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  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    If 'principled' Jeremy Corbyn thinks that nuclear weapons don't keep us safe and are a waste of money - and there's a respectable argument for that position - then 'principled' Jeremy Corbyn should say so, carry his 'principles' of the last forty or so years into practical policy, and advocate cancellation of the Trident upgrade. But 'principled' Jeremy Corbyn's principles seem to disappear when he's trying to win an election.

    I'd have had an actual think about voting Labour if cancellation of Trident was on offer. Keeping it and NOT being prepared to use it is just the worst of all possible worlds.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774
    MaxPB said:

    Chameleon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just like Salman Abedi

    One person tells the BBC they phoned the anti-terror hotline about one of the London Bridge attackers. Two others say they also warned the police…

    https://order-order.com/2017/06/04/three-people-warned-police-about-attacker/

    I am rather uncomfortable how this kind of things unfolds. Anybody can phone up and say well I reported him and the security services can't say anything (at least not until a whole chain of command is processed). After Lee Rigby, the BBC had the CAGE nutter on and he made all sorts of claims which was taken as gospel until a select committee did an investigation months later.
    With Abedi, the Telegraph and The Times said it had happened, hell even American intelligence warned about Abedi.

    There's something not quite working.
    Someone told me that it's the way MI5 work that's a major issue and needs reviewing they let plots develop and then prevent them at the last minute so they can gather as much intelligence as possible and swoop on as many targets as possible, but it does leave us in trouble if they take their eye off the ball.
    Swoop too early and you may get half the people, but lose all intel on the other half.
    Swoop early and you're definitely going to stop that specific plot.
    Which makes you realise what a tough job it is. The people involved must have many sleepless nights.
  • DadgeDadge Posts: 2,038
    "The former MP for Bermondsey & Old Southwark - which contains London Bridge's south side - says "the people who did this, they are not Muslim".

    "If they were Muslim they would have been in Taraweeh, the evening prayer of Ramadan, they would not have been attacking innocent civilians," Labour's Neil Coyle, who is seeking re-election in the constituency, said."

    "Let's not pretend they represent their faith, their religion, they don't, they were murdering and they would find any excuse to commit murder."

    ***
    1. The fact they missed the prayer does not mean they weren't Muslim.
    2. Neil Coyle isn't an Islamic scholar.
    3. He contradicts himself: "They are not Muslim ... let's not pretend they represent their religion."
    4. What does the last bit mean: "They would find any excuse to commit murder"?

    Do people commit murder for no reason? Was this the East London Society of Psycopaths? Whatever nonsense people might spout, these were far from being random, senseless acts.

    There's this misconception that if they were extremist Muslims they'd be following their religion perfectly: the right beard, the right clothes, the right food, the right prayers. But this view is conflating the kind of Muslims who might commit murder with the kind who are devout. In any religion it's rarely the monks who are the murderers.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    rcs1000 said:

    Floater said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just like Salman Abedi

    One person tells the BBC they phoned the anti-terror hotline about one of the London Bridge attackers. Two others say they also warned the police…

    https://order-order.com/2017/06/04/three-people-warned-police-about-attacker/

    I am rather uncomfortable how this kind of things unfolds. Anybody can phone up and say well I reported him and the security services can't say anything (at least not until a whole chain of command is processed). After Lee Rigby, the BBC had the CAGE nutter on and he made all sorts of claims which was taken as gospel until a select committee did an investigation months later.
    And what did they say, was it a SeanT style tip off about the dry cleaner? "He's got a beard now!" Or was it "he's spoken about killing people often". If it was the former then fair enough the SiS aren't going to expend too much following up on it, if it was the latter then they need to review what they deem as a threat because that's two in a row they've missed.
    He said he would do anything for Islam even kill his mother. (So says the person who reported him)
    What about Mother-in-law? I might consider conversion if that was covered
    LOL - I could tell you some stories about my now deceased mother in law.

    I could have been tempted at times :-)
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    edited June 2017
    Gosh the green bloke is a bore... lots of whooping, Nuttall has a tough audience!
  • Y0kelY0kel Posts: 2,307
    edited June 2017
    Chameleon said:

    Just like Salman Abedi

    One person tells the BBC they phoned the anti-terror hotline about one of the London Bridge attackers. Two others say they also warned the police…

    https://order-order.com/2017/06/04/three-people-warned-police-about-attacker/

    I am rather uncomfortable how this kind of things unfolds. Anybody can phone up and say well I reported him and the security services can't say anything (at least not until a whole chain of command is processed). After Lee Rigby, the BBC had the CAGE nutter on and he made all sorts of claims which was taken as gospel until a select committee did an investigation months later.
    With Abedi, the Telegraph and The Times said it had happened, hell even American intelligence warned about Abedi.

    There's something not quite working.

    3000 people at imminent risk of attacking the UK according to an observer article. In general it takes 12 full time people to put 24/7 surveillance on one of them. That 3,000 is a shortlist of a larger 23,000 people who are serious concerns. Abedi may be have been on the longer list.

    The best solution is to try and reduce the number of people on the lists, without raising the thresholds to get on them.
    Actually its 24 over a 24 hour pattern to get thorough coverage. What people also forget is that those units may need covert and uniformed back up in case they get in diffs.

    Count the numbers, MI5 alone, probably even with expansion has no more than 4000 of which a fraction are field operatives. Add on the number of other activities they are at and you have low hundreds of active watchers at most.

    Lets be generous and say it takes 12 to watch on a 24/7 basis and we ignore everything that may add to that number. Lets say you have 3000 targets, that needs a mere 30 odd thousand watchers.....

    Ok you have Branch and those seconded on, plus military intelligence field assets to add but you are nowhere near the numbers. You are into low thousands at most available

    Thus the security services have to narrow targets to maybe a few hundred. The method of assessment is regularly reviewed but at its core is a fairly simple set of rules to pare down the numbers.

    Technical gathering can fill some gaps but not all.

  • ReggieCideReggieCide Posts: 4,312

    DavidL said:

    May has a large number of deficiencies and I have little doubt that over the next few years we will discover even more but anyone who suggests that she is no better than Corbyn is deeply deluded. We will end this election campaign where we started it: the British people have not been given a credible choice. Only one candidate is even close to being capable of being PM. And it's not Corbyn.

    Mediocre and lighweight beats catastrophic and toxic every time. But, as you say in so many words, that is not cause for celebration. Voters have never been presented with a worse choice.

    Though the opportunity does arise to have none of the above, via net Tory losses. May would have to resign, and someone capable of putting a minority government would be needed.

    It does seem that at least one of the attackers was known to the security services, the BBC have interviewed a couple of people who said they had reported him. It seems at least that is in common with Manchester.

    On the one hand this shows the problem of a needle in a haystack, but perhaps more positively it does show that the Muslim community are willing to act as our eyes.
    Have the police acknowledged they were told?
    Not yet, but the journalists seem convinced. No doubt we will know more by the end of the week.

    I am not suggesting the services are negligent, but any case like this should merit a serious internal inquiry to look at whether the clues were there.

    Nobody bats 1000 as the Yanks say.
    I afraid I don't share your faith in our journalists' ability to spot the difference between a good story and the truth, barring one or two honourable exceptions like Brillo.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    Dadge said:

    "The former MP for Bermondsey & Old Southwark - which contains London Bridge's south side - says "the people who did this, they are not Muslim".

    "If they were Muslim they would have been in Taraweeh, the evening prayer of Ramadan, they would not have been attacking innocent civilians," Labour's Neil Coyle, who is seeking re-election in the constituency, said."

