younger candidate and they will beat him easily
I find your take more bizarre than his - that the failure of the long American intervention in Afghanistan is down to the bungled exit rather than it being ill-conceived and badly executed throughout.
To me this smacks of placing logic and history and objective analysis to one side in order to put on a festival of "Joe Biden is a senile old wanker" punditry.
I think if you're honest you'll admit I'm right on this.
- 13,708 people have been evacuated by the UK since 13 August - 7,975 of those people are Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy claimants, based on current data
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback: 'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think. Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
Although it should also be recognised, I think, Mr Leon, that most of her male contemporaries at the time were away in the armed forces fighting for the survival of our country.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
"Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians" Really? Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Ken Clarke, Michael Howard, David Lloyd George, Clement Attlee, Asquith (already mentioned). That is just off the top of my head. I think whether you liked them or not they were all "quite" good
Is it not rather that very few politicians are any good ?
Controversial take: maybe ‘being good at politics’ is incredibly, stupefyingly hard - as it requires such an odd mix of human abilities. Intelligence, articulacy, cunning, charm, tolerance, charisma, clubbability, persistence, physical strength.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Lawyers have some useful skills (stay with me on this). They are trained to be analytical and to find the key points in a decision. They are trained to be coherent and to make a rational argument. The better ones at least are a quick read and can pick up data reasonably quickly. All of these give a certain plausibility to them as we see in both the examples of SKS and Harris.
But there is far, far more to being a good politician than that. You need to have ideas, ambitions to improve the world and an ability to work with others, even if you don't agree with them on other matters, to achieve this. Many lawyers find it easier to make a case for someone else than they do for themselves. You need to be flexible and clubbable to build those coalitions. You are even ideally likeable (a big stretch for your average lawyer). I am not so sure that either Harris or SKS score so well on these points.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
I do acknowledge her, without Thatcher there would be no Holyrood, no dominant SNP and the SCons wouldn't be consigned to eternal irrelevance in Scotland. Hail Thatch!
And without the SNP there might have been no Thatcher government!
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
"Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians" Really? Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Ken Clarke, Michael Howard, David Lloyd George, Clement Attlee, Asquith (already mentioned). That is just off the top of my head. I think whether you liked them or not they were all "quite" good
I didn't say that none of them were good politicians but that few of them were. Given the number of lawyers in Parliament in modern times, how few of them are really successful as politicians.
I've already dealt with Blair and Thatcher who are both the exceptions even though neither of them really practised.
I should have remembered Ken Clarke. Michael Howard is ok but hardly successful when he became leader.
And that's largely it. It seems to me that a lot of the expectations around Starmer are because he was a good lawyer and therefore would have all sorts of forensic skills etc. Ditto re Kamala Harris. But as I've said the skills that make someone a good lawyer don't necessarily translate well to politics. That's all.
In earlier times - 100 years or so ago - it may well have been different.
I think to be fair to Starmer, he has taken over a party where his predecessor was indescribably appalling. I don't buy the idea that he isn't any good. The damage that he has to repair is immense. I am a life long Tory (until the current moron became leader), so I don't have a particular axe to grind, but I think he will eventually make traction. He is a slow burn, but he has a lot to do. If we had a system of directly elected PMs I would vote for him instead of Johnson, any day of the week.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
RFK was on his way to becoming an exceptional politician.
Recently on a podcast I heard his impromptu speech after MLK was shot. Very very good, I thought.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
On average 106 people are shot and killed in the US everyday.
Ha! I was pondering the wisdom of my use of "bet". On a betting site. With informed investors...
But not a million miles out, that said, and I do feel vindicated-ish.
No, you were spectacularly, farcically wrong. You said, and I quote ‘I bet 100 people were killed by firearms in the US in the last 8 minutes’. Referencing the death toll in Kabul airport yesterday.
It turns out about 100 people are killed, in the USA, by firearms, every 24 hours - so every ‘1,440 minutes’, not ‘8 minutes’
Your odd desire to diminish the disaster in Kabul leads you to embarrassing errors. You are not ‘vindicated-ish’. Quite the opposite
Yes that is absolutely true. You are right. I said 100 people in eight minutes and it turns out that it was 100 people every 24 hours.
I was being ridiculously hyperbolic and I am ashamed. 100 people dying by firearms in 24 hours is of course such a low number as to make it irrelevant for discussion purposes and my rhetorical flourish looks mighty silly now.
I agree that your fundamental point, that firearms deaths in the US are so tragically commonplace that they feature too little in political discussion, is 100% correct. But isn't the actual figure more like 100 deaths every 48 hours? (19k in 2020). Of course, as I said, that is an insanely high number for a country that isn't in a war zone and has a well resourced and organised law and order infrastructure.
- 13,708 people have been evacuated by the UK since 13 August - 7,975 of those people are Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy claimants, based on current data
To make sense of those figures I would like to know -
1. Are there any people with a British passport (including dual nationals) left in Afghanistan? If so, how many? 2. How many people eligible to come to Britain under ARAP are left in Afghanistan?
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
"Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians" Really? Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Ken Clarke, Michael Howard, David Lloyd George, Clement Attlee, Asquith (already mentioned). That is just off the top of my head. I think whether you liked them or not they were all "quite" good
Is it not rather that very few politicians are any good ?
Controversial take: maybe ‘being good at politics’ is incredibly, stupefyingly hard - as it requires such an odd mix of human abilities. Intelligence, articulacy, cunning, charm, tolerance, charisma, clubbability, persistence, physical strength.
HMG policy is to grant indyref2 when the Scots show 60% plus support for it to be held
It seems it is also SNP policy
No need to worry about @HYUFD's tanks, just persuade public opinion and you have indyref2
Mind you getting in league with the Greens is the first real misstep Sturgeon has made and will not help
That's official HMG policy rather than Jack flying yet another kite is it? Given that Jack has previously said that there should be a referendum if there's a majority in Holyrood for it then pivoting to no new ref for 25 years, I think I'll put that in the no one gives a shit what he thinks folder.
Glad to see that you've relegated the SNP voting against the BJ Brexit deal down from real misstep status.
The Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Gove and the SNP all on the same page with a 60% threshold for indyref2 seems to be causing you considerable concern
Maybe try to persuade 60% of your fellow Scots to your cause
You know what you need to do to be fair
I know you haven't a clue what I know. When are the Cons gonnae persuade 30% of my fellow Scots to vote for them, let alone 60% to support the Union?
