I've little legal knowledge, but I know we have some legal people on here. It seems a simple question but how can you increase the number or percentage of successful prosecutions for rape?
Unlike other offences, there often is no independent forensic evidence. Most rapes are not stranger rapes (as far as I know). It often comes down to who the jury trusts most - weighing up the "he said" versus "she said". Unless we instruct the jury to beleve the woman as a routine. But surely that's against the principle of 'all equal before the law.'
It's easy to demand a change but how would it be achieved?
If the CPS take more marginal cases, the successful prosecution rate will decrease.
Jacob Rees Mogg’s admission that actually enacting the brilliant Brexit deal the government negotiated would be an act of immense self-harm pretty much encapsulates how utterly incompetent the lying charlatans who run the country are.
It doesn't matter which side of the fence you are on, either. It's a face-palm that brings us all together.
Yep, it’s not a Leave or Remain thing, it’s an utterly useless, relentlessly dishonest government thing.
Jacob Rees Mogg’s admission that actually enacting the brilliant Brexit deal the government negotiated would be an act of immense self-harm pretty much encapsulates how utterly incompetent the lying charlatans who run the country are.
It might have been useful if he had said it before the referendum or before the "oven ready deal".
Not too sure the LibDems have that great a chance in any by-election. Of course it is possible, but they are extravagantly weak here having dropped out of the top two since 2010. Most of the councillors are gone, there is now no activity to speak of, you never see LibDem comment in the local media.
T and H and its forerunners have been Tory for 100 years, and the LibDems no longer have anything in common with the kind of traditional Liberals who supported them in places like this.
They may be 3rd now and a long way behind, but they have been under 2000 votes in the past. I think their by election team would walk it provided Labour don't put up a fight.
They don't have any local figure of any kind of stature at all to build a focus on. Any outsider will cost a sackload of potential votes. I couldn't even begin to guess who they would get to do it. I suppose Boris could gaffe them some help.
Parish MPs performance on the news was vomit inducing in its desperation to show some humility and contrition ! Both of which looked totally insincere.
So apparently he was ambushed twice by a file which started playing porn on his phone !
I would advise Mr Parish to avoid the hoovering in a state of undress, he seems a bit accident prone.
This mass mobilisation thing brewing in Russia… how’s that going to work without those conscripts getting more armoured mobility? Isn’t it just going to be feeding meat in to the grinder given the step up in weapons capability coming Ukraine’s way?
Goodness knows what impact it will have on Russian society by the time it’s done.
Indeed so. The Russian military is being depleted of equipment at an astonishing rate, and they have little capacity to manufacture more of it, especially anything computer-controlled.
They we not expecting a protracted war, and weren’t stockpiling kit beforehand.
The young conscripts could end up being handed a Kalashnikov and a hard hat, and sent to the front line to meet with half the world’s supply of modern fighting equipment. They’d be nothing but cannon fodder which, as you suggest, could have a big impact on the whole of Russian society when the scale of the losses becomes apparent.
Jacob Rees Mogg’s admission that actually enacting the brilliant Brexit deal the government negotiated would be an act of immense self-harm pretty much encapsulates how utterly incompetent the lying charlatans who run the country are.
It doesn't matter which side of the fence you are on, either. It's a face-palm that brings us all together.
Sadly most people are not engaged enough to think passed the words they think they hear. JRM is simply doing what we voted for and not enacting EU rules. I know that is nonsense, but it is what many will hear sadly.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
I've little legal knowledge, but I know we have some legal people on here. It seems a simple question but how can you increase the number or percentage of successful prosecutions for rape?
Unlike other offences, there often is no independent forensic evidence. Most rapes are not stranger rapes (as far as I know). It often comes down to who the jury trusts most - weighing up the "he said" versus "she said". Unless we instruct the jury to beleve the woman as a routine. But surely that's against the principle of 'all equal before the law.'
It's easy to demand a change but how would it be achieved?
If the CPS take more marginal cases, the successful prosecution rate will decrease.
2 options are, 1. Tinker with burden or standard of proof as you suggest 2. Make bodycams and internal cctv as routine as dashcams are
Not too sure the LibDems have that great a chance in any by-election. Of course it is possible, but they are extravagantly weak here having dropped out of the top two since 2010. Most of the councillors are gone, there is now no activity to speak of, you never see LibDem comment in the local media.
T and H and its forerunners have been Tory for 100 years, and the LibDems no longer have anything in common with the kind of traditional Liberals who supported them in places like this.
They may be 3rd now and a long way behind, but they have been under 2000 votes in the past. I think their by election team would walk it provided Labour don't put up a fight.
They don't have any local figure of any kind of stature at all to build a focus on. Any outsider will cost a sackload of potential votes. I couldn't even begin to guess who they would get to do it. I suppose Boris could gaffe them some help.
You underestimate the LD by election m/c. It is entirely dependent upon Lab only putting up a paper candidate from 2nd place.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
There’s plenty to attack here, starting with the nerve of hailing this move as “saving” Britons £1bn, when this was £1bn that Britons would never have had to spend at all if it hadn’t been for Brexit. Or you could share the outrage of British farmers, appalled that, thanks to Brexit, they have been left at a serious competitive disadvantage: they now face onerous and costly checks when they ship their goods across the Channel, while French, Italian or Spanish farmers face no such hassle moving their products in the other direction. Or you could worry along with the British Veterinary Association, which warns that not checking food imports leaves Britain exposed to “catastrophic” animal diseases such as African swine fever – a risk that was reduced when Britain was part of “the EU’s integrated and highly responsive surveillance systems”. Or you could join the lament of the UK Major Ports Group, whose members have spent hundreds of millions of pounds building checking facilities, which now stand unused as “bespoke white elephants”.
Not too sure the LibDems have that great a chance in any by-election. Of course it is possible, but they are extravagantly weak here having dropped out of the top two since 2010. Most of the councillors are gone, there is now no activity to speak of, you never see LibDem comment in the local media.
T and H and its forerunners have been Tory for 100 years, and the LibDems no longer have anything in common with the kind of traditional Liberals who supported them in places like this.
They may be 3rd now and a long way behind, but they have been under 2000 votes in the past. I think their by election team would walk it provided Labour don't put up a fight.
They don't have any local figure of any kind of stature at all to build a focus on. Any outsider will cost a sackload of potential votes. I couldn't even begin to guess who they would get to do it. I suppose Boris could gaffe them some help.
The winner in N. Shropshire, Helen Morgan, was a poor third in 2019. However, she is local.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
There’s plenty to attack here, starting with the nerve of hailing this move as “saving” Britons £1bn, when this was £1bn that Britons would never have had to spend at all if it hadn’t been for Brexit. Or you could share the outrage of British farmers, appalled that, thanks to Brexit, they have been left at a serious competitive disadvantage: they now face onerous and costly checks when they ship their goods across the Channel, while French, Italian or Spanish farmers face no such hassle moving their products in the other direction. Or you could worry along with the British Veterinary Association, which warns that not checking food imports leaves Britain exposed to “catastrophic” animal diseases such as African swine fever – a risk that was reduced when Britain was part of “the EU’s integrated and highly responsive surveillance systems”. Or you could join the lament of the UK Major Ports Group, whose members have spent hundreds of millions of pounds building checking facilities, which now stand unused as “bespoke white elephants”.
Why would we not have had to spend £1bn if it hadn't been for Brexit. We were spending £1bn every single month on EU rules pre-Brexit - and that was the net figure not the gross pre-rebate figure and six years ago, it'd be more by now.