    "Let's not pretend they represent their faith, their religion, they don't, they were murdering and they would find any excuse to commit murder."

    ***
    1. The fact they missed the prayer does not mean they weren't Muslim.
    2. Neil Coyle isn't an Islamic scholar.
    3. He contradicts himself: "They are not Muslim ... let's not pretend they represent their religion."
    4. What does the last bit mean: "They would find any excuse to commit murder"?

    Do people commit murder for no reason? Was this the East London Society of Psycopaths? Whatever nonsense people might spout, these were far from being random, senseless acts.

    There's this misconception that if they were extremist Muslims they'd be following their religion perfectly: the right beard, the right clothes, the right food, the right prayers. But this view is conflating the kind of Muslims who might commit murder with the kind who are devout. In any religion it's rarely the monks who are the murderers.

    This is the kind of crap we are up against - of course it was done in the name of religion.

    The Quillam foundation admit this too.

    How we square that particular circle is the difficult bit.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    edited June 2017
    Chris_A said:

    kle4 said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot.
    That's an awful lot of the county you think are idiots.
    Go on then, answer the questions and show us your wisdom.
    I didn't say I supported keeping our nuclear weapons - in fact I am deeply conflicted about the best approach and used to support unilateralism, but right now am very wishy washy on the whole business - but it is telling that you immediately get all snippy and demand I defend a position I didn't put forward.

    All I did was point out the fact that as a lot of people support it, you are calling a lot of people idiots.

    So why don't you explain in less insulting and patronising terms why keeping our nuclear weapons is a bad idea, rather than just dismiss a majority of the country? I'm open to being convinced.

    Or you could act like a complete arsehole and call the electorate idiots. Again.
  • ThreeQuidderThreeQuidder Posts: 6,133
    dixiedean said:

    Anyway here is my prediction.
    Con 376
    Lab 200
    SNP 46
    NI 18
    LD 6
    PC 2
    Gn 1
    Speaker 1

    Con majority 102.

    That would be Con majority 104, Bercow counts as a Tory for majority calculations as one of his Deputies will be a Tory and two Labour.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    edited June 2017
    Floater said:

    He said he would do anything for Islam even kill his mother. (So says the person who reported him)

    That's a pretty low threshold for fanaticism, lots of people say stuff like "I'd die for X", or "I'd kill for Y". What you are looking for is the person who says that frequently, or shows signs of turning word into deed.
  • TMA1TMA1 Posts: 225
    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Here's the story -- https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3722457/jeremy-corbyns-spin-doctor-brands-idea-labour-leader-would-defend-uk-with-nukes-bonkers/

    edit: the previous version I saw actually had the transcript.
    Here's the version from the Mail with the transcript: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4569528/tape-reveals-Jeremy-Corbyn-bonkers-nuclear-deterrent.html

    Looks like an overheard conversation.
    We have nuclear weapons. It gives us a place at the conference table. On this vital, massively vital issue it ensures that we make sure there is honest verifiable multilateral nuclear disarmament at some time in the future.

    You could just leave it to the French I suppose to run the world on our behalf. Its a thought I suppose... any takers?
  • surbitonsurbiton Posts: 13,549
    TMA1 said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Here's the story -- https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3722457/jeremy-corbyns-spin-doctor-brands-idea-labour-leader-would-defend-uk-with-nukes-bonkers/

    edit: the previous version I saw actually had the transcript.
    Here's the version from the Mail with the transcript: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4569528/tape-reveals-Jeremy-Corbyn-bonkers-nuclear-deterrent.html

    Looks like an overheard conversation.
    We have nuclear weapons. It gives us a place at the conference table. On this vital, massively vital issue it ensures that we make sure there is honest verifiable multilateral nuclear disarmament at some time in the future.

    You could just leave it to the French I suppose to run the world on our behalf. Its a thought I suppose... any takers?
    Does nuclear has to Trident ?
  • Y0kelY0kel Posts: 2,307
    On the IS claim,. no supporting information from Amaq. In fact the statement was well short.
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    A Trident sub has 256 warheads as I recall, so more than a few.

    During the Cold War there may have been an argument for Trident, but it has been an anachronism and distraction since 1990.

    £6 billion per year would do a hell of a lot more elsewhere in our defense budget.
  • The_TaxmanThe_Taxman Posts: 2,979
    rcs1000 said:

    nunu said:
    Empathising is not sympathising.
    How on earth can you empathise with someone wanting to support a group that kills, rapes and butchers innocent people who were just trying to get on with their lives? Non religious people who may have lost their way in life do not generally start joining groups and murdering people for ideological reasons. Westerners who have lost their way tend to do things to themselves such as drinking or drugs, not just kill others for their beliefs.

    Any person running for public office has to meet the standards expected which includes having a 'clean' online history. She clearly fails on that standard. I welcomed her by-election gain for the record but she was wrong on this.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Scott_P said:

    A fan writes...

    twitter.com/northernslatt/status/871446056076275712

    Can we guess which poster this is?? :D
  • ab195ab195 Posts: 477

    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    A Trident sub has 256 warheads as I recall, so more than a few.

    During the Cold War there may have been an argument for Trident, but it has been an anachronism and distraction since 1990.

    £6 billion per year would do a hell of a lot more elsewhere in our defense budget.
    The on-duty Trident is sufficient to deter Russia - that's the very definition of "minimum nuclear deterrence" for the U.K. you muppets. Don't try and invoke facts you don't understand.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Scott_P said:

    A fan writes...

    twitter.com/northernslatt/status/871446056076275712

    Ticks canvassing box marked "Maybe"....
  • CyanCyan Posts: 1,262
    edited June 2017
    Barnesian said:

    nunu said:
    There is a big difference between speculating on motivation, and sympathising.
    Quite. If you simply say terrorists are evil or mad and don't try to understand their motivations or how they are seduced into terrorism, you have less chance of effectively intervening. I'm sure the intelligence services put a lot of effort into understanding their motivations and influences. It doesn't mean they sympathise FFS!

    Typical Tory dirty trick.

    Luckily not many people in Richmond Park read the Sun.

    Unluckily Zac Goldsmith is a master of the dirty trick so will probably get out a leaflet on this. But people remember the Sadiq Khan episode so it will rebound on him.
    The smear against Sarah Olney is vile. Either we are all in the fight against terrorism or we just have to channel banalities and believe what we are told without thinking, and certainly without thinking about anything we're not told to think about. That makes us weaker, not stronger.

    How on earth can the Sun claim an "exclusive" when all they've done is quote a person's blog and smear the person? And it's remarkable that in this disgusting excuse for an article in the country's most famous excuse for a newspaper, the rag's deputy political editor says Olney speculates on the motivation of Daesh recruits but he doesn't himself suggest what their motivation might be. If Zac Goldsmith doesn't denounce this smear then he's the arsehole that most of us already know he is.

    I thought there would be smears against Liberal Democrats as well as against Labour.
  • MattyNethMattyNeth Posts: 60
    Lib Dems 1.08 under 28.5 seats on Betfair seems like utter free money doesn't it? Ive taken a chunk of what was there, but still a little left
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774

    rcs1000 said:

    nunu said:
    Empathising is not sympathising.
    How on earth can you empathise with someone wanting to support a group that kills, rapes and butchers innocent people who were just trying to get on with their lives? Non religious people who may have lost their way in life do not generally start joining groups and murdering people for ideological reasons. Westerners who have lost their way tend to do things to themselves such as drinking or drugs, not just kill others for their beliefs.