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Mrs Thatcher did practise as a junior in tax law, iirc. I suspect much of the benefit of legal training for any MP is being able to understand bills which are necessarily couched in legal jargon and unintelligible to the lay person or Jim Hacker.
ETA one criticism that has been suggested is that lawyers want to solve every problem by passing new laws. I expect there is a PhD waiting to happen there.
When you say Jim Hacker, I assume you mean Boris Johnson. Oh, hang on that is not fair on Jim Hacker.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
On average 106 people are shot and killed in the US everyday.
Ha! I was pondering the wisdom of my use of "bet". On a betting site. With informed investors...
But not a million miles out, that said, and I do feel vindicated-ish.
No, you were spectacularly, farcically wrong. You said, and I quote ‘I bet 100 people were killed by firearms in the US in the last 8 minutes’. Referencing the death toll in Kabul airport yesterday.
It turns out about 100 people are killed, in the USA, by firearms, every 24 hours - so every ‘1,440 minutes’, not ‘8 minutes’
Your odd desire to diminish the disaster in Kabul leads you to embarrassing errors. You are not ‘vindicated-ish’. Quite the opposite
Yes that is absolutely true. You are right. I said 100 people in eight minutes and it turns out that it was 100 people every 24 hours.
I was being ridiculously hyperbolic and I am ashamed. 100 people dying by firearms in 24 hours is of course such a low number as to make it irrelevant for discussion purposes and my rhetorical flourish looks mighty silly now.
I agree that your fundamental point, that firearms deaths in the US are so tragically commonplace that they feature too little in political discussion, is 100% correct. But isn't the actual figure more like 100 deaths every 48 hours? (19k in 2020). Of course, as I said, that is an insanely high number for a country that isn't in a war zone and has a well resourced and organised law and order infrastructure.
60% threshold for Indy2 is it, interesting that the Tories like majorities for things they personally don't like. What about the electoral system where 40% of the vote gives them a majority?
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
I do acknowledge her, without Thatcher there would be no Holyrood, no dominant SNP and the SCons wouldn't be consigned to eternal irrelevance in Scotland. Hail Thatch!
And without the SNP there might have been no Thatcher government!
win-win!
SNP still here, Thatcher not. Not even Thatcherism in fact..
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
She was awful but you liked her is that it?
No I hated her but I hated her in part because she was so damned smart and good at her job of leading the Tory Party. If she had been less brilliant she would have been more beatable. Ultimately she became beatable because she went a bit mental and was undermined by her internal rivals and critics, and enough of the country got sick of her.
"It was always a shit show and HMG just put their heads in the sand, never made a decision, and simply followed the Americans, another example of sheer incompetence."
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Edmundintokyo has some Trump-deranged infatuation with Biden, which has unfortunately turned him into an idiot (on this issue). It is sad. I hope and believe he will recover soon
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm. You could see it in his sad, confused, rather rheumy eyes last night. However this certainly doesn’t mean the Return of Trump. The Democrats need to get a grip and find anew younger candidate and they will beat him easily
I find your take more bizarre than his - that the failure of the long American intervention in Afghanistan is down to the bungled exit rather than it being ill-conceived and badly executed throughout.
To me this smacks of placing logic and history and objective analysis to one side in order to put on a festival of "Joe Biden is a senile old wanker" punditry.
I think if you're honest you'll admit I'm right on this.
We have no argument (for once). I agree - and I have said so before on here. After9/11. we/America should have gone in, shattered the Taliban, scattered Al Qaeda, then immediately left, leaving the promise that, if ever Afghanistan exported terror again, the USAF would come back and bomb the country into the Bronze Age
My point is more pointed. The whole Afghan war has been an error. That did not mean the US/Allied departure had to be a further calamity. Yet it is. And this shameful exit is all on Biden
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
She was awful but you liked her is that it?
No I hated her but I hated her in part because she was so damned smart and good at her job of leading the Tory Party. If she had been less brilliant she would have been more beatable. Ultimately she became beatable because she went a bit mental and was undermined by her internal rivals and critics, and enough of the country got sick of her.
Ah the sweetness of youth and blissful unawareness of seminal British TV programmes.
Thatcher was a superb politician. BoJo is nothing close
She was okay until about 1987. After that she stopped listening to advice from anyone with different views to her, which is probably what led to her downfall in 1990.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
RFK was on his way to becoming an exceptional politician.
He would have been a far better President than his brother and the US would be a far better place.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
- 13,708 people have been evacuated by the UK since 13 August - 7,975 of those people are Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy claimants, based on current data
I'm assuming these numbers are outside the paltry 5000 refugees in the first year out of a total 20k touted, or are we going to see some Javid 'new hospitals' jiggery pokery?
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Edmundintokyo has some Trump-deranged infatuation with Biden, which has unfortunately turned him into an idiot (on this issue). It is sad. I hope and believe he will recover soon
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm. You could see it in his sad, confused, rather rheumy eyes last night. However this certainly doesn’t mean the Return of Trump. The Democrats need to get a grip and find anew younger candidate and they will beat him easily
I find your take more bizarre than his - that the failure of the long American intervention in Afghanistan is down to the bungled exit rather than it being ill-conceived and badly executed throughout.
To me this smacks of placing logic and history and objective analysis to one side in order to put on a festival of "Joe Biden is a senile old wanker" punditry.
I think if you're honest you'll admit I'm right on this.
We have no argument (for once). I agree - and I have said so before on here. After9/11. we/America should have gone in, shattered the Taliban, scattered Al Qaeda, then immediately left, leaving the promise that, if ever Afghanistan exported terror again, the USAF would come back and bomb the country into the Bronze Age
My point is more pointed. The whole Afghan war has been an error. That did not mean the US/Allied departure had to be a further calamity. Yet it is. And this shameful exit is all on Biden
The War was not an error, it removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The withdrawal was as it has let the Taliban and as yesterday showed jihadi terrorism back in
Thatcher was a superb politician. BoJo is nothing close
She was okay until about 1987. After that she stopped listening to advice from anyone with different views to her, which is probably what led to her downfall in 1990.
BoJo never had a good period. He doesn't have actual views or ideology hence his inability to articulate anything clearly.