The whole thing is just pure whinging. So EU food is safe so we should be trading with them, but how dare we not check safe EU food as we trade with them? Ridiculous. If the Europeans want to inflict self-harm spending money checking safe British food then that's something they can waste their taxpayers money on, its not something we need to be doing though if we accept the principle that European food is safe - and if it isn't then thank goodness we Brexited. Either way, there's no issue here.
Jacob Rees Mogg’s admission that actually enacting the brilliant Brexit deal the government negotiated would be an act of immense self-harm pretty much encapsulates how utterly incompetent the lying charlatans who run the country are.
It doesn't matter which side of the fence you are on, either. It's a face-palm that brings us all together.
Yep, it’s not a Leave or Remain thing, it’s an utterly useless, relentlessly dishonest government thing.
Partly the government isn't controlling imports because it isn't possible from a practical point of view.
But also, just letting anything in without checks is the sort of thing economic libertarians wants as an endpoint. It's the Brexit they voted for. Destroys a lot of British jobs, and we can't all work in the City, but hey ho.
I've little legal knowledge, but I know we have some legal people on here. It seems a simple question but how can you increase the number or percentage of successful prosecutions for rape?
Unlike other offences, there often is no independent forensic evidence. Most rapes are not stranger rapes (as far as I know). It often comes down to who the jury trusts most - weighing up the "he said" versus "she said". Unless we instruct the jury to beleve the woman as a routine. But surely that's against the principle of 'all equal before the law.'
It's easy to demand a change but how would it be achieved?
If the CPS take more marginal cases, the successful prosecution rate will decrease.
The only thing that really springs to mind, is better equipment and training for police and medical facilities, alongside campaigns to encourage women who have been raped to present themselves to such a facility as soon as possible to document evidence.
The fact is that a jury is unlikely to convict someone, of an offence for which the starting point is five years, without evidence of the crime having being committed.
Anything else proposed, such as presumption of belief of one side of the story, or doing away with the jury, seem contrary to justice for the accused.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
So do you agree that the Brexit Deal as negotiated is "an act of immense self harm" or is JRM as wrong as he usually is?
I've little legal knowledge, but I know we have some legal people on here. It seems a simple question but how can you increase the number or percentage of successful prosecutions for rape?
Unlike other offences, there often is no independent forensic evidence. Most rapes are not stranger rapes (as far as I know). It often comes down to who the jury trusts most - weighing up the "he said" versus "she said". Unless we instruct the jury to beleve the woman as a routine. But surely that's against the principle of 'all equal before the law.'
It's easy to demand a change but how would it be achieved?
If the CPS take more marginal cases, the successful prosecution rate will decrease.
Faster forensics; better computers; but mainly clearing the court backlogs that mean offenders must be bailed so they can intimidate witnesses, whose memories are likely to fade with time anyway, and so they can reoffend. Delays also weaken, or remove completely, any deterrent effect. It applies to sex offenders, robbers, and almost any criminals. More should also be done to address the culture that low-level offences are somehow all right. More tricky is the question of whether sex workers and pornography encourage offenders, or satiate their desires.
Not too sure the LibDems have that great a chance in any by-election. Of course it is possible, but they are extravagantly weak here having dropped out of the top two since 2010. Most of the councillors are gone, there is now no activity to speak of, you never see LibDem comment in the local media.
T and H and its forerunners have been Tory for 100 years, and the LibDems no longer have anything in common with the kind of traditional Liberals who supported them in places like this.
They may be 3rd now and a long way behind, but they have been under 2000 votes in the past. I think their by election team would walk it provided Labour don't put up a fight.
They don't have any local figure of any kind of stature at all to build a focus on. Any outsider will cost a sackload of potential votes. I couldn't even begin to guess who they would get to do it. I suppose Boris could gaffe them some help.
You underestimate the LD by election m/c. It is entirely dependent upon Lab only putting up a paper candidate from 2nd place.
I'm very familiar with the LD by election machine and also very familiar with the state of the LDs both activity and support wise in Tiverton and Honiton. Like I said it is not impossible in the right circumstances but it is the toughest ask imaginable.
I don't think they would be wise to go with the candidates for 2015,17 or 19 and the second placed 2010 candidate is certainly not available.
Parish MPs performance on the news was vomit inducing in its desperation to show some humility and contrition ! Both of which looked totally insincere.
So apparently he was ambushed twice by a file which started playing porn on his phone !
I would advise Mr Parish to avoid the hoovering in a state of undress, he seems a bit accident prone.
I once accidentally played sound at high volume in the British Library - I think it was just CNN news, but bloody embarrassing. So it is a thing which happens, in contradistinction to all those people who get their social media accounts hacked, which doesn't
It isn't a constituency Labour can win. Just because a party is 2nd it doesn't make it the better challenger.
True. But I’m not sure what that’s got to do with my alliterative innuendo!
Apologies I thought it was just a statement of fact that needed a clarification. I had a sense of humour failure I'm afraid. Rather good as well, so double apology.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
So do you agree that the Brexit Deal as negotiated is "an act of immense self harm" or is JRM as wrong as he usually is?
As far as I understand under the terms of the Brexit deal as negotiated we are entitled to do checks, but we aren't obliged to do them.
Choosing not to do checks, is simply a choice. Choosing to do them is also a choice. The deal is neither here nor there, unless the deal obligates us to do them but AFAIK it doesn't.
That was the whole point of Brexit - allowing us to make our own choices in the future and not be bound to choices made in the past or by others.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
So do you agree that the Brexit Deal as negotiated is "an act of immense self harm" or is JRM as wrong as he usually is?
As far as I understand under the terms of the Brexit deal as negotiated we are entitled to do checks, but we aren't obliged to do them.
Choosing not to do checks, is simply a choice. Choosing to do them is also a choice. The deal is neither here nor there, unless the deal obligates us to do them but AFAIK it doesn't.
That was the whole point of Brexit - allowing us to make our own choices in the future and not be bound to choices made in the past or by others.
Our choice to be ****ing incompetent and letting all and sundry in, including serious animal and plant diseases?
Not too sure the LibDems have that great a chance in any by-election. Of course it is possible, but they are extravagantly weak here having dropped out of the top two since 2010. Most of the councillors are gone, there is now no activity to speak of, you never see LibDem comment in the local media.
T and H and its forerunners have been Tory for 100 years, and the LibDems no longer have anything in common with the kind of traditional Liberals who supported them in places like this.
They may be 3rd now and a long way behind, but they have been under 2000 votes in the past. I think their by election team would walk it provided Labour don't put up a fight.
They don't have any local figure of any kind of stature at all to build a focus on. Any outsider will cost a sackload of potential votes. I couldn't even begin to guess who they would get to do it. I suppose Boris could gaffe them some help.
You underestimate the LD by election m/c. It is entirely dependent upon Lab only putting up a paper candidate from 2nd place.
I'm very familiar with the LD by election machine and also very familiar with the state of the LDs both activity and support wise in Tiverton and Honiton. Like I said it is not impossible in the right circumstances but it is the toughest ask imaginable.
I don't think they would be wise to go with the candidates for 2015,17 or 19 and the second placed 2010 candidate is certainly not available.
In fairness you clearly have more local knowledge.
Jacob Rees Mogg’s admission that actually enacting the brilliant Brexit deal the government negotiated would be an act of immense self-harm pretty much encapsulates how utterly incompetent the lying charlatans who run the country are.
It doesn't matter which side of the fence you are on, either. It's a face-palm that brings us all together.
