Starmer gets to within 2 percent in YouGov’s “Best PM” tracker – politicalbetting.com

Though needs LD and Green voters to tactically vote Labour if it is to turn into many more Labour seats

‘Joe Biden on 8 July: “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”

@emilyctamkin on the consequences of the latest humiliating chapter in US foreign policy.’

https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/1426180765872803848?s=21

Leon said:

Biden getting destroyed on the Afghan debacle. Even liberal outlets like CNN

They actually compare him to Chamberlain dealing with Hitler. No joke

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/12/opinions/afghanistan-president-biden-debacle-bergen/index.html

If this stuff sticks, no way he runs again in 2024. HYUFD was right

Interesting that his first move is a continuation of Trump's (Certainly Trump's rhetoric) move toward isolationism. The war in Afghanistan was ludicrously expensive, I don't see how a continual US presence can be justified there.

Johnson plus Starmer = only 58% which strikes me as quite low.

'Somebody else' has a chance. Will the public still love Sunak after this winter's budget?

Leon said:

‘We could have kept 3500 troops in Afghanistan and kept a decent status quo. The Biden Administration chose withdrawal. We’re seeing a humanitarian catastrophe and geopolitical disaster unfold, and now, humiliatingly, have to send 3000 troops in to get the remaining Americans out.’

https://twitter.com/billkristol/status/1425969053647220738?s=21

I'll concede the final exit doesn't seem to have been planned too well.

StuartDickson said:

mwadams said:

What we are saying is that things have got so bad for Boris, he's almost plumbed SKS's depths?

Fair analysis.

Neither are doing well.

Thank goodness for Davey, Sturgeon and Drakeford.

This Sturgeon you mean

BBC News - 'Stress and frustration' over Scotland's paper vaccine pass
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57862733

Absolutely tragic in Plymouth.

From the BBC website:

"YouTube has confirmed an account belonging to the Plymouth gunman has been terminated from the platform, for violating its offline behaviour policy."

contrarian said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Imagine my shock. Plymouth gunman's YouTube subs.

https://twitter.com/MikeStuchbery_/status/1426195072710758401

Wouldn't you need to be a policeman involved with the investigation to know this information....?

You can make your youtube subscriptions public. You just have to look on their account to see them.

North Wales most popular holiday destination this summer overtaking Devon and Cornwall for the first time

BBC News - Covid: Record visits to north Wales boost tourism
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58189968

contrarian said:

Johnson plus Starmer = only 58% which strikes me as quite low.

'Somebody else' has a chance. Will the public still love Sunak after this winter's budget?

Yes. Interesting to note that all the previous times Johnson has been as low as 30% then Starmer has been ahead - but not this time.

Does look like a plague on both your houses - a particularly harsh judgement given recent experience.

Aslan said:

Leon said:

Even the New York Times

"History will record Mr. Biden, a supposed master of foreign policy for decades, as having failed in this most critical assignment." nytimes.com/2021/08/12/opi… #afghanistan


https://twitter.com/michaelcdeibert/status/1426148171202416645?s=21

Yes, neocons exist at the top of the Democratic establishment too. Clearly another decade or six was not going to change things. The US needed to cut its losses or continue to throw good blood and money after bad. The fact Biden has the ability to step back and see this shows his insight, and also his cullions to stand up against the vested interests and news cycle.

I'm not sure it was a binary choice between forever occupation and chaotic sprint for the last flight before the zombie hoard breaches the door.

Dom Sibley deserves to be horsewhipped.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Dom Sibley deserves to be horsewhipped.

I’d settle for dropped...

Oh dear, Hameed.

Five year wait and a golden duck.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Oh dear, Hameed.

Five year wait and a golden duck.

There's always the second innings...
Which at this rate might take place fairly soon.

Leon said:

‘Joe Biden on 8 July: “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”

@emilyctamkin on the consequences of the latest humiliating chapter in US foreign policy.’

https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/1426180765872803848?s=21

It's incomprehensible to me that people didn't see this coming. As soon as Trump mentioned pulling the US troops from Afghanistan I thought that it would inevitably lead to the Taliban resuming power, okay they aren't there yet but they are getting awful close. The only thing that has surprised me is the speed.