He's been in office since 2019, still don't have a clue what his plan is
HMG policy is to grant indyref2 when the Scots show 60% plus support for it to be held
It seems it is also SNP policy
No need to worry about @HYUFD's tanks, just persuade public opinion and you have indyref2
Mind you getting in league with the Greens is the first real misstep Sturgeon has made and will not help
That's official HMG policy rather than Jack flying yet another kite is it? Given that Jack has previously said that there should be a referendum if there's a majority in Holyrood for it then pivoting to no new ref for 25 years, I think I'll put that in the no one gives a shit what he thinks folder.
Glad to see that you've relegated the SNP voting against the BJ Brexit deal down from real misstep status.
The Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Gove and the SNP all on the same page with a 60% threshold for indyref2 seems to be causing you considerable concern
Maybe try to persuade 60% of your fellow Scots to your cause
You know what you need to do to be fair
I know you haven't a clue what I know. When are the Cons gonnae persuade 30% of my fellow Scots to vote for them, let alone 60% to support the Union?
They don't need to.
Constitutionally if they remain in power forever the Cons could refuse indyref2 for ever, the UK government under the Scotland Act 1998 sets the rules
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
I do acknowledge her, without Thatcher there would be no Holyrood, no dominant SNP and the SCons wouldn't be consigned to eternal irrelevance in Scotland. Hail Thatch!
And without the SNP there might have been no Thatcher government!
win-win!
SNP still here, Thatcher not. Not even Thatcherism in fact..
I disagree. We are perhaps moving away from Thatcherism and have been, slowly, since 1997, but the UK economy is still fundamentally aligned with what Thatcherism put in place. Or to put it another way, it bears a lot more resemblance to the UK economy in 1990 than 1979.
Thatcher was a superb politician. BoJo is nothing close
She was okay until about 1987. After that she stopped listening to advice from anyone with different views to her, which is probably what led to her downfall in 1990.
BoJo never had a good period. He doesn't have actual views or ideology hence his inability to articulate anything clearly.
He's been in office since 2019, still don't have a clue what his plan is
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
Being in your 20s under the Thatcher government was just bliss. You just knew she had your back. I consider myself very privileged.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
She was awful but you liked her is that it?
No I hated her but I hated her in part because she was so damned smart and good at her job of leading the Tory Party. If she had been less brilliant she would have been more beatable. Ultimately she became beatable because she went a bit mental and was undermined by her internal rivals and critics, and enough of the country got sick of her.
Ah the sweetness of youth and blissful unawareness of seminal British TV programmes.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Edmundintokyo has some Trump-deranged infatuation with Biden, which has unfortunately turned him into an idiot (on this issue). It is sad. I hope and believe he will recover soon
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm. You could see it in his sad, confused, rather rheumy eyes last night. However this certainly doesn’t mean the Return of Trump. The Democrats need to get a grip and find anew younger candidate and they will beat him easily
I find your take more bizarre than his - that the failure of the long American intervention in Afghanistan is down to the bungled exit rather than it being ill-conceived and badly executed throughout.
To me this smacks of placing logic and history and objective analysis to one side in order to put on a festival of "Joe Biden is a senile old wanker" punditryto fuck th
I think if you're honest you'll admit I'm right on this.
We have no argument (for once). I agree - and I have said so before on here. After9/11. we/America should have gone in, shattered the Taliban, scattered Al Qaeda, then immediately left, leaving the promise that, if ever Afghanistan exported terror again, the USAF would come back and bomb the country into the Bronze Age
My point is more pointed. The whole Afghan war has been an error. That did not mean the US/Allied departure had to be a further calamity. Yet it is. And this shameful exit is all on Biden
The War was not an error, it removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The withdrawal was as it has let the Taliban and as yesterday showed jihadi terrorism back in
Apologies, I mean the 20-year nation building war was an error. The initial war to fuck the Taliban/AQ was inevitable, and just, but we should have quit soon after
HMG policy is to grant indyref2 when the Scots show 60% plus support for it to be held
It seems it is also SNP policy
No need to worry about @HYUFD's tanks, just persuade public opinion and you have indyref2
Mind you getting in league with the Greens is the first real misstep Sturgeon has made and will not help
That's official HMG policy rather than Jack flying yet another kite is it? Given that Jack has previously said that there should be a referendum if there's a majority in Holyrood for it then pivoting to no new ref for 25 years, I think I'll put that in the no one gives a shit what he thinks folder.
Glad to see that you've relegated the SNP voting against the BJ Brexit deal down from real misstep status.
The Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Gove and the SNP all on the same page with a 60% threshold for indyref2 seems to be causing you considerable concern
Maybe try to persuade 60% of your fellow Scots to your cause
You know what you need to do to be fair
I know you haven't a clue what I know. When are the Cons gonnae persuade 30% of my fellow Scots to vote for them, let alone 60% to support the Union?
They don't need to.
Constitutionally if they remain in power forever the Cons could refuse indyref2 for ever, the UK government under the Scotland Act 1998 sets the rules
Imagine HYUFD's shoe stamping on a human face forever.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Edmundintokyo has some Trump-deranged infatuation with Biden, which has unfortunately turned him into an idiot (on this issue). It is sad. I hope and believe he will recover soon
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm. You could see it in his sad, confused, rather rheumy eyes last night. However this certainly doesn’t mean the Return of Trump. The Democrats need to get a grip and find anew younger candidate and they will beat him easily
I find your take more bizarre than his - that the failure of the long American intervention in Afghanistan is down to the bungled exit rather than it being ill-conceived and badly executed throughout.
To me this smacks of placing logic and history and objective analysis to one side in order to put on a festival of "Joe Biden is a senile old wanker" punditry.
I think if you're honest you'll admit I'm right on this.
We have no argument (for once). I agree - and I have said so before on here. After9/11. we/America should have gone in, shattered the Taliban, scattered Al Qaeda, then immediately left, leaving the promise that, if ever Afghanistan exported terror again, the USAF would come back and bomb the country into the Bronze Age
My point is more pointed. The whole Afghan war has been an error. That did not mean the US/Allied departure had to be a further calamity. Yet it is. And this shameful exit is all on Biden
The War was not an error, it removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The withdrawal was as it has let the Taliban and as yesterday showed jihadi terrorism back in
Terrorist suicide bombings have been occuring throughout the entire occupation.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
She was awful but you liked her is that it?
No I hated her but I hated her in part because she was so damned smart and good at her job of leading the Tory Party. If she had been less brilliant she would have been more beatable. Ultimately she became beatable because she went a bit mental and was undermined by her internal rivals and critics, and enough of the country got sick of her.
