On topic - could we see the '22 install some sort of elder statesman to staunch the bleeding?
OGH suggests that the role has no attraction to aspiring Tories. But survival certainly will, and given Brady's comments about excluding the membership and Hunt floating that he might not stand at the next GE...
Yes. We need Earl Home 2023 edition.
The only one I can think of in the Commons with stature is Theresa May. In the Lords? Ken Clark, William Hague - someone like that Outside Parliament? I see that George Osborne has rehabilitated himself on his podcast...
Sunak is sinking the ship. The idea of a putsch against him is entirely rational. But there is no obvious replacement in the Commons who could both win a majority and steady the ship. So look outside.
The Tories have already shown that they don't give a rat fuck about the constitutional niceties - sending Rees-Mogg up to Balmoral to lie to HMQ and illegally close parliament proves that.
So why not a PM in the Lords? Ideally placed to be immune to the infighting of the rats as the ship sinks. But could steady the ship enough so that all isn't lost.
Lord Frost? The only possible Lord the current Tory party would unite around as leader
The point is to steady the ship though, not sink it deeper and faster.
Sunak and Hunt have steadied the ship after Truss and Kwarteng, the next Tory leader will almost certainly be right of Sunak
Planet earth calling Tory party...
The Tories have been led by leaders from their more moderate wing for most of the last 18 years and most of their time in government since 2010 ie Cameron, May and now Sunak.
In Opposition they will certainly move further right as Labour moved further left after the Blair and Brown years and New Labour losing power in 2010
On topic - could we see the '22 install some sort of elder statesman to staunch the bleeding?
OGH suggests that the role has no attraction to aspiring Tories. But survival certainly will, and given Brady's comments about excluding the membership and Hunt floating that he might not stand at the next GE...
There is no realistic prospect of this. A fourth leader in four years, particularly one who is essentially presented as some sort of caretaker ahead of a fifth, would just feed the already pretty prevalent idea of a chaotic party, unfit to govern.
Sunak isn't particularly good at politics, at least at the very top level - that's fairly clear. But he isn't an idiot, is able to sustain a functional working relationship with colleagues, does have some ability to take advice, and is very unlikely to be caught breaking into London Zoo whilst high of crystal meth and trying to shag an ostrich. So he meets the basic requirement that a Tory candidate can knock on a door, and tell a sceptical householder with a straight face that Sunak is a capable person to be PM (who by the way shares their views on various things) and should remain so.
The downside risk of ditching him simply isn't worth it, and I think it very unlikely the 1922 will conclude differently.
On topic - could we see the '22 install some sort of elder statesman to staunch the bleeding?
OGH suggests that the role has no attraction to aspiring Tories. But survival certainly will, and given Brady's comments about excluding the membership and Hunt floating that he might not stand at the next GE...
Yes. We need Earl Home 2023 edition.
The only one I can think of in the Commons with stature is Theresa May. In the Lords? Ken Clark, William Hague - someone like that Outside Parliament? I see that George Osborne has rehabilitated himself on his podcast...
Sunak is sinking the ship. The idea of a putsch against him is entirely rational. But there is no obvious replacement in the Commons who could both win a majority and steady the ship. So look outside.
The Tories have already shown that they don't give a rat fuck about the constitutional niceties - sending Rees-Mogg up to Balmoral to lie to HMQ and illegally close parliament proves that.
So why not a PM in the Lords? Ideally placed to be immune to the infighting of the rats as the ship sinks. But could steady the ship enough so that all isn't lost.
Lord Frost? The only possible Lord the current Tory party would unite around as leader
The point is to steady the ship though, not sink it deeper and faster.
Two memorable bits from R4 Today this morning. The comment by Nick R after an interview with a lovely and distressed woman in Gaza who worked for Oxfam that 'she was not willing to discuss Hamas'; secondly the Palestinian woman interviewed, not in Gaza, and asked about her thoughts on the 7th October killings: "I will not answer that question".
Elephants in rooms.
It’s exactly like Northern Ireland - when asked about the latest atrocity by X, it was telling when the talking head from X would start talking about anything else.
Even trying to get them to say something like “we condemn all violence” was apparently rude.
When people who are deeply invested in Palestinian freedom are asked about condemning Hamas or October 7th directly, and they don't answer, it is not because they condone Hamas - it is because it immediately shifts the conversation to the premise that the lives of Israelis matter and the lives of Palestinians do not. Because for most people it is a given that what Hamas did was unacceptable, but we still have to debate whether the acts of the IDF and state of Israel over decades are unacceptable because most of the power structure supports them.
As we have seen in conversations here over the last fortnight, no matter how much anyone sympathetic to the Palestinian cause says what Hamas did was atrocious, but that the loss of civilian life in Palestine is not an acceptable reaction, the response is always - well, does Israel not have the right to defend itself? What else is Israel supposed to do? Should Israel have to put up with a neighbour that wishes to wipe them out? Which makes no sense when Israel is by far the best funded military in the area, backed by the US, and controls most of the borders of Gaza and the West Bank. It has been a source of contention for years that the UN and other international bodies will repeatedly point to Israeli treatment of the Palestinians as a problem, as crimes, as illegal under international law - and yet they can because they are supported by the global superpower.
I was listening to someone talk about this yesterday, which kind of crystalised the madness of this to me. Gaza is not a recognised state - not by Israel and not by the international community at large (some individual states do, but only some). Were Gaza a state the acts of Israel over the last decade would be grounds for Gaza to declare war on Israel - the blockades and sieges, the killing of Palestinians on their land, the incursions onto their land, etc.
But Gaza is not a state, it is an occupied area - occupied by Israel. If it is occupied land, then Israel cannot be at war with it - at best it would be managing its occupied territories, it has obligations under international law. Under international law an occupying power cannot be "provoked" by those it occupies in to war. So, by casting Gaza as this state-that-is-not-a-state Israeli policy towards it can be both the justification for treating Gaza and the Palestinians there inhumanely, whilst at the same time saying that their reactions to that treatment are a justification for more of the same.
Again, what Hamas did earlier this month was abominable, a crime itself - but the treatment of civilian Palestinians prior to that and now are bigger "elephants in the room" in my mind then repeatedly condemning Hamas and then going "and therefore that means Israel can do ______"
I’ve written it before but will write it again. Absolutely none of what Israel has been doing over the last few weeks is on them, every single death of Palestinian civilians is a direct result of what Hamas did. There are no “buts”, there is no space for “whataboutery”. Every single Palestinian death since Hamas decided to make their terrorist attack on Israelis civilians is on Hamas.
If Hamas had not acted then the moral position was swinging well away from the Israelis because of Netanyahu and the fact that a lot of supporters of Israel were deeply uncomfortable with his government.
If Hamas had not done their murderous deed then moves towards peace between Israel and Arab States would keep rolling.
If peace between Israel and Arab states reached their end goal then its would be possible for them to work a solution to the Palestinian issue because Israel could reduce their hardline position when the Arab States could show that they do not believe in a violent solution and pull the rug out from under those who think a violent solution is the answer.
So Hamas murdered Israeli civilians that day. Do you think they thought “what we will do is murder a load of Israeli civilians at a peace rave and kids in a Kibutz and the Israelis will say it’s a fair cop and we need to just give Hamas and the Palestinians what they want”?
Do you think that Hamas believed that it would force the hand of the Israelis in peace talks with Arab States?
Or do you think that Hamas wanted to cause bloodshed and fear, sacrifice the lives of Palestinian civilians - and don’t tell me they didn’t expect a fierce violent Israeli response - for their own murderous aims?
Hamas got what they wanted, fear in Israel, discord with Israel in the Arab/Muslim world, Jeremy Bowen on the news showing the plight of Palestinian civilians, misinformation on global media about the hospital attack. And what they got was bought with the lives of Palestinian civilians.
So when you write your next post with a “but Israel” remember that things were moving in a better direction with Israel losing a lot of moral high ground, moves towards regional peace and understanding and a potential for change until that first Israeli youth dancing at a party got shot, the first Israeli kid was shot in front of their parents, the first Israeli civilian got dragged off to a terrifying captivity. This is on Hamas.
In what world were things getting better for Palestinians in Gaza, or even the West Bank? Do you think Hamas sprung out of nowhere like Athena from Zeus - no rhyme nor reason? Do you think everyone who talks about this is just a raging anti-Semite or anti-Zionist and has is projecting nuance and context where there is none, like shadows on a wall? Just like the example of NI given at the start of this conversation - they came from a history, a conflict, an occupation. They aren't just evil people with evil thoughts in their heads doing evil deeds for evil ends.