    Any person running for public office has to meet the standards expected which includes having a 'clean' online history. She clearly fails on that standard. I welcomed her by-election gain for the record but she was wrong on this.
    So, we're not allowed to try and "get into the heads" of our enemies, and must regard them simply as a foreign species to be exterminated?
  • Danny565Danny565 Posts: 8,091
    Scott_P said:
    Ha, so this is the thing that got PBers all het up the other day.

    To be fair, it does seem to be rather disingenuous to be referring to what "the data" says, without actually providing said "data".
  • DadgeDadge Posts: 2,038
    Chameleon said:

    Dadge said:

    Discussion on Westminster Hour about extremists' use of Youtube and social media. It's probably fair to say that May can't fight back effectively against terrorism without better control of these media.

    You will never be able to eliminate these things from the internet. The internet is uncontrollable by any government. May knows this, but it won't stop her from establishing wholesale government censorship of the internet.
    Well it's a myth that it's uncontrollable - it depends on how much control one wants to exercise. One can, for example, force extremist videos to be blocked by Facebook and Youtube. This doesn't remove them from the internet, but it does mean that your average teenager who doesn't know every nook and cranny of the Web will no longer get to see them.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    edited June 2017
    O/T

    Cricket highlights on BBC2 now. I think this is the first time I've watched cricket highlights on the BBC since the late 1990s when I was still at school. Back then it was presented by the likes of Richie Benaud, Tony Lewis, Ray Illingworth, Jack Bannister, etc.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    nrs3079 said:

    As the front pages start to come in the 'enough is enough' line from Theresa's speech earlier is playing out well. I suspect we'll here much more of this phrase between now and polling day.

    That may not help the Tories.

  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    glw said:

    Floater said:

    He said he would do anything for Islam even kill his mother. (So says the person who reported him)

    That's a pretty low threshold for fanaticism, lots of people say stuff like "I'd die for X", or "I'd kill for Y". What you are looking for is the person who says that frequently, or shows signs of turning word into deed.
    Both he and the Manchester attacker seem to have been banned by their mosques by mainstream imams for their political outbursts.

    Perhaps that is a weekly occurrence, or perhaps it should be a major red flag. Being banned from places of worship is unknown in my church, though we do occassionally need to get elders to calm worshippers down.
  • surbitonsurbiton Posts: 13,549
    MaxPB said:

    Danny565 said:

    Just like Salman Abedi

    One person tells the BBC they phoned the anti-terror hotline about one of the London Bridge attackers. Two others say they also warned the police…

    https://order-order.com/2017/06/04/three-people-warned-police-about-attacker/

    I am rather uncomfortable how this kind of things unfolds. Anybody can phone up and say well I reported him and the security services can't say anything (at least not until a whole chain of command is processed). After Lee Rigby, the BBC had the CAGE nutter on and he made all sorts of claims which was taken as gospel until a select committee did an investigation months later.
    With Abedi, the Telegraph and The Times said it had happened, hell even American intelligence warned about Abedi.

    There's something not quite working.
    Maybe we really do need control orders (or something similar) back.

    For people like Abedi for whom there isn't enough evidence to give a good chance of a conviction in court, but nevertheless who should've been clearly kept tabs on.
    Yes, control orders are probably coming back for terror suspects.
    It was the Tories who ended control orders.
  • CyanCyan Posts: 1,262
    Any chance of a thread on the election? The parliamentary election in France next Sunday and the Sunday following, that is.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    edited June 2017
    Scott_P said:

    A fan writes...

    hts://twitter.com/northernslatt/status/871446056076275712

    People really get too worked up about this stuff. What? Someone dare try to convince me to vote a certain way?

    Frankly I think OGH has worded them pretty reasonably - he sets out some facts/interpretations is all. If someone doesn't care most about stopping the SNP, they can bin it without worry, and if they do, well, they can act on it if they want. Yes it's clear what he would prefer, but if you don't care about the underlying premise - stopping the SNP - why get so worked up? Even if you do care about that but disagree with the other points, why so angry?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    surbiton said:

    MaxPB said:

    Danny565 said:

    Just like Salman Abedi

    One person tells the BBC they phoned the anti-terror hotline about one of the London Bridge attackers. Two others say they also warned the police…

    https://order-order.com/2017/06/04/three-people-warned-police-about-attacker/

    I am rather uncomfortable how this kind of things unfolds. Anybody can phone up and say well I reported him and the security services can't say anything (at least not until a whole chain of command is processed). After Lee Rigby, the BBC had the CAGE nutter on and he made all sorts of claims which was taken as gospel until a select committee did an investigation months later.
    With Abedi, the Telegraph and The Times said it had happened, hell even American intelligence warned about Abedi.

    There's something not quite working.
    Maybe we really do need control orders (or something similar) back.

    For people like Abedi for whom there isn't enough evidence to give a good chance of a conviction in court, but nevertheless who should've been clearly kept tabs on.
    Yes, control orders are probably coming back for terror suspects.
    It was the Tories who ended control orders.
    Coalition.
  • The_TaxmanThe_Taxman Posts: 2,979

    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    A Trident sub has 256 warheads as I recall, so more than a few.

    During the Cold War there may have been an argument for Trident, but it has been an anachronism and distraction since 1990.

    £6 billion per year would do a hell of a lot more elsewhere in our defense budget.
    IIRC the Blair government reduced the number of warheads to 160 approximately, Personally, I think we should increase them back up to the full complement.
  • DadgeDadge Posts: 2,038
    Cyclefree said:

    nrs3079 said:

    As the front pages start to come in the 'enough is enough' line from Theresa's speech earlier is playing out well. I suspect we'll here much more of this phrase between now and polling day.

    That may not help the Tories.

    Indeed. I think Corbyn should put ENOUGH IS ENOUGH on every Labour election leaflet this week.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535

    They're trying to detect something with a near-zero base rate. Even if they're getting high quality information, they must be drowning in false positives.

    IIRC there was an analysis of one TSA programme which would produce something like 5,000 false positives for every real terrorist.

  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    RobD said:

    Scott_P said:

    A fan writes...

    twitter.com/northernslatt/status/871446056076275712

    Can we guess which poster this is?? :D
    On the back it asks for your PayPal details and gives the option of wiring money via Western Union
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    edited June 2017
    Chameleon said:

    Dadge said:

    Discussion on Westminster Hour about extremists' use of Youtube and social media. It's probably fair to say that May can't fight back effectively against terrorism without better control of these media.

    You will never be able to eliminate these things from the internet. The internet is uncontrollable by any government. May knows this, but it won't stop her from establishing wholesale government censorship of the internet.
    The internet could be controlled if the world's most powerful countries got together and agreed on what is and isn't acceptable.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited June 2017
    AndyJS said:

    Chameleon said:

    Dadge said:

    Discussion on Westminster Hour about extremists' use of Youtube and social media. It's probably fair to say that May can't fight back effectively against terrorism without better control of these media.

    You will never be able to eliminate these things from the internet. The internet is uncontrollable by any government. May knows this, but it won't stop her from establishing wholesale government censorship of the internet.
    The internet could be controlled if the world's most powerful countries got together and agreed on what is and isn't acceptable.
    I hear China might do something like that....
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    surbiton said:

    MaxPB said:

    Danny565 said:

    Just like Salman Abedi

    One person tells the BBC they phoned the anti-terror hotline about one of the London Bridge attackers. Two others say they also warned the police…

    https://order-order.com/2017/06/04/three-people-warned-police-about-attacker/

    I am rather uncomfortable how this kind of things unfolds. Anybody can phone up and say well I reported him and the security services can't say anything (at least not until a whole chain of command is processed). After Lee Rigby, the BBC had the CAGE nutter on and he made all sorts of claims which was taken as gospel until a select committee did an investigation months later.
    With Abedi, the Telegraph and The Times said it had happened, hell even American intelligence warned about Abedi.