Ah the sweetness of youth and blissful unawareness of seminal British TV programmes.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Edmundintokyo has some Trump-deranged infatuation with Biden, which has unfortunately turned him into an idiot (on this issue). It is sad. I hope and believe he will recover soon
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm. You could see it in his sad, confused, rather rheumy eyes last night. However this certainly doesn’t mean the Return of Trump. The Democrats need to get a grip and find anew younger candidate and they will beat him easily
I find your take more bizarre than his - that the failure of the long American intervention in Afghanistan is down to the bungled exit rather than it being ill-conceived and badly executed throughout.
To me this smacks of placing logic and history and objective analysis to one side in order to put on a festival of "Joe Biden is a senile old wanker" punditry.
I think if you're honest you'll admit I'm right on this.
We have no argument (for once). I agree - and I have said so before on here. After9/11. we/America should have gone in, shattered the Taliban, scattered Al Qaeda, then immediately left, leaving the promise that, if ever Afghanistan exported terror again, the USAF would come back and bomb the country into the Bronze Age
My point is more pointed. The whole Afghan war has been an error. That did not mean the US/Allied departure had to be a further calamity. Yet it is. And this shameful exit is all on Biden
The War was not an error, it removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The withdrawal was as it has let the Taliban and as yesterday showed jihadi terrorism back in
Terrorist suicide bombings have been occuring throughout the entire occupation.
The Taliban were not back in control of Kabul during the occupation.
More US troops were killed in Afghanistan by terrorists yesterday than have been killed for years and due to the withdrawal terrorists will now be back using it as a base to plot attacks on the West
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
Being in your 20s under the Thatcher government was just bliss. You just knew she had your back. I consider myself very privileged.
I was a kid in the 1980s, in Scotland and Northern England (the NE coalfield surfing the miners' strike). Bliss was far from my experience! I do remember when she resigned though, the news spread throughout my (crumbling thanks to years of Tory cuts) Fife comprehensive school in minutes, we were virtually dancing in the classrooms. It felt like we'd been liberated.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
Being in your 20s under the Thatcher government was just bliss. You just knew she had your back. I consider myself very privileged.
YES!
I felt the same. I was an ambitious lad, from a provincial comprehensive school, and I despised the class structures placed in my way, by people who were clearly stupider than me
Thatcher, my Prime Minister, seemed entirely on my side. "Have a go, work hard, and if you're good, you will do well, no matter where you're from". That was it.
I doubt she would have approved of my drug abuse and bohemian sex life (but who knows, she had an arty, boozy life of her own), but anyway, yes, she was my prime minister, I felt she opened doors for me and my friends and family, and I adored her, and voted for her every chance I got. She helped many poorer friends of mine buy their council houses and become home-owners, for the first time ever. They loved her too
God, I miss her. And I don't miss any other politician in all history. Just her
Thatcher was a superb politician. BoJo is nothing close
She was okay until about 1987. After that she stopped listening to advice from anyone with different views to her, which is probably what led to her downfall in 1990.
And part of the trouble with some of those who worship at Thatcher's shrine now is that what they remember is late era Thatcher; the really successful Maggie was a lot suppler than she was given credit for.
She might have been amused to have Johnson around as a sort of court jester, but otherwise she would have had the current lot for breakfast.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
She was awful but you liked her is that it?
No I hated her but I hated her in part because she was so damned smart and good at her job of leading the Tory Party. If she had been less brilliant she would have been more beatable. Ultimately she became beatable because she went a bit mental and was undermined by her internal rivals and critics, and enough of the country got sick of her.
Ah the sweetness of youth and blissful unawareness of seminal British TV programmes.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Edmundintokyo has some Trump-deranged infatuation with Biden, which has unfortunately turned him into an idiot (on this issue). It is sad. I hope and believe he will recover soon
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm. You could see it in his sad, confused, rather rheumy eyes last night. However this certainly doesn’t mean the Return of Trump. The Democrats need to get a grip and find anew younger candidate and they will beat him easily
I find your take more bizarre than his - that the failure of the long American intervention in Afghanistan is down to the bungled exit rather than it being ill-conceived and badly executed throughout.
To me this smacks of placing logic and history and objective analysis to one side in order to put on a festival of "Joe Biden is a senile old wanker" punditryto fuck th
I think if you're honest you'll admit I'm right on this.
We have no argument (for once). I agree - and I have said so before on here. After9/11. we/America should have gone in, shattered the Taliban, scattered Al Qaeda, then immediately left, leaving the promise that, if ever Afghanistan exported terror again, the USAF would come back and bomb the country into the Bronze Age
My point is more pointed. The whole Afghan war has been an error. That did not mean the US/Allied departure had to be a further calamity. Yet it is. And this shameful exit is all on Biden
The War was not an error, it removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The withdrawal was as it has let the Taliban and as yesterday showed jihadi terrorism back in
Apologies, I mean the 20-year nation building war was an error. The initial war to fuck the Taliban/AQ was inevitable, and just, but we should have quit soon after
The US still has troops in South Korea to keep out North Korea, it still has troops in Europe to keep out the Russians.
It should have kept troops in Afghanistan to keep the Taliban returning to power and jihadi terrorists from reestablishing bases there
Thatcher one of the few Tories to actually want young people to vote for her, since then they seem to have given up
Its interesting that tax rates were actually quite high for most of the Thatcher years. It was I think 1988 before Lawson cut the top rate of tax from 60 to 40.
I was working for a bank at the time. There was a massive cheer in the dealing room when Lawson said the word 'forty' inhis budget speech, people high fiving and dancing around....
I can't think cutting UC is very popular and seems an open goal that this Government wants more austerity? Can anyone explain what I am missing?
What you are missing is that the government failed to tell anybody that lockdown was destroying economy and the the public finances.
The bill is here now.
Well quite possibly but then I find it hard to understand why people here conclude the Tories will win another landslide then
Ed Miliband spent five years saying that austerity wasn't necessary. And he lost. What it comes down to is whether or not the people thinks it's 1) necessary and 2) being done fairly. I think most people will agree that we can't carry on running a big deficit post-pandemic - though it remains to be seen just how bad things will be - but how the pain is spread around is the tricky bit.
I'd suggest Labour think about how they'd do it rather than simply say that it doesn't need to be done.