I can consider the motivations and feelings of many Israelis and Zionists - both the sympathetic and the unsympathetic. The colonial mindset, the right to land, the desire for homogeneity and a strong homeland. The desire for a haven, a safe place after the horrors of the Holocaust and European anti-Semitism, the fear after the wars with their neighbours, the paranoia that the threat is still ever strong despite Israel being by far one of the best equipped nations militarily in the region. Why can't you do the same for Palestinians? Yes, the unsympathetic - the anti-Semitism, the dehumanisation of their perceived enemy, the hatred and violence. But the fear, the death, the lack of security, the lack of change, the constant loss of land and rights and the desire to go home. The death of mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. The experience for most Palestinians in Gaza who are under the age of 18 of only knowing life in an open air cage.
The specific reason for the attack by Hamas I cannot claim knowledge of. But the general feeling, I expect, is a fatalism - what else can they do? Palestinians peacefully march to the border fence in protest in 18-19 and they get shot, sniped. The UN repeatedly calls Israeli settlement schemes illegal, they keep happening. Israel controls their borders, their food, their energy, their water. They look to the West Bank, where apparently peaceful coexistence is "working" - which is where Palestinian labour is allowed to move (for the benefit of Israeli companies), where settlers will still steal land and houses and the IDF will still back them up. Is that what is to be aspired to? And the other Arab Middle Eastern countries increasingly let them die because business with Israel and the US is dependent on them doing so, so the only other friends are equally desperate or extreme.
Almost every conversation here devolves into a statement that the violence of Hamas, their killing of children and women, of Kibutz and raves is a sign of their inherent evil, inhumanity, how they need to be dealt with. And every example of Israeli forces killing children and women, the historical wrongs, the management of Gaza is met with a "well, that's war" and a shrug. Hamas could take the same position, no? "Why did you kill civilians, kidnap them, kill children?" ... "Well, that's war". It doesn't get us anywhere to paint one side as inhuman monsters with inhuman motives.
I think the conference given by one of the released hostages yesterday was enlightening. She is a long time activist, from what I understand a founding member of Women Wage Peace. She had driven Gazan children and adults to and from hospitals in Israel to get them better healthcare. She said she went through hell, was beaten with a crowbar - and you can argue that her statements about being treated well and her shaking her captor’s hand was all in aid of making sure her husband stays safe. But she, as well as many of those who lost family, either who were killed or kidnapped, still advocate peace and note the humanity of their captors, their enemy. Whilst people here go out of their way to note how killing a cowering 7 year old, an atrocious thing to do, shows how Hamas are all Nazis I saw no one talk about the woman who had soldiers enter her home, ask to eat some of her food, and then left - who seemed just surprised as she was that they had made it across the border and said "do not worry, we are Muslim" when asked if they were going to kill her or her kids.
Total war on Gaza, on Palestinians, will do one thing - create the next generation of people who, wrongly, feel that the only route to justice is wiping Israel off the map. The only long term peaceful solution requires the stronger party, which is undoubtedly Israel, to show mercy first and go to the negotiation table.
Basically: "let's all focus on that one nice guard at Auschwitz who used to hand out cakes"
Cretin
Question (because I don't know and I'm sure people here do), rather than debating point:
How far down the chain of command did the Nuremberg trials go? In post-Franco Spain, quite a few old thugs either wandered off into the sunset or reinvented themselves as life-long democrats.
It's not a pretty process for evil acts to go unpunished. But unless those involved can draw a line between leaders and led, wolves and sheep, the grim reality is this will continue unto the seventh generation and beyond.
I don’t think the Nuremberg trials themselves went very far down the chain of command, there were other specific trials going on, eg the Belsen trials for Irma Grese and her pals.
There were 24 people tried at the "Hauptkriegsverbrecher" (main war criminals) Nurenburg Trials. Then there were another 185 people tried at the 12 Nürnberger Nachfolgerprozesse (Nurenberg follow up trials). These trials were run by the American occupying forces after WWII and it was they that decided to stop the "Nurenberg trials" at that point.
There were many other trials, some are still technically open. But the total number of Nazi criminals who actually stood trial is a very small proportion.
"Finchley Road. Poster of two kidnapped Jewish children. Someone’s drawn a Hitler moustache on them. This is what the Jewish community is facing. Not in 1936. In 2023. Here. In London"
Sunak being told off by the speaker again. Starmer laying out what destitute Britain is like, Sunak saying its not true and Tory backbenchers laughing.
On topic - could we see the '22 install some sort of elder statesman to staunch the bleeding?
OGH suggests that the role has no attraction to aspiring Tories. But survival certainly will, and given Brady's comments about excluding the membership and Hunt floating that he might not stand at the next GE...
Yes. We need Earl Home 2023 edition.
The only one I can think of in the Commons with stature is Theresa May. In the Lords? Ken Clark, William Hague - someone like that Outside Parliament? I see that George Osborne has rehabilitated himself on his podcast...
Sunak is sinking the ship. The idea of a putsch against him is entirely rational. But there is no obvious replacement in the Commons who could both win a majority and steady the ship. So look outside.
The Tories have already shown that they don't give a rat fuck about the constitutional niceties - sending Rees-Mogg up to Balmoral to lie to HMQ and illegally close parliament proves that.
So why not a PM in the Lords? Ideally placed to be immune to the infighting of the rats as the ship sinks. But could steady the ship enough so that all isn't lost.
Lord Frost? The only possible Lord the current Tory party would unite around as leader
The point is to steady the ship though, not sink it deeper and faster.
Sunak and Hunt have steadied the ship after Truss and Kwarteng, the next Tory leader will almost certainly be right of Sunak
Planet earth calling Tory party...
The Tories have been led by leaders from their more moderate wing for most of the last 18 years and most of their time in government since 2010 ie Cameron, May and now Sunak.
In Opposition they will certainly move further right as Labour moved further left after the Blair and Brown years and New Labour losing power in 2010
That would be like Corbyn expelling Starmer and claiming McDonnell is now a moderate because Williamson is the true face of Labour.
Sunak isn't very good at basic politics is he. Being given specific examples of destitute Britain he is saying yebbut mortgages are lower here than in America.
We do everything on the cheap and then moan when it turns out to be crap and costly.
Wow, that’s about a third, or perhaps a quarter, of what you’d expect for such a role as a short-term assignment.
You’ll need to understand a fair bit about trade, and also a fair bit about Switzerland, their culture, and their economy. That salary isn’t temping anyone out of a Swiss bank, nor the senior Swiss CS, and isn’t tempting anyone out of retirement either.
EXC: Pressure piles on Keir Starmer - More than 150 Muslim Labour Councillors have written directly to the Labour leader demanding he call for a ceasefire in Gaza as backlash over his policy from within his party grows
I’m not sure that Starmer is feeling quite as much pressure, as these councillors and activists wish him to be feeling.
Which is generally true of his internal opponents. They are mad at not having more influence and so exagerrate the significance of their petulance.
This example is probably more substantive than that, but I don't get the impression as an outsider that Starmer needs to worry yet
"Finchley Road. Poster of two kidnapped Jewish children. Someone’s drawn a Hitler moustache on them. This is what the Jewish community is facing. Not in 1936. In 2023. Here. In London"
I really fear that many people are underplaying the rise in anti-Semitism, being hidden behind concern - real or otherwise - for Palestinians.
I've been intrigued by these posters - the 'why?', as opposed to posters of people who were murdered (when alive, not of corpses). Scanned the QR code in the poster to learn more and I'm not really much wiser - two options, one to download posters to put up and another to donate, with no real indication of how the donation is to be used.
I don't support tearing them down or defacing, but I'm not quite sure what those putting these posters up are trying to achieve.
I don’t think the Nuremberg trials themselves went very far down the chain of command, there were other specific trials going on, eg the Belsen trials for Irma Grese and her pals.
There was no real consistency. A lot of leading Nazis were only lightly punished, whereas some of the small fry were hanged.
Far more fell victim to summary vengeance.
Sadly, and unfairly, that's often how justice works.