    There's something not quite working.
    Maybe we really do need control orders (or something similar) back.

    For people like Abedi for whom there isn't enough evidence to give a good chance of a conviction in court, but nevertheless who should've been clearly kept tabs on.
    Yes, control orders are probably coming back for terror suspects.
    It was the Tories who ended control orders.
    Coalition.
    May was at the Home Office in the coalition.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Cyclefree said:

    nrs3079 said:

    As the front pages start to come in the 'enough is enough' line from Theresa's speech earlier is playing out well. I suspect we'll here much more of this phrase between now and polling day.

    That may not help the Tories.

    Nothing seems to, at least in the polls (at best they haven't seen a Labour surge as much as some others)
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774
    glw said:

    They're trying to detect something with a near-zero base rate. Even if they're getting high quality information, they must be drowning in false positives.

    IIRC there was an analysis of one TSA programme which would produce something like 5,000 false positives for every real terrorist.

    People keep shopping their dry cleaners, for some reason.
  • ThreeQuidderThreeQuidder Posts: 6,133
    Danny565 said:

    Scott_P said:
    Ha, so this is the thing that got PBers all het up the other day.

    To be fair, it does seem to be rather disingenuous to be referring to what "the data" says, without actually providing said "data".
    It's basically a traditional Lib Dem dodgy barchart leaflet without actually printing the dodgy barchart...
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited June 2017

    surbiton said:

    MaxPB said:

    Danny565 said:

    Just like Salman Abedi

    One person tells the BBC they phoned the anti-terror hotline about one of the London Bridge attackers. Two others say they also warned the police…

    https://order-order.com/2017/06/04/three-people-warned-police-about-attacker/

    I am rather uncomfortable how this kind of things unfolds. Anybody can phone up and say well I reported him and the security services can't say anything (at least not until a whole chain of command is processed). After Lee Rigby, the BBC had the CAGE nutter on and he made all sorts of claims which was taken as gospel until a select committee did an investigation months later.
    With Abedi, the Telegraph and The Times said it had happened, hell even American intelligence warned about Abedi.

    There's something not quite working.
    Maybe we really do need control orders (or something similar) back.

    For people like Abedi for whom there isn't enough evidence to give a good chance of a conviction in court, but nevertheless who should've been clearly kept tabs on.
    Yes, control orders are probably coming back for terror suspects.
    It was the Tories who ended control orders.
    Coalition.
    May was at the Home Office in the coalition.
    Right, but wasn't stuff like watering down control orders and reform of CCTV part of the deal to form the coalition?

    Her "reform" of stop and search was bloody stupid.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    edited June 2017

    surbiton said:

    MaxPB said:

    Danny565 said:

    Just like Salman Abedi

    One person tells the BBC they phoned the anti-terror hotline about one of the London Bridge attackers. Two others say they also warned the police…

    https://order-order.com/2017/06/04/three-people-warned-police-about-attacker/

    I am rather uncomfortable how this kind of things unfolds. Anybody can phone up and say well I reported him and the security services can't say anything (at least not until a whole chain of command is processed). After Lee Rigby, the BBC had the CAGE nutter on and he made all sorts of claims which was taken as gospel until a select committee did an investigation months later.
    With Abedi, the Telegraph and The Times said it had happened, hell even American intelligence warned about Abedi.

    There's something not quite working.
    Maybe we really do need control orders (or something similar) back.

    For people like Abedi for whom there isn't enough evidence to give a good chance of a conviction in court, but nevertheless who should've been clearly kept tabs on.
    Yes, control orders are probably coming back for terror suspects.
    It was the Tories who ended control orders.
    Coalition.
    May was at the Home Office in the coalition.
    You'd have thought she would have been in favour of them, and the Lib Dems opposed.
  • SaltireSaltire Posts: 525
    Scott_P said:
    A quick tangent off that Tweet lead to this picture in Helensburgh

    https://twitter.com/AngrySalmond/status/869155988657627136
  • CyanCyan Posts: 1,262
    Why doesn't Farron say that if the LibDems hold the balance of power he will support a Labour government, as Sturgeon has said about the SNP? Part of the reason the LibDems are polling so badly is that people remember how they helped the Tories for five years.

  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Saltire said:

    Scott_P said:

    A fan writes...

    hts://twitter.com/northernslatt/status/871446056076275712

    A quick tangent off that Tweet lead to this picture in Helensburgh

    https://twitter.com/AngrySalmond/status/869155988657627136
    Awkward conversations in the front door in the mornings I guess/
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Saltire said:

    Scott_P said:
    A quick tangent off that Tweet lead to this picture in Helensburgh

    https://twitter.com/AngrySalmond/status/869155988657627136
    Oh that is just great LOL :D
  • TudorRoseTudorRose Posts: 1,662
    MattyNeth said:

    Lib Dems 1.08 under 28.5 seats on Betfair seems like utter free money doesn't it? Ive taken a chunk of what was there, but still a little left

    Tory majority is drifting still; it was 1.22 this morning and is now out to 1.25. I would have thought sentiment was in the other direction.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    edited June 2017
    Cyan said:

    Why doesn't Farron say that if the LibDems hold the balance of power he will support a Labour government, as Sturgeon has said about the SNP? Part of the reason the LibDems are polling so badly is that people remember how they helped the Tories for five years.

    Because they want to win in the South West?
  • ReggieCideReggieCide Posts: 4,312

    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    A Trident sub has 256 warheads as I recall, so more than a few.

    During the Cold War there may have been an argument for Trident, but it has been an anachronism and distraction since 1990.

    £6 billion per year would do a hell of a lot more elsewhere in our defense budget.
    Where we are now with Russia certainly has the potential to get cooler even if we're not at Cold War temperatures yet. Also once we disarm (nuclear-wise), that's us done, effectively for ever. That gives North Korea or any other state prepared to make the nuclear investment a bigger stick than we have. It's all in the word "deterrent" although I accept that North Korea may be an outrider in that respect.
  • DadgeDadge Posts: 2,038

    rcs1000 said:

    nunu said:
    Empathising is not sympathising.
    How on earth can you empathise with someone wanting to support a group that kills, rapes and butchers innocent people who were just trying to get on with their lives? Non religious people who may have lost their way in life do not generally start joining groups and murdering people for ideological reasons. Westerners who have lost their way tend to do things to themselves such as drinking or drugs, not just kill others for their beliefs.

    Any person running for public office has to meet the standards expected which includes having a 'clean' online history. She clearly fails on that standard. I welcomed her by-election gain for the record but she was wrong on this.
    It's a reasonable argument in my view to say: give the Islamonutters their caliphate - a few hundred square miles of Syrian and Iraqi desert - just them, no other inhabitants that they're subjugating - and let them get on with it. If some Brits want to go and live there shouldn't we just say Good riddance?
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979

    rcs1000 said:

    nunu said:
    Empathising is not sympathising.
    How on earth can you empathise with someone wanting to support a group that kills, rapes and butchers innocent people who were just trying to get on with their lives? Non religious people who may have lost their way in life do not generally start joining groups and murdering people for ideological reasons. Westerners who have lost their way tend to do things to themselves such as drinking or drugs, not just kill others for their beliefs.