O/t but anyone seen @isam this morning? In view of his/his girl-friend's possible problems.
Morning
Thanks for asking, Old King Cole
She’s done another test and it’s another negative. She’s got conjunctivitis now though, and the only late night pharmacist open round here yesterday would not sell me anything to sort it because she’s preggers. Doctors appt at 4 and she’s leaning towards having the jab.
Such a tricky decision the jab. She also has chronic migraines and so I worry about blood clotting
It's a very difficult decisions. Although - won't she be having Pfizer or Moderna rather than Astrazeneca? No clots noted with either of those, I understand.
Strokes appear to be around 143 per ten million with the Pfizer jab (versus over 1600 per ten million of those who get the virus, plus the remaining c. 350,000 per ten million hospitalised with other conditions). I guess the gamble to make is when one gets the virus (because we all know that with Delta, the unvaxxed will all get it sooner or later.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Edmundintokyo has some Trump-deranged infatuation with Biden, which has unfortunately turned him into an idiot (on this issue). It is sad. I hope and believe he will recover soon
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm. You could see it in his sad, confused, rather rheumy eyes last night. However this certainly doesn’t mean the Return of Trump. The Democrats need to get a grip and find anew younger candidate and they will beat him easily
I find your take more bizarre than his - that the failure of the long American intervention in Afghanistan is down to the bungled exit rather than it being ill-conceived and badly executed throughout.
To me this smacks of placing logic and history and objective analysis to one side in order to put on a festival of "Joe Biden is a senile old wanker" punditry.
I think if you're honest you'll admit I'm right on this.
We have no argument (for once). I agree - and I have said so before on here. After9/11. we/America should have gone in, shattered the Taliban, scattered Al Qaeda, then immediately left, leaving the promise that, if ever Afghanistan exported terror again, the USAF would come back and bomb the country into the Bronze Age
My point is more pointed. The whole Afghan war has been an error. That did not mean the US/Allied departure had to be a further calamity. Yet it is. And this shameful exit is all on Biden
I'd give Trump some of the flak for the exit with the Doha deal but, ok, it's Biden in charge now and that is not exactly irrelevant.
Pleased not to get a mouthful back because there's a time and a place for that and this - PB.com at 11.30 on a Friday morning in late August with heavy cloud cover and a weak sun - is not it.
Thatcher one of the few Tories to actually want young people to vote for her, since then they seem to have given up
Its interesting that tax rates were actually quite high for most of the Thatcher years. It was I think 1988 before Lawson cut the top rate of tax from 60 to 40.
I was working for a bank at the time. There was a massive cheer in the dealing room when Lawson said the word 'forty' inhis budget speech, people high fiving and dancing around....
That was the Thatcher experience....
And the top rate of tax for 40p for all but the final month of Labour's 13 years in power.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
Being in your 20s under the Thatcher government was just bliss. You just knew she had your back. I consider myself very privileged.
It didn't feel or sound like bliss to me. She may have had our backs, but she didn't have to keep whipping them!
The admission the money is gone “In fact the money is “earmarked” through the internal process set out above and will be deployed fully through future cash flow for the purpose of promoting a referendum on independence and campaigns intended to secure independence.”
I can't think cutting UC is very popular and seems an open goal that this Government wants more austerity? Can anyone explain what I am missing?
What you are missing is that the government failed to tell anybody that lockdown was destroying economy and the the public finances.
The bill is here now.
Well quite possibly but then I find it hard to understand why people here conclude the Tories will win another landslide then
Ed Miliband spent five years saying that austerity wasn't necessary. And he lost. What it comes down to is whether or not the people thinks it's 1) necessary and 2) being done fairly. I think most people will agree that we can't carry on running a big deficit post-pandemic - though it remains to be seen just how bad things will be - but how the pain is spread around is the tricky bit.
I'd suggest Labour think about how they'd do it rather than simply say that it doesn't need to be done.
Hold on, this is incorrect.
As it happened, the Tories stole Ed M's spending plans and implemented those - and those included austerity within them.
Ed M's big problem was he didn't really oppose anything. He tried to go for economic credibility whilst saying he would cut less but then also said he wanted to spend more as austerity had destroyed the country (I think he was correct on the latter point).
- 13,708 people have been evacuated by the UK since 13 August - 7,975 of those people are Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy claimants, based on current data
To make sense of those figures I would like to know -
1. Are there any people with a British passport (including dual nationals) left in Afghanistan? If so, how many? 2. How many people eligible to come to Britain under ARAP are left in Afghanistan?
On the 19 August, the Daily Mail was saying 6000 UK citizens and eligible Afghans to be evacuated. No reason to doubt the expectation. It was always going to be a lot more, but that gives a glimpse of one angle.
The admission the money is gone “In fact the money is “earmarked” through the internal process set out above and will be deployed fully through future cash flow for the purpose of promoting a referendum on independence and campaigns intended to secure independence.”
"almost as many respondents to the RHA survey (53pc) also blamed the introduction of new tax rules (known as IR35), which have raised the cost of agency drivers. Unfortunately, “IR35 food shortages” is not quite as catchy as “Brexit food shortages”."
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
Being in your 20s under the Thatcher government was just bliss. You just knew she had your back. I consider myself very privileged.
YES!
I felt the same. I was an ambitious lad, from a provincial comprehensive school, and I despised the class structures placed in my way, by people who were clearly stupider than me
Thatcher, my Prime Minister, seemed entirely on my side. "Have a go, work hard, and if you're good, you will do well, no matter where you're from". That was it.
I doubt she would have approved of my drug abuse and bohemian sex life (but who knows, she had an arty, boozy life of her own), but anyway, yes, she was my prime minister, I felt she opened doors for me and my friends and family, and I adored her, and voted for her every chance I got. She helped many poorer friends of mine buy their council houses and become home-owners, for the first time ever. They loved her too
God, I miss her. And I don't miss any other politician in all history. Just her
Also, all the bullsh8t dreamed up by the left, the civil service, the unions and whatever the equivalent of the wokerati at the time was just met a brick wall. No, no, no.
There would be countless screechings in the left wing press that never went anywhere. It started with the 364 economists who wanted her to abandon Thatcherism in 1980. No. Just no.
U-turn if you want. The lady's not for turning. Thatcher couldn't just weather bad press, she thrived on it. It was her fuel, it fed her. Titanic guts. Balls of steel.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
Being in your 20s under the Thatcher government was just bliss. You just knew she had your back. I consider myself very privileged.