I have gotten seriously into the YouTube channel "East Germany Investigated" recently, and one of them dealt with how East Germany dealt with its Nazi prisoners. Basically there were camps for the Nazis (irony) from which some were tried, then in 1950 they went "fuck it" and got rid of them all in about a couple of months. Some were sent to the Soviet Union, some were freed, the rest were subject to the "Waldheim Trials" (aka the "Waldheim Process" or Waldheimer Prozesse in German). They (ahem) processed 3,442 people people between April 21 and June 29, 1950:
That split to
3,324 sentenced
72 people not fit to stand trial
43 died during the trials
4 other
Of the 3,324 sentenced, most received long sentences and some received death sentences. Appeals were allowed but most were denied and most of those that were retried resulted in higher sentences (oh that wacky East German humour!)
Trial times were measured in minutes. Defences were not allowed. Sometimes even prosecutions were not allowed, with summary verdicts from the judges.
For all those decrying the way the West handled its Nazi prisoners, it needs to be pointed out that the East handled its quota in a far more mechanical fashion that was certainly more efficient but at the price of what we would consider just.
On topic - could we see the '22 install some sort of elder statesman to staunch the bleeding?
OGH suggests that the role has no attraction to aspiring Tories. But survival certainly will, and given Brady's comments about excluding the membership and Hunt floating that he might not stand at the next GE...
Yes. We need Earl Home 2023 edition.
The only one I can think of in the Commons with stature is Theresa May. In the Lords? Ken Clark, William Hague - someone like that Outside Parliament? I see that George Osborne has rehabilitated himself on his podcast...
Sunak is sinking the ship. The idea of a putsch against him is entirely rational. But there is no obvious replacement in the Commons who could both win a majority and steady the ship. So look outside.
The Tories have already shown that they don't give a rat fuck about the constitutional niceties - sending Rees-Mogg up to Balmoral to lie to HMQ and illegally close parliament proves that.
So why not a PM in the Lords? Ideally placed to be immune to the infighting of the rats as the ship sinks. But could steady the ship enough so that all isn't lost.
Lord Frost? The only possible Lord the current Tory party would unite around as leader
The point is to steady the ship though, not sink it deeper and faster.
Sunak and Hunt have steadied the ship after Truss and Kwarteng, the next Tory leader will almost certainly be right of Sunak
Planet earth calling Tory party...
The Tories have been led by leaders from their more moderate wing for most of the last 18 years and most of their time in government since 2010 ie Cameron, May and now Sunak.
In Opposition they will certainly move further right as Labour moved further left after the Blair and Brown years and New Labour losing power in 2010
That would be like Corbyn expelling Starmer and claiming McDonnell is now a moderate because Williamson is the true face of Labour.
Sunak is more conventional than Truss ended up being, but he was hardly moderate - on the right of the party economically and on migration to name but two. In some ways Boris was more moderate, despite being beloved on the right.
On topic - could we see the '22 install some sort of elder statesman to staunch the bleeding?
OGH suggests that the role has no attraction to aspiring Tories. But survival certainly will, and given Brady's comments about excluding the membership and Hunt floating that he might not stand at the next GE...
Yes. We need Earl Home 2023 edition.
The only one I can think of in the Commons with stature is Theresa May. In the Lords? Ken Clark, William Hague - someone like that Outside Parliament? I see that George Osborne has rehabilitated himself on his podcast...
Sunak is sinking the ship. The idea of a putsch against him is entirely rational. But there is no obvious replacement in the Commons who could both win a majority and steady the ship. So look outside.
The Tories have already shown that they don't give a rat fuck about the constitutional niceties - sending Rees-Mogg up to Balmoral to lie to HMQ and illegally close parliament proves that.
So why not a PM in the Lords? Ideally placed to be immune to the infighting of the rats as the ship sinks. But could steady the ship enough so that all isn't lost.
Lord Frost? The only possible Lord the current Tory party would unite around as leader
The point is to steady the ship though, not sink it deeper and faster.
Sunak and Hunt have steadied the ship after Truss and Kwarteng, the next Tory leader will almost certainly be right of Sunak
I agree that they have steadied the ship and, in a sense, that's the Tories' problem.
The public have inspected the steady-ish ship, and simply don't like it. It's not the tempest of the brief Truss (or even Johnson) period. It's just a crap boat.
In that respect, I don't really get the argument that has been raised for an elder statesman to "steady the ship". If you were to get anyone in, it would be someone to energise and reinvent the pitch to voters (as Sunak has tried and failed to do over the past month or so). But anyone who might vaguely do that would either much prefer to wait until after the election, or flounced out of Parliament a while ago to avoid a suspension.
"Finchley Road. Poster of two kidnapped Jewish children. Someone’s drawn a Hitler moustache on them. This is what the Jewish community is facing. Not in 1936. In 2023. Here. In London"
I really fear that many people are underplaying the rise in anti-Semitism, being hidden behind concern - real or otherwise - for Palestinians.
I've been intrigued by these posters - the 'why?', as opposed to posters of people who were murdered (when alive, not of corpses). Scanned the QR code in the poster to learn more and I'm not really much wiser - two options, one to download posters to put up and another to donate, with no real indication of how the donation is to be used.
I don't support tearing them down or defacing, but I'm not quite sure what those putting these posters up are trying to achieve.
I feel that way about all posters.
But I assume putting them up so random people see and remember them is the main point. Hence those tearing them down presumably wanting people to forget about them for reasons I'm fairly comfortable guessing, given I cannot think of a non awful reason.
EXC: Pressure piles on Keir Starmer - More than 150 Muslim Labour Councillors have written directly to the Labour leader demanding he call for a ceasefire in Gaza as backlash over his policy from within his party grows
My prediction of an Islamic Party forming seems to be more likely because of this latest trouble. I can’t find when I suggested it using the search function
Nah, there was an attempt after the Iraq war thar went nowhere. There isn't a political will for it in Britain, other than as someone to make up the numbers alongside Lord Buckethead and Britain First on election night.
No, because while faith is important to many, there are few of us that make it the defining point of our politics.
Hence the absence of such religious dogma from out politics, unlike the USA. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Atheists and Pastafarians can find a home in any of our political parties, at least outside Northern Ireland.
On topic - could we see the '22 install some sort of elder statesman to staunch the bleeding?
OGH suggests that the role has no attraction to aspiring Tories. But survival certainly will, and given Brady's comments about excluding the membership and Hunt floating that he might not stand at the next GE...
There is no realistic prospect of this. A fourth leader in four years, particularly one who is essentially presented as some sort of caretaker ahead of a fifth, would just feed the already pretty prevalent idea of a chaotic party, unfit to govern.
Sunak isn't particularly good at politics, at least at the very top level - that's fairly clear. But he isn't an idiot, is able to sustain a functional working relationship with colleagues, does have some ability to take advice, and is very unlikely to be caught breaking into London Zoo whilst high of crystal meth and trying to shag an ostrich. So he meets the basic requirement that a Tory candidate can knock on a door, and tell a sceptical householder with a straight face that Sunak is a capable person to be PM (who by the way shares their views on various things) and should remain so.
The downside risk of ditching him simply isn't worth it, and I think it very unlikely the 1922 will conclude differently.
EXC: Pressure piles on Keir Starmer - More than 150 Muslim Labour Councillors have written directly to the Labour leader demanding he call for a ceasefire in Gaza as backlash over his policy from within his party grows
My prediction of an Islamic Party forming seems to be more likely because of this latest trouble. I can’t find when I suggested it using the search function
Nah, there was an attempt after the Iraq war thar went nowhere. There isn't a political will for it in Britain, other than as someone to make up the numbers alongside Lord Buckethead and Britain First on election night.
No, because while faith is important to many, there are few of us that make it the defining point of our politics.
Hence the absence of such religious dogma from out politics, unlike the USA. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Atheists and Pastafarians can find a home in any of our political parties, at least outside Northern Ireland.
Yet in the six counties it still is very much a part of politics.
Sunak isn't particularly good at politics, at least at the very top level - that's fairly clear. But he isn't an idiot, is able to sustain a functional working relationship with colleagues, does have some ability to take advice, and is very unlikely to be caught breaking into London Zoo whilst high of crystal meth and trying to shag an ostrich....
And now I have to clear down my search history again. GODSDAMMIT PB!
We do everything on the cheap and then moan when it turns out to be crap and costly.
Wow, that’s about a third, or perhaps a quarter, of what you’d expect for such a role as a short-term assignment.
You’ll need to understand a fair bit about trade, and also a fair bit about Switzerland, their culture, and their economy. That salary isn’t temping anyone out of a Swiss bank, nor the senior Swiss CS, and isn’t tempting anyone out of retirement either.
So who do they expect to actually hire?