    Any person running for public office has to meet the standards expected which includes having a 'clean' online history. She clearly fails on that standard. I welcomed her by-election gain for the record but she was wrong on this.
    It wasn't empathising, it was trying to understand the motivation. I'm sure the intelligence services do the same thing.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Cyan said:

    Why doesn't Farron say that if the LibDems hold the balance of power he will support a Labour government, as Sturgeon has said about the SNP? Part of the reason the LibDems are polling so badly is that people remember how they helped the Tories for five years.

    Because the LDs had hoped to get the votes of Labour and Tory remainers, not all of whom will despise the Coalition. If they will only ever support one side, they really are just a junior version of that party, and since they obviously could not back the Tories again in a generation, ruling out any cooperation was probably seen as the most sensible course.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Dadge said:

    rcs1000 said:

    nunu said:
    Empathising is not sympathising.
    How on earth can you empathise with someone wanting to support a group that kills, rapes and butchers innocent people who were just trying to get on with their lives? Non religious people who may have lost their way in life do not generally start joining groups and murdering people for ideological reasons. Westerners who have lost their way tend to do things to themselves such as drinking or drugs, not just kill others for their beliefs.

    Any person running for public office has to meet the standards expected which includes having a 'clean' online history. She clearly fails on that standard. I welcomed her by-election gain for the record but she was wrong on this.
    It's a reasonable argument in my view to say: give the Islamonutters their caliphate - a few hundred square miles of Syrian and Iraqi desert - just them, no other inhabitants that they're subjugating - and let them get on with it. If some Brits want to go and live there shouldn't we just say Good riddance?
    What do we do when they find there are no KFCs there and want to come back?
  • TudorRoseTudorRose Posts: 1,662
    kle4 said:

    Cyan said:

    Why doesn't Farron say that if the LibDems hold the balance of power he will support a Labour government, as Sturgeon has said about the SNP? Part of the reason the LibDems are polling so badly is that people remember how they helped the Tories for five years.

    Because the LDs had hoped to get the votes of Labour and Tory remainers, not all of whom will despise the Coalition. If they will only ever support one side, they really are just a junior version of that party, and since they obviously could not back the Tories again in a generation, ruling out any cooperation was probably seen as the most sensible course.
    And Labour would say; cut out the middle man and vote for us.
  • TMA1TMA1 Posts: 225
    Cyclefree said:

    nrs3079 said:

    As the front pages start to come in the 'enough is enough' line from Theresa's speech earlier is playing out well. I suspect we'll here much more of this phrase between now and polling day.

    That may not help the Tories.

    Really? Its lefty luvvies who are anti surveillance. Lets not forget it was the BBC who went out of the way to subvert the ban on media interviews of Adams etc. Oh how Corbyn protested. Its Corbyn's labour who want to close down MI5 and restrict GCHQ.
    I'm not keen on surveillance but enough IS enough and we should totally unequivically arm our police and as a matter of routine we should have troops on the street.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979
    MattyNeth said:

    Lib Dems 1.08 under 28.5 seats on Betfair seems like utter free money doesn't it? Ive taken a chunk of what was there, but still a little left

    Good luck. I thought 1.03 on Conservative most seats was free money and put the bank on it. I'm now slightly moist.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    TMA1 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    nrs3079 said:

    As the front pages start to come in the 'enough is enough' line from Theresa's speech earlier is playing out well. I suspect we'll here much more of this phrase between now and polling day.

    That may not help the Tories.

    Really? Its lefty luvvies who are anti surveillance. .
    They are not the only ones.
  • TMA1TMA1 Posts: 225

    glw said:

    Floater said:

    He said he would do anything for Islam even kill his mother. (So says the person who reported him)

    That's a pretty low threshold for fanaticism, lots of people say stuff like "I'd die for X", or "I'd kill for Y". What you are looking for is the person who says that frequently, or shows signs of turning word into deed.
    Both he and the Manchester attacker seem to have been banned by their mosques by mainstream imams for their political outbursts.

    Perhaps that is a weekly occurrence, or perhaps it should be a major red flag. Being banned from places of worship is unknown in my church, though we do occassionally need to get elders to calm worshippers down.
    There you go again. 'elders' 'worshippers'

    WORSHIPPERS!!!

    Don't you think enough is enough?
  • CyanCyan Posts: 1,262
    kle4 said:

    Cyan said:

    Why doesn't Farron say that if the LibDems hold the balance of power he will support a Labour government, as Sturgeon has said about the SNP? Part of the reason the LibDems are polling so badly is that people remember how they helped the Tories for five years.

    Because the LDs had hoped to get the votes of Labour and Tory remainers, not all of whom will despise the Coalition. If they will only ever support one side, they really are just a junior version of that party, and since they obviously could not back the Tories again in a generation, ruling out any cooperation was probably seen as the most sensible course.
    ?? I thought they hadn't ruled out cooperating with either of the two larger parties. I agree with LibDem policy on the EU, but this has turned out not to be a Brexit election.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Telegraph confirm that airwolf was carrying SAS, but they arrived after the police had already shot the scumbags.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/04/sas-blue-thunder-helicopter-team-called-london-attack/
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    Nothing particularly new here but Cory Doctorow has a nice summary of why Theresa May is making technically literate people facepalm:
    https://boingboing.net/2017/06/04/theresa-may-king-canute.html
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979
    kle4 said:

    Scott_P said:

    A fan writes...

    hts://twitter.com/northernslatt/status/871446056076275712

    People really get too worked up about this stuff. What? Someone dare try to convince me to vote a certain way?

    Frankly I think OGH has worded them pretty reasonably - he sets out some facts/interpretations is all. If someone doesn't care most about stopping the SNP, they can bin it without worry, and if they do, well, they can act on it if they want. Yes it's clear what he would prefer, but if you don't care about the underlying premise - stopping the SNP - why get so worked up? Even if you do care about that but disagree with the other points, why so angry?
    Probably because they fear it might be effective.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195

    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    A Trident sub has 256 warheads as I recall, so more than a few.

    During the Cold War there may have been an argument for Trident, but it has been an anachronism and distraction since 1990.

    £6 billion per year would do a hell of a lot more elsewhere in our defense budget.
    Where we are now with Russia certainly has the potential to get cooler even if we're not at Cold War temperatures yet. Also once we disarm (nuclear-wise), that's us done, effectively for ever. That gives North Korea or any other state prepared to make the nuclear investment a bigger stick than we have. It's all in the word "deterrent" although I accept that North Korea may be an outrider in that respect.
    Why do we think North Korea and Israel are not attacked?

    Ukraine gave their nukes up..........
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    rcs1000 said:

    glw said:

    They're trying to detect something with a near-zero base rate. Even if they're getting high quality information, they must be drowning in false positives.

    IIRC there was an analysis of one TSA programme which would produce something like 5,000 false positives for every real terrorist.

    People keep shopping their dry cleaners, for some reason.
    The TSA is probably the single worst response to terrorism within the US. Huge, expensive*, ineffective**, and it seems to do few of the things that say the Israelis do to protect air travel with an apparently high degree of success.

    I wish I remembered where I read about this programme as the numbers where bonkers.

    * Costly but not because of top-notch kit, but for a huge low-paid and low-skilled staff.