YES!
I felt the same. I was an ambitious lad, from a provincial comprehensive school, and I despised the class structures placed in my way, by people who were clearly stupider than me
Thatcher, my Prime Minister, seemed entirely on my side. "Have a go, work hard, and if you're good, you will do well, no matter where you're from". That was it.
I doubt she would have approved of my drug abuse and bohemian sex life (but who knows, she had an arty, boozy life of her own), but anyway, yes, she was my prime minister, I felt she opened doors for me and my friends and family, and I adored her, and voted for her every chance I got. She helped many poorer friends of mine buy their council houses and become home-owners, for the first time ever. They loved her too
God, I miss her. And I don't miss any other politician in all history. Just her
You can only sell cut price council houses once though. Now young people are left paying exorbitant private rents and can't afford to buy anything without help from mum and dad. Home ownership rates are well below their peak.
Thatcher was a superb politician. BoJo is nothing close
She was okay until about 1987. After that she stopped listening to advice from anyone with different views to her, which is probably what led to her downfall in 1990.
BoJo never had a good period. He doesn't have actual views or ideology hence his inability to articulate anything clearly.
He's been in office since 2019, still don't have a clue what his plan is
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Edmundintokyo has some Trump-deranged infatuation with Biden, which has unfortunately turned him into an idiot (on this issue). It is sad. I hope and believe he will recover soon
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm. You could see it in his sad, confused, rather rheumy eyes last night. However this certainly doesn’t mean the Return of Trump. The Democrats need to get a grip and find anew younger candidate and they will beat him easily
I find your take more bizarre than his - that the failure of the long American intervention in Afghanistan is down to the bungled exit rather than it being ill-conceived and badly executed throughout.
To me this smacks of placing logic and history and objective analysis to one side in order to put on a festival of "Joe Biden is a senile old wanker" punditry.
I think if you're honest you'll admit I'm right on this.
We have no argument (for once). I agree - and I have said so before on here. After9/11. we/America should have gone in, shattered the Taliban, scattered Al Qaeda, then immediately left, leaving the promise that, if ever Afghanistan exported terror again, the USAF would come back and bomb the country into the Bronze Age
My point is more pointed. The whole Afghan war has been an error. That did not mean the US/Allied departure had to be a further calamity. Yet it is. And this shameful exit is all on Biden
I'd give Trump some of the flak for the exit with the Doha deal but, ok, it's Biden in charge now and that is not exactly irrelevant.
Pleased not to get a mouthful back because there's a time and a place for that and this - PB.com at 11.30 on a Friday morning in late August with heavy cloud cover and a weak sun - is not it.
Agreed. We could even go for a pint of stout and some oysters in my local? It's up in Belsize and has this huge green beer garden and a speedway track on the roof
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
Being in your 20s under the Thatcher government was just bliss. You just knew she had your back. I consider myself very privileged.
YES!
I felt the same. I was an ambitious lad, from a provincial comprehensive school, and I despised the class structures placed in my way, by people who were clearly stupider than me
Thatcher, my Prime Minister, seemed entirely on my side. "Have a go, work hard, and if you're good, you will do well, no matter where you're from". That was it.
I doubt she would have approved of my drug abuse and bohemian sex life (but who knows, she had an arty, boozy life of her own), but anyway, yes, she was my prime minister, I felt she opened doors for me and my friends and family, and I adored her, and voted for her every chance I got. She helped many poorer friends of mine buy their council houses and become home-owners, for the first time ever. They loved her too
God, I miss her. And I don't miss any other politician in all history. Just her
You can only sell cut price council houses once though. Now young people are left paying exorbitant private rents and can't afford to buy anything without help from mum and dad. Home ownership rates are well below their peak.
The big error was not building more in their place, that has really caused big issues down the line.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
If she was still alive and in office Brexit would never have happened.
Possibly true, because Thatcher would never have countenanced the litany of cave-ins that stated with Lisbon and went on from there. Never. Ever. There's no way here successors would have had to play the extraordinarily weak hand they were dealt. Farage's case would have been weaker, because Britain's position in the EU would have been much stronger.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
I do acknowledge her, without Thatcher there would be no Holyrood, no dominant SNP and the SCons wouldn't be consigned to eternal irrelevance in Scotland. Hail Thatch!
And without the SNP there might have been no Thatcher government!
win-win!
SNP still here, Thatcher not. Not even Thatcherism in fact..
I disagree. We are perhaps moving away from Thatcherism and have been, slowly, since 1997, but the UK economy is still fundamentally aligned with what Thatcherism put in place. Or to put it another way, it bears a lot more resemblance to the UK economy in 1990 than 1979.
Indeed. In 1979 it was a statist trade union dominated basket case. Thatcher is the reason so many of us started small businesses. She enabled the enterprise economy and dismantled nationalised "industries". This was then largely copied in many other countries. She changed the world
I can't think cutting UC is very popular and seems an open goal that this Government wants more austerity? Can anyone explain what I am missing?
What you are missing is that the government failed to tell anybody that lockdown was destroying economy and the the public finances.
The bill is here now.
Well quite possibly but then I find it hard to understand why people here conclude the Tories will win another landslide then
Ed Miliband spent five years saying that austerity wasn't necessary. And he lost. What it comes down to is whether or not the people thinks it's 1) necessary and 2) being done fairly. I think most people will agree that we can't carry on running a big deficit post-pandemic - though it remains to be seen just how bad things will be - but how the pain is spread around is the tricky bit.
I'd suggest Labour think about how they'd do it rather than simply say that it doesn't need to be done.
Hold on, this is incorrect.
As it happened, the Tories stole Ed M's spending plans and implemented those - and those included austerity within them.
Ed M's big problem was he didn't really oppose anything. He tried to go for economic credibility whilst saying he would cut less but then also said he wanted to spend more as austerity had destroyed the country (I think he was correct on the latter point).
Also he was just a crap leader, tbh
Do you mean they stole Alistair Darling's plan? That may be true, but Labour opposed that when it was implemented.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
Being in your 20s under the Thatcher government was just bliss. You just knew she had your back. I consider myself very privileged.
YES!