I would guess they will be looking at interest from people at the end of their career with experience of business in and with Switzerland where the salary is largely irrelevant - the salary is just a token but I’m sure that whoever takes it will get a nod that a bauble awaits at the end of the process - worth way more than a few hundred grand extra salary when you are already wealthy from your career.
So if you are a Brit ex Swiss Banker, or high-up in Rolex etc and you are ready to retire why not take this role, all expenses trips between London and Switzerland, tack on a bit of skiing, long lunches and boardroom meetings like when you were working anyway but not full days or weeks. At the end you walk away as Sir Swiss Tony for a year or two of doing what you were doing before and likely a load of extra well paid NEDs due to your enhanced Status as Sir and former Chief Trade Negotiator for UK/Switzerland.
Surely we want the best person, not someone who will swallow inadequate reward because they can afford it?
Isn't it just example 798 of where the current Govt knows neither the price nor the value of anything?
When people who are deeply invested in Palestinian freedom are asked about condemning Hamas or October 7th directly, and they don't answer, it is not because they condone Hamas - it is because it immediately shifts the conversation to the premise that the lives of Israelis matter and the lives of Palestinians do not.
(Snipped a load of an interesting post as I wanted to focus on this bit)
I disagree on this. Prevaricating and refusing to condemn Hamas shifts the conversation on to the October 7 attacks and undermines the person being asked as it makes them look like they condone the violence.
A simple "I condemn Hamas and the attacks on 7 October" enables moving the conversation on to what should happen next and what Israel is doing to Gaza and whether that should also be condemned.
Although it doesn't always work out that way. Eg an exchange on here yesterday. A poster condemned the Hamas atrocity and went on to make a couple of pro Palestinian observations (nothing radical just the usual type stuff about their plight).
He got accused of 'buttery'. ie where you are seen to devalue what you've said about something (and cast doubt on your sincerity about it) by going straight into a 'but'. Bit harsh, I thought.
Still, we all post what we like, don't we. All equal in that regard.
When people who are deeply invested in Palestinian freedom are asked about condemning Hamas or October 7th directly, and they don't answer, it is not because they condone Hamas - it is because it immediately shifts the conversation to the premise that the lives of Israelis matter and the lives of Palestinians do not.
(Snipped a load of an interesting post as I wanted to focus on this bit)
I disagree on this. Prevaricating and refusing to condemn Hamas shifts the conversation on to the October 7 attacks and undermines the person being asked as it makes them look like they condone the violence.
A simple "I condemn Hamas and the attacks on 7 October" enables moving the conversation on to what should happen next and what Israel is doing to Gaza and whether that should also be condemned.
Although it doesn't always work out that way. Eg an exchange on here yesterday. A poster condemned the Hamas atrocity and went on to make a couple of pro Palestinian observations (nothing radical just the usual type stuff about their plight).
He got accused of 'buttery'. ie where you are seen to devalue what you've said about something (and cast doubt on your sincerity about it) by going straight into a 'but'. Bit harsh, I thought.
Still, we all post what we like, don't we. All equal in that regard.
Lots of mentions in that article of: airstrikes on civilians, war crimes, atrocities, etc. Thousands have died; millions have been displaced. I have seen zero coverage in the international press, and no discussions on here. There have been no passionate calls for ceasefires, no large scale demonstrations in the UK, not much of anything at all. There are obviously lots of differences between that war and the one between Israel and Hamas, but it's difficult to move past the fact that one involves the world's only Jewish state, and the other doesn't.
It's stuff like this that makes it very easy to believe that anyone expressing explicit support for Palestinians is, at best being manipulated by antisemitic elements in the press and wider society, and quite often is betraying their own prejudices in that direction as well.
Well there's the 1st (sad) point that we don't care much about Africa and Africans. Then the 2nd (also sad) point is that Israel Palestine is a hot button 'left v right' topic. When you analyse responses and counterresponses what you find (very often) is that people on the left are more animated about what people on the right are saying about the conflict than the conflict itself. Likewise on the right the anger is more focused on what people on the left are saying about the conflict than the conflict itself. The discourse is quite meta.
A few things: 1) We also don't care very much about Arabs, unless there happens to be Jews on the other side. Why? 2) Easy to see why the right doesn't care very much about Africa and Africans (at least from your point of view). What's the Left's excuse? 3) Also easy to see why the Right is energised by Left wing antisemitism being displayed around the conflict. What's the Left's excuse for getting animated about people supporting Israel's right to defend itself following a massacre?
You say the right, unlike the racist driven left, are energized purely by revulsion at antisemitism and by Israel's right to defend itself against a massacre. I think that's a little too kind. I think there's something going on in their brain chemistry whereby Palestinians are lesser beings than Israelis. The antisemitism angle gets discussed a lot (quite rightly because it's there) but this angle rather less so. It seems to aggravate people just to mention it. I'm not sure why. It's interesting to ponder where that feeling (that Palestinians don't count) comes from.
EXC: Pressure piles on Keir Starmer - More than 150 Muslim Labour Councillors have written directly to the Labour leader demanding he call for a ceasefire in Gaza as backlash over his policy from within his party grows
My prediction of an Islamic Party forming seems to be more likely because of this latest trouble. I can’t find when I suggested it using the search function
Nah, there was an attempt after the Iraq war thar went nowhere. There isn't a political will for it in Britain, other than as someone to make up the numbers alongside Lord Buckethead and Britain First on election night.
No, because while faith is important to many, there are few of us that make it the defining point of our politics.
Hence the absence of such religious dogma from out politics, unlike the USA. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Atheists and Pastafarians can find a home in any of our political parties, at least outside Northern Ireland.
For Muslims whether in the US or Europe religion is one of the, if not the, defining points of their lives.
They are not Church of England or Church of Scotland liberals or atheists or agnostics as most of the UK population are.
Religion is only less of an issue in UK politics as fewer of us are Christian than in the USA now and those that are are less likely to be evangelical than Christians in the US (and evangelicals do translate their religious faith to their vote).
However Muslims can be as fervent as evangelicals in how their religion translates to politics and if they have a Muslim Party to vote for many would and desert Labour for it
"Finchley Road. Poster of two kidnapped Jewish children. Someone’s drawn a Hitler moustache on them. This is what the Jewish community is facing. Not in 1936. In 2023. Here. In London"
I really fear that many people are underplaying the rise in anti-Semitism, being hidden behind concern - real or otherwise - for Palestinians.
I agree. Some of the protests swiftly devolve and we see things like celebrating the paragliders on backpacks and the like. These are not "I'm here for peace" actions and words.
Are those a minority of those wanting instant ceasefire? Probably, but it's easy to find and not hidden by those who engage in it, they are proud of it. So it's a significant level of some kind.
If I were Jewish in this country I'd not feel safe, and that's appalling. I think a lot of generally hidden hatred is bring unleashed under the guise of events.
And I do imagine others will use events to unleash their hatred of Muslims too. That needs attention and action when it happens too. That doesn't mean the other hatred we are seeing should be underplayed. We should not undereact to such fears.
EXC: Pressure piles on Keir Starmer - More than 150 Muslim Labour Councillors have written directly to the Labour leader demanding he call for a ceasefire in Gaza as backlash over his policy from within his party grows
My prediction of an Islamic Party forming seems to be more likely because of this latest trouble. I can’t find when I suggested it using the search function
Yes, or a revival of Respect? Not sure that it will amount to a bad thing, overall for SKS. Generally speaking, religious identity factions are something mainstream political parties can do without, as long as it doesn't upend the political maths too much.
But one to watch, in any case.
I'd say that's more likely - home for expelled Corbynites etc.
EXC: Pressure piles on Keir Starmer - More than 150 Muslim Labour Councillors have written directly to the Labour leader demanding he call for a ceasefire in Gaza as backlash over his policy from within his party grows
My prediction of an Islamic Party forming seems to be more likely because of this latest trouble. I can’t find when I suggested it using the search function
Nah, there was an attempt after the Iraq war thar went nowhere. There isn't a political will for it in Britain, other than as someone to make up the numbers alongside Lord Buckethead and Britain First on election night.
No, because while faith is important to many, there are few of us that make it the defining point of our politics.
Hence the absence of such religious dogma from out politics, unlike the USA. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Atheists and Pastafarians can find a home in any of our political parties, at least outside Northern Ireland.
Yet in the six counties it still is very much a part of politics.
Which is why I mentioned it as an exception.
Also why it is a good thing that religion is generally kept out of our politics. Northern Ireland makes the Republican search for a Speaker of the House seem purposeful and progressive!