Yep, it’s not a Leave or Remain thing, it’s an utterly useless, relentlessly dishonest government thing.
Partly the government isn't controlling imports because it isn't possible from a practical point of view.
But also, just letting anything in without checks is the sort of thing economic libertarians wants as an endpoint. It's the Brexit they voted for. Destroys a lot of British jobs, and we can't all work in the City, but hey ho.
Not to mention any hope of strategic security over food, ammunition, energy ...
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
So do you agree that the Brexit Deal as negotiated is "an act of immense self harm" or is JRM as wrong as he usually is?
As far as I understand under the terms of the Brexit deal as negotiated we are entitled to do checks, but we aren't obliged to do them.
Choosing not to do checks, is simply a choice. Choosing to do them is also a choice. The deal is neither here nor there, unless the deal obligates us to do them but AFAIK it doesn't.
That was the whole point of Brexit - allowing us to make our own choices in the future and not be bound to choices made in the past or by others.
Our choice to be ****ing incompetent and letting all and sundry in, including serious animal and plant diseases?
Why is there serious animal and plant diseases in European food?
And if European food is so full of serious animal and plant diseases why weren't we checking it previously?
Jacob Rees Mogg’s admission that actually enacting the brilliant Brexit deal the government negotiated would be an act of immense self-harm pretty much encapsulates how utterly incompetent the lying charlatans who run the country are.
It doesn't matter which side of the fence you are on, either. It's a face-palm that brings us all together.
Yep, it’s not a Leave or Remain thing, it’s an utterly useless, relentlessly dishonest government thing.
Partly the government isn't controlling imports because it isn't possible from a practical point of view.
But also, just letting anything in without checks is the sort of thing economic libertarians wants as an endpoint. It's the Brexit they voted for. Destroys a lot of British jobs, and we can't all work in the City, but hey ho.
Not to mention any hope of strategic security over food, ammunition, energy ...
So in order to have more strategic security over food, ammunition, energy we ought to be joining a free trade association which forbids any strategic security over food, ammunition or energy?
Whether we choose to have strategic security post-Brexit is a choice, but its our choice to make and we can change it if we change our mind. We aren't either obliged to do so, or forbidden to do so. That is the point of Brexit - to take back control of making our own decisions.
"2. Make bodycams and internal cctv as routine as dashcams are."
A good suggestion, but one for the future, I suspect.
Bit sinister and 1984. Actually you can already get for £30 a bodycam about the size of a cigarette lighter
Other thing is, have phones recording all the time like cockpit recorders. I am pretty certain they already do based on targeted ads I get related to things I have had conversations about in the previous 24hrs
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
There’s plenty to attack here, starting with the nerve of hailing this move as “saving” Britons £1bn, when this was £1bn that Britons would never have had to spend at all if it hadn’t been for Brexit. Or you could share the outrage of British farmers, appalled that, thanks to Brexit, they have been left at a serious competitive disadvantage: they now face onerous and costly checks when they ship their goods across the Channel, while French, Italian or Spanish farmers face no such hassle moving their products in the other direction. Or you could worry along with the British Veterinary Association, which warns that not checking food imports leaves Britain exposed to “catastrophic” animal diseases such as African swine fever – a risk that was reduced when Britain was part of “the EU’s integrated and highly responsive surveillance systems”. Or you could join the lament of the UK Major Ports Group, whose members have spent hundreds of millions of pounds building checking facilities, which now stand unused as “bespoke white elephants”.
Highly recommend it, although for me personally it was unsettling. It's a disturbing and extraordinary story.
I worked just down the road from the Mirror building at the time. One thing the series did not capture was the sense of collective shock when Maxwell disappeared. He really was a major public figure. And soon after a second shock when it turned out he was a crook, similar perhaps to the reaction to the Savile revelations after his death.
I remember it being on the news, it was one of the first stories I followed seriously. 1991.
The House of Maxwell is really interesting not just as past history but the way they moved half way through episode 2 into the Ghislaine Maxwell-Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking and abuse.
What made this link plausible was not just the name 'Maxwell' and the fact that Ghislaine was 'Bob's' daughter, but the character of Maxwell senior and her worship, infatuation and obeisance of a powerful, law-breaking, man. In essence, straight after her father's death, Ghislaine transferred her misplaced idol-worship onto paedophile Epstein.
It's a fascinating tale but also harrowing. Many girls' lives were destroyed. People's pensions were lost forever.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
You are trolling us former Remainers this early in the morning?
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
There’s plenty to attack here, starting with the nerve of hailing this move as “saving” Britons £1bn, when this was £1bn that Britons would never have had to spend at all if it hadn’t been for Brexit. Or you could share the outrage of British farmers, appalled that, thanks to Brexit, they have been left at a serious competitive disadvantage: they now face onerous and costly checks when they ship their goods across the Channel, while French, Italian or Spanish farmers face no such hassle moving their products in the other direction. Or you could worry along with the British Veterinary Association, which warns that not checking food imports leaves Britain exposed to “catastrophic” animal diseases such as African swine fever – a risk that was reduced when Britain was part of “the EU’s integrated and highly responsive surveillance systems”. Or you could join the lament of the UK Major Ports Group, whose members have spent hundreds of millions of pounds building checking facilities, which now stand unused as “bespoke white elephants”.
Deja vu. You quoted that absurd paragraph earlier.
Why would we not have had to spend £1bn if it hadn't been for Brexit. We were spending £1bn every single month on EU rules pre-Brexit - and that was the net figure not the gross pre-rebate figure and six years ago, it'd be more by now.
The whole thing is just pure whinging. So EU food is safe so we should be trading with them, but how dare we not check safe EU food as we trade with them? Ridiculous. If the Europeans want to inflict self-harm spending money checking safe British food then that's something they can waste their taxpayers money on, its not something we need to be doing though if we accept the principle that European food is safe - and if it isn't then thank goodness we Brexited. Either way, there's no issue here.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
So do you agree that the Brexit Deal as negotiated is "an act of immense self harm" or is JRM as wrong as he usually is?
As far as I understand under the terms of the Brexit deal as negotiated we are entitled to do checks, but we aren't obliged to do them.
Choosing not to do checks, is simply a choice. Choosing to do them is also a choice. The deal is neither here nor there, unless the deal obligates us to do them but AFAIK it doesn't.
That was the whole point of Brexit - allowing us to make our own choices in the future and not be bound to choices made in the past or by others.
Our choice to be ****ing incompetent and letting all and sundry in, including serious animal and plant diseases?
Why is there serious animal and plant diseases in European food?
And if European food is so full of serious animal and plant diseases why weren't we checking it previously?
Your wonderful Brexiter policy is not to have controls over any imports from anywhere. Remember, everyone has to be treated the same under WTO.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
So do you agree that the Brexit Deal as negotiated is "an act of immense self harm" or is JRM as wrong as he usually is?
As far as I understand under the terms of the Brexit deal as negotiated we are entitled to do checks, but we aren't obliged to do them.
Choosing not to do checks, is simply a choice. Choosing to do them is also a choice. The deal is neither here nor there, unless the deal obligates us to do them but AFAIK it doesn't.
That was the whole point of Brexit - allowing us to make our own choices in the future and not be bound to choices made in the past or by others.
Our choice to be ****ing incompetent and letting all and sundry in, including serious animal and plant diseases?
Why is there serious animal and plant diseases in European food?
And if European food is so full of serious animal and plant diseases why weren't we checking it previously?
Your wonderful Brexiter policy is not to have controls over any imports from anywhere. Remember, everyone has to be treated the same under WTO.