Aslan said:

maaarsh said:

Aslan said:

maaarsh said:

Aslan said:

Leon said:

Even the New York Times

"History will record Mr. Biden, a supposed master of foreign policy for decades, as having failed in this most critical assignment." nytimes.com/2021/08/12/opi… #afghanistan


https://twitter.com/michaelcdeibert/status/1426148171202416645?s=21

Yes, neocons exist at the top of the Democratic establishment too. Clearly another decade or six was not going to change things. The US needed to cut its losses or continue to throw good blood and money after bad. The fact Biden has the ability to step back and see this shows his insight, and also his cullions to stand up against the vested interests and news cycle.

I'm not sure it was a binary choice between forever occupation and chaotic sprint for the last flight before the zombie hoard breaches the door.

Chaotic sprint? We have been nation building for 20 years and the withdrawal was known about since January. Pray, tell me this middle ground that would work so well.

If you think this was a finely executed policy choice which has landed just as Joe wisely foresaw, them I'm happy to leave you to it and the rest of us can see if for what it is.

What a nice way to dodge answering the question. You can't tell me the supposed middle ground here because it doesn't exist. Trump wanted to pull out sooner.

So the 'retarded' Trumpers were even wiser? Funny old world.

contrarian said:

StuartDickson said:

mwadams said:

What we are saying is that things have got so bad for Boris, he's almost plumbed SKS's depths?

Fair analysis.

Neither are doing well.

Thank goodness for Davey, Sturgeon and Drakeford.

Interestingly, Davey was the first to lay into Biden over Afghanistan before Boris could even tuck his shirt in or Starmer ask a focus group.

While the official government line, as per our SoS for Defence this morning, is that Trump is to blame.

maaarsh said:

Aslan said:

Leon said:

Even the New York Times

"History will record Mr. Biden, a supposed master of foreign policy for decades, as having failed in this most critical assignment." nytimes.com/2021/08/12/opi… #afghanistan


https://twitter.com/michaelcdeibert/status/1426148171202416645?s=21

Yes, neocons exist at the top of the Democratic establishment too. Clearly another decade or six was not going to change things. The US needed to cut its losses or continue to throw good blood and money after bad. The fact Biden has the ability to step back and see this shows his insight, and also his cullions to stand up against the vested interests and news cycle.

I'm not sure it was a binary choice between forever occupation and chaotic sprint for the last flight before the zombie hoard breaches the door.

The US had 100,000 soldiers deployed at peak. This year has seen them withdraw their final 3,500.

That seems fairly gradual to me.

TheScreamingEagles said:

turbotubbs said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Dom Sibley deserves to be horsewhipped.

I’d settle for dropped...

Yup, we need to horsewhip Chris Silverwood and everyone else who decided to get rid of Ed Smith and make the coach the national selector.

It does not matter who you have as a selector if the players are not there to select though, surely.

County Cricket is meant to prepare England players for the test arena. It has been failing in that function for decades.

CarlottaVance said:

FPT:

JosiasJessop said:

Dura_Ace said:

JosiasJessop said:

StuartDickson said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

StuartDickson said:

Foxy said:

TOPPING said:

tlg86 said:

TOPPING said:

On Afghan it really is quite simple.

There is not here, nor is there in the US, the political will to send the hundreds of thousands of troops there that would be required to make and then keep the peace.

It seems to me that what was really needed was for the bad guys to be wiped out. But there's certainly no will for that.

Oh absolutely. We all want the bad guys to be wiped out. It's doing it that has proved so tricky.

I am not sure that we do. What we really want is for the "bad guys" to repent and reform. It is not possible to wipe out evil by wiping out "evil" people, because the battle between good and evil is an internal one in every individuals soul, and one that never reaches conclusion in this life. We can only wipe out evil by wiping ourselves out.

Indeed, recognising that some of our own motivations and desires are evil is the first step to rooting out the causes of war.

Trident at your service.

You’ll find it just outside Scotland’s biggest city. For some reason they didn’t want it just outside England’s biggest city. They must think we’re more evil than they are.

Geography is not your strong point I assume.

Oh sure, Trident is located in Jockland because of “geography”. Nothing to do with Jock lives being worth less.

Well, yes. If Scotland was a landlocked country, you probably wouldn't have a submarine base. But the deep lochs and easy access to the North Atlantic also make it rather useful.

BTW, is 'Jock' now an acceptable word to use for our Scottish friends?