EXC: Pressure piles on Keir Starmer - More than 150 Muslim Labour Councillors have written directly to the Labour leader demanding he call for a ceasefire in Gaza as backlash over his policy from within his party grows
My prediction of an Islamic Party forming seems to be more likely because of this latest trouble. I can’t find when I suggested it using the search function
Nah, there was an attempt after the Iraq war thar went nowhere. There isn't a political will for it in Britain, other than as someone to make up the numbers alongside Lord Buckethead and Britain First on election night.
No, because while faith is important to many, there are few of us that make it the defining point of our politics.
Hence the absence of such religious dogma from out politics, unlike the USA. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Atheists and Pastafarians can find a home in any of our political parties, at least outside Northern Ireland.
George Galloway's two election wins, and the success of Aspire in Tower Hamlets, suggest that such a party would gain traction in some areas. IIRC Justice for Kashmir used to win some seats in Birmingham, too.
"Finchley Road. Poster of two kidnapped Jewish children. Someone’s drawn a Hitler moustache on them. This is what the Jewish community is facing. Not in 1936. In 2023. Here. In London"
I really fear that many people are underplaying the rise in anti-Semitism, being hidden behind concern - real or otherwise - for Palestinians.
I've been intrigued by these posters - the 'why?', as opposed to posters of people who were murdered (when alive, not of corpses). Scanned the QR code in the poster to learn more and I'm not really much wiser - two options, one to download posters to put up and another to donate, with no real indication of how the donation is to be used.
I don't support tearing them down or defacing, but I'm not quite sure what those putting these posters up are trying to achieve.
I might suggest the posters help prevent the people who have been kidnapped from being forgotten. Or the fact that Jews are being affected by what is happening, and not just Palestinians.
Sadly, some people seem to be very keen to forget Israeli victims.
They also serve the secondary benefit of showing the anti-Semitic lovely souls who rip them down, and deface them, for what they are.
On topic - could we see the '22 install some sort of elder statesman to staunch the bleeding?
OGH suggests that the role has no attraction to aspiring Tories. But survival certainly will, and given Brady's comments about excluding the membership and Hunt floating that he might not stand at the next GE...
Yes. We need Earl Home 2023 edition.
The only one I can think of in the Commons with stature is Theresa May. In the Lords? Ken Clark, William Hague - someone like that Outside Parliament? I see that George Osborne has rehabilitated himself on his podcast...
Sunak is sinking the ship. The idea of a putsch against him is entirely rational. But there is no obvious replacement in the Commons who could both win a majority and steady the ship. So look outside.
The Tories have already shown that they don't give a rat fuck about the constitutional niceties - sending Rees-Mogg up to Balmoral to lie to HMQ and illegally close parliament proves that.
So why not a PM in the Lords? Ideally placed to be immune to the infighting of the rats as the ship sinks. But could steady the ship enough so that all isn't lost.
Lord Frost? The only possible Lord the current Tory party would unite around as leader
The point is to steady the ship though, not sink it deeper and faster.
Sunak and Hunt have steadied the ship after Truss and Kwarteng, the next Tory leader will almost certainly be right of Sunak
Planet earth calling Tory party...
The Tories have been led by leaders from their more moderate wing for most of the last 18 years and most of their time in government since 2010 ie Cameron, May and now Sunak.
In Opposition they will certainly move further right as Labour moved further left after the Blair and Brown years and New Labour losing power in 2010
Sunak's policies are not moderate. They are from the extreme left of the Tory Party.
When people who are deeply invested in Palestinian freedom are asked about condemning Hamas or October 7th directly, and they don't answer, it is not because they condone Hamas - it is because it immediately shifts the conversation to the premise that the lives of Israelis matter and the lives of Palestinians do not.
(Snipped a load of an interesting post as I wanted to focus on this bit)
I disagree on this. Prevaricating and refusing to condemn Hamas shifts the conversation on to the October 7 attacks and undermines the person being asked as it makes them look like they condone the violence.
A simple "I condemn Hamas and the attacks on 7 October" enables moving the conversation on to what should happen next and what Israel is doing to Gaza and whether that should also be condemned.
Although it doesn't always work out that way. Eg an exchange on here yesterday. A poster condemned the Hamas atrocity and went on to make a couple of pro Palestinian observations (nothing radical just the usual type stuff about their plight).
He got accused of 'buttery'. ie where you are seen to devalue what you've said about something (and cast doubt on your sincerity about it) by going straight into a 'but'. Bit harsh, I thought.
Still, we all post what we like, don't we. All equal in that regard.
Lots of mentions in that article of: airstrikes on civilians, war crimes, atrocities, etc. Thousands have died; millions have been displaced. I have seen zero coverage in the international press, and no discussions on here. There have been no passionate calls for ceasefires, no large scale demonstrations in the UK, not much of anything at all. There are obviously lots of differences between that war and the one between Israel and Hamas, but it's difficult to move past the fact that one involves the world's only Jewish state, and the other doesn't.
It's stuff like this that makes it very easy to believe that anyone expressing explicit support for Palestinians is, at best being manipulated by antisemitic elements in the press and wider society, and quite often is betraying their own prejudices in that direction as well.
Al Jazeera used to have some good coverage on Sudan, but its has been blanked out by the Gaza propaganda war. Shame.
It's an incomprehensible* civil war to most of us, though, in a Sunni Arab state, with no possibility of western intervention.
*a paramilitary organisation fighting a military dictator, with involvement of Wagner (or whatever it's now called), and the UAE, with some involvement of minority ethnic groups, for control of lucrative natural resource franchises.
Saudi Arabia is a possible peacemaker, which gives some idea of how f*cked up it is.
EXC: Pressure piles on Keir Starmer - More than 150 Muslim Labour Councillors have written directly to the Labour leader demanding he call for a ceasefire in Gaza as backlash over his policy from within his party grows
My prediction of an Islamic Party forming seems to be more likely because of this latest trouble. I can’t find when I suggested it using the search function
Nah, there was an attempt after the Iraq war thar went nowhere. There isn't a political will for it in Britain, other than as someone to make up the numbers alongside Lord Buckethead and Britain First on election night.
No, because while faith is important to many, there are few of us that make it the defining point of our politics.
Hence the absence of such religious dogma from out politics, unlike the USA. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Atheists and Pastafarians can find a home in any of our political parties, at least outside Northern Ireland.
For Muslims whether in the US or Europe religion is one of the, if not the, defining point of their lives.
They are not Church of England or Church of Scotland liberals or atheists or agnostics as most of the UK population are.
Religion is only less of an issue in UK politics as fewer of us are Christian than in the USA now and those that are are less likely to be evangelical than Christians in the US (and evangelicals do translate their religious faith to their vote).
However Muslims can be as fervent as evangelicals in how their religion translates to politics
The idea all Muslims are any one thing or another is just ignorance and discrimination, not remotely credible.
Some Muslims are religious fanatics, which is bad. Others are quite happy to sit at Wetherspoons drinking a beer to go with their bacon cheeseburger, which is good.
And others are somewhere in-between.
Hopefully more Muslims will overtime become more secular and integrated into the UK, I would hate to see the UK regress back into being a less secular nation.
Listening to Tory backbench questions is interesting. Repeated questions decrying the terrible state of the country - the terrible Environment Agency, the poor air we breathe, the crisis in NHS dentistry, the lack of investment in industrial projects like Hydrogen etc etc.
Each time Sunak stands up and says how marvellous a job he is doing. So Tories *know* the country is broken. And will rightly be punished for it.
Oh, and then we get: Q: why has the PM not told the house about the £2m he paid to his wife? A: Labour wanted us to spend more money so its their fault
Blimey - multiple Labour MPs telling me that a couple of shadow cabinet members are considering resigning over Keir Starmer’s handling of the Gaza situation
We do everything on the cheap and then moan when it turns out to be crap and costly.
Wow, that’s about a third, or perhaps a quarter, of what you’d expect for such a role as a short-term assignment.
You’ll need to understand a fair bit about trade, and also a fair bit about Switzerland, their culture, and their economy. That salary isn’t temping anyone out of a Swiss bank, nor the senior Swiss CS, and isn’t tempting anyone out of retirement either.
So who do they expect to actually hire?
I would guess they will be looking at interest from people at the end of their career with experience of business in and with Switzerland where the salary is largely irrelevant - the salary is just a token but I’m sure that whoever takes it will get a nod that a bauble awaits at the end of the process - worth way more than a few hundred grand extra salary when you are already wealthy from your career.