Why do Brexiteers STILL go on so much about Brexit? It's like an obsession. It was yesterday's battle and I don't believe most people now feel it's uppermost on their minds, except the contribution it has made to this country's current fuck-up.
Psychologically I guess it's because deep down they know it hasn't worked. Or not yet, anyway.
Why do Brexiteers STILL go on so much about Brexit? It's like an obsession. It was yesterday's battle and I don't believe most people now feel it's uppermost on their minds, except the contribution it has made to this country's current fuck-up.
Psychologically I guess it's because deep down they know it hasn't worked. Or not yet, anyway.
I think you will find it is the Remainers who brought up Brexit here this morning.
I'm guessing they're still bitter they lost, that's all.
Why do Brexiteers STILL go on so much about Brexit? It's like an obsession. It was yesterday's battle and I don't believe most people now feel it's uppermost on their minds, except the contribution it has made to this country's current fuck-up.
Psychologically I guess it's because deep down they know it hasn't worked. Or not yet, anyway.
I think you will find it is the Remainers who brought up Brexit here this morning.
I'm guessing they're still bitter they lost, that's all.
No, it was Jacob Rees Mogg who brought up Brexit as I recall, PB Remain commentators commented on his analysis. They largely concurred.
Not too sure the LibDems have that great a chance in any by-election. Of course it is possible, but they are extravagantly weak here having dropped out of the top two since 2010. Most of the councillors are gone, there is now no activity to speak of, you never see LibDem comment in the local media.
T and H and its forerunners have been Tory for 100 years, and the LibDems no longer have anything in common with the kind of traditional Liberals who supported them in places like this.
They may be 3rd now and a long way behind, but they have been under 2000 votes in the past. I think their by election team would walk it provided Labour don't put up a fight.
They don't have any local figure of any kind of stature at all to build a focus on. Any outsider will cost a sackload of potential votes. I couldn't even begin to guess who they would get to do it. I suppose Boris could gaffe them some help.
You underestimate the LD by election m/c. It is entirely dependent upon Lab only putting up a paper candidate from 2nd place.
I'm very familiar with the LD by election machine and also very familiar with the state of the LDs both activity and support wise in Tiverton and Honiton. Like I said it is not impossible in the right circumstances but it is the toughest ask imaginable.
I don't think they would be wise to go with the candidates for 2015,17 or 19 and the second placed 2010 candidate is certainly not available.
In fairness you clearly have more local knowledge.
In fairness sometime insiders are blinded to what is obvious to an outsider!
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
You are trolling us former Remainers this early in the morning?
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
So do you agree that the Brexit Deal as negotiated is "an act of immense self harm" or is JRM as wrong as he usually is?
As far as I understand under the terms of the Brexit deal as negotiated we are entitled to do checks, but we aren't obliged to do them.
Choosing not to do checks, is simply a choice. Choosing to do them is also a choice. The deal is neither here nor there, unless the deal obligates us to do them but AFAIK it doesn't.
That was the whole point of Brexit - allowing us to make our own choices in the future and not be bound to choices made in the past or by others.
Our choice to be ****ing incompetent and letting all and sundry in, including serious animal and plant diseases?
Why is there serious animal and plant diseases in European food?
And if European food is so full of serious animal and plant diseases why weren't we checking it previously?
Your wonderful Brexiter policy is not to have controls over any imports from anywhere. Remember, everyone has to be treated the same under WTO.
Not true.
HMG can'tg be arsed to have functioning border controls at Dover etc. It's de facto open borders, with no sign when this will cease. Taking back control ...
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
There’s plenty to attack here, starting with the nerve of hailing this move as “saving” Britons £1bn, when this was £1bn that Britons would never have had to spend at all if it hadn’t been for Brexit. Or you could share the outrage of British farmers, appalled that, thanks to Brexit, they have been left at a serious competitive disadvantage: they now face onerous and costly checks when they ship their goods across the Channel, while French, Italian or Spanish farmers face no such hassle moving their products in the other direction. Or you could worry along with the British Veterinary Association, which warns that not checking food imports leaves Britain exposed to “catastrophic” animal diseases such as African swine fever – a risk that was reduced when Britain was part of “the EU’s integrated and highly responsive surveillance systems”. Or you could join the lament of the UK Major Ports Group, whose members have spent hundreds of millions of pounds building checking facilities, which now stand unused as “bespoke white elephants”.
Deja vu. You quoted that absurd paragraph earlier.
Why would we not have had to spend £1bn if it hadn't been for Brexit. We were spending £1bn every single month on EU rules pre-Brexit - and that was the net figure not the gross pre-rebate figure and six years ago, it'd be more by now.
The whole thing is just pure whinging. So EU food is safe so we should be trading with them, but how dare we not check safe EU food as we trade with them? Ridiculous. If the Europeans want to inflict self-harm spending money checking safe British food then that's something they can waste their taxpayers money on, its not something we need to be doing though if we accept the principle that European food is safe - and if it isn't then thank goodness we Brexited. Either way, there's no issue here.
"If the Europeans want to inflict self-harm spending money checking safe British food then that's something they can waste their taxpayers money on."
Who do you think pays for EU health checks and certification when a UK farmer exports to the EU? I mean, the government insists you MOT your car. Who does the test? Who pays for it?
Why do Brexiteers STILL go on so much about Brexit? It's like an obsession. It was yesterday's battle and I don't believe most people now feel it's uppermost on their minds, except the contribution it has made to this country's current fuck-up.
Psychologically I guess it's because deep down they know it hasn't worked. Or not yet, anyway.
Three points:
a) There are two distinct subjects - why and how did Brexit happen; and now it has happened how then should the UK work best and do next.
b) The first question will always be of interest to anoraks, a type PBers are familiar with, sometimes by being one. This won't go away, just as people still wonder about the decline and fall of the Roman empire.
c) The second question is (after NATO and defence) the most important political question for UK politics for now and the next few decades.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
You are trolling us former Remainers this early in the morning?
Anyway, a great parody post.
"choose" is always a red flag warning from any right-winger - implying that if things go wrong it's the ordinary person's fault for not choosing correctly. "Choice" whether to go to Eton or Gas Street, 'choice' whether the libertarian down the road is doing a Typhoid Mary and insisting on ignoring all disease controls in the name of unfettered economic activity ...
A remarkable detail in The Times that I'd missed. "The female minister said she had also seen the MP watching pornography during a hearing of a select committee, The Times reported." He's the Chair of his Select Committee! If true, I wonder who was giving evidence at the time, and whether they noticed that the Chair was otherwise engaged?
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
There’s plenty to attack here, starting with the nerve of hailing this move as “saving” Britons £1bn, when this was £1bn that Britons would never have had to spend at all if it hadn’t been for Brexit. Or you could share the outrage of British farmers, appalled that, thanks to Brexit, they have been left at a serious competitive disadvantage: they now face onerous and costly checks when they ship their goods across the Channel, while French, Italian or Spanish farmers face no such hassle moving their products in the other direction. Or you could worry along with the British Veterinary Association, which warns that not checking food imports leaves Britain exposed to “catastrophic” animal diseases such as African swine fever – a risk that was reduced when Britain was part of “the EU’s integrated and highly responsive surveillance systems”. Or you could join the lament of the UK Major Ports Group, whose members have spent hundreds of millions of pounds building checking facilities, which now stand unused as “bespoke white elephants”.
Deja vu. You quoted that absurd paragraph earlier.
