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One Current Leader. And One Future One? – politicalbetting.com

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  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,735
  • Leon said:

    Stocky said:

    Leon said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    My God this argument is so BORING
    Yes it is. Not going away though.
    One reason this argument is uniquely boring is that both sides, in the main, are arguing from bogus premises and with false intentions.

    That is to say: for those on the Left who have seized this issue, it's not because they really care - they don't, apart from a few genuinely passionate, sometimes aggressive trans activists. For most of them they only shout about it because they have literally run out of other social causes to feel aggrieved about. Because they won on every other issue. We have gay marriage, hate speech laws, Pride marches, abortion on demand, women only shortlists.

    So the Left, which only lives to feel "good" about itself and to fight for causes, has taken up this issue, even if it only affects about 73 people in the country, and they act as if it is a burning injustice for many millions, akin to Civil Rights in the '60s in the USA. Ludicrous and embarrassing

    However, the Right is no better. Instead of politely ignoring the Left as it spirals into internecine lunacy (which would probably be for the best) they see a way to exploit it, by making it part of the Culture Wars. The Right can point and laugh at the Left than turn to the voters and say: look, they are insane, they don't care about poverty or peace or wages or climate change, really, they care about enforcing mixed gender changing rooms in public swimming pools, and, by the way, they hate women

    So this insane debate pleases both sides, and it gets blown so far out of proportion, careers are ruined and people get death threats
    Even without the bad faith actors, it would still be a wicked problem. Whatever the decision made, it will end up causing genuine harm to someone's sense of who they are. And saying and doing nothing is in itself a decision.

    Which is what makes it such a perfect issue for the shock jocks of the right and whatever their equivalent is on the left.

    Where is Centrist Dad/Mum when we need them?
  • Normally cheating in these races is taking a short cut...not doing double the distance...

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10009987/Winner-Bristol-half-Marathon-disqualified-running-wrong-race.html

    One tit bit from a recent interview with the investigator who exposed Jimmy Savile, he claims Savile only actually ran a couple of marathons, all the rest was just a massive fraud where he got driven most of the way.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    kle4 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    justin124 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Yeh. She’s definitely next.
    She’s awful though. Like a smugger, more articulate Boris.

    Same sort of dodgy romantic history, too, according to that leaked Whip’s document.

    I think she has an interesting romantic history. But, nothing that would be considered unethical in this day and age.
    Johnson to be succeeded by Tory trollop!
    Bad evening on grindr?
    I know justin has some wrongheaded views on personal sexual morals but I don't think winding him up that way is a great way of pointing out that wrongheadedness.
    He also appears to imply that any male who adheres to traditional moral views which were mainstrem circa 1965 must be 'gay'!
  • Scott_xP said:
    I cannot understand why the government hasnt solved this problem today. The CO2 comes as by-product from two fertilizer producers who have halted work because of the energy costs.

    Pay the frigging energy costs for them for the next couple of months as an emergency measure!!

    Seems we have a government that can merrily ban grandads from hugging their grandkids and shutter the pubs for months on end, but can't do something as simple as this.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,737
    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Thatcher married a divorcee. Does that count?

    Eden famously shagged his way around half of high society, male and female.

    We’ve spoken about Wilson before.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,226

    Leon said:

    Stocky said:

    Leon said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    My God this argument is so BORING
    Yes it is. Not going away though.
    One reason this argument is uniquely boring is that both sides, in the main, are arguing from bogus premises and with false intentions.

    That is to say: for those on the Left who have seized this issue, it's not because they really care - they don't, apart from a few genuinely passionate, sometimes aggressive trans activists. For most of them they only shout about it because they have literally run out of other social causes to feel aggrieved about. Because they won on every other issue. We have gay marriage, hate speech laws, Pride marches, abortion on demand, women only shortlists.

    So the Left, which only lives to feel "good" about itself and to fight for causes, has taken up this issue, even if it only affects about 73 people in the country, and they act as if it is a burning injustice for many millions, akin to Civil Rights in the '60s in the USA. Ludicrous and embarrassing

    However, the Right is no better. Instead of politely ignoring the Left as it spirals into internecine lunacy (which would probably be for the best) they see a way to exploit it, by making it part of the Culture Wars. The Right can point and laugh at the Left than turn to the voters and say: look, they are insane, they don't care about poverty or peace or wages or climate change, really, they care about enforcing mixed gender changing rooms in public swimming pools, and, by the way, they hate women

    So this insane debate pleases both sides, and it gets blown so far out of proportion, careers are ruined and people get death threats
    Even without the bad faith actors, it would still be a wicked problem. Whatever the decision made, it will end up causing genuine harm to someone's sense of who they are. And saying and doing nothing is in itself a decision.

    Which is what makes it such a perfect issue for the shock jocks of the right and whatever their equivalent is on the left.

    Where is Centrist Dad/Mum when we need them?
    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine
  • justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    I notice no one has mentioned a huge win for the Liberals :)

    Well, there's been one - in the Bahamas where the Progressive Liberal Party swept back to power overturning a huge majority for former Prime Minister Hubert Minnis and his Free National Movement.

    The 39-seat National Assembly had gone 35-4 for the FNM in 2017 but this time the PLP made 28 gains to win 32 seats and leave the FNM on just seven.

    Philip "Brave" Davis, who had been Deputy PM in the previous PLP Government and had been one of the four survivors of the 2017 FNM landslide is the new Prime Minister of the Bahamas.

    In 2017, the FNM had won 57% of the vote and the PLP 37%. This time, the PLP won 52.5% (+15.5) and the FNM 36% (-21) making an eye-watering 18.25% swing against the Government.

    In that previous FNM landslide, the PLP Prime Minister, Perry Christie, lost his seat but Minnis survived in his Killarney stronghold by over 500 votes and has pledged to lead the FNM in opposition.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    edited September 2021

    darkage said:

    BigRich said:

    On topic:

    As somebody who was cheerleading in my own small way for Lis Truss, on FB and here 2 years ago in the tory leadership election that Boris would eventually win, I'm pleased to see she is progressing and is now that is being recognised by a wider audience, :smile: but I don't think its enough to entice me back in to the party. perhaps if Boris announces his departure date in advances so i could re-join and vote, but that's not how things have normally worked.

    She has long been most popular in the freedom loving wing of the party, and perhaps that's the same people who like me have left of the lockdowns and authoritarian policy's of the government. I suspect there are not enough people like me to make a defiance in any leaderships election.

    A few years ago Truss was the flag bearer of the comical neoliberal wing of the conservative party - more deregulation, less taxes, etc. Boris has completely buried this way of thinking and reinvented the Conservative party and in doing so shifted its political base to the north of England where Thatcherism is still largely detested. Truss has worked hard and kept her head down, and had what seems like some good luck in the department for international trade. But she needs a new set of ideas if she wants the top job.
    I think there is a fundamental error in your claims. It assumes that what applies in times of major crises like wars or pandemics and their aftermath is what should apply in more normal times. No one in their right minds would claim that the rules and priorities that existed during WW2 should apply to times of peace. Nor should the politics of the pandemic inform the post pandemic world any further than is necessary to get things back on to a more stable footing. Truss does not need new ideas. What she needs is the backlash. Unfortunately for her that won't come for probably a decade by which time she will be yesterday's news. But those ideas of smaller Government and deregulation won't go away in the long term any more than the ideas of freedom were permanently crushed by the necessities of wartime controls.
    Well; good luck. On my reading, it is like being on the side of the wets against Thatcher in the early 1980s; it will take a generation before you get the change you are desiring.