So if you are a Brit ex Swiss Banker, or high-up in Rolex etc and you are ready to retire why not take this role, all expenses trips between London and Switzerland, tack on a bit of skiing, long lunches and boardroom meetings like when you were working anyway but not full days or weeks. At the end you walk away as Sir Swiss Tony for a year or two of doing what you were doing before and likely a load of extra well paid NEDs due to your enhanced Status as Sir and former Chief Trade Negotiator for UK/Switzerland.
Surely we want the best person, not someone who will swallow inadequate reward because they can afford it?
Isn't it just example 798 of where the current Govt knows neither the price nor the value of anything?
What is the best person? Do we have a production line of high level trade negotiators? What is better is someone who is British but has worked at a high level in Switzerland so already has contacts, understanding of the business culture and to a degree the political culture and not unimportantly the human culture.
Don’t underestimate how business is done “differently” and how human interaction and etiquette is different but important.
So how many people do we have who have worked to a high level in business available. How many of them have a helpful Swiss network to open doors where necessary. How many of these understand how Swiss business and gov do things and approach things. The answer is very few and once you have the person at the top, a figurehead and chair effectively there will of course be a team of Sherpas behind.
What’s the other option? Someone who has worked in the department of trade in London for 15 years who is working their way through the CS to a higher salary and role but has no practical and real understanding of the Swiss?
I lived and worked there and experienced first hand that what and how you do and see things in an Anglo setting is not often the same way that senior Swiss do.
If you compare Aaron's hairline now with that in his Wikipedia picture, you can see the strain of his long years of service during the hegemony of no fewer than three prime ministers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Bell_(politician)
EXC: Pressure piles on Keir Starmer - More than 150 Muslim Labour Councillors have written directly to the Labour leader demanding he call for a ceasefire in Gaza as backlash over his policy from within his party grows
My prediction of an Islamic Party forming seems to be more likely because of this latest trouble. I can’t find when I suggested it using the search function
Nah, there was an attempt after the Iraq war thar went nowhere. There isn't a political will for it in Britain, other than as someone to make up the numbers alongside Lord Buckethead and Britain First on election night.
No, because while faith is important to many, there are few of us that make it the defining point of our politics.
Hence the absence of such religious dogma from out politics, unlike the USA. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Atheists and Pastafarians can find a home in any of our political parties, at least outside Northern Ireland.
Yet in the six counties it still is very much a part of politics.
I am surprised neither main party makes a serious attempt at NI. If the Alliance can get 19% of the vote I suspect so could Labour or the Tories. And that might mean seats getting won with 25-30% of the vote in individual constituencies.
"Finchley Road. Poster of two kidnapped Jewish children. Someone’s drawn a Hitler moustache on them. This is what the Jewish community is facing. Not in 1936. In 2023. Here. In London"
I really fear that many people are underplaying the rise in anti-Semitism, being hidden behind concern - real or otherwise - for Palestinians.
Some moron taking a felt-tip pen to a poster is hardly the Blackshirts. Hodges is trivialising the seriousness of antisemitism and the crisis in the Middle East with this sort of breathlessness. Let's face it, if someone had put up a poster in London in the 1970s depicting one of the victims of Bloody Sunday that would have been similarly vandalized, but no one would have said Britain was on the verge of a Catholic purge.
Just to prove that Putin and the Russians are totally unhinged, and while attention turns to other conflicts around the world, evidence has emerged of a plan to fly a Soyuz rocket, which normally carries astronauts to the ISS, into Kiev on a suicide mission, packed with explosives.
Lots of mentions in that article of: airstrikes on civilians, war crimes, atrocities, etc. Thousands have died; millions have been displaced. I have seen zero coverage in the international press, and no discussions on here. There have been no passionate calls for ceasefires, no large scale demonstrations in the UK, not much of anything at all...
If you want to keep track of the multiple wars going on at the moment in the world, including the buildup in Taiwan, the Wagner wars in Africa, the tensions in the French region of Africa, tensions between Iran and Afghanistan, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, etc etc I am more than happy to recommend some YouTube channels. Most people get (mis)information from Twitter on their phones, but those who work from laptops may find listening to YouTubes whilst they work more productive.
Had to go to a work meeting, so missed much of the conversation.
In relation to the claim the “some historians” claim “some acts of violence” that caused the Jewish exodus in the Middle East could have been done by Zionists in an attempt to get Jewish communities to move to Israel with specific reference to the Baghdad bombings:
Many of the citations rely on the Waybackmachine, which will not work on my phone.
To the allegations of anti-Semitism; you can say what you want. I was in my therapy group yesterday with a Jewish woman in her mid 70s in tears in anger over what Israel had done - she shared stories from her mother and her good times in the Kabutz and the loss of whole branches of her family tree in the Holocaust. I know the conversations I’ve had with Jewish people, I know the research I’ve done, I know that Zionism and Israel is not an inherent part of Jewishness of Judaism.
As to me discussing the nature of the sympathy and the reaction to the captors - this was not an excuse, it was an example - like people giving a single example yesterday of horrific child murder meaning Hamas are Nazis - of how you can easily see a different perspective. I take the view of many Israeli Jews who, even now, are being locked up for demoralising the IDF - that the cycle of violence starting with partition but specifically exacerbated over the policies of the Netanyahu government - cannot be and will not be ended by the mass casualties and continued oppression of Palestinians by Israel.
"Finchley Road. Poster of two kidnapped Jewish children. Someone’s drawn a Hitler moustache on them. This is what the Jewish community is facing. Not in 1936. In 2023. Here. In London"
I really fear that many people are underplaying the rise in anti-Semitism, being hidden behind concern - real or otherwise - for Palestinians.
Some moron taking a felt-tip pen to a poster is hardly the Blackshirts. Hodges is trivialising the seriousness of antisemitism and the crisis in the Middle East with this sort of breathlessness. Let's face it, if someone had put up a poster in London in the 1970s depicting one of the victims of Bloody Sunday that would have been similarly vandalized, but no one would have said Britain was on the verge of a Catholic purge.
Yeah, I'm sure you're right. I'm sure ignoring such small events is in no ways encouraging for people who want to commit bigger crimes. I'm convinced any Jew seeing that defaced poster would feel perfectly safe and at home.
Listening to Tory backbench questions is interesting. Repeated questions decrying the terrible state of the country - the terrible Environment Agency, the poor air we breathe, the crisis in NHS dentistry, the lack of investment in industrial projects like Hydrogen etc etc.
Each time Sunak stands up and says how marvellous a job he is doing. So Tories *know* the country is broken. And will rightly be punished for it.
Oh, and then we get: Q: why has the PM not told the house about the £2m he paid to his wife? A: Labour wanted us to spend more money so its their fault
Hopefully that brewing scandal means he jumps before he's pushed. 'I have realised I am not the person to lead the Tories into the next election, I am pleased to have steadied the ship, etc. etc.'
When people who are deeply invested in Palestinian freedom are asked about condemning Hamas or October 7th directly, and they don't answer, it is not because they condone Hamas - it is because it immediately shifts the conversation to the premise that the lives of Israelis matter and the lives of Palestinians do not.
(Snipped a load of an interesting post as I wanted to focus on this bit)
I disagree on this. Prevaricating and refusing to condemn Hamas shifts the conversation on to the October 7 attacks and undermines the person being asked as it makes them look like they condone the violence.
A simple "I condemn Hamas and the attacks on 7 October" enables moving the conversation on to what should happen next and what Israel is doing to Gaza and whether that should also be condemned.
Although it doesn't always work out that way. Eg an exchange on here yesterday. A poster condemned the Hamas atrocity and went on to make a couple of pro Palestinian observations (nothing radical just the usual type stuff about their plight).
He got accused of 'buttery'. ie where you are seen to devalue what you've said about something (and cast doubt on your sincerity about it) by going straight into a 'but'. Bit harsh, I thought.
Still, we all post what we like, don't we. All equal in that regard.
Lots of mentions in that article of: airstrikes on civilians, war crimes, atrocities, etc. Thousands have died; millions have been displaced. I have seen zero coverage in the international press, and no discussions on here. There have been no passionate calls for ceasefires, no large scale demonstrations in the UK, not much of anything at all. There are obviously lots of differences between that war and the one between Israel and Hamas, but it's difficult to move past the fact that one involves the world's only Jewish state, and the other doesn't.
It's stuff like this that makes it very easy to believe that anyone expressing explicit support for Palestinians is, at best being manipulated by antisemitic elements in the press and wider society, and quite often is betraying their own prejudices in that direction as well.