Why would we not have had to spend £1bn if it hadn't been for Brexit. We were spending £1bn every single month on EU rules pre-Brexit - and that was the net figure not the gross pre-rebate figure and six years ago, it'd be more by now.
The whole thing is just pure whinging. So EU food is safe so we should be trading with them, but how dare we not check safe EU food as we trade with them? Ridiculous. If the Europeans want to inflict self-harm spending money checking safe British food then that's something they can waste their taxpayers money on, its not something we need to be doing though if we accept the principle that European food is safe - and if it isn't then thank goodness we Brexited. Either way, there's no issue here.
"If the Europeans want to inflict self-harm spending money checking safe British food then that's something they can waste their taxpayers money on."
Who do you think pays for EU health checks and certification when a UK farmer exports to the EU? I mean, the government insists you MOT your car. Who does the test? Who pays for it?
That assumes there is a British farming (ands fishing) industry left after a few years of libertarianism and open borders.
A remarkable detail in The Times that I'd missed. "The female minister said she had also seen the MP watching pornography during a hearing of a select committee, The Times reported." He's the Chair of his Select Committee! If true, I wonder who was giving evidence at the time, and whether they noticed that the Chair was otherwise engaged?
Vladimir Putin is set to declare all-out war on Ukraine as his military chiefs seek “payback” for their invasion failures, according to Russian sources and Western officials.
Frustrated army chiefs are urging the Russian president to drop the term “special operation” used for the invasion and instead declare war, which would enable mass mobilisation of Russians.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
There’s plenty to attack here, starting with the nerve of hailing this move as “saving” Britons £1bn, when this was £1bn that Britons would never have had to spend at all if it hadn’t been for Brexit. Or you could share the outrage of British farmers, appalled that, thanks to Brexit, they have been left at a serious competitive disadvantage: they now face onerous and costly checks when they ship their goods across the Channel, while French, Italian or Spanish farmers face no such hassle moving their products in the other direction. Or you could worry along with the British Veterinary Association, which warns that not checking food imports leaves Britain exposed to “catastrophic” animal diseases such as African swine fever – a risk that was reduced when Britain was part of “the EU’s integrated and highly responsive surveillance systems”. Or you could join the lament of the UK Major Ports Group, whose members have spent hundreds of millions of pounds building checking facilities, which now stand unused as “bespoke white elephants”.
Deja vu. You quoted that absurd paragraph earlier.
Why would we not have had to spend £1bn if it hadn't been for Brexit. We were spending £1bn every single month on EU rules pre-Brexit - and that was the net figure not the gross pre-rebate figure and six years ago, it'd be more by now.
The whole thing is just pure whinging. So EU food is safe so we should be trading with them, but how dare we not check safe EU food as we trade with them? Ridiculous. If the Europeans want to inflict self-harm spending money checking safe British food then that's something they can waste their taxpayers money on, its not something we need to be doing though if we accept the principle that European food is safe - and if it isn't then thank goodness we Brexited. Either way, there's no issue here.
"If the Europeans want to inflict self-harm spending money checking safe British food then that's something they can waste their taxpayers money on."
Who do you think pays for EU health checks and certification when a UK farmer exports to the EU? I mean, the government insists you MOT your car. Who does the test? Who pays for it?
Ooh MOTs, don't go there.
Part of Boris Johnson's bonfire of 'elf and safety red tape, so no one pays for them...well directly anyway. One will have to pay for repairs when uninsured Billy Bald-Tyres runs into the back of their car of course.
Vladimir Putin is set to declare all-out war on Ukraine as his military chiefs seek “payback” for their invasion failures, according to Russian sources and Western officials.
Frustrated army chiefs are urging the Russian president to drop the term “special operation” used for the invasion and instead declare war, which would enable mass mobilisation of Russians.
Vladimir Putin is set to declare all-out war on Ukraine as his military chiefs seek “payback” for their invasion failures, according to Russian sources and Western officials.
Frustrated army chiefs are urging the Russian president to drop the term “special operation” used for the invasion and instead declare war, which would enable mass mobilisation of Russians.
Vladimir Putin is set to declare all-out war on Ukraine as his military chiefs seek “payback” for their invasion failures, according to Russian sources and Western officials.
Frustrated army chiefs are urging the Russian president to drop the term “special operation” used for the invasion and instead declare war, which would enable mass mobilisation of Russians.
Vladimir Putin could announce the mass mobilisation of Russians on May 9, Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, has said.
Mr Wallace said that Putin could declare that "we are now at war with the world's Nazis and we need to mass mobilise the Russian people".
These links come to you in my "shilling for the Kremlin" service.
I hope the Russian army do go to war with the world’s Nazis. We need Putin, Bortnikov and Mishustin shot and the Russian Army is in much the best position to do that.
Not too sure the LibDems have that great a chance in any by-election. Of course it is possible, but they are extravagantly weak here having dropped out of the top two since 2010. Most of the councillors are gone, there is now no activity to speak of, you never see LibDem comment in the local media.
T and H and its forerunners have been Tory for 100 years, and the LibDems no longer have anything in common with the kind of traditional Liberals who supported them in places like this.
They may be 3rd now and a long way behind, but they have been under 2000 votes in the past. I think their by election team would walk it provided Labour don't put up a fight.
They don't have any local figure of any kind of stature at all to build a focus on. Any outsider will cost a sackload of potential votes. I couldn't even begin to guess who they would get to do it. I suppose Boris could gaffe them some help.
You underestimate the LD by election m/c. It is entirely dependent upon Lab only putting up a paper candidate from 2nd place.
I'm very familiar with the LD by election machine and also very familiar with the state of the LDs both activity and support wise in Tiverton and Honiton. Like I said it is not impossible in the right circumstances but it is the toughest ask imaginable.
I don't think they would be wise to go with the candidates for 2015,17 or 19 and the second placed 2010 candidate is certainly not available.
In fairness you clearly have more local knowledge.
In fairness sometime insiders are blinded to what is obvious to an outsider!
Sometimes it is difficult to understand the meaning of what is written, unlike face to face . I assume you are local and I am not so I am deferring to your local knowledge. I can't tell if your reply is a kind self deprecating post or whether you think I am a deluded local (I might be deluded but not local)
FWIW my answer to the question in the headline is: No. I make it 95% chance he will not be a Tory MP again, an 85% chance he will resign.
Someone who is prepared to watch porn whilst chairing a Select Committee clearly has a higher level of "Fuck your norms" than most, so I think your 85% is off.
And I say this as someone who has met the guy several times and found him to be a delightful, engaging chap. Obviously I must have risen above the tedium threshold where he got his phone out....
Vladimir Putin is set to declare all-out war on Ukraine as his military chiefs seek “payback” for their invasion failures, according to Russian sources and Western officials.
Frustrated army chiefs are urging the Russian president to drop the term “special operation” used for the invasion and instead declare war, which would enable mass mobilisation of Russians.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
Isn't the point that we can't really 'choose' otherwise, since to do so would be an "act of self harm".
FWIW my answer to the question in the headline is: No. I make it 95% chance he will not be a Tory MP again, an 85% chance he will resign.
Someone who is prepared to watch porn whilst chairing a Select Committee clearly has a higher level of "Fuck your norms" than most, so I think your 85% is off.
And I say this as someone who has met the guy several times and found him to be a delightful, engaging chap. Obviously I must have risen above the tedium threshold where he got his phone out....
All very weird.
I suspect he has an addiction and needs help. He should not remain as an MP though while he is getting that help.