    The tory shift towards state intervention predates the pandemic; we are only really at the start of a pendulum swing that suddenly begun with the Brexit vote following the neoliberal extremes of the Cameron era. We ain't going back to that, however much some people want it.
  • pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    "all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed"

    Where does that leave Black Lives Matter?
    An in interesting place. If total freedom to deny/renounce immutable physical characteristics at will is to be regarded as a right, then presumably every form of trans identification is as valid as transgenderism? So white people can identify as black, black people can identify as white, and the entire construct of cultural appropriation belongs in the dustbin. It's all more than a bit of a mess.
    This.
    "It's all more than a bit of a mess."

    Welcome to the whacky world of post-modernism.

    I blame the French.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,737
    edited September 2021
    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    That’s a new allegation to me (if it’s aimed at Truss). I would also advise you to be a little careful about making such insinuations.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    But that was then, and this is now.
  • This hedge fund manager says west is wrong to think of China as managed capitalism, Xi vision is now much more "modern Maoism", and been busy stuffing any successful company with placemen.

    More Evergrande info....

    https://youtu.be/wXCpis_Mlwk

    https://youtu.be/wW1boQJ2e60
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878

    Normally cheating in these races is taking a short cut...not doing double the distance...

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10009987/Winner-Bristol-half-Marathon-disqualified-running-wrong-race.html

    One tit bit from a recent interview with the investigator who exposed Jimmy Savile, he claims Savile only actually ran a couple of marathons, all the rest was just a massive fraud where he got driven most of the way.

    It’s certainly possible. On the other hand if he did it at London a lot of people would have seen him rejoining the race, and he’d also have missing times for intermediate points (certainly the case now, may not have been back then). It’s possible to do little training and just turn up. Members of the hundred marathon club will often do a marathon each weekend. They are not racing them, just out for a run. However it seems saville might have been economical with truth about the events, with 10K becoming a marathon and so on. Who’d of thought it...
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    edited September 2021
    ydoethur said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    That’s a new allegation to me (if it’s aimed at Truss). I would also advise you to be a little careful about making such insinuations.
    I am relating it to Johnson here - ie if either had had his baggage.My statement was clearly hypothetical and not meant to suggest that either person had such a history at all.
  • RobD said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    But that was then, and this is now.
    You forget Justin is stuck in the 1800s....hence why he is always comparing recent polls vs this period.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited September 2021
    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Thatcher was a long time ago. If May had committed adultery in the past I don't think anyone would have cared (though Hancock shows an example of when it becomes noteworthy if revealed in a specific moment in specific circumstances), and Truss was a LD a long time ago.

    Personal matters are irrelevant. I am to believe that good politicians throughout history have had good personal morals, and the bad ones all had bad personal morals?

    I think we all accept that you hold, er, more traditional views on these matters, but you also appear to mostly accept that others do not share such a strict view - so why be surprised people would not care?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,226

    This hedge fund manager says west is wrong to think of China as managed capitalism, Xi vision is now much more "modern Maoism", and been busy stuffing any successful company with placemen.

    More Evergrande info....

    https://youtu.be/wXCpis_Mlwk

    https://youtu.be/wW1boQJ2e60

    Yes

    I think Xi is going to fuck up China's amazing economy. He is destroying too many freedoms, he will drive away business from Shanghai and especially Hong Kong, and he is already over-reaching in foreign policy.

    They can't be happy about Aukus. They were rising without notice, now they are getting pushback and nuclear deterrence
  • justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    You know Boris has had kids out of wedlock, right?

    The most recent one was last year.
  • justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    Could it have been an issue in the distant past? Absolutely, though a woman or a minority getting elected was a bigger challenge. Thank goodness those days are over eh?

    Would it be an issue today? Or recent past for May? No of course not, don't be a dingbat. That's already been put to the test and a serial adulterer won a landslide leadership election victory.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    rcs1000 said:

    MrEd said:

    theProle said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Just in: Supreme Court will hear direct challenge to Roe v. Wade in Mississippi case on December 1.
    https://twitter.com/Arianedevogue/status/1439983473473855496

    Wow Biden needs to flood SC if that goes the wrong way
    He'd be mad if he does that over this.
    That would be starting an arms race which might well write their (already messy) democracy off.

    Whichever side of the debate you are on, RvW was a terrible mistake - it was a clear act of setting policy by judicial activism, against the democratic will of significant chunk of the electorate. The subsequent result is it's so politicised the court that we are in the position today where lots of people vote for terrible presidential candidates purely based on who they can get on the SC.

    What should have happened is that abortion should have been left to legislators in the states to sort out, based on their promises to electors. It would mean that the rules varied from state to state (in California, it would probably be allowed up to 3 weeks after birth, whilst in Texas, merely saying the word might get you a month in jail). That would have been democratic, and taken the heat out of the situation.

    The best thing that could happen now is that RvW gets struck down by the SC, and the Democrats prove wise enough to leave the situation alone, other than legislating as they see fit in Democrat held states. If they did that, it might actually take some of the heat out of the situation, instead of adding more in.
    It won't be the start of the arms race. The arms race already started and the GOP shenanigans over SCOTUS Justices has opened the door to this.

    Why should control over a woman's own body be democratically decided? As opposed to being a private matter for the woman whose body it is?
    The arms race was started at the end of the 18th century. There is nothing new in these arguments about nominations and political balance of the SCOTUS.
    Agreed.

    So the Democrats should continue to fight the arms race while they have the chance.

    The GOP haven't and won't give up their chances to do so. Which is why they currently have a 6-3 majority.
    And the GOP will do the same when they get in. Which they will. Unless you want to change the system to ensure they ever don’t get in at all.

    If the Democrats had had the same opportunity and ability as the GOP, they would have done exactly the same and pushed their own candidates onto the court. So don’t try making out this is “one side good, one side bad”. Both parties operate in exactly the same way.

    And if you want to blame someone, blame Ginsburg for not stepping down when she could have done.
    Actually, I think McConnell should have allowed a vote on Merrick Garland. It was pretty cheap to not even allow hearings.
    Yes, that is true. Very underhand from McConnell. Slightly odd as well though because, given the expectation HRC would win the election, he would presumably have been nominated again and there was no way McConnell could have blocked him for another two years.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    edited September 2021
    Distressingly, I didn't have any wine in the house. Amateur hour.
  • Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    justin124 said:

    ydoethur said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    That’s a new allegation to me (if it’s aimed at Truss). I would also advise you to be a little careful about making such insinuations.
    I am relating it to Johnson here - ie if either had had his baggage.My statement was clearly hypothetical and not meant to suggest that either person had such a history at all.
    A women with his baggage would probably face more difficulty with it than he has, admittedly. But that's sexist double standards for you.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,087
    kle4 said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    "all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed"

    Where does that leave Black Lives Matter?
    An in interesting place. If total freedom to deny/renounce immutable physical characteristics at will is to be regarded as a right, then presumably every form of trans identification is as valid as transgenderism? So white people can identify as black, black people can identify as white, and the entire construct of cultural appropriation belongs in the dustbin. It's all more than a bit of a mess.
    Trans racialism the next big thing?