I felt the same. I was an ambitious lad, from a provincial comprehensive school, and I despised the class structures placed in my way, by people who were clearly stupider than me
Thatcher, my Prime Minister, seemed entirely on my side. "Have a go, work hard, and if you're good, you will do well, no matter where you're from". That was it.
I doubt she would have approved of my drug abuse and bohemian sex life (but who knows, she had an arty, boozy life of her own), but anyway, yes, she was my prime minister, I felt she opened doors for me and my friends and family, and I adored her, and voted for her every chance I got. She helped many poorer friends of mine buy their council houses and become home-owners, for the first time ever. They loved her too
God, I miss her. And I don't miss any other politician in all history. Just her
You can only sell cut price council houses once though. Now young people are left paying exorbitant private rents and can't afford to buy anything without help from mum and dad. Home ownership rates are well below their peak.
The equivalent policy today would be to give young/non-homeowners a one-off taxpayer funded gift of, what, 30% of the value of an average council house?
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
I do acknowledge her, without Thatcher there would be no Holyrood, no dominant SNP and the SCons wouldn't be consigned to eternal irrelevance in Scotland. Hail Thatch!
And without the SNP there might have been no Thatcher government!
win-win!
SNP still here, Thatcher not. Not even Thatcherism in fact..
I disagree. We are perhaps moving away from Thatcherism and have been, slowly, since 1997, but the UK economy is still fundamentally aligned with what Thatcherism put in place. Or to put it another way, it bears a lot more resemblance to the UK economy in 1990 than 1979.
Indeed. In 1979 it was a statist trade union dominated basket case. Thatcher is the reason so many of us started small businesses. She enabled the enterprise economy and dismantled nationalised "industries". This was then largely copied in many other countries. She changed the world
Although infamously left the railways alone, a very wise decision. Sadly she underfunded them and made them crap.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
She was a quite extraordinary woman. She was also a very talented politician, both in the sense of running for office and governing effectively. We are unlikely to see her like again. I say all of this as someone who hated her whole mindset and think her overall influence on Britain has been negative. Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
Being in your 20s under the Thatcher government was just bliss. You just knew she had your back. I consider myself very privileged.
YES!
I felt the same. I was an ambitious lad, from a provincial comprehensive school, and I despised the class structures placed in my way, by people who were clearly stupider than me
Thatcher, my Prime Minister, seemed entirely on my side. "Have a go, work hard, and if you're good, you will do well, no matter where you're from". That was it.
I doubt she would have approved of my drug abuse and bohemian sex life (but who knows, she had an arty, boozy life of her own), but anyway, yes, she was my prime minister, I felt she opened doors for me and my friends and family, and I adored her, and voted for her every chance I got. She helped many poorer friends of mine buy their council houses and become home-owners, for the first time ever. They loved her too
God, I miss her. And I don't miss any other politician in all history. Just her
You can only sell cut price council houses once though. Now young people are left paying exorbitant private rents and can't afford to buy anything without help from mum and dad. Home ownership rates are well below their peak.
The equivalent policy today would be to give young/non-homeowners a one-off taxpayer funded gift of, what, 30% of the value of an average council house?
Perhaps a £50k bung.
I’d vote for that. Not gonna happen though.
I can see why she was popular….
They should take the average house price for a home in the area you want to live in and the average earnings for that area and work out what most people need to get to buying that house
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
If she was still alive and in office Brexit would never have happened.
I agree. I think she would have seen the rising danger of euroscepticism, she would therefore have called a referendum on Maastrict, the Constitution or Lisbon, any of these would have returned a No vote.
The result could not have been ignored (or "rerun") by the EU. So Britain would have established a formal semi-detached relationship with the EU, without the tragic sudden rupture of Brexit. We could have kept the best of Free Movement and the Single Market, while letting the core EU Federalise. Win/win for all
Instead, she fell, then a procession of lying europhiles took over (Major, Blair. Brown) and here we are
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
I do acknowledge her, without Thatcher there would be no Holyrood, no dominant SNP and the SCons wouldn't be consigned to eternal irrelevance in Scotland. Hail Thatch!
And without the SNP there might have been no Thatcher government!
win-win!
SNP still here, Thatcher not. Not even Thatcherism in fact..
I disagree. We are perhaps moving away from Thatcherism and have been, slowly, since 1997, but the UK economy is still fundamentally aligned with what Thatcherism put in place. Or to put it another way, it bears a lot more resemblance to the UK economy in 1990 than 1979.
Indeed. In 1979 it was a statist trade union dominated basket case. Thatcher is the reason so many of us started small businesses. She enabled the enterprise economy and dismantled nationalised "industries". This was then largely copied in many other countries. She changed the world
Although infamously left the railways alone, a very wise decision. Sadly she underfunded them and made them crap.
She didn't make them crap, they already were crap. We forget that at the time they were massively in decline and they were massively f'ed up by the militant trade unions
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
The extraordinary thing about Thatcher is that she did all of this. Oxford degree (as a lower middle class grammar school girl), successful biochemist, THEN qualified lawyer, THEN became MP, Cabinet minister, and finally the most dominant prime minister since 1945
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
I do acknowledge her, without Thatcher there would be no Holyrood, no dominant SNP and the SCons wouldn't be consigned to eternal irrelevance in Scotland. Hail Thatch!
And without the SNP there might have been no Thatcher government!
win-win!
SNP still here, Thatcher not. Not even Thatcherism in fact..
I disagree. We are perhaps moving away from Thatcherism and have been, slowly, since 1997, but the UK economy is still fundamentally aligned with what Thatcherism put in place. Or to put it another way, it bears a lot more resemblance to the UK economy in 1990 than 1979.
Indeed. In 1979 it was a statist trade union dominated basket case. Thatcher is the reason so many of us started small businesses. She enabled the enterprise economy and dismantled nationalised "industries". This was then largely copied in many other countries. She changed the world
Although infamously left the railways alone, a very wise decision. Sadly she underfunded them and made them crap.
She didn't make them crap, they already were crap. We forget that at the time they were massively in decline and they were massively f'ed up by the militant trade unions
Made them worse then, they were underfunded and under-subsidised.
Amazing that when the subsidies go up, the railways get better. And that's exactly what has happened.
Comments
I was being ridiculously hyperbolic and I am ashamed. 100 people dying by firearms in 24 hours is of course such a low number as to make it irrelevant for discussion purposes and my rhetorical flourish looks mighty silly now.