Not too sure the LibDems have that great a chance in any by-election. Of course it is possible, but they are extravagantly weak here having dropped out of the top two since 2010. Most of the councillors are gone, there is now no activity to speak of, you never see LibDem comment in the local media.
T and H and its forerunners have been Tory for 100 years, and the LibDems no longer have anything in common with the kind of traditional Liberals who supported them in places like this.
I'd have to disagree. Tiverton would be easier for the LDs than North Shropshire, there's more of a Liberal tradition.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
Isn't the point that we can't really 'choose' otherwise, since to do so would be an "act of self harm".
Hobson's choice is the definition of no choice.
Well we accepted those standards as safe for almost 50 years because we were members of the EEC/EU. I would agree that in the wider picture that was indeed an act of gross self harm but not, I suspect, in the way you are trying to convey.
I've little legal knowledge, but I know we have some legal people on here. It seems a simple question but how can you increase the number or percentage of successful prosecutions for rape?
Unlike other offences, there often is no independent forensic evidence. Most rapes are not stranger rapes (as far as I know). It often comes down to who the jury trusts most - weighing up the "he said" versus "she said". Unless we instruct the jury to beleve the woman as a routine. But surely that's against the principle of 'all equal before the law.'
It's easy to demand a change but how would it be achieved?
If the CPS take more marginal cases, the successful prosecution rate will decrease.
This is the wrong question. The much publicised 6% conviction rate refers to reported rapes that result in a conviction for rape. The conviction rate for cases that get to court is higher than for many other crimes. The problem is not getting the courts to convict. It is getting cases to court in the first place. The most common reason for cases not getting to court is the complainant withdrawing. If we want more rapists convicted, that is what we need to focus on.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
Isn't the point that we can't really 'choose' otherwise, since to do so would be an "act of self harm".
Hobson's choice is the definition of no choice.
All sovereignties have to deal with the actual. Turkmenistan is free to declare war with a view to invading and conquering Russia but isn't going to. It's sovereignty is constrained by considerations of the actual. That is true for the UK if it is in the EU or out of it. And it is true for the EU itself. It makes no difference to the merits or demerits of UK sovereignty in itself.
FWIW my answer to the question in the headline is: No. I make it 95% chance he will not be a Tory MP again, an 85% chance he will resign.
Someone who is prepared to watch porn whilst chairing a Select Committee clearly has a higher level of "Fuck your norms" than most, so I think your 85% is off.
And I say this as someone who has met the guy several times and found him to be a delightful, engaging chap. Obviously I must have risen above the tedium threshold where he got his phone out....
All very weird.
I suspect he has an addiction and needs help. He should not remain as an MP though while he is getting that help.
“I’m not a grotesque perve who doesn’t give a f*** about basic decency and maintaining standards in our seat of democracy! No! I’m an addict, a victim that needs help.”
Please. This guy should already have had his access pass revoked and a bi election called.
FWIW my answer to the question in the headline is: No. I make it 95% chance he will not be a Tory MP again, an 85% chance he will resign.
Someone who is prepared to watch porn whilst chairing a Select Committee clearly has a higher level of "Fuck your norms" than most, so I think your 85% is off.
And I say this as someone who has met the guy several times and found him to be a delightful, engaging chap. Obviously I must have risen above the tedium threshold where he got his phone out....
All very weird.
I suspect he has an addiction and needs help. He should not remain as an MP though while he is getting that help.
“I’m not a grotesque perve who doesn’t give a f*** about basic decency and maintaining standards in our seat of democracy! No! I’m an addict, a victim that needs help.”
Please. This guy should already have had his access pass revoked and a bi election called.
Well, looking at porn on your phone is probably not illegal so we need to be careful about setting the bar too low. He should certainly be removed from the select committee because he is clearly not doing his job there. Being distracted in the chamber and thus being a naff MP can probably be left to his constituents. I'd imagine he will lose the Conservative whip.
There is a wider question about the extent to which browsing porn in public is offensive, or even the first rung on a ladder of sex offences, but that is above my paygrade. It is at least damn stupid.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
Isn't the point that we can't really 'choose' otherwise, since to do so would be an "act of self harm".
Hobson's choice is the definition of no choice.
Well we accepted those standards as safe for almost 50 years because we were members of the EEC/EU. I would agree that in the wider picture that was indeed an act of gross self harm but not, I suspect, in the way you are trying to convey.
We influenced and accepted them... is what I think you meant to say.
With all this working from home, i bet there has been fair bit of tug tv watching during office hours going on. Not good for already poor productivity rates.
I'm struggling to make sense of JRM and his supporters on here.
If not doing checks on imports from the EU is a 'benefit of Brexit', then why on earth have we spent the last five years planning to do such checks? We've now missed several deadlines for implementing such checks, and have spent millions (or billions - I don't know?) of pounds investing in the infrastructure needed to carry out such checks. And now we've abandoned it and wasted that money. Doesn't smell right to me.
FWIW my answer to the question in the headline is: No. I make it 95% chance he will not be a Tory MP again, an 85% chance he will resign.
Someone who is prepared to watch porn whilst chairing a Select Committee clearly has a higher level of "Fuck your norms" than most, so I think your 85% is off.
And I say this as someone who has met the guy several times and found him to be a delightful, engaging chap. Obviously I must have risen above the tedium threshold where he got his phone out....
All very weird.
I suspect he has an addiction and needs help. He should not remain as an MP though while he is getting that help.
“I’m not a grotesque perve who doesn’t give a f*** about basic decency and maintaining standards in our seat of democracy! No! I’m an addict, a victim that needs help.”
Please. This guy should already have had his access pass revoked and a bi election called.
I don't disagree. My point is he can appear to @MarqueeMark to be "a delightful, engaging chap" but have a porn habit at the same time.
The HoC needs rules of behaviour at work that match the sort of standards any large company would have. Then he could be dismissed as an MP and his constituents can choose a new MP.
I'm struggling to make sense of JRM and his supporters on here.
If not doing checks on imports from the EU is a 'benefit of Brexit', then why on earth have we spent the last five years planning to do such checks? We've now missed several deadlines for implementing such checks, and have spent millions (or billions - I don't know?) of pounds investing in the infrastructure needed to carry out such checks. And now we've abandoned it and wasted that money. Doesn't smell right to me.
I think your comment that you are struggling to make sense of JRM is a widely shared sentiment
FWIW my answer to the question in the headline is: No. I make it 95% chance he will not be a Tory MP again, an 85% chance he will resign.
Someone who is prepared to watch porn whilst chairing a Select Committee clearly has a higher level of "Fuck your norms" than most, so I think your 85% is off.
And I say this as someone who has met the guy several times and found him to be a delightful, engaging chap. Obviously I must have risen above the tedium threshold where he got his phone out....
All very weird.
I suspect he has an addiction and needs help. He should not remain as an MP though while he is getting that help.
“I’m not a grotesque perve who doesn’t give a f*** about basic decency and maintaining standards in our seat of democracy! No! I’m an addict, a victim that needs help.”
Please. This guy should already have had his access pass revoked and a bi election called.
Does anyone have any polls from Germany indicating support levels for he SPD? Is it too much to hope that the Greens wipe them out?
I'm not sure the Russia stuff has had that much effect on the SPD at the federal level TBH, it's had more positive effect on the Greens with Baerbock and Habeck now Germany's most popular politicians. The SPD and the CDU/CSU are still broadly tied with the SPD only 3% behind in the worst polls.
The CDU is on course to get a majority with the FDP on the 8th May in Schleswig Holstein but state elections are usually distinct from the national picture.