    Arbitrary differences of race and sex etc are stupid, but a right to insist upon total self identification, without qualification, as is suggested in this debate, seems silly.
    All of this nastiness is the product of a total inability to compromise - and, ironically, it's often the same kinds of people who are most enthusiastic about entreating us to celebrate diversity who are also the most insistent on achieving total victory in the battle to have everyone treated as if they were absolutely identical.

    A transgendered person who is obliged to jump through a few hoops to obtain a gender recognition certificate is no more oppressed than a gay man who has to get married in a registry office because he can't demand the absolute right to a ceremony under the Church of England. When the rights, values and identities of different individuals and groups in society come into direct opposition, then a modus vivendi needs to be found that allows everyone to live their best life insofar as they can without stamping all over someone else's, and that's all there is to it really.
  • Leon said:

    This hedge fund manager says west is wrong to think of China as managed capitalism, Xi vision is now much more "modern Maoism", and been busy stuffing any successful company with placemen.

    More Evergrande info....

    https://youtu.be/wXCpis_Mlwk

    https://youtu.be/wW1boQJ2e60

    Yes

    I think Xi is going to fuck up China's amazing economy. He is destroying too many freedoms, he will drive away business from Shanghai and especially Hong Kong, and he is already over-reaching in foreign policy.

    They can't be happy about Aukus. They were rising without notice, now they are getting pushback and nuclear deterrence
    Indeed there's a reason why capitalism is strongly associated with liberal democracies. Capitalism and the rule of law go hand-in-hand.

    There was an assumption that China's capitalist success would lead to an end to its Communist dictatorship.

    In fact we should seriously consider the more likely possibility now that China's Communist dictatorship will put an end to its capitalist success.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    Could it have been an issue in the distant past? Absolutely, though a woman or a minority getting elected was a bigger challenge. Thank goodness those days are over eh?

    Would it be an issue today? Or recent past for May? No of course not, don't be a dingbat. That's already been put to the test and a serial adulterer won a landslide leadership election victory.
    Most people are likely to view the 1960s and 1970s as the recent past - ie'afew years ago' - rather a period little different from Victorian Britain. I doubt that most people view The Beatles as ancient history.
  • justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    The description 'closed minded intolerant ......' fits you perfectly
  • That Met thing on BBC4 is good btw, covers a lot of ground including the trans issue tonight. Not too preachy if anyone is worried.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Scott_xP said:
    That's the last straw, Boris out.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited September 2021
    Leon said:

    This hedge fund manager says west is wrong to think of China as managed capitalism, Xi vision is now much more "modern Maoism", and been busy stuffing any successful company with placemen.

    More Evergrande info....

    https://youtu.be/wXCpis_Mlwk

    https://youtu.be/wW1boQJ2e60

    Yes

    I think Xi is going to fuck up China's amazing economy. He is destroying too many freedoms, he will drive away business from Shanghai and especially Hong Kong, and he is already over-reaching in foreign policy.

    They can't be happy about Aukus. They were rising without notice, now they are getting pushback and nuclear deterrence
    It's worth remembering that the CCP are not some faultless, ruthless machine. They've messed up in staggering ways in the past. Indeed, did they not try to avoid a Xi rising in an attempt to prevent similar messes? And their recent boldness in HK seems to have been come about by Beijing having bought their own propaganda and being shocked when it was shown in parish elections to have been nonsense, and deciding they needed to take immediate action.

    A powerful central leader like Xi comes with positives for the state, but it surely also means he could cock up in massive ways that more dispersed leadership are capable of.

    Though I suspect things will get worse for us before them.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,226

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    justin124 said:

    ydoethur said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    That’s a new allegation to me (if it’s aimed at Truss). I would also advise you to be a little careful about making such insinuations.
    I am relating it to Johnson here - ie if either had had his baggage.My statement was clearly hypothetical and not meant to suggest that either person had such a history at all.
    Hypothetically, it's pretty clear that God hates queers even more then he hates adulterers, and that what he hates more than both put together, is impotent pharisaical tooth sucking at other people's Quote sins unquote. I find it impossible to imagine the mindset of someone too stupid to realise that. Hypothetically.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    The description 'closed minded intolerant ......' fits you perfectly
    But are you seriously denying that Thatcher would have faced problems had she such a personal history?
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    Leon said:

    This hedge fund manager says west is wrong to think of China as managed capitalism, Xi vision is now much more "modern Maoism", and been busy stuffing any successful company with placemen.

    More Evergrande info....

    https://youtu.be/wXCpis_Mlwk

    https://youtu.be/wW1boQJ2e60

    Yes

    I think Xi is going to fuck up China's amazing economy. He is destroying too many freedoms, he will drive away business from Shanghai and especially Hong Kong, and he is already over-reaching in foreign policy.

    They can't be happy about Aukus. They were rising without notice, now they are getting pushback and nuclear deterrence
    Indeed there's a reason why capitalism is strongly associated with liberal democracies. Capitalism and the rule of law go hand-in-hand.

    There was an assumption that China's capitalist success would lead to an end to its Communist dictatorship.

    In fact we should seriously consider the more likely possibility now that China's Communist dictatorship will put an end to its capitalist success.
    Almost guaranteed I would say. As they say trust takes a lifetime to build and five minutes to destroy. Fund managers are pulling their money out of the country and no one will take risks knowing the Government can take things away from you at the drop of a hat.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    She's stopped wearing a burqa, that's for sure!
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    IshmaelZ said:

    justin124 said:

    ydoethur said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    That’s a new allegation to me (if it’s aimed at Truss). I would also advise you to be a little careful about making such insinuations.
    I am relating it to Johnson here - ie if either had had his baggage.My statement was clearly hypothetical and not meant to suggest that either person had such a history at all.
    Hypothetically, it's pretty clear that God hates queers even more then he hates adulterers, and that what he hates more than both put together, is impotent pharisaical tooth sucking at other people's Quote sins unquote. I find it impossible to imagine the mindset of someone too stupid to realise that. Hypothetically.
    Doubtless the same applies to paedophiles.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    Could it have been an issue in the distant past? Absolutely, though a woman or a minority getting elected was a bigger challenge. Thank goodness those days are over eh?

    Would it be an issue today? Or recent past for May? No of course not, don't be a dingbat. That's already been put to the test and a serial adulterer won a landslide leadership election victory.
    Most people are likely to view the 1960s and 1970s as the recent past - ie'afew years ago' - rather a period little different from Victorian Britain. I doubt that most people view The Beatles as ancient history.
    People do not view past events in a consistent manner. When they recall the music it might as well be yesterday, people still listen to a lot of it for example. When they recall some social issues it might as well have been the Victorian age compared to how many people who lived through now view things.

