The Thursday front pages not good for the government – politicalbetting.com
The Thursday front pages not good for the government – politicalbetting.com
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The Thursday front pages not good for the government – politicalbetting.com
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In the real world, not so sure.
The next few polls will be interesting
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1428112078649311239?s=20
On Topic- the interesting one is The Star. Up to now, they have played their criticism of the government for laughs. This is straighter, and that feels worse.
And he was on holiday longer than Raab
One is that, even if the withdrawal was inevitable, the scrambled mess feels like it ought to have been done better. I don't know if that's the case or not- defeats are always undignified- but this doesn't make the UK government look competent or humane.
The other is that, even if it's true that the UK isn't in a position to undertake global military action independently of the USA... it's not nice to explicitly bump up against that reality. At least some of the thinking behind support for the Johnson government is based on the assumption that the UK has more global power than it actually has; the gap between Truly Global Power (USA, China, anyone else?) and Best of the Rest is really very big.
Talking of similarities between the two, Biden has clearly retained Trump's makeup artist.
https://twitter.com/GStephanopoulos/status/1428101934658080778
Once again (and unironically) Orange Man Bad.
So much for the special relationship.
I get that their advice was that the Afghans would hold on for a while, but anyone could see that that wasn't a certainty, simply an assessment. Some worst-case thinking would have indicated a better approach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xs6hzFQzjI&t=60s&ab_channel=ChristianCalgie
Note
(*) He also says that rumours that he travelled to the UAE with a large amount of money are "completely baseless" and "lies". Phew! Not as if he'd have to pay anyone to look after him or anything like that. Must have friends all over the place.
But as he isn't an active threat to the US system of government, I respectfully disagree with the second.
Trump 43%
Biden 37%
Third Party 14%
https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2021/election_regrets_most_wouldn_t_vote_to_reelect_biden
(Rasmussen's final 2020 poll had Biden 1% ahead for comparison)
‘Sir Tom Devine: Those who think independence threat is receding are living in fool's paradise’
Professor Sir Tom Devine argued the union remains in greater danger than at any time since the 1745 Jacobite rising.
He added: "Remember, 1707 was an agreement between two historic nations. It was not an imposition. What we have now is imposition."
Sir Tom said: "Those in London, and particularly in the political class, who think the problem of the north, the problem of the Scottish question is receding are quite literally living in a fool's paradise."
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19521474.sir-tom-devine-think-independence-threat-receding-living-fools-paradise/
Now, it's true that *this week* the voters want to let Afghan refugees in. But they didn't want them two weeks ago, and they won't want them two months from now. The British government particularly doesn't want them because it'll be blamed if a refugee commits a terrorist attack.
You don't make a big secret plan for something you don't intend to do.
“Mr Martin, a professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, said an important part of the unionist argument will be deciding what sort of union is on offer post-Brexit.”
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19521474.sir-tom-devine-think-independence-threat-receding-living-fools-paradise/
A new sort of union? A “relaunch”? “On offer”?
“An improvement”? A new framing? Devomax?
This is gonna be fun! It’s not going to be Status Quo v Independence, but A New Sort of Union v Independence. Only slight problem: has anyone asked/told the English?
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=314104
‘Biden grew defensive when Stephanopoulos referred to the scenes of distress.
"We've all seen the pictures. We've seen those hundreds of people packed in a C-17. We've seen Afghans falling --"
"That was four days ago, five days ago!" Biden interjected.
++
"Yes," Biden replied, but then amended his answer.
"Now exactly what happened, I've not priced in," he said. "But I knew that they're going to have an enormous -- Look, one of the things we didn't know is what the Taliban would do in terms of trying to keep people from getting out. What they would do. What are they doing now? They're cooperating, letting American citizens get out, American personnel get out, embassies get out, et cetera, but they're having -- we're having some more difficulty having those who helped us when we were in there."
++
"I hear people say, well you had 2,500 folks in there and nothing was happening. You know, there wasn't any more -- but guess what, the fact was, that the reason that wasn't happening, was the last president negotiated a year earlier that he'd be out by May 1st and that the return, there'd be no attack on American forces. That's what was done. That's why nothing was happening," Biden said.
"I had a simple choice. If I said, 'we're gonna stay,' then we'd better be prepared to put a whole lot hell of a lot more troops in," he concluded.’
Wtf
This isn’t a partisan point. Trump was also gaga. But 2 presidents in a row?
The whole article is worse
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-withdraw-afghanistan-chaos-ensuing/story?id=79507930
Tory majority = no IndyRef = good for union.
No Tory majority = no Tory PM = good for union.