I've little legal knowledge, but I know we have some legal people on here. It seems a simple question but how can you increase the number or percentage of successful prosecutions for rape?
Unlike other offences, there often is no independent forensic evidence. Most rapes are not stranger rapes (as far as I know). It often comes down to who the jury trusts most - weighing up the "he said" versus "she said". Unless we instruct the jury to beleve the woman as a routine. But surely that's against the principle of 'all equal before the law.'
It's easy to demand a change but how would it be achieved?
If the CPS take more marginal cases, the successful prosecution rate will decrease.
Good question. In order to clarify the question a shibboleth has to be addressed, which can't be in the present climate.
To the great British public, and actual jurors facing one accusation at a time, there are at least two different sorts of offence. Stranger, abduction, forcible entry to premises etc rape on the one hand, and the rest.
I do not think it is possible to discover the prosecution and conviction rate of the first sort separately from the rest. If I had to guess the prosecution rate is too small (because of non reporting) and the conviction rate is high.
Jurors will not convict, knowing that sentencing begins at a 5 year starting point, most men who have no or minimal previous, and who are accused of rape where there is any sort of consensual intimacy and no overwhelming evidence of violence.
Rape prosecutions occur when two people who know each other are consensually in bed together with no clothes on. The chances of a conviction in such cases is minimal, and will remain so in current circumstances.
When Ken Clarke drew attention to this difficulty and distinction he was buried in criticism from the usual suspects. It is time to look again.
FWIW my answer to the question in the headline is: No. I make it 95% chance he will not be a Tory MP again, an 85% chance he will resign.
Someone who is prepared to watch porn whilst chairing a Select Committee clearly has a higher level of "Fuck your norms" than most, so I think your 85% is off.
And I say this as someone who has met the guy several times and found him to be a delightful, engaging chap. Obviously I must have risen above the tedium threshold where he got his phone out....
All very weird.
I suspect he has an addiction and needs help. He should not remain as an MP though while he is getting that help.
“I’m not a grotesque perve who doesn’t give a f*** about basic decency and maintaining standards in our seat of democracy! No! I’m an addict, a victim that needs help.”
Please. This guy should already have had his access pass revoked and a bi election called.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
Isn't the point that we can't really 'choose' otherwise, since to do so would be an "act of self harm".
Hobson's choice is the definition of no choice.
Well we accepted those standards as safe for almost 50 years because we were members of the EEC/EU. I would agree that in the wider picture that was indeed an act of gross self harm but not, I suspect, in the way you are trying to convey.
We influenced and accepted them... is what I think you meant to say.
Actually in many instances - such as animal welfare - we failed to influence them as our standards remained much higher than those in the rest of the EU and we were unable to drag them up to our standards.
Now as it happens I disagree with JRM and BR on this and think we should be imposing the checks. Indeed I think we should be insisting on higher standards than have hitherto existed during our membership of the EU particularly in areas such as animal welfare. But the idea that we are exposing ourselves to any more harm by not imposing checks than we were exposed to when we were members - and had no checks - is simply wrong and logically incoherent.
I've little legal knowledge, but I know we have some legal people on here. It seems a simple question but how can you increase the number or percentage of successful prosecutions for rape?
Unlike other offences, there often is no independent forensic evidence. Most rapes are not stranger rapes (as far as I know). It often comes down to who the jury trusts most - weighing up the "he said" versus "she said". Unless we instruct the jury to beleve the woman as a routine. But surely that's against the principle of 'all equal before the law.'
It's easy to demand a change but how would it be achieved?
If the CPS take more marginal cases, the successful prosecution rate will decrease.
Good question. In order to clarify the question a shibboleth has to be addressed, which can't be in the present climate.
To the great British public, and actual jurors facing one accusation at a time, there are at least two different sorts of offence. Stranger, abduction, forcible entry to premises etc rape on the one hand, and the rest.
I do not think it is possible to discover the prosecution and conviction rate of the first sort separately from the rest. If I had to guess the prosecution rate is too small (because of non reporting) and the conviction rate is high.
Jurors will not convict, knowing that sentencing begins at a 5 year starting point, most men who have no or minimal previous, and who are accused of rape where there is any sort of consensual intimacy and no overwhelming evidence of violence.
Rape prosecutions occur when two people who know each other are consensually in bed together with no clothes on. The chances of a conviction in such cases is minimal, and will remain so in current circumstances.
When Ken Clarke drew attention to this difficulty and distinction he was buried in criticism from the usual suspects. It is time to look again.
I remember the BBC presenter and brain donor Victoria Derbyshire shouting him down in a radio interview when he tried making this point by simply bellowing ‘rape is rape, Mr Clarke’. No effort at all to probe what he said.
I absolutely loathe him so knowing that a country which has next to nothing to do witth him approves of him doesn't score very highly with me
I agree that makes sense, but its very odd coming from you as usually you are very concerned about what other nations interacting with the UK think about our political leaders, using words like humiliation and embarrassing, and how we should be very concerned they think of him negatively.
Indeed, you've accused people, eg me, of essentially being arrogant little englander types for arguing what you've just now said, that the views of people and governments overseas are not the most relevant thing, even if it is not nothing.
If you get worked up about negative views of our political leaders, then positive views of them are also relevant.
…grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards, superior to the EU’s. And yet now the minister admits that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for British consumers and risks bankrupting British farmers: precisely the act of self-harm remainers always said it would be. The irony of hearing Rees-Mogg declare that “free trade is hugely advantageous to consumers” after he and his comrades pulled us out of the largest, most successful free trade bloc in the world – the European single market – would be funny if it weren’t so bitter.
Not really.
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
You are trolling us former Remainers this early in the morning?
Anyway, a great parody post.
Bart always provides a chuckle, always makes me think of someone sitting in the corner with a pointy hat with a big D on it. He is a real Tory.
I notice that Neil Parish is being reported as a "passionate campaigner for better rural broadband".
Now we know why.
"Do you have such poor broadband you have to watch porn on your phone on the job? Join TalkTalk today so you can enjoy a self intimate moment without the prying eyes of 600 work colleagues"
I'm struggling to make sense of JRM and his supporters on here.
If not doing checks on imports from the EU is a 'benefit of Brexit', then why on earth have we spent the last five years planning to do such checks? We've now missed several deadlines for implementing such checks, and have spent millions (or billions - I don't know?) of pounds investing in the infrastructure needed to carry out such checks. And now we've abandoned it and wasted that money. Doesn't smell right to me.
I think your comment that you are struggling to make sense of JRM is a widely shared sentiment
He's a stupid man with a posh voice, who uses a veneer of civility to cover his treating people like idiots and disrespecting their views. End of.
FWIW my answer to the question in the headline is: No. I make it 95% chance he will not be a Tory MP again, an 85% chance he will resign.
Someone who is prepared to watch porn whilst chairing a Select Committee clearly has a higher level of "Fuck your norms" than most, so I think your 85% is off.
And I say this as someone who has met the guy several times and found him to be a delightful, engaging chap. Obviously I must have risen above the tedium threshold where he got his phone out....
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/29/jacob-rees-mogg-brexit-disaster-leaving-eu-boris-johnson
Unlike other offences, there often is no independent forensic evidence. Most rapes are not stranger rapes (as far as I know). It often comes down to who the jury trusts most - weighing up the "he said" versus "she said". Unless we instruct the jury to beleve the woman as a routine. But surely that's against the principle of 'all equal before the law.'
It's easy to demand a change but how would it be achieved?
If the CPS take more marginal cases, the successful prosecution rate will decrease.