    When I was growing up in the 90s gay people being on TV still seemed novel and we'd not have thought much about throwing around gay as an insult. In a lot of ways that period feels like yesterday. But on issues like that it feels like a lifetime ago.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2021
    Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    Some of the media dealings with Begum reminds me of the journalist behind the Serial podcast, she totally fell for the charms of the murderer, eventually losing any sort of objectiveness and really trying gloss over all the evidence still points to him having done it .

    The leaking from the intelligence services have made it clear she wasn't just some duped teenager, she was a leader enforcing ISIS rules, supporting suicide bombers, etc.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,226

    Leon said:

    This hedge fund manager says west is wrong to think of China as managed capitalism, Xi vision is now much more "modern Maoism", and been busy stuffing any successful company with placemen.

    More Evergrande info....

    https://youtu.be/wXCpis_Mlwk

    https://youtu.be/wW1boQJ2e60

    Yes

    I think Xi is going to fuck up China's amazing economy. He is destroying too many freedoms, he will drive away business from Shanghai and especially Hong Kong, and he is already over-reaching in foreign policy.

    They can't be happy about Aukus. They were rising without notice, now they are getting pushback and nuclear deterrence
    Indeed there's a reason why capitalism is strongly associated with liberal democracies. Capitalism and the rule of law go hand-in-hand.

    There was an assumption that China's capitalist success would lead to an end to its Communist dictatorship.

    In fact we should seriously consider the more likely possibility now that China's Communist dictatorship will put an end to its capitalist success.
    I met a senior Swiss business guy the other day, who used to live and work in Beijing, who says he now would not even visit Beijing on holiday, and the idea of working out of Hong Kong is insane. Too risky. Arbitrary arrest is a real threat

    In the end this must have a massive cost for China
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    pigeon said:

    kle4 said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    "all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed"

    Where does that leave Black Lives Matter?
    An in interesting place. If total freedom to deny/renounce immutable physical characteristics at will is to be regarded as a right, then presumably every form of trans identification is as valid as transgenderism? So white people can identify as black, black people can identify as white, and the entire construct of cultural appropriation belongs in the dustbin. It's all more than a bit of a mess.
    Trans racialism the next big thing?

    Arbitrary differences of race and sex etc are stupid, but a right to insist upon total self identification, without qualification, as is suggested in this debate, seems silly.
    All of this nastiness is the product of a total inability to compromise - and, ironically, it's often the same kinds of people who are most enthusiastic about entreating us to celebrate diversity who are also the most insistent on achieving total victory in the battle to have everyone treated as if they were absolutely identical.

    A transgendered person who is obliged to jump through a few hoops to obtain a gender recognition certificate is no more oppressed than a gay man who has to get married in a registry office because he can't demand the absolute right to a ceremony under the Church of England. When the rights, values and identities of different individuals and groups in society come into direct opposition, then a modus vivendi needs to be found that allows everyone to live their best life insofar as they can without stamping all over someone else's, and that's all there is to it really.
    We should not treat people differently for their differences, inasmuch as possible, becoming 'there are no such things as differences'?
  • ydoethur said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Thatcher married a divorcee. Does that count?

    Eden famously shagged his way around half of high society, male and female.

    We’ve spoken about Wilson before.
    Major messed around with Edwina Currie.
  • justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    Could it have been an issue in the distant past? Absolutely, though a woman or a minority getting elected was a bigger challenge. Thank goodness those days are over eh?

    Would it be an issue today? Or recent past for May? No of course not, don't be a dingbat. That's already been put to the test and a serial adulterer won a landslide leadership election victory.
    Most people are likely to view the 1960s and 1970s as the recent past - ie'afew years ago' - rather a period little different from Victorian Britain. I doubt that most people view The Beatles as ancient history.
    No offence but maybe old people feel that was only a few years ago, but yes sixty years ago are quite a distant past now and the times have quite rightly changed since then.

    To put it into context the distance between today and 1960 is the same distance as the Victorian era from 1960, or 1980 from the First World War. I certainly felt growing up in the 80s that WW1 was in the ancient past. Did any child of the 60s feel the Victorian era was only a few years ago then?
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Leon said:

    This hedge fund manager says west is wrong to think of China as managed capitalism, Xi vision is now much more "modern Maoism", and been busy stuffing any successful company with placemen.

    More Evergrande info....

    https://youtu.be/wXCpis_Mlwk

    https://youtu.be/wW1boQJ2e60

    Yes

    I think Xi is going to fuck up China's amazing economy. He is destroying too many freedoms, he will drive away business from Shanghai and especially Hong Kong, and he is already over-reaching in foreign policy.

    They can't be happy about Aukus. They were rising without notice, now they are getting pushback and nuclear deterrence
    Indeed there's a reason why capitalism is strongly associated with liberal democracies. Capitalism and the rule of law go hand-in-hand.

    There was an assumption that China's capitalist success would lead to an end to its Communist dictatorship.

    In fact we should seriously consider the more likely possibility now that China's Communist dictatorship will put an end to its capitalist success.
    I believe in both, but I find this statement very doubtful.
    China has neither, but I believe it's possible to have one without the other.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,226

    Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    Some of the media dealings with Begum reminds me of the journalist behind the Serial podcast, she totally fell for the charms of the murderer, eventually losing any sort of objectiveness and really trying gloss over all the evidence still points to him having done it .
    I told him I would hand her over to the Syrians or Iraqis for a trial and I would not be terribly upset if they "hanged her like a dog"

    He got quite distressed. This was after my third glass
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    Assume doubts about the remorse may add to the hotness, for some anyway.

    "Stop staring at my neck luv.'
  • Role reversal on UK-France rhetoric. French rhetoric contemptuous. UK rhetoric, from Boris Johnson down, good mannered and friendly. Government should stick to this glacial politesse going forward, especially now they can see how ineffective histrionics are from the other side.

    https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1440006191556567040?s=20
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    justin124 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    justin124 said:

    ydoethur said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    That’s a new allegation to me (if it’s aimed at Truss). I would also advise you to be a little careful about making such insinuations.
    I am relating it to Johnson here - ie if either had had his baggage.My statement was clearly hypothetical and not meant to suggest that either person had such a history at all.
    Hypothetically, it's pretty clear that God hates queers even more then he hates adulterers, and that what he hates more than both put together, is impotent pharisaical tooth sucking at other people's Quote sins unquote. I find it impossible to imagine the mindset of someone too stupid to realise that. Hypothetically.
    Doubtless the same applies to paedophiles.
    That's between you and your confessor.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    edited September 2021

    darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    I actually disagree with that a bit.

    My university friends WhatsApp (generally Remainery, LD'ey and softly internationalist) has started to speak out against Woke in the last few months in a way that's surprised me. It was even an aggravating factor for one of my friends quitting Morgan Stanley, as he'd got a bit fed up with it amongst other things

    However, they are all professional white men in their late 30s. I detect far less sign of this amongst professional white women who are still rather achingly Right-On.