Al Jazeera used to have some good coverage on Sudan, but its has been blanked out by the Gaza propaganda war. Shame.
It's an incomprehensible* civil war to most of us, though, in a Sunni Arab state, with no possibility of western intervention.
*a paramilitary organisation fighting a military dictator, with involvement of Wagner (or whatever it's now called), and the UAE, with some involvement of minority ethnic groups,
On topic - could we see the '22 install some sort of elder statesman to staunch the bleeding?
OGH suggests that the role has no attraction to aspiring Tories. But survival certainly will, and given Brady's comments about excluding the membership and Hunt floating that he might not stand at the next GE...
There is no realistic prospect of this. A fourth leader in four years, particularly one who is essentially presented as some sort of caretaker ahead of a fifth, would just feed the already pretty prevalent idea of a chaotic party, unfit to govern.
Sunak isn't particularly good at politics, at least at the very top level - that's fairly clear. But he isn't an idiot, is able to sustain a functional working relationship with colleagues, does have some ability to take advice, and is very unlikely to be caught breaking into London Zoo whilst high of crystal meth and trying to shag an ostrich. So he meets the basic requirement that a Tory candidate can knock on a door, and tell a sceptical householder with a straight face that Sunak is a capable person to be PM (who by the way shares their views on various things) and should remain so.
The downside risk of ditching him simply isn't worth it, and I think it very unlikely the 1922 will conclude differently.
Bloody hell.
How did I miss that one?
It's not a conCrete story.
The Frome guy had something to do with drugs, but Dorries is the only MP to get intimate with an ostrich anus, AFAIK.
Just to prove that Putin and the Russians are totally unhinged, and while attention turns to other conflicts around the world, evidence has emerged of a plan to fly a Soyuz rocket, which normally carries astronauts to the ISS, into Kiev on a suicide mission, packed with explosives.
I've just heard on radio news (Deutschlandfunk) that the Rusian parliament has voted to break from the agreement not to carry out nuclear tests. (Reported by Reuters)
The news just seems to get worse day by day, bit by bit.
Check FlightRadar for test flights from American air bases in Europe for the next couple of days. That was what happened the last couple of times Russia rattled its nuclear sabre.
#1 on FlightRadar this morning, is an American RC-135 Combat Sent surveillance aircraft out of Mildenhall, currently just off the coast of Kaliningrad, presumably watching for bears and submarines.
COMBAT SENT collects radar emitter data. This is used to compile the threat libraries for RWR and other systems.
RC-135 variants are a stiff identification challenge. Only the true Experten can tell a COBRA BALL from a RIVET JOINT.
EXC: Pressure piles on Keir Starmer - More than 150 Muslim Labour Councillors have written directly to the Labour leader demanding he call for a ceasefire in Gaza as backlash over his policy from within his party grows
I’m not sure that Starmer is feeling quite as much pressure, as these councillors and activists wish him to be feeling.
Which is generally true of his internal opponents. They are mad at not having more influence and so exagerrate the significance of their petulance.
This example is probably more substantive than that, but I don't get the impression as an outsider that Starmer needs to worry yet
As someone who is much less of an outsider, I have to disagree with you. The criticism from within the Labour Party falls into two quite distinct camps:
1. The usual critics on the far left, who can scarcely contain their glee at being presented with an excuse to weigh in against Keir Starmer as strongly as possible. They see it as an opportunity. The Momentum-supporting Oxford councillor on the radio this morning was an example.
2. A broad swathe of opinion within the wider Labour Party, people who are mostly supportive of the leadership and certainly not those habitually seeking to undermine it from within. That includes amongst others Muslim councillors, most of whom are quite willing to condemn Hamas's actions on 7th October unreservedly but nonetheless are appalled by the humanitarian situation unfolding in Gaza and the relentless killing through bombing and are getting it in the neck from their local communities who are similarly appalled.
In political terms, Keir Starmer should be concerned. The usual critics are not of much relevance, they have already been marginalised within the party and there is no way back now. However, the criticism from within the Muslim community will lose Labour electoral support if not properly addressed, some of it in marginal seats. If Israel continues on its present course, the situation in Gaza is going to get even worse and I think that public opinion will increasingly become critical of the actions of the Israeli government going forward.
Blimey - multiple Labour MPs telling me that a couple of shadow cabinet members are considering resigning over Keir Starmer’s handling of the Gaza situation
I don’t think the Nuremberg trials themselves went very far down the chain of command, there were other specific trials going on, eg the Belsen trials for Irma Grese and her pals.
There was no real consistency. A lot of leading Nazis were only lightly punished, whereas some of the small fry were hanged.
Far more fell victim to summary vengeance.
Sadly, and unfairly, that's often how justice works.
I have gotten seriously into the YouTube channel "East Germany Investigated" recently, and one of them dealt with how East Germany dealt with its Nazi prisoners. Basically there were camps for the Nazis (irony) from which some were tried, then in 1950 they went "fuck it" and got rid of them all in about a couple of months. Some were sent to the Soviet Union, some were freed, the rest were subject to the "Waldheim Trials" (aka the "Waldheim Process" or Waldheimer Prozesse in German). They (ahem) processed 3,442 people people between April 21 and June 29, 1950:
That split to
3,324 sentenced
72 people not fit to stand trial
43 died during the trials
4 other
Of the 3,324 sentenced, most received long sentences and some received death sentences. Appeals were allowed but most were denied and most of those that were retried resulted in higher sentences (oh that wacky East German humour!)
Trial times were measured in minutes. Defences were not allowed. Sometimes even prosecutions were not allowed, with summary verdicts from the judges.
For all those decrying the way the West handled its Nazi prisoners, it needs to be pointed out that the East handled its quota in a far more mechanical fashion that was certainly more efficient but at the price of what we would consider just.
Yeah, things like the operation paperclip and operation osoaviakhim do not give much hope. Again, atrocious as it would have been, I can sympathise with the desires of Abba Kovner for the Nakam - six million Germans for six million European Jews.
When people who are deeply invested in Palestinian freedom are asked about condemning Hamas or October 7th directly, and they don't answer, it is not because they condone Hamas - it is because it immediately shifts the conversation to the premise that the lives of Israelis matter and the lives of Palestinians do not.
(Snipped a load of an interesting post as I wanted to focus on this bit)
I disagree on this. Prevaricating and refusing to condemn Hamas shifts the conversation on to the October 7 attacks and undermines the person being asked as it makes them look like they condone the violence.
A simple "I condemn Hamas and the attacks on 7 October" enables moving the conversation on to what should happen next and what Israel is doing to Gaza and whether that should also be condemned.
Although it doesn't always work out that way. Eg an exchange on here yesterday. A poster condemned the Hamas atrocity and went on to make a couple of pro Palestinian observations (nothing radical just the usual type stuff about their plight).
He got accused of 'buttery'. ie where you are seen to devalue what you've said about something (and cast doubt on your sincerity about it) by going straight into a 'but'. Bit harsh, I thought.
Still, we all post what we like, don't we. All equal in that regard.
Lots of mentions in that article of: airstrikes on civilians, war crimes, atrocities, etc. Thousands have died; millions have been displaced. I have seen zero coverage in the international press, and no discussions on here. There have been no passionate calls for ceasefires, no large scale demonstrations in the UK, not much of anything at all. There are obviously lots of differences between that war and the one between Israel and Hamas, but it's difficult to move past the fact that one involves the world's only Jewish state, and the other doesn't.
It's stuff like this that makes it very easy to believe that anyone expressing explicit support for Palestinians is, at best being manipulated by antisemitic elements in the press and wider society, and quite often is betraying their own prejudices in that direction as well.
Al Jazeera used to have some good coverage on Sudan, but its has been blanked out by the Gaza propaganda war. Shame.
It's an incomprehensible* civil war to most of us, though, in a Sunni Arab state, with no possibility of western intervention.
*a paramilitary organisation fighting a military dictator, with involvement of Wagner (or whatever it's now called), and the UAE, with some involvement of minority ethnic groups, for control of lucrative natural resource franchises.
Saudi Arabia is a possible peacemaker, which gives some idea of how f*cked up it is.
A Sudanese friend explained it to me as rival warlord factions having a war over looting rights. There isn't really any ideology other than that.