They we not expecting a protracted war, and weren’t stockpiling kit beforehand.
The young conscripts could end up being handed a Kalashnikov and a hard hat, and sent to the front line to meet with half the world’s supply of modern fighting equipment. They’d be nothing but cannon fodder which, as you suggest, could have a big impact on the whole of Russian society when the scale of the losses becomes apparent.
They were called traitors
We can choose to recognise EU standards as safe if we choose to do so, without spending a billion pounds a month to join the EU's club.
Cake and eat it, if you like.
The whole thing is just pure whinging. So EU food is safe so we should be trading with them, but how dare we not check safe EU food as we trade with them? Ridiculous. If the Europeans want to inflict self-harm spending money checking safe British food then that's something they can waste their taxpayers money on, its not something we need to be doing though if we accept the principle that European food is safe - and if it isn't then thank goodness we Brexited. Either way, there's no issue here.
But also, just letting anything in without checks is the sort of thing economic libertarians wants as an endpoint. It's the Brexit they voted for. Destroys a lot of British jobs, and we can't all work in the City, but hey ho.
The fact is that a jury is unlikely to convict someone, of an offence for which the starting point is five years, without evidence of the crime having being committed.
Anything else proposed, such as presumption of belief of one side of the story, or doing away with the jury, seem contrary to justice for the accused.
Parish was allowed to pummel Liz Pole in public in 2019
"2. Make bodycams and internal cctv as routine as dashcams are."
A good suggestion, but one for the future, I suspect.
I don't think they would be wise to go with the candidates for 2015,17 or 19 and the second placed 2010 candidate is certainly not available.
Not like me either. So treble apology.
Choosing not to do checks, is simply a choice. Choosing to do them is also a choice. The deal is neither here nor there, unless the deal obligates us to do them but AFAIK it doesn't.
That was the whole point of Brexit - allowing us to make our own choices in the future and not be bound to choices made in the past or by others.
And if European food is so full of serious animal and plant diseases why weren't we checking it previously?
Whether we choose to have strategic security post-Brexit is a choice, but its our choice to make and we can change it if we change our mind. We aren't either obliged to do so, or forbidden to do so. That is the point of Brexit - to take back control of making our own decisions.
Other thing is, have phones recording all the time like cockpit recorders. I am pretty certain they already do based on targeted ads I get related to things I have had conversations about in the previous 24hrs
What made this link plausible was not just the name 'Maxwell' and the fact that Ghislaine was 'Bob's' daughter, but the character of Maxwell senior and her worship, infatuation and obeisance of a powerful, law-breaking, man. In essence, straight after her father's death, Ghislaine transferred her misplaced idol-worship onto paedophile Epstein.
It's a fascinating tale but also harrowing. Many girls' lives were destroyed. People's pensions were lost forever.
Anyway, a great parody post.
Why would we not have had to spend £1bn if it hadn't been for Brexit. We were spending £1bn every single month on EU rules pre-Brexit - and that was the net figure not the gross pre-rebate figure and six years ago, it'd be more by now.
The whole thing is just pure whinging. So EU food is safe so we should be trading with them, but how dare we not check safe EU food as we trade with them? Ridiculous. If the Europeans want to inflict self-harm spending money checking safe British food then that's something they can waste their taxpayers money on, its not something we need to be doing though if we accept the principle that European food is safe - and if it isn't then thank goodness we Brexited. Either way, there's no issue here.
Psychologically I guess it's because deep down they know it hasn't worked. Or not yet, anyway.
I'm guessing they're still bitter they lost, that's all.
Latest column https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/29/jacob-rees-mogg-brexit-disaster-leaving-eu-boris-johnson?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
https://twitter.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1519691770736558081/video/1
Who do you think pays for EU health checks and certification when a UK farmer exports to the EU? I mean, the government insists you MOT your car. Who does the test? Who pays for it?
a) There are two distinct subjects - why and how did Brexit happen; and now it has happened how then should the UK work best and do next.
b) The first question will always be of interest to anoraks, a type PBers are familiar with, sometimes by being one. This won't go away, just as people still wonder about the decline and fall of the Roman empire.
c) The second question is (after NATO and defence) the most important political question for UK politics for now and the next few decades.
Vladimir Putin is set to declare all-out war on Ukraine as his military chiefs seek “payback” for their invasion failures, according to Russian sources and Western officials.
Frustrated army chiefs are urging the Russian president to drop the term “special operation” used for the invasion and instead declare war, which would enable mass mobilisation of Russians.
Also
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/04/29/ukraine-news-russia-war-latest-putin-nuclear-donbas-nato/
Vladimir Putin could announce the mass mobilisation of Russians on May 9, Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, has said.
Mr Wallace said that Putin could declare that "we are now at war with the world's Nazis and we need to mass mobilise the Russian people".
These links come to you in my "shilling for the Kremlin" service.
Part of Boris Johnson's bonfire of 'elf and safety red tape, so no one pays for them...well directly anyway. One will have to pay for repairs when uninsured Billy Bald-Tyres runs into the back of their car of course.
I think the latter, so nice post.
How should I have read your reply?
And I say this as someone who has met the guy several times and found him to be a delightful, engaging chap. Obviously I must have risen above the tedium threshold where he got his phone out....
All very weird.
Hobson's choice is the definition of no choice.
Is LOL OK
Please. This guy should already have had his access pass revoked and a bi election called.
There is a wider question about the extent to which browsing porn in public is offensive, or even the first rung on a ladder of sex offences, but that is above my paygrade. It is at least damn stupid.
If not doing checks on imports from the EU is a 'benefit of Brexit', then why on earth have we spent the last five years planning to do such checks? We've now missed several deadlines for implementing such checks, and have spent millions (or billions - I don't know?) of pounds investing in the infrastructure needed to carry out such checks. And now we've abandoned it and wasted that money. Doesn't smell right to me.
The HoC needs rules of behaviour at work that match the sort of standards any large company would have. Then he could be dismissed as an MP and his constituents can choose a new MP.
The CDU is on course to get a majority with the FDP on the 8th May in Schleswig Holstein but state elections are usually distinct from the national picture.
To the great British public, and actual jurors facing one accusation at a time, there are at least two different sorts of offence. Stranger, abduction, forcible entry to premises etc rape on the one hand, and the rest.
I do not think it is possible to discover the prosecution and conviction rate of the first sort separately from the rest. If I had to guess the prosecution rate is too small (because of non reporting) and the conviction rate is high.
Jurors will not convict, knowing that sentencing begins at a 5 year starting point, most men who have no or minimal previous, and who are accused of rape where there is any sort of consensual intimacy and no overwhelming evidence of violence.
Rape prosecutions occur when two people who know each other are consensually in bed together with no clothes on. The chances of a conviction in such cases is minimal, and will remain so in current circumstances.
When Ken Clarke drew attention to this difficulty and distinction he was buried in criticism from the usual suspects. It is time to look again.
Now as it happens I disagree with JRM and BR on this and think we should be imposing the checks. Indeed I think we should be insisting on higher standards than have hitherto existed during our membership of the EU particularly in areas such as animal welfare. But the idea that we are exposing ourselves to any more harm by not imposing checks than we were exposed to when we were members - and had no checks - is simply wrong and logically incoherent.
Now we know why.
Indeed, you've accused people, eg me, of essentially being arrogant little englander types for arguing what you've just now said, that the views of people and governments overseas are not the most relevant thing, even if it is not nothing.
If you get worked up about negative views of our political leaders, then positive views of them are also relevant.