America had total air superiority, and relinquished it for nothing
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1428098825625866244?s=21
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/5/us-left-bagram-airfield-without-notice-afghan-officials-say
https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1428100689692090371?s=21
It's true that if they wanted to take millions of refugees they'd need more time, and ideally a land corridor too. But they don't want to take millions of refugees.
The difference is that some people opposed the Iraq War, whereas 20 years of war followed by surrender to the Taliban implicates everybody, because you either support continuing the war that brought us to this point or you support surrender to the Taliban.
Sky News understands that the group has contacted the Home Office about the issue, but has yet to receive a response.
https://news.sky.com/story/amp/food-industry-supply-chain-chaos-result-of-brexit-british-poultry-association-says-12384770
The average Liberal lead in the 10 polls conducted before the election was called was 8.4%, (or 8.3% if you take the final 11 polls before it was called). In the 11 polls conducted since the election was called, it has been 4.5%. So their lead has already pretty much halved in just 3 days, and we have more than 10 polls which makes the figures convincing IMO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2021_Canadian_federal_election
Or at least that's what the blue-ticks are telling me.
I'm so incredibly angry about so much of this- for the thousands of Europeans who lost their lives and their limbs, for the 40m Afghans who lost their liberties, country and future, for the 70k+ dead ANA who sacrificed their life against the Taliban only to be slandered by the US President, and every other tragedy that will arise because of the US's callous cowardice.
https://twitter.com/andrewlawton/status/1427655383519162374
https://twitter.com/macaesbruno/status/1428140093873786881
Personally I think he is woman shaming, blaming them for an economic downturn and demanding they are responsible coming back from it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58257863
One thing that is noticeable, the Vice President is nowhere to be seen.
Where is Kamala?
Now, she may be wooden. And she may be a dreadful politician. But she's not a complete idiot. She could no doubt answer questions, and merely come over as dull and functional. But she isn't obviously suffering from dementia.
My guess (and it's only a guess) is that she's getting her revenge. Biden* handed her a bunch of impossible problems that will generate only negative press for the VP.
And now Biden needs her. And she doesn't want to be anywhere near the shit show.
Could she actually plunge the knife into Biden early in his term? If so, would it be enough to force Biden from office?
I don't know the answer. But it's far from impossible. Could Afghanistan be America's Suez? With Biden playing the Eden role?
And perhaps Suez is the better analogy than Tehran or Saigon.
* Well, really Biden's team.
** Eden, too long in the shadows... I like it.
https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1428078568794382336?s=21
https://twitter.com/richardgrenell/status/1428096454782951435?s=21
Sorry for posting at like 3am but fucking hell. This gets worse
https://mobile.twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1428036967443451904/photo/1
- New cases: 174,785
- Average: 140,549 (+2,153)
- In hospital: 91,134 (+2,653)
- In ICU: 22,509 (+595)
- New deaths: 1,112
Anyone serious knows this is about Biden, not our government. Realistically once Biden pulled out there was no way the UK could or should remain without the USA. Not a single sane person says otherwise.
But sure, "Raab should have fallen on his sword" for Biden's decision . . . ookay then 😕
WTF? 😕
I don't personally believe either UK or US are diminished, but then I'm not Theresa May or Tom Tugenhadt.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9905631/Double-jabbed-catch-Delta-variant-just-likely-spread-Covid-unvaccinated.html
Do you think that a PM May (or even a PM Tugenhadt) after two decades in Afghanistan, having faced the Biden withdrawal which wasn't even discussed with the PM before the decision was made, would have said "the UK is staying behind, we'll continue to fight the Taliban unilaterally ourselves".
Not what Theresa, Tom and several others were suggesting though.
A UK led US-free NATO task force was what they had in mind I believe.
What did Theresa ever manage to achieve unilaterally?
Do you honestly believe for a fraction of a second that if Theresa was still PM we'd have remained after Biden's unilateral withdrawal decision?
I don't and I don't think you honestly hand on heart believe that either. So why pretend we should listen to disgraced ex PMs like that?
For what it's worth I am not beating up on Biden or Johnson, unlike Leon and HYUFDStarmer.
I don't like the moral compass direction of the exit, but to an extent Biden's hands were tied by Doha. The shambolic US exit strategy (strategy?,-I jest) happened on Biden's watch and is thus all down to Biden and military intelligence and the CIA.
The shambolic UK exit, as opposed to France who I believe evacuated two weeks ago is whose doing?
New Zealand's coronavirus outbreak more than doubles in size with 11 new cases, the biggest one-day increase since August 2020
Still, Kamala’s silence is deafening