They could have been based at Devonport which would have avoided the necessity of driving nuclear warheads 400 miles up and down the country. The selection of Faslane (and RNAD Coulport) definitely had an element of damage limitation for English population centres to it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28009977

The dockyard is also in a densely populated area, which poses a safety risk. There are about 166,000 people living within 5km of the Devonport base, compared with about 5,200 within that distance of Faslane and fewer close to Coulport. The city of Plymouth has about 250,000 residents and is within 3.5km of the dockyard. Glasgow has a population of about 600,000, but it is 25km away from Faslane.

That wording doesn't make sense from my knowledge of the areas. It's also self-contradictory. The 'city' of PLymouth is about 11 km across for a start, and ends at the dockyard on the west side. Also it assumes there's nothing on the Clyde between Gareloch and Glasgow city. Greenock, Helensburgh, Paisley etc. don't even get mentioned. It's a complete mess.

Carnyx said:

CarlottaVance said:

FPT:

JosiasJessop said:

Dura_Ace said:

JosiasJessop said:

StuartDickson said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

StuartDickson said:

Foxy said:

TOPPING said:

tlg86 said:

TOPPING said:

On Afghan it really is quite simple.

There is not here, nor is there in the US, the political will to send the hundreds of thousands of troops there that would be required to make and then keep the peace.

It seems to me that what was really needed was for the bad guys to be wiped out. But there's certainly no will for that.

Oh absolutely. We all want the bad guys to be wiped out. It's doing it that has proved so tricky.

I am not sure that we do. What we really want is for the "bad guys" to repent and reform. It is not possible to wipe out evil by wiping out "evil" people, because the battle between good and evil is an internal one in every individuals soul, and one that never reaches conclusion in this life. We can only wipe out evil by wiping ourselves out.

Indeed, recognising that some of our own motivations and desires are evil is the first step to rooting out the causes of war.

Trident at your service.

You’ll find it just outside Scotland’s biggest city. For some reason they didn’t want it just outside England’s biggest city. They must think we’re more evil than they are.

Geography is not your strong point I assume.

Oh sure, Trident is located in Jockland because of “geography”. Nothing to do with Jock lives being worth less.

Well, yes. If Scotland was a landlocked country, you probably wouldn't have a submarine base. But the deep lochs and easy access to the North Atlantic also make it rather useful.

BTW, is 'Jock' now an acceptable word to use for our Scottish friends?

They could have been based at Devonport which would have avoided the necessity of driving nuclear warheads 400 miles up and down the country. The selection of Faslane (and RNAD Coulport) definitely had an element of damage limitation for English population centres to it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28009977

The dockyard is also in a densely populated area, which poses a safety risk. There are about 166,000 people living within 5km of the Devonport base, compared with about 5,200 within that distance of Faslane and fewer close to Coulport. The city of Plymouth has about 250,000 residents and is within 3.5km of the dockyard. Glasgow has a population of about 600,000, but it is 25km away from Faslane.

That wording doesn't make sense from my knowledge of the areas. It's also self-contradictory. The 'city' of PLymouth is about 11 km across for a start, and ends at the dockyard on the west side. Also it assumes there's nothing on the Clyde between Gareloch and Glasgow city. Greenock, Helensburgh, Paisley etc. don't even get mentioned. It's a complete mess.

If you look on a map, the center of Devonport is only a couple of km from the center of Plymouth.

Nicola Sturgeon has really struggled on this issue. It was painful to watch her refusing to answer a simple question from young activists, especially when her reason for avoiding taking a position was that she couldn’t comment on reserved matters(!)

Clearly, this isn’t a sustainable position for someone who has spent her entire life doing just that, so she turned to the old tactic of shifting responsibility onto Westminster. She, a nationalist First Minister, decided to write to a British Prime Minister to ask if he wouldn’t mind double-checking whether drilling for oil was bad for climate change. It is literally ridiculous......

Sturgeon struggles to disavow fossil fuels because it means giving up the animating grievance of the last 50 years of Scottish nationalism. And where would a nationalist be without the ability to fight the rapacious outsider looting native resources?

https://notesonnationalism.substack.com/p/the-snps-subs

Leon said:

Biden getting destroyed on the Afghan debacle. Even liberal outlets like CNN

They actually compare him to Chamberlain dealing with Hitler. No joke

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/12/opinions/afghanistan-president-biden-debacle-bergen/index.html

If this stuff sticks, no way he runs again in 2024. HYUFD was right

TBH I think the timing of this retreat is closely linked to presidential election cycle: just after the last election and well before the next. The timing is bipartisan you might say.