    Here there is a clear gender divide, but that could change and change quickly too.
    My own experience is rather different, which influences my views of this issue. Very similar group - everyone has been going along with the woke thing, through all the insanity when it first reared its head; I have very much been the dissenter. They all know that whatsapp/Telegram messages can be leaked and destroy their careers. I've stopped even trying to bring it up. Some people seem to actually buy in to the revolution, from what I can tell; others just stay silent.

    Looking at my limited involvement in whatsapp groups, it is only groups with nothing to lose who joke about woke stuff; builders etc who I play football with. This group are uncancellable, but basically have no power or influence.

    My conclusion is that the woke have captured the 8% of people who have all the power and influence in society and that isn't going to change any time soon. That doesn't stop me from trying to have an influence but it seems better to face facts. The tories were explictly anti woke for a while, it had no real traction and they basically gave up. MP's were resorting to asking people to write to them about it.

    So I hope and wish that you are right but I am not optimistic.
  • GlomGlom Posts: 13
    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    This hedge fund manager says west is wrong to think of China as managed capitalism, Xi vision is now much more "modern Maoism", and been busy stuffing any successful company with placemen.

    More Evergrande info....

    https://youtu.be/wXCpis_Mlwk

    https://youtu.be/wW1boQJ2e60

    Yes

    I think Xi is going to fuck up China's amazing economy. He is destroying too many freedoms, he will drive away business from Shanghai and especially Hong Kong, and he is already over-reaching in foreign policy.

    They can't be happy about Aukus. They were rising without notice, now they are getting pushback and nuclear deterrence
    Indeed there's a reason why capitalism is strongly associated with liberal democracies. Capitalism and the rule of law go hand-in-hand.

    There was an assumption that China's capitalist success would lead to an end to its Communist dictatorship.

    In fact we should seriously consider the more likely possibility now that China's Communist dictatorship will put an end to its capitalist success.
    I believe in both, but I find this statement very doubtful.
    China has neither, but I believe it's possible to have one without the other.
    You can have the rule of law without capitalism, but capitalism needs the structure of the rule of law to work. Otherwise, there is no investor confidence, hence no capital put to use.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2021

    Role reversal on UK-France rhetoric. French rhetoric contemptuous. UK rhetoric, from Boris Johnson down, good mannered and friendly. Government should stick to this glacial politesse going forward, especially now they can see how ineffective histrionics are from the other side.

    https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1440006191556567040?s=20

    See how UK government dealt with EU shit over vaccines. None of the chest beating we saw during brexit negotiations.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited September 2021

    Role reversal on UK-France rhetoric. French rhetoric contemptuous. UK rhetoric, from Boris Johnson down, good mannered and friendly. Government should stick to this glacial politesse going forward, especially now they can see how ineffective histrionics are from the other side.

    https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1440006191556567040?s=20

    It was the same role reversal around the time of the great EU hissyfit over AZ, trying to turn it into an EU/UK dispute. You'd think they'd have recognised petulant whinging after complaining about receiving it for so long during negotiations.

    It would be nice if Boris and co can rein in their instincts and do it more often.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,737

    ydoethur said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Thatcher married a divorcee. Does that count?

    Eden famously shagged his way around half of high society, male and female.

    We’ve spoken about Wilson before.
    Major messed around with Edwina Currie.
    Yes, but nobody knew (well, apart from the two of them) while the three examples I quoted were fairly widely known at the time (public record in Thatcher’s case).

    If we’d known Major had such shocking judgement I can imagine Hesser would have beaten him in 1990.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,226

    Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    Assume doubts about the remorse may add to the hotness, for some anyway.

    "Stop staring at my neck luv.'
    I'm sure this is a joke, I just don't quite get it. Explain?
  • justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    The description 'closed minded intolerant ......' fits you perfectly
    But are you seriously denying that Thatcher would have faced problems had she such a personal history?
    I am not even getting into this intolerant and frankly antediluvian mindset of yours
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    kle4 said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    Could it have been an issue in the distant past? Absolutely, though a woman or a minority getting elected was a bigger challenge. Thank goodness those days are over eh?

    Would it be an issue today? Or recent past for May? No of course not, don't be a dingbat. That's already been put to the test and a serial adulterer won a landslide leadership election victory.
    Most people are likely to view the 1960s and 1970s as the recent past - ie'afew years ago' - rather a period little different from Victorian Britain. I doubt that most people view The Beatles as ancient history.
    People do not view past events in a consistent manner. When they recall the music it might as well be yesterday, people still listen to a lot of it for example. When they recall some social issues it might as well have been the Victorian age compared to how many people who lived through now view things.

    When I was growing up in the 90s gay people being on TV still seemed novel and we'd not have thought much about throwing around gay as an insult. In a lot of ways that period feels like yesterday. But on issues like that it feels like a lifetime ago.
    When I was at university in the mid-1970s the word 'gay' had not acquired a meaning related to sexuality.I believe I heard it used in that context for the first time in late1977 or 1978. It has become pretty difficult to use the word in its original sense. I recall Alec Douglas-Home paying tribute to JFK at the time of his death when he included 'gay' in his list of qualities.
  • kle4 said:

    Role reversal on UK-France rhetoric. French rhetoric contemptuous. UK rhetoric, from Boris Johnson down, good mannered and friendly. Government should stick to this glacial politesse going forward, especially now they can see how ineffective histrionics are from the other side.

    https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1440006191556567040?s=20

    It was the same role reversal around the time of the great EU hissyfit over AZ, trying to turn it into an EU/UK dispute. You'd think they'd have recognised petulant whinging after complaining about receiving it for so long during negotiations.

    It would be nice if Boris and co can rein in their instincts and do it more often.
    To be fair though petulant whinging and poor behaviour dominated both sides through the Brexit divorce, not just one of them.

    As I'm led to believe is not unusual in divorces.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    Some of the media dealings with Begum reminds me of the journalist behind the Serial podcast, she totally fell for the charms of the murderer, eventually losing any sort of objectiveness and really trying gloss over all the evidence still points to him having done it .
    I told him I would hand her over to the Syrians or Iraqis for a trial and I would not be terribly upset if they "hanged her like a dog"

    He got quite distressed. This was after my third glass
    I should add anybody who hasn't listened to season 1 of Serial podcast, it is an absolute fascinating listen, but not for the reason advertised. You think its an investigation into a murder, it is, but the far more interesting aspect is the "grooming" of the journalists opinions by the highly manipulate murderer, all via his prison phone.
  • The French deserve what they get. They have behaved despicably towards us.
  • UK's defence secretary orders investigation into data breach involving the details of dozens of Afghan interpreters
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Glom said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    This hedge fund manager says west is wrong to think of China as managed capitalism, Xi vision is now much more "modern Maoism", and been busy stuffing any successful company with placemen.

    More Evergrande info....

    https://youtu.be/wXCpis_Mlwk

    https://youtu.be/wW1boQJ2e60

    Yes

    I think Xi is going to fuck up China's amazing economy. He is destroying too many freedoms, he will drive away business from Shanghai and especially Hong Kong, and he is already over-reaching in foreign policy.