    ** It was reported in 2015 that the TSA failed 95% of the DHS Inspector General's tests of smuggling weapons and explosives through security checks.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Barnesian said:

    MattyNeth said:

    Lib Dems 1.08 under 28.5 seats on Betfair seems like utter free money doesn't it? Ive taken a chunk of what was there, but still a little left

    Good luck. I thought 1.03 on Conservative most seats was free money and put the bank on it. I'm now slightly moist.
    I've errm "traded out" on those for the moment....
  • CyanCyan Posts: 1,262
    rcs1000 said:

    nunu said:
    Empathising is not sympathising.
    She neither empathises nor sympathises!
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    RobD said:

    surbiton said:

    MaxPB said:

    Danny565 said:

    Just like Salman Abedi

    One person tells the BBC they phoned the anti-terror hotline about one of the London Bridge attackers. Two others say they also warned the police…

    https://order-order.com/2017/06/04/three-people-warned-police-about-attacker/

    I am rather uncomfortable how this kind of things unfolds. Anybody can phone up and say well I reported him and the security services can't say anything (at least not until a whole chain of command is processed). After Lee Rigby, the BBC had the CAGE nutter on and he made all sorts of claims which was taken as gospel until a select committee did an investigation months later.
    With Abedi, the Telegraph and The Times said it had happened, hell even American intelligence warned about Abedi.

    There's something not quite working.
    Maybe we really do need control orders (or something similar) back.

    For people like Abedi for whom there isn't enough evidence to give a good chance of a conviction in court, but nevertheless who should've been clearly kept tabs on.
    Yes, control orders are probably coming back for terror suspects.
    It was the Tories who ended control orders.
    Coalition.
    May was at the Home Office in the coalition.
    You'd have thought she would have been in favour of them, and the Lib Dems opposed.
    LDs were

    But the Conservatives were of much the same view "In a policy review paper, entitled A Resilient Nation, published in January 2010, the Conservatives stated that they would “review the Control Order system with a view to reducing reliance on it and, consistent with security, replacing it”"

    from: http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN03438

    which also says therecwere only 12 people on the control order list, and only 45 COs in total, ever.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    glw said:

    rcs1000 said:

    glw said:

    They're trying to detect something with a near-zero base rate. Even if they're getting high quality information, they must be drowning in false positives.

    IIRC there was an analysis of one TSA programme which would produce something like 5,000 false positives for every real terrorist.

    People keep shopping their dry cleaners, for some reason.
    The TSA is probably the single worst response to terrorism within the US. Huge, expensive*, ineffective**, and it seems to do few of the things that say the Israelis do to protect air travel with an apparently high degree of success.

    I wish I remembered where I read about this programme as the numbers where bonkers.

    * Costly but not because of top-notch kit, but for a huge low-paid and low-skilled staff.

    ** It was reported in 2015 that the TSA failed 95% of the DHS Inspector General's tests of smuggling weapons and explosives through security checks.
    I am not sure racial profiling goes down too well in the US....
  • Chris_AChris_A Posts: 1,237

    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    Were other nuclear weapons much more destructive than ours? What number do you suggest we reduce our arsenal to? Or did you mean they should be smaller in size?
    Zero, and ultimately zero worldwide.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Cyan said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyan said:

    Why doesn't Farron say that if the LibDems hold the balance of power he will support a Labour government, as Sturgeon has said about the SNP? Part of the reason the LibDems are polling so badly is that people remember how they helped the Tories for five years.

    Because the LDs had hoped to get the votes of Labour and Tory remainers, not all of whom will despise the Coalition. If they will only ever support one side, they really are just a junior version of that party, and since they obviously could not back the Tories again in a generation, ruling out any cooperation was probably seen as the most sensible course.
    ?? I thought they hadn't ruled out cooperating with either of the two larger parties. I agree with LibDem policy on the EU, but this has turned out not to be a Brexit election.
    Ok, not ruled out 'any' cooperation, ruled out coalition. But let's face it - if they 'cooperated' with the Tories that would be called by Labour and others as the same level of sin as doing a formal deal, and the same would said if they worked with Labour.
  • Chris_AChris_A Posts: 1,237
    kle4 said:

    Chris_A said:

    kle4 said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot.
    That's an awful lot of the county you think are idiots.
    Go on then, answer the questions and show us your wisdom.
    I didn't say I supported keeping our nuclear weapons - in fact I am deeply conflicted about the best approach and used to support unilateralism, but right now am very wishy washy on the whole business - but it is telling that you immediately get all snippy and demand I defend a position I didn't put forward.

    All I did was point out the fact that as a lot of people support it, you are calling a lot of people idiots.

    So why don't you explain in less insulting and patronising terms why keeping our nuclear weapons is a bad idea, rather than just dismiss a majority of the country? I'm open to being convinced.

    Or you could act like a complete arsehole and call the electorate idiots. Again.
    Yes support for nuclear weapons is idiotic - it's an utter no brainer.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    Were other nuclear weapons much more destructive than ours? What number do you suggest we reduce our arsenal to? Or did you mean they should be smaller in size?
    Zero, and ultimately zero worldwide.
    Therein lies the problem
  • DadgeDadge Posts: 2,038
    kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    CON 345
    LAB 225
    SNP 48
    LD 9
    PC 3
    GRN 0
    UKIP 0
    NI 18
    Speaker 1

    Maj 40

    You think Lucas will lose in Brighton?
    I think there's a possibility of it (and frankly though she seems talented, I'd welcome it, as I think people give her too easy a ride because she is talented and they like the idea of a Green MP, irrespective of what the Greens themselves can be like as a party) during a Labour surge.

    It's one of the bolder predictions I have.
    rcs1000 said:

    kle4 said:

    CON 345
    LAB 225
    SNP 48
    LD 9
    PC 3
    GRN 0
    UKIP 0
    NI 18
    Speaker 1

    Maj 40

    I would mark Lab and SNP down slightly, largely to the benefit of Cons.
    I hope you're right. I'd hope for something like

    Con 370
    Lab 190 (low enough that I think Corbyn would be forced out and his successor not being of his choosing)
    SNP 43 (well really I'd hope for even fewer, but one has to keep a sense of realism)
    LD 15 (holding most current areas, and gaining more than just in Scotland)

    Unfortunately my hope is mathematically impossible, as I'd like Corbyn to be reduced enough to go, without the Tories having an unassailable majority, but without massive LD gains, only a Con landslide can get Corbyn out.
    I'm struggling to get the LibDems up as high as 15. I'm starting to think the opposite: that they might get well and truly baxtered.

    I'm going through the seats one by one at the moment and I've only got 13 Con gains out of the first 23 Lab marginals. I think I'm going to have to go through them again and be a bit more hard-headed, especially north of the Severn-Wash line. I think Labour will end up with under 200 seats.

    Is there going to be a prediction competition?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited June 2017
    Are we expecting anymore polls now before Thursday?
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
  • Chris_AChris_A Posts: 1,237

    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    A Trident sub has 256 warheads as I recall, so more than a few.

    During the Cold War there may have been an argument for Trident, but it has been an anachronism and distraction since 1990.

    £6 billion per year would do a hell of a lot more elsewhere in our defense budget.
    We have 215 in total according to https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat
    Versus 14000 Russian and American ones, 'tis but a scratch.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    Chris_A said:

    kle4 said:

    Chris_A said:

    kle4 said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot.
    That's an awful lot of the county you think are idiots.
    Go on then, answer the questions and show us your wisdom.
    I didn't say I supported keeping our nuclear weapons - in fact I am deeply conflicted about the best approach and used to support unilateralism, but right now am very wishy washy on the whole business - but it is telling that you immediately get all snippy and demand I defend a position I didn't put forward.

    All I did was point out the fact that as a lot of people support it, you are calling a lot of people idiots.

    So why don't you explain in less insulting and patronising terms why keeping our nuclear weapons is a bad idea, rather than just dismiss a majority of the country? I'm open to being convinced.