Question, I suppose, is whether a defeat can be anything other than chaotic, because this one one certainly is.

CarlottaVance said:

Nicola Sturgeon has really struggled on this issue. It was painful to watch her refusing to answer a simple question from young activists, especially when her reason for avoiding taking a position was that she couldn’t comment on reserved matters(!)

Clearly, this isn’t a sustainable position for someone who has spent her entire life doing just that, so she turned to the old tactic of shifting responsibility onto Westminster. She, a nationalist First Minister, decided to write to a British Prime Minister to ask if he wouldn’t mind double-checking whether drilling for oil was bad for climate change. It is literally ridiculous......

Sturgeon struggles to disavow fossil fuels because it means giving up the animating grievance of the last 50 years of Scottish nationalism. And where would a nationalist be without the ability to fight the rapacious outsider looting native resources?

https://notesonnationalism.substack.com/p/the-snps-subs

And this

BBC News - Oil: from bonanza to dilemma
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-58195442

LostPassword said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Oh dear, Hameed.

Five year wait and a golden duck.

No sport creates stories like Test cricket does, but they're not always happy ones.

Does show the problem with all the calls to drop people from the team. What if the new players do worse?

I did worry that another failure at test level destroys Hameed's cricket career and he ends up being the new Mark Lathwell.

Andy_JS said:

Leon said:

It’s universal. The Washington Post

"#Afghanistan’s rapid collapse is part of a long, slow U.S. defeat"
"#Biden, a veteran of the #Obama years, now owns his own moment in Afghanistan’s tumultuous #history, a #tragedy many years in the making."
washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/…

https://twitter.com/onevenusthrow/status/1426196463554605057?s=21

Will this cost the Democrats the House and Senate next year?

Don’t know, but I have seldom seen such bipartisan, across-the-board condemnation of a presidential policy - and the critiques are savage

And America’s allies are no less scathing: the FAZ calls it a ‘total failure’

‘Kandahar und Herat gefallen: Biden hat Afghanistan den Taliban ausgeliefert faz.net/-gq5-aeq6h?GEP… via @faznet Völliges Versagen der Politik die tollen Kanzlerin u des Spuperpräsidenten in den USA. Die die Afgha verteidigen sollen sind zu millionen in Merkel-D, Frauen Kinder wo?’

UK cases by specimen date

I wonder if Elon Musk is regretting building his factory in Germany. Union rights have now become an election issue and he’s had an embarrassing press conference with the CDU chancellor candidate Laschet who started questioning whether hydrogen cars might be the future.

https://twitter.com/dw_politics/status/1426157837504466944

Leon said:

Andy_JS said:

Leon said:

It’s universal. The Washington Post

"#Afghanistan’s rapid collapse is part of a long, slow U.S. defeat"
"#Biden, a veteran of the #Obama years, now owns his own moment in Afghanistan’s tumultuous #history, a #tragedy many years in the making."
washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/…

https://twitter.com/onevenusthrow/status/1426196463554605057?s=21

Will this cost the Democrats the House and Senate next year?

Don’t know, but I have seldom seen such bipartisan, across-the-board condemnation of a presidential policy - and the critiques are savage

And America’s allies are no less scathing: the FAZ calls it a ‘total failure’

‘Kandahar und Herat gefallen: Biden hat Afghanistan den Taliban ausgeliefert faz.net/-gq5-aeq6h?GEP… via @faznet Völliges Versagen der Politik die tollen Kanzlerin u des Spuperpräsidenten in den USA. Die die Afgha verteidigen sollen sind zu millionen in Merkel-D, Frauen Kinder wo?’

At this point the position of the US abroad is at its weakest since the fall of Saigon in the 1970s and the Carter and Ford administrations.

In fact it is weaker as China is now more powerful than the USSR was then

UK case summary

UK deaths

Age related data

Age related data scaled to 100K

Andy_JS said:

England scored one run in the first 22 minutes after tea.