Just astounding. Even if you despise her, as a lefty Scot, you have to acknowledge her lifetime achievement. She has no equal in all British politics, I don’t think.
Sweet Jesus, I wish we could bring her back to life. And office
I've already dealt with Blair and Thatcher who are both the exceptions even though neither of them really practised.
I should have remembered Ken Clarke. Michael Howard is ok but hardly successful when he became leader.
And that's largely it. It seems to me that a lot of the expectations around Starmer are because he was a good lawyer and therefore would have all sorts of forensic skills etc. Ditto re Kamala Harris. But as I've said the skills that make someone a good lawyer don't necessarily translate well to politics. That's all.
In earlier times - 100 years or so ago - it may well have been different.
Maybe try to persuade 60% of your fellow Scots to your cause
You know what you need to do to be fair
Hail Thatch!
Brilliant but awful would be my concise appraisal.
To me this smacks of placing logic and history and objective analysis to one side in order to put on a festival of "Joe Biden is a senile old wanker" punditry.
I think if you're honest you'll admit I'm right on this.
- 13,708 people have been evacuated by the UK since 13 August
- 7,975 of those people are Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy claimants, based on current data
https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1431195049665220611?s=20
How many have all of those?
But there is far, far more to being a good politician than that. You need to have ideas, ambitions to improve the world and an ability to work with others, even if you don't agree with them on other matters, to achieve this. Many lawyers find it easier to make a case for someone else than they do for themselves. You need to be flexible and clubbable to build those coalitions. You are even ideally likeable (a big stretch for your average lawyer). I am not so sure that either Harris or SKS score so well on these points.
win-win!
1. Are there any people with a British passport (including dual nationals) left in Afghanistan? If so, how many?
2. How many people eligible to come to Britain under ARAP are left in Afghanistan?
When are the Cons gonnae persuade 30% of my fellow Scots to vote for them, let alone 60% to support the Union?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eikb2lX5xYE
Not even Thatcherism in fact..
He is big on no balls.
And cleaned bowls...
"It was always a shit show and HMG just put their heads in the sand, never made a decision, and simply followed the Americans, another example of sheer incompetence."
Which routes are these?
My point is more pointed. The whole Afghan war has been an error. That did not mean the US/Allied departure had to be a further calamity. Yet it is. And this shameful exit is all on Biden
I'm far from convinced he does the entire term
The withdrawal was as it has let the Taliban and as yesterday showed jihadi terrorism back in
He's been in office since 2019, still don't have a clue what his plan is
Constitutionally if they remain in power forever the Cons could refuse indyref2 for ever, the UK government under the Scotland Act 1998 sets the rules
https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/paralympic-games/en/results/all-sports/medal-standings.htm
SPD 24%
Union 22%
Green 16%
FDP 13%
AfD 11%
Left 8%
Oth 7%
https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/
The bill is here now.
More US troops were killed in Afghanistan by terrorists yesterday than have been killed for years and due to the withdrawal terrorists will now be back using it as a base to plot attacks on the West
I felt the same. I was an ambitious lad, from a provincial comprehensive school, and I despised the class structures placed in my way, by people who were clearly stupider than me
Thatcher, my Prime Minister, seemed entirely on my side. "Have a go, work hard, and if you're good, you will do well, no matter where you're from". That was it.
I doubt she would have approved of my drug abuse and bohemian sex life (but who knows, she had an arty, boozy life of her own), but anyway, yes, she was my prime minister, I felt she opened doors for me and my friends and family, and I adored her, and voted for her every chance I got. She helped many poorer friends of mine buy their council houses and become home-owners, for the first time ever. They loved her too
God, I miss her. And I don't miss any other politician in all history. Just her
She might have been amused to have Johnson around as a sort of court jester, but otherwise she would have had the current lot for breakfast.
It should have kept troops in Afghanistan to keep the Taliban returning to power and jihadi terrorists from reestablishing bases there
I was working for a bank at the time. There was a massive cheer in the dealing room when Lawson said the word 'forty' inhis budget speech, people high fiving and dancing around....
That was the Thatcher experience....
I'd suggest Labour think about how they'd do it rather than simply say that it doesn't need to be done.
Strokes appear to be around 143 per ten million with the Pfizer jab (versus over 1600 per ten million of those who get the virus, plus the remaining c. 350,000 per ten million hospitalised with other conditions). I guess the gamble to make is when one gets the virus (because we all know that with Delta, the unvaxxed will all get it sooner or later.
Pleased not to get a mouthful back because there's a time and a place for that and this - PB.com at 11.30 on a Friday morning in late August with heavy cloud cover and a weak sun - is not it.
The admission the money is gone “In fact the money is “earmarked” through the internal process set out above and will be deployed fully through future cash flow for the purpose of promoting a referendum on independence and campaigns intended to secure independence.”
https://twitter.com/ILawson27/status/1431192298407317506?s=20
As it happened, the Tories stole Ed M's spending plans and implemented those - and those included austerity within them.
Ed M's big problem was he didn't really oppose anything. He tried to go for economic credibility whilst saying he would cut less but then also said he wanted to spend more as austerity had destroyed the country (I think he was correct on the latter point).
Also he was just a crap leader, tbh
https://twitter.com/Adamstoon1/status/1431198023862919168
The UK faces a desperate race to evacuate 6,000 Britons and eligible Afghans.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9906315/Rescue-mission-thousands-UK-citizens-Afghanistan-strain.html
They were aiming for 1000 a day, and have run at up to double that rate.
Telegraph
I think Raab is a Lib Dem gain next time round, time to check some odds
There would be countless screechings in the left wing press that never went anywhere. It started with the 364 economists who wanted her to abandon Thatcherism in 1980. No. Just no.
U-turn if you want. The lady's not for turning. Thatcher couldn't just weather bad press, she thrived on it. It was her fuel, it fed her. Titanic guts. Balls of steel.
Sort of the opposite of Johnson.
xx
Perhaps a £50k bung.
I’d vote for that. Not going to happen though.
I can see why she was popular….
The result could not have been ignored (or "rerun") by the EU. So Britain would have established a formal semi-detached relationship with the EU, without the tragic sudden rupture of Brexit. We could have kept the best of Free Movement and the Single Market, while letting the core EU Federalise. Win/win for all
Instead, she fell, then a procession of lying europhiles took over (Major, Blair. Brown) and here we are
Amazing that when the subsidies go up, the railways get better. And that's exactly what has happened.