    Or you could act like a complete arsehole and call the electorate idiots. Again.
    Yes support for nuclear weapons is idiotic - it's an utter no brainer.
    No, it really isn't
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Chris_A said:

    kle4 said:

    Chris_A said:

    kle4 said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot.
    That's an awful lot of the county you think are idiots.
    Go on then, answer the questions and show us your wisdom.
    I didn't say I supported keeping our nuclear weapons - in fact I am deeply conflicted about the best approach and used to support unilateralism, but right now am very wishy washy on the whole business - but it is telling that you immediately get all snippy and demand I defend a position I didn't put forward.

    All I did was point out the fact that as a lot of people support it, you are calling a lot of people idiots.

    So why don't you explain in less insulting and patronising terms why keeping our nuclear weapons is a bad idea, rather than just dismiss a majority of the country? I'm open to being convinced.

    Or you could act like a complete arsehole and call the electorate idiots. Again.
    Yes support for nuclear weapons is idiotic - it's an utter no brainer.
    Well that's me off the fence and convinced.

    In all seriousness, you don't have to convince me of course, but just spraying out 'it's idiotic' is not going to help advance promoting that policy on the doorstep anytime soon is it? The Tories have spent weeks telling people how silly it is to vote Labour under Corbyn, and it's only made more people want to do it.

    Makes you feel better though, no doubt.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535

    I am not sure racial profiling goes down too well in the US....

    Sure, but by refusing to do it you make the number of people you need to screen go up maybe 100 fold, and you can't afford to screen 100 times as many people well, so you screen 100 times as many people badly instead.
  • TMA1TMA1 Posts: 225
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    nunu said:
    Empathising is not sympathising.
    How on earth can you empathise with someone wanting to support a group that kills, rapes and butchers innocent people who were just trying to get on with their lives? Non religious people who may have lost their way in life do not generally start joining groups and murdering people for ideological reasons. Westerners who have lost their way tend to do things to themselves such as drinking or drugs, not just kill others for their beliefs.

    Any person running for public office has to meet the standards expected which includes having a 'clean' online history. She clearly fails on that standard. I welcomed her by-election gain for the record but she was wrong on this.
    So, we're not allowed to try and "get into the heads" of our enemies, and must regard them simply as a foreign species to be exterminated?
    We have spent quite a long time trying to do just that haven't we?

    How do you actually get into the heads of people who regard us, you me and the bloke next door, as a foreign species to be exterminated?

    I see the point being made by the woman but don't you think it is a bit fatuous? Well to be honest a lot fatuous to the point of downright crass?
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    TMA1 said:

    glw said:

    Floater said:

    He said he would do anything for Islam even kill his mother. (So says the person who reported him)

    That's a pretty low threshold for fanaticism, lots of people say stuff like "I'd die for X", or "I'd kill for Y". What you are looking for is the person who says that frequently, or shows signs of turning word into deed.
    Both he and the Manchester attacker seem to have been banned by their mosques by mainstream imams for their political outbursts.

    Perhaps that is a weekly occurrence, or perhaps it should be a major red flag. Being banned from places of worship is unknown in my church, though we do occassionally need to get elders to calm worshippers down.
    There you go again. 'elders' 'worshippers'

    WORSHIPPERS!!!

    Don't you think enough is enough?
    I was referring to my own church with those terms.

    We all agree that "Enough is Enough" in that tautological way that Mrs "Brexit means Brexit" uses.

    It is a meaningless and vacuous soundbite, that explains nothing of what she has in mind, only her frustration.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited June 2017
    glw said:

    I am not sure racial profiling goes down too well in the US....

    Sure, but by refusing to do it you make the number of people you need to screen go up maybe 100 fold, and you can't afford to screen 100 times as many people well, so you screen 100 times as many people badly instead.
    There is always a joke between myself and Mrs Urquhart when we travel to the US, is she will get pulled....for inverse racial / socio-demographic profiling reasons....as it has happened so often.
  • Chris_AChris_A Posts: 1,237

    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    A Trident sub has 256 warheads as I recall, so more than a few.

    During the Cold War there may have been an argument for Trident, but it has been an anachronism and distraction since 1990.

    £6 billion per year would do a hell of a lot more elsewhere in our defense budget.
    IIRC the Blair government reduced the number of warheads to 160 approximately, Personally, I think we should increase them back up to the full complement.
    Why? For what purpose? Is destroying 160 cities with perhaps 50 million dead not sufficient for you?
  • CyanCyan Posts: 1,262
    Floater said:

    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    A Trident sub has 256 warheads as I recall, so more than a few.

    During the Cold War there may have been an argument for Trident, but it has been an anachronism and distraction since 1990.

    £6 billion per year would do a hell of a lot more elsewhere in our defense budget.
    Where we are now with Russia certainly has the potential to get cooler even if we're not at Cold War temperatures yet. Also once we disarm (nuclear-wise), that's us done, effectively for ever. That gives North Korea or any other state prepared to make the nuclear investment a bigger stick than we have. It's all in the word "deterrent" although I accept that North Korea may be an outrider in that respect.
    Why do we think North Korea and Israel are not attacked?

    Ukraine gave their nukes up..........
    So did South Africa. So did Kazakhstan. If North Korea were attacked, it could obliterate nearby Seoul with conventional weapons.
  • Chris_AChris_A Posts: 1,237

    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    A Trident sub has 256 warheads as I recall, so more than a few.

    During the Cold War there may have been an argument for Trident, but it has been an anachronism and distraction since 1990.

    £6 billion per year would do a hell of a lot more elsewhere in our defense budget.
    Where we are now with Russia certainly has the potential to get cooler even if we're not at Cold War temperatures yet. Also once we disarm (nuclear-wise), that's us done, effectively for ever. That gives North Korea or any other state prepared to make the nuclear investment a bigger stick than we have. It's all in the word "deterrent" although I accept that North Korea may be an outrider in that respect.
    So basically you're saying that the Canadians, Germans, Italians, Poles, Australians etc are utterly up the creek then.
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    TMA1 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    nunu said:
    Empathising is not sympathising.
    How on earth can you empathise with someone wanting to support a group that kills, rapes and butchers innocent people who were just trying to get on with their lives? Non religious people who may have lost their way in life do not generally start joining groups and murdering people for ideological reasons. Westerners who have lost their way tend to do things to themselves such as drinking or drugs, not just kill others for their beliefs.

    Any person running for public office has to meet the standards expected which includes having a 'clean' online history. She clearly fails on that standard. I welcomed her by-election gain for the record but she was wrong on this.
    So, we're not allowed to try and "get into the heads" of our enemies, and must regard them simply as a foreign species to be exterminated?
    We have spent quite a long time trying to do just that haven't we?

    How do you actually get into the heads of people who regard us, you me and the bloke next door, as a foreign species to be exterminated?

    I see the point being made by the woman but don't you think it is a bit fatuous? Well to be honest a lot fatuous to the point of downright crass?
    On the contrary, being able to starve the Islamists of recruits is a vital part of defeating them. Understanding the motivations of recruits is part of the answer to reforming them.

    Though we should get a lot more serious about Islamism in our jails, which is a major recruitment and radicalisation space.

  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Dadge said:

    kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    CON 345
    LAB 225
    SNP 48
    LD 9
    PC 3
    GRN 0
    UKIP 0
    NI 18
    Speaker 1

    Maj 40

    You think Lucas will lose in Brighton?
    I think there's a possibility of it (and frankly though she seems talented, I'd welcome it, as I think people give her too easy a ride because she is talented and they like the idea of a Green MP, irrespective of what the Greens themselves can be like as a party) during a Labour surge.