    They can't be happy about Aukus. They were rising without notice, now they are getting pushback and nuclear deterrence
    Indeed there's a reason why capitalism is strongly associated with liberal democracies. Capitalism and the rule of law go hand-in-hand.

    There was an assumption that China's capitalist success would lead to an end to its Communist dictatorship.

    In fact we should seriously consider the more likely possibility now that China's Communist dictatorship will put an end to its capitalist success.
    I believe in both, but I find this statement very doubtful.
    China has neither, but I believe it's possible to have one without the other.
    You can have the rule of law without capitalism, but capitalism needs the structure of the rule of law to work. Otherwise, there is no investor confidence, hence no capital put to use.
    Wait, people invest in countries without proper full rule of law. See China.
    I totally agree that investment in rule-of-law countries is much less risky, but "no investor confidence" far from true.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,735
    FT UK: ⁦@KwasiKwarteng⁩ insists UK ‘lights not going out’ as gas crisis intensifies #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1440055828954812416/photo/1
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,273
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    Some of the media dealings with Begum reminds me of the journalist behind the Serial podcast, she totally fell for the charms of the murderer, eventually losing any sort of objectiveness and really trying gloss over all the evidence still points to him having done it .
    I told him I would hand her over to the Syrians or Iraqis for a trial and I would not be terribly upset if they "hanged her like a dog"

    He got quite distressed. This was after my third glass
    I'm not surprised; who hangs dogs?
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    edited September 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    FT UK: ⁦@KwasiKwarteng⁩ insists UK ‘lights not going out’ as gas crisis intensifies #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1440055828954812416/photo/1

    I guess the lights going out this coming winter will now be a resignation issue then?
  • justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    Could it have been an issue in the distant past? Absolutely, though a woman or a minority getting elected was a bigger challenge. Thank goodness those days are over eh?

    Would it be an issue today? Or recent past for May? No of course not, don't be a dingbat. That's already been put to the test and a serial adulterer won a landslide leadership election victory.
    Most people are likely to view the 1960s and 1970s as the recent past - ie'afew years ago' - rather a period little different from Victorian Britain. I doubt that most people view The Beatles as ancient history.
    No offence but maybe old people feel that was only a few years ago, but yes sixty years ago are quite a distant past now and the times have quite rightly changed since then.

    To put it into context the distance between today and 1960 is the same distance as the Victorian era from 1960, or 1980 from the First World War. I certainly felt growing up in the 80s that WW1 was in the ancient past. Did any child of the 60s feel the Victorian era was only a few years ago then?
    You are making me feel old !!!!!!
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    Could it have been an issue in the distant past? Absolutely, though a woman or a minority getting elected was a bigger challenge. Thank goodness those days are over eh?

    Would it be an issue today? Or recent past for May? No of course not, don't be a dingbat. That's already been put to the test and a serial adulterer won a landslide leadership election victory.
    Most people are likely to view the 1960s and 1970s as the recent past - ie'afew years ago' - rather a period little different from Victorian Britain. I doubt that most people view The Beatles as ancient history.
    No offence but maybe old people feel that was only a few years ago, but yes sixty years ago are quite a distant past now and the times have quite rightly changed since then.

    To put it into context the distance between today and 1960 is the same distance as the Victorian era from 1960, or 1980 from the First World War. I certainly felt growing up in the 80s that WW1 was in the ancient past. Did any child of the 60s feel the Victorian era was only a few years ago then?
    When I was a child in the 1960s I had grandparents who han been born in the late 1880s up to the 1900s.Whilst they were elderly, I did not feel that they had come from a distant age totally unrelated to the world I then inhabited.
    I have also recently contemplated how 1966 was as close in time to 1910 or 1911 as to the present day. I have little doubt that the world of 1966 had far more in common with the world of 2021 than it had with that of circa 1910.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,735

    I guess the lights going out this coming winter will now be a resignation issue then?

    No problem, we can just pull power through the connector from France.

    oh, wait...
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,054

    This hedge fund manager says west is wrong to think of China as managed capitalism, Xi vision is now much more "modern Maoism", and been busy stuffing any successful company with placemen.

    More Evergrande info....

    https://youtu.be/wXCpis_Mlwk

    https://youtu.be/wW1boQJ2e60

    Xi does have a whiff of Mao about him, ironically as his own father had a very difficult time of it in the Cultural Revolution. The personality cult, the controlling of "deviant" views and behaviour, the purging of minorities that don't fit are all rather Maoist. The recent attacks on overpowerful tech companies and excess inequality of wealth also follows the Mao playbook, as does currying favour in Africa and elsewhere with infrastructure projects.

    The analogy only goes so far though, and while the Chinese economy of the 1960s wasn't insignificant, it is as nothing with the scale of modern China. It is not an accident that Evergrande is teetering on the edge though, it is deliberate on the part of the CCP. It was the regulator that tightened up restrictions on borrowing, precipitating the Evergrande liquidity issue.

    China has not had a real recession in 30 years, and one will happen sooner or later, but this Evergrande crisis is due to overleveraged speculative homebuyers believing that property prices only go one way. The collapse of those speculators will be unpopular with some, but will make property affordable to many. Indeed much the same has been proposed here by PB pundits.
  • Third dancer on strictly refused vaccine

    Show should be taken off air
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    Could it have been an issue in the distant past? Absolutely, though a woman or a minority getting elected was a bigger challenge. Thank goodness those days are over eh?

    Would it be an issue today? Or recent past for May? No of course not, don't be a dingbat. That's already been put to the test and a serial adulterer won a landslide leadership election victory.
    Most people are likely to view the 1960s and 1970s as the recent past - ie'afew years ago' - rather a period little different from Victorian Britain. I doubt that most people view The Beatles as ancient history.
    No offence but maybe old people feel that was only a few years ago, but yes sixty years ago are quite a distant past now and the times have quite rightly changed since then.

    To put it into context the distance between today and 1960 is the same distance as the Victorian era from 1960, or 1980 from the First World War. I certainly felt growing up in the 80s that WW1 was in the ancient past. Did any child of the 60s feel the Victorian era was only a few years ago then?
    When I was a child in the 1960s I had grandparents who han been born in the late 1880s up to the 1900s.Whilst they were elderly, I did not feel that they had come from a distant age totally unrelated to the world I then inhabited.
    I have also recently contemplated how 1966 was as close in time to 1910 or 1911 as to the present day. I have little doubt that the world of 1966 had far more in common with the world of 2021 than it had with that of circa 1910.
    In some ways. In many orhers it doesn't.
    This method of communication amongst groups like this being one. How we obtain information in general being another.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    So, when you say One Man, One Vote, do you have to biologically be a man, or is self identification ok?
    Its One MEMBER One Vote BTW
    Ah, biological then.

    Thanks for clearing that up.
    You know, I thought that was a pretty witty comment. And I only got a single like.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Third dancer on strictly refused vaccine

    Show should be taken off air

    Why?
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    Assume doubts about the remorse may add to the hotness, for some anyway.