And they wonder why the hundreds are popular

This is boring and unwatchable cricket

FF43 said:

Leon said:

Biden getting destroyed on the Afghan debacle. Even liberal outlets like CNN

They actually compare him to Chamberlain dealing with Hitler. No joke

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/12/opinions/afghanistan-president-biden-debacle-bergen/index.html

If this stuff sticks, no way he runs again in 2024. HYUFD was right

TBH I think the timing of this retreat is closely linked to presidential election cycle: just after the last election and well before the next. The timing is bipartisan you might say.

Question, I suppose, is whether a defeat can be anything other than chaotic, because this one one certainly is.

Trump ‘got away’ with scuttling out of Syria, but that’s partly because Syria was a war torn nightmare, and America’s departure didn’t make things particularly worse. They were already about as bad as can be. Plus Assad and the Russians remained in situ, to keep the jihadis down

Afghanistan is different. There is no Assad or Putin to prevent the full dystopian jihadi nightmare

If Afghanistan reverts to gays being pushed off walls, women being stoned to death, mass public torture, then it will all be on Biden right until the next election, and it will all be on American TV

It certainly won’t be ‘good’ for him, but maybe Americans will shrug and look away

On the other hand, if, as HYUFD says, Isis or Al-Q launch terror attacks from Afghanistan that will surely damage Biden

Rory Bremner.

No disrespect, but Dom Sibley joins a distinguished group of batsmen (Gary Kirsten, Chanderpaul and Tavaré come to mind) that I’d rather pay to give runs to rather than watch the agony of their making them. #ENGvIND
@bbctms

Good luck to the lad though. It’s hard graft being an opener. (Though someone I know claims his granny’d have done better with a stick o’ rhubarb)

https://twitter.com/rorybremner/status/1426187052148736001

williamglenn said:

I wonder if Elon Musk is regretting building his factory in Germany. Union rights have now become an election issue and he’s had an embarrassing press conference with the CDU chancellor candidate Laschet who started questioning whether hydrogen cars might be the future.

https://twitter.com/dw_politics/status/1426157837504466944

Given the German car manufacturers have gone all in with batteries (unlike the Japanese), that is a particularly odd comment.

My guess is that they went for Germany because those gigafactories don’t just supply Tesla, and they want to be where the highest concentration of car making is.

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

Leon said:

Andy_JS said:

Leon said:

It’s universal. The Washington Post

"#Afghanistan’s rapid collapse is part of a long, slow U.S. defeat"
"#Biden, a veteran of the #Obama years, now owns his own moment in Afghanistan’s tumultuous #history, a #tragedy many years in the making."
washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/…

https://twitter.com/onevenusthrow/status/1426196463554605057?s=21

Will this cost the Democrats the House and Senate next year?

Don’t know, but I have seldom seen such bipartisan, across-the-board condemnation of a presidential policy - and the critiques are savage

And America’s allies are no less scathing: the FAZ calls it a ‘total failure’

‘Kandahar und Herat gefallen: Biden hat Afghanistan den Taliban ausgeliefert faz.net/-gq5-aeq6h?GEP… via @faznet Völliges Versagen der Politik die tollen Kanzlerin u des Spuperpräsidenten in den USA. Die die Afgha verteidigen sollen sind zu millionen in Merkel-D, Frauen Kinder wo?’

At this point the position of the US abroad is at its weakest since the fall of Saigon in the 1970s and the Carter and Ford administrations.

In fact it is weaker as China is now more powerful than the USSR was then

People need to make their minds up as to whether they want America to be a global policeman or to cultivate its garden.

If America is not the global policeman then China in the East and Africa and Russia in the Middle East and Europe will happily fill the gap

My word, vaccines work, who could have foretold that?

Two weeks after Lollapalooza, only 203 of the estimated 385,000O attendees have tested positive. There was, obviously, no social distancing, and there was little masking until final day. But there was a vaccine/neg.test requirement, and at least 88% of attendees were vaxxed.

https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1426190570020614149

TheScreamingEagles said:

Rory Bremner.

No disrespect, but Dom Sibley joins a distinguished group of batsmen (Gary Kirsten, Chanderpaul and Tavaré come to mind) that I’d rather pay to give runs to rather than watch the agony of their making them. #ENGvIND
@bbctms

Good luck to the lad though. It’s hard graft being an opener. (Though someone I know claims his granny’d have done better with a stick o’ rhubarb)

https://twitter.com/rorybremner/status/1426187052148736001

Let us raise the spirit of the late lamented Trevor 'Barnacle' Bailey. Our hero when I was at school.