    It's one of the bolder predictions I have.
    rcs1000 said:

    kle4 said:

    CON 345
    LAB 225
    SNP 48
    LD 9
    PC 3
    GRN 0
    UKIP 0
    NI 18
    Speaker 1

    Maj 40

    I would mark Lab and SNP down slightly, largely to the benefit of Cons.
    I hope you're right. I'd hope for something like

    Con 370
    Lab 190 (low enough that I think Corbyn would be forced out and his successor not being of his choosing)
    SNP 43 (well really I'd hope for even fewer, but one has to keep a sense of realism)
    LD 15 (holding most current areas, and gaining more than just in Scotland)

    Unfortunately my hope is mathematically impossible, as I'd like Corbyn to be reduced enough to go, without the Tories having an unassailable majority, but without massive LD gains, only a Con landslide can get Corbyn out.
    I'm struggling to get the LibDems up as high as 15. I'm starting to think the opposite: that they might get well and truly baxtered.

    I think the range is something like 4-13, with the lower end more likely than the top end.

    But in an absolutely idea situation - something like the polls not picking up some uptick in LD support, and that support clustering in key seats, and Labour not surging as much as the polls say, and some good tactical voting, and the lack of UKIP in target seats not hurting them as much as thought - then if they could hold all or almost all their current seats, they could then pick up a couple in London, Cambridge, maybe a West Country seat, and say 4-5 seats in Scotland, and you can get up to 15.

    But it is a lot of things needing to go right for them to get that many. As it is, despite 2015 like others I still think they will outperform the polls in their remaining seats to some extent, and that tactical voting could see a couple of gains in Scotland, if they are lucky enough to offset some likely losses. Maybe a London seat to make up for probable losses in England.

    Now I think on it, 9 is probably a bit optimistic for them though.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Cyan said:

    Floater said:

    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    A Trident sub has 256 warheads as I recall, so more than a few.

    During the Cold War there may have been an argument for Trident, but it has been an anachronism and distraction since 1990.

    £6 billion per year would do a hell of a lot more elsewhere in our defense budget.
    Where we are now with Russia certainly has the potential to get cooler even if we're not at Cold War temperatures yet. Also once we disarm (nuclear-wise), that's us done, effectively for ever. That gives North Korea or any other state prepared to make the nuclear investment a bigger stick than we have. It's all in the word "deterrent" although I accept that North Korea may be an outrider in that respect.
    Why do we think North Korea and Israel are not attacked?

    Ukraine gave their nukes up..........
    So did South Africa. So did Kazakhstan. If North Korea were attacked, it could obliterate nearby Seoul with conventional weapons.
    So deterrence works?
  • SaltireSaltire Posts: 525

    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    A Trident sub has 256 warheads as I recall, so more than a few.

    During the Cold War there may have been an argument for Trident, but it has been an anachronism and distraction since 1990.

    £6 billion per year would do a hell of a lot more elsewhere in our defense budget.
    Where we are now with Russia certainly has the potential to get cooler even if we're not at Cold War temperatures yet. Also once we disarm (nuclear-wise), that's us done, effectively for ever. That gives North Korea or any other state prepared to make the nuclear investment a bigger stick than we have. It's all in the word "deterrent" although I accept that North Korea may be an outrider in that respect.
    I often wonder why it is imperative to so many people that we have nuclear weapons when Germany seems to manage just fine without them.
    And if Russia did decide to take us of the map with a nuclear strike it is not much of a consolation to know that we will have taken out a few of their cities just before we are all dead!
  • Chris_AChris_A Posts: 1,237
    kle4 said:

    Chris_A said:

    kle4 said:

    Chris_A said:

    kle4 said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot.
    That's an awful lot of the county you think are idiots.
    Go on then, answer the questions and show us your wisdom.
    I didn't say I supported keeping our nuclear weapons - in fact I am deeply conflicted about the best approach and used to support unilateralism, but right now am very wishy washy on the whole business - but it is telling that you immediately get all snippy and demand I defend a position I didn't put forward.

    All I did was point out the fact that as a lot of people support it, you are calling a lot of people idiots.

    So why don't you explain in less insulting and patronising terms why keeping our nuclear weapons is a bad idea, rather than just dismiss a majority of the country? I'm open to being convinced.

    Or you could act like a complete arsehole and call the electorate idiots. Again.
    Yes support for nuclear weapons is idiotic - it's an utter no brainer.
    Well that's me off the fence and convinced.

    In all seriousness, you don't have to convince me of course, but just spraying out 'it's idiotic' is not going to help advance promoting that policy on the doorstep anytime soon is it? The Tories have spent weeks telling people how silly it is to vote Labour under Corbyn, and it's only made more people want to do it.

    Makes you feel better though, no doubt.
    It doesn't at all. The argument is that us having nuclear weapons makes the world a safer place. I have to admit that I cannot conceive of a more idiotic conceit.
  • CyanCyan Posts: 1,262
    TMA1 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    nunu said:
    Empathising is not sympathising.
    How on earth can you empathise with someone wanting to support a group that kills, rapes and butchers innocent people who were just trying to get on with their lives? Non religious people who may have lost their way in life do not generally start joining groups and murdering people for ideological reasons. Westerners who have lost their way tend to do things to themselves such as drinking or drugs, not just kill others for their beliefs.

    Any person running for public office has to meet the standards expected which includes having a 'clean' online history. She clearly fails on that standard. I welcomed her by-election gain for the record but she was wrong on this.
    So, we're not allowed to try and "get into the heads" of our enemies, and must regard them simply as a foreign species to be exterminated?
    We have spent quite a long time trying to do just that haven't we?

    How do you actually get into the heads of people who regard us, you me and the bloke next door, as a foreign species to be exterminated?

    I see the point being made by the woman but don't you think it is a bit fatuous? Well to be honest a lot fatuous to the point of downright crass?
    She isn't being particularly profound but she is trying to do the right thing. It is impossible to defeat them without understanding them. Even if you found out where everyone lived who was tumbling down the slope towards recruitment, along with everyone already recruited, and you killed them all in a surprise attack, a new generation would come along very soon, and one that was sharper at counterintelligence.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979
    edited June 2017
    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    Chris_A said:

    glw said:

    Pong said:

    Scott_P said:

    Instead of reading PB this evening, I watched the Manchester gig, and despite not knowing some of the acts and many of the songs, it was fucking brilliant!

    As for Jezzbollah, and his sudden conversion, this is awkward

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/871457856415043584

    And on police funding, is anyone seriously claiming that last night they needed more personnel or equipment to take down 3 attackers in 8 minutes

    The sun have a tape of a private Milne/Corbyn phone conversation?

    How?
    Maybe there is a patriot in Labour HQ?
    Anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons keep us safe is not a patriot but an idiot. Name one situation where the PM would use them, or one scenario where they keep us safer?
    Were they not a factor in keeping the peace during the Cold War?
    I don't think the Russians were at all deterred by our few nuclear weapons. In general yes they did but we should be reducing them.
    A Trident sub has 256 warheads as I recall, so more than a few.

    During the Cold War there may have been an argument for Trident, but it has been an anachronism and distraction since 1990.

    £6 billion per year would do a hell of a lot more elsewhere in our defense budget.
    IIRC the Blair government reduced the number of warheads to 160 approximately, Personally, I think we should increase them back up to the full complement.
    Why? For what purpose? Is destroying 160 cities with perhaps 50 million dead not sufficient for you?
    And the person who pressed the button against us safe in a deep bunker.

    We have to deter the principals in a very personal way, not murder millions of civilians. That's why I'm in favour of multiple autonomous drones with biomarker data on the evil bastard who might press the button.
This discussion has been closed.