    "Stop staring at my neck luv.'
    I'm sure this is a joke, I just don't quite get it. Explain?
    In the fervid imaginings of Express leader writers she was complicit in beheadings etc, no?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    Third dancer on strictly refused vaccine

    Show should be taken off air

    Eh? That's mighty illiberal of you.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,727
    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Maybe the fact she’s a former LibDem is why she’s been promoted. Tories worried about the Blue Wall
  • Farooq said:

    Third dancer on strictly refused vaccine

    Show should be taken off air

    Why?
    It is a terrible advert against the campaign for everyone to be vaccinated
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    Some of the media dealings with Begum reminds me of the journalist behind the Serial podcast, she totally fell for the charms of the murderer, eventually losing any sort of objectiveness and really trying gloss over all the evidence still points to him having done it .
    I told him I would hand her over to the Syrians or Iraqis for a trial and I would not be terribly upset if they "hanged her like a dog"

    He got quite distressed. This was after my third glass
    Did he make the beast with two backs with her?
  • justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    Could it have been an issue in the distant past? Absolutely, though a woman or a minority getting elected was a bigger challenge. Thank goodness those days are over eh?

    Would it be an issue today? Or recent past for May? No of course not, don't be a dingbat. That's already been put to the test and a serial adulterer won a landslide leadership election victory.
    Most people are likely to view the 1960s and 1970s as the recent past - ie'afew years ago' - rather a period little different from Victorian Britain. I doubt that most people view The Beatles as ancient history.
    No offence but maybe old people feel that was only a few years ago, but yes sixty years ago are quite a distant past now and the times have quite rightly changed since then.

    To put it into context the distance between today and 1960 is the same distance as the Victorian era from 1960, or 1980 from the First World War. I certainly felt growing up in the 80s that WW1 was in the ancient past. Did any child of the 60s feel the Victorian era was only a few years ago then?
    When I was a child in the 1960s I had grandparents who han been born in the late 1880s up to the 1900s.Whilst they were elderly, I did not feel that they had come from a distant age totally unrelated to the world I then inhabited.
    I have also recently contemplated how 1966 was as close in time to 1910 or 1911 as to the present day. I have little doubt that the world of 1966 had far more in common with the world of 2021 than it had with that of circa 1910.
    Who said totally unrelated? You're extrapolating things that were never said.

    But yes 1960s are distant from today, and 1800s are distant from the 1960s. Not unconnected, but distant.

    Heck in some ways already I can tell there are many things that I grew up with in the 1980s and 1990s are completely distant or alien to what my kids are growing up with today.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    If Thatcher or May had been revealed to have committed adultery , would either have become Tory leader? Truss is also a former Libdem.

    Why not?

    What kind of closed-minded intolerant idiot would care about that ephemera?

    Thankfully not the Tory membership. That's already been put to the test.
    Do you really believe that Thatcher - or May - having had a kid or two out of wedlock would have had no impact on her leadership ambitions? I suspect that even being selected as a PPC would have proved problematic.
    Could it have been an issue in the distant past? Absolutely, though a woman or a minority getting elected was a bigger challenge. Thank goodness those days are over eh?

    Would it be an issue today? Or recent past for May? No of course not, don't be a dingbat. That's already been put to the test and a serial adulterer won a landslide leadership election victory.
    Most people are likely to view the 1960s and 1970s as the recent past - ie'afew years ago' - rather a period little different from Victorian Britain. I doubt that most people view The Beatles as ancient history.
    No offence but maybe old people feel that was only a few years ago, but yes sixty years ago are quite a distant past now and the times have quite rightly changed since then.

    To put it into context the distance between today and 1960 is the same distance as the Victorian era from 1960, or 1980 from the First World War. I certainly felt growing up in the 80s that WW1 was in the ancient past. Did any child of the 60s feel the Victorian era was only a few years ago then?
    You are making me feel old !!!!!!
    Girls Just Wanna Have Fun was released closer to WW2 than to today.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    This hedge fund manager says west is wrong to think of China as managed capitalism, Xi vision is now much more "modern Maoism", and been busy stuffing any successful company with placemen.

    More Evergrande info....

    https://youtu.be/wXCpis_Mlwk

    https://youtu.be/wW1boQJ2e60

    Yes

    I think Xi is going to fuck up China's amazing economy. He is destroying too many freedoms, he will drive away business from Shanghai and especially Hong Kong, and he is already over-reaching in foreign policy.

    They can't be happy about Aukus. They were rising without notice, now they are getting pushback and nuclear deterrence
    Indeed there's a reason why capitalism is strongly associated with liberal democracies. Capitalism and the rule of law go hand-in-hand.

    There was an assumption that China's capitalist success would lead to an end to its Communist dictatorship.

    In fact we should seriously consider the more likely possibility now that China's Communist dictatorship will put an end to its capitalist success.
    I met a senior Swiss business guy the other day, who used to live and work in Beijing, who says he now would not even visit Beijing on holiday, and the idea of working out of Hong Kong is insane. Too risky. Arbitrary arrest is a real threat

    In the end this must have a massive cost for China
    I don't think I'm going to be visiting mainland China in my lifetime.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,226
    Jesus, the Frogs are STILL banging on about AUKUS?


    https://twitter.com/France24_en/status/1439965766712021004?s=20
  • isamisam Posts: 40,727
    Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    If a fox dressed up as a Farm hand & promised to lock the chicken coop so the farmer could knock off early, more fool the farmer who trusted him.

    And Begums no foxy lady!
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Farooq said:

    Third dancer on strictly refused vaccine

    Show should be taken off air

    Why?
    It is a terrible advert against the campaign for everyone to be vaccinated
    Are they even talking about it on the show?
    Actually, I don't even care. We shouldn't be cancelling shows just because some people on it are wrong about stuff.
  • rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    So, when you say One Man, One Vote, do you have to biologically be a man, or is self identification ok?
    Its One MEMBER One Vote BTW
    Ah, biological then.

    Thanks for clearing that up.
    You know, I thought that was a pretty witty comment. And I only got a single like.
    Don't you just hate it when that happens?
  • isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    If a fox dressed up as a Farm hand & promised to lock the chicken coop so the farmer could knock off early, more fool the farmer who trusted him.

    And Begums no foxy lady!
    Are you talking about Begum or women/trans issues?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878

    Third dancer on strictly refused vaccine

    Show should be taken off air

    Probably need to shut down the premier league too then...
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,273
    Just had an email which seems genuine from PFP energy our (erstwhile?) energy supplier, headed "We do not have confidence in the Business Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng".

    "...Ofgem made Kwarteng aware of the ongoing pressure to energy suppliers on 26th March 2020 but his disregard for the issues and lack of willingness to create support for the industry has resulted in a large increase in the cost of powering homes and hundreds of job losses..."

    Interesting tactic, if genuine.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,735
    NEW: PM admits Biden has “a lot of fish to fry” before a UK trade deal.. which sounds a lot like a queue…
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16194445/boris-johnson-joe-biden-trade-deal/
  • isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    If a fox dressed up as a Farm hand & promised to lock the chicken coop so the farmer could knock off early, more fool the farmer who trusted him.

    And Begums no foxy lady!
    Are we still talking about men with penises going into women's lavvies?
  • rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    So, when you say One Man, One Vote, do you have to biologically be a man, or is self identification ok?
    Its One MEMBER One Vote BTW
    Ah, biological then.

    Thanks for clearing that up.
    You know, I thought that was a pretty witty comment. And I only got a single like.
    I thought it was very amusing.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 3,054

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    This hedge fund manager says west is wrong to think of China as managed capitalism, Xi vision is now much more "modern Maoism", and been busy stuffing any successful company with placemen.

    More Evergrande info....

    https://youtu.be/wXCpis_Mlwk

    https://youtu.be/wW1boQJ2e60

    Yes

    I think Xi is going to fuck up China's amazing economy. He is destroying too many freedoms, he will drive away business from Shanghai and especially Hong Kong, and he is already over-reaching in foreign policy.

    They can't be happy about Aukus. They were rising without notice, now they are getting pushback and nuclear deterrence
    Indeed there's a reason why capitalism is strongly associated with liberal democracies. Capitalism and the rule of law go hand-in-hand.

    There was an assumption that China's capitalist success would lead to an end to its Communist dictatorship.

    In fact we should seriously consider the more likely possibility now that China's Communist dictatorship will put an end to its capitalist success.
    I met a senior Swiss business guy the other day, who used to live and work in Beijing, who says he now would not even visit Beijing on holiday, and the idea of working out of Hong Kong is insane. Too risky. Arbitrary arrest is a real threat

    In the end this must have a massive cost for China
    I don't think I'm going to be visiting mainland China in my lifetime.
    The taiwanese government has advised its people not even to transit through HK airport.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,226

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    Assume doubts about the remorse may add to the hotness, for some anyway.

    "Stop staring at my neck luv.'
    I'm sure this is a joke, I just don't quite get it. Explain?
    In the fervid imaginings of Express leader writers she was complicit in beheadings etc, no?
    With all due respect, in that case, it is a fucking terrible joke

    And you are a witty, eloquent man, not unlike your quondam behatted customer, Geo Galloway
  • FossFoss Posts: 694

    justin124 said:



    When I was a child in the 1960s I had grandparents who han been born in the late 1880s up to the 1900s.Whilst they were elderly, I did not feel that they had come from a distant age totally unrelated to the world I then inhabited.
    I have also recently contemplated how 1966 was as close in time to 1910 or 1911 as to the present day. I have little doubt that the world of 1966 had far more in common with the world of 2021 than it had with that of circa 1910.

    Who said totally unrelated? You're extrapolating things that were never said.

    But yes 1960s are distant from today, and 1800s are distant from the 1960s. Not unconnected, but distant.

    Heck in some ways already I can tell there are many things that I grew up with in the 1980s and 1990s are completely distant or alien to what my kids are growing up with today.
    The average person in this country was born two years after Thatcher came to power and was just over two years too young to vote for Blair in 1997.
  • RobD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Going back to the subjects of gas supply and also practical climate issues, a question based on a lack of knowledge. (So hoping to be enlightened).

    Two bits of factual news today

    1. We are now looking at a shortage of CO2 for important processes including food supply, fertilisers, refrigeration and all manner of industrial processes.
    2. Drax are spending 20 million quid on updating their carbon capture systems to capture more of the CO2 from biomass burning and pump it under the North Sea.

    So...

    Is there some fundamental difference between CO2 (from carbon capture at power stations) and CO2 (used in all manner of industrial and manufacturing processes?

    Or

    Are our political and business leaders so utterly inept that they can't arrange for some of the CO2 being captured as a biproduct from power stations to be rediverted to the industries where it is in terribly short supply?

    My acceptance of gaps in my knowledge tends to make me think the former whilst my natural cynicism about the abilities of our leaders makes me strongly suspect the latter.

    CO2 is CO2.
    Isn't CO2 that is manufactured classified as 'food safe CO2'? May not be the technical term but it does require to be food grade certified doesn't it? Again maybe not the technical term.

    Is the CO2 that is a by product considered food grade?

    Sort of like the difference between using the meat of a pig that you slaughter and the meat of a pig that you find already dead. The latter to the best of my knowledge wouldn't be food safe.
    I guess that's just how pure the CO2 is. If you had some way to extract only CO2 from the emissions of a power plant it would be more than acceptable for foodstuffs.
    There are a number of Coca Cola plants around Europe where CO2 is captured from the exhaust of the on-site CHP plant and used for carbonation. I've visited one of them. The quality control on the CO2 is a serious business. They test for a very long list of potential contaminants.
    Indeed. That was my point, the CO2 that is carbon captured will have contaminants etc so not pass those tests.

    It might theoretically be possible to 'clean up' the CO2 to bottle it up, though it might not be cost-effective to do so. But either way it isn't simply a case of bottling up the captured CO2 then using it.
    The CO2 from CF Fertilisers also contains contaminants and needs to be purified to meet food grade specifications.

    They do it at CF, they do it at the Coke CHPs and they can do it at future CCS plants if someone wants to pay for the CO2. When the alternative is having to pay someone else to take it away for permanent storage, a bit of clean up to make it a saleable product looks attractive. Of course, once CCS rolls out in a big way the market will become saturated in no time.
  • Just had an email which seems genuine from PFP energy our (erstwhile?) energy supplier, headed "We do not have confidence in the Business Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng".

    "...Ofgem made Kwarteng aware of the ongoing pressure to energy suppliers on 26th March 2020 but his disregard for the issues and lack of willingness to create support for the industry has resulted in a large increase in the cost of powering homes and hundreds of job losses..."

    Interesting tactic, if genuine.

    "create support" == bail me out as my business model has failed?
  • isamisam Posts: 40,727

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:


    I agree it is a thorny moral issue, but it affects so few people, it feels decadent and wrong to waste too much time on it. Genuinely. When the world is menaced by major and terrible problems - eg millions dying of a plague, possible climate catastrophe, the coercive waxing of a Canadian trans-man's testicles seems pretty small potatoes

    So this is my last comment on it for now. Purely judging it as politics, this issue plays really badly for the Left and will benefit the Right. Because it does look so insane, the epitome of Woke madness, and it does look to many feminist women like they are being abandoned by their natural lefty allies

    So the Left should probably rein it in. Trouble is, they keep doubling down, they can't help it

    And now, Crixus, show me to wine

    You've not accessed any bevvy till 9.19pm? Fucking hell, sorely disillusioned.
    I had a shared plat de fruits de mer with a mate at Randall and Aubin in Soho at lunch, and did four large glasses of Verdejo, so I took a break


    Good gossip: the guy I lunched with spent a couple of days with Shamima Begum last month, and he reports she is genuinely remorseful and also "really rather hot"

    I have my doubts about the first opinion but I'm ready to take his word on the second
    If a fox dressed up as a Farm hand & promised to lock the chicken coop so the farmer could knock off early, more fool the farmer who trusted him.

    And Begums no foxy lady!
    Are you talking about Begum or women/trans issues?
    *yorkshire accent* Eh? Begum

    But could apply to both now you mention it
This discussion has been closed.