EXC: Pressure piles on Keir Starmer - More than 150 Muslim Labour Councillors have written directly to the Labour leader demanding he call for a ceasefire in Gaza as backlash over his policy from within his party grows
My prediction of an Islamic Party forming seems to be more likely because of this latest trouble. I can’t find when I suggested it using the search function
Nah, there was an attempt after the Iraq war thar went nowhere. There isn't a political will for it in Britain, other than as someone to make up the numbers alongside Lord Buckethead and Britain First on election night.
No, because while faith is important to many, there are few of us that make it the defining point of our politics.
Hence the absence of such religious dogma from out politics, unlike the USA. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Atheists and Pastafarians can find a home in any of our political parties, at least outside Northern Ireland.
For Muslims whether in the US or Europe religion is one of the, if not the, defining point of their lives.
They are not Church of England or Church of Scotland liberals or atheists or agnostics as most of the UK population are.
Religion is only less of an issue in UK politics as fewer of us are Christian than in the USA now and those that are are less likely to be evangelical than Christians in the US (and evangelicals do translate their religious faith to their vote).
However Muslims can be as fervent as evangelicals in how their religion translates to politics
The idea all Muslims are any one thing or another is just ignorance and discrimination, not remotely credible.
Some Muslims are religious fanatics, which is bad. Others are quite happy to sit at Wetherspoons drinking a beer to go with their bacon cheeseburger, which is good.
And others are somewhere in-between.
Hopefully more Muslims will overtime become more secular and integrated into the UK, I would hate to see the UK regress back into being a less secular nation.
52% of UK Muslims think homosexuality should be illegal on this poll and nearly a quarter want Sharia law in the UK
When people who are deeply invested in Palestinian freedom are asked about condemning Hamas or October 7th directly, and they don't answer, it is not because they condone Hamas - it is because it immediately shifts the conversation to the premise that the lives of Israelis matter and the lives of Palestinians do not.
(Snipped a load of an interesting post as I wanted to focus on this bit)
I disagree on this. Prevaricating and refusing to condemn Hamas shifts the conversation on to the October 7 attacks and undermines the person being asked as it makes them look like they condone the violence.
A simple "I condemn Hamas and the attacks on 7 October" enables moving the conversation on to what should happen next and what Israel is doing to Gaza and whether that should also be condemned.
Although it doesn't always work out that way. Eg an exchange on here yesterday. A poster condemned the Hamas atrocity and went on to make a couple of pro Palestinian observations (nothing radical just the usual type stuff about their plight).
He got accused of 'buttery'. ie where you are seen to devalue what you've said about something (and cast doubt on your sincerity about it) by going straight into a 'but'. Bit harsh, I thought.
Still, we all post what we like, don't we. All equal in that regard.
Lots of mentions in that article of: airstrikes on civilians, war crimes, atrocities, etc. Thousands have died; millions have been displaced. I have seen zero coverage in the international press, and no discussions on here. There have been no passionate calls for ceasefires, no large scale demonstrations in the UK, not much of anything at all. There are obviously lots of differences between that war and the one between Israel and Hamas, but it's difficult to move past the fact that one involves the world's only Jewish state, and the other doesn't.
It's stuff like this that makes it very easy to believe that anyone expressing explicit support for Palestinians is, at best being manipulated by antisemitic elements in the press and wider society, and quite often is betraying their own prejudices in that direction as well.
Al Jazeera used to have some good coverage on Sudan, but its has been blanked out by the Gaza propaganda war. Shame.
It's an incomprehensible* civil war to most of us, though, in a Sunni Arab state, with no possibility of western intervention.
*a paramilitary organisation fighting a military dictator, with involvement of Wagner (or whatever it's now called), and the UAE, with some involvement of minority ethnic groups, for control of lucrative natural resource franchises.
Saudi Arabia is a possible peacemaker, which gives some idea of how f*cked up it is.
A Sudanese friend explained it to me as rival warlord factions having a war over looting rights. There isn't really any ideology other than that.
EXC: Pressure piles on Keir Starmer - More than 150 Muslim Labour Councillors have written directly to the Labour leader demanding he call for a ceasefire in Gaza as backlash over his policy from within his party grows
My prediction of an Islamic Party forming seems to be more likely because of this latest trouble. I can’t find when I suggested it using the search function
Nah, there was an attempt after the Iraq war thar went nowhere. There isn't a political will for it in Britain, other than as someone to make up the numbers alongside Lord Buckethead and Britain First on election night.
No, because while faith is important to many, there are few of us that make it the defining point of our politics.
Hence the absence of such religious dogma from out politics, unlike the USA. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Atheists and Pastafarians can find a home in any of our political parties, at least outside Northern Ireland.
For Muslims whether in the US or Europe religion is one of the, if not the, defining point of their lives.
They are not Church of England or Church of Scotland liberals or atheists or agnostics as most of the UK population are.
Religion is only less of an issue in UK politics as fewer of us are Christian than in the USA now and those that are are less likely to be evangelical than Christians in the US (and evangelicals do translate their religious faith to their vote).
However Muslims can be as fervent as evangelicals in how their religion translates to politics
The idea all Muslims are any one thing or another is just ignorance and discrimination, not remotely credible.
Some Muslims are religious fanatics, which is bad. Others are quite happy to sit at Wetherspoons drinking a beer to go with their bacon cheeseburger, which is good.
And others are somewhere in-between.
Hopefully more Muslims will overtime become more secular and integrated into the UK, I would hate to see the UK regress back into being a less secular nation.
52% of UK Muslims think homosexuality should be illegal on this poll and nearly a quarter want Sharia law in the UK
On thing that often seems to get missed in discussions about 'the Muslims' is that the Muslim faith is multistranded with people claiming adherence to it coming from many different backgrounds. Those of the Turkish Diaspora (like the husband of one of my cousins and the father of their brought-up-Catholic children) will have a differing view of the world than many those of Pakistani heritage or Sudanese or Afghan. The same goes for the Bosnian/Herzogovinian disaspora. It is utterly impossible to lump 'all Muslims' together to ascribe a common attitude to them.
When people who are deeply invested in Palestinian freedom are asked about condemning Hamas or October 7th directly, and they don't answer, it is not because they condone Hamas - it is because it immediately shifts the conversation to the premise that the lives of Israelis matter and the lives of Palestinians do not.
(Snipped a load of an interesting post as I wanted to focus on this bit)
I disagree on this. Prevaricating and refusing to condemn Hamas shifts the conversation on to the October 7 attacks and undermines the person being asked as it makes them look like they condone the violence.
A simple "I condemn Hamas and the attacks on 7 October" enables moving the conversation on to what should happen next and what Israel is doing to Gaza and whether that should also be condemned.
Although it doesn't always work out that way. Eg an exchange on here yesterday. A poster condemned the Hamas atrocity and went on to make a couple of pro Palestinian observations (nothing radical just the usual type stuff about their plight).
He got accused of 'buttery'. ie where you are seen to devalue what you've said about something (and cast doubt on your sincerity about it) by going straight into a 'but'. Bit harsh, I thought.
Still, we all post what we like, don't we. All equal in that regard.
When people who are deeply invested in Palestinian freedom are asked about condemning Hamas or October 7th directly, and they don't answer, it is not because they condone Hamas - it is because it immediately shifts the conversation to the premise that the lives of Israelis matter and the lives of Palestinians do not.
(Snipped a load of an interesting post as I wanted to focus on this bit)
I disagree on this. Prevaricating and refusing to condemn Hamas shifts the conversation on to the October 7 attacks and undermines the person being asked as it makes them look like they condone the violence.
A simple "I condemn Hamas and the attacks on 7 October" enables moving the conversation on to what should happen next and what Israel is doing to Gaza and whether that should also be condemned.
Although it doesn't always work out that way. Eg an exchange on here yesterday. A poster condemned the Hamas atrocity and went on to make a couple of pro Palestinian observations (nothing radical just the usual type stuff about their plight).
He got accused of 'buttery'. ie where you are seen to devalue what you've said about something (and cast doubt on your sincerity about it) by going straight into a 'but'. Bit harsh, I thought.
Still, we all post what we like, don't we. All equal in that regard.
Lots of mentions in that article of: airstrikes on civilians, war crimes, atrocities, etc. Thousands have died; millions have been displaced. I have seen zero coverage in the international press, and no discussions on here. There have been no passionate calls for ceasefires, no large scale demonstrations in the UK, not much of anything at all. There are obviously lots of differences between that war and the one between Israel and Hamas, but it's difficult to move past the fact that one involves the world's only Jewish state, and the other doesn't.
It's stuff like this that makes it very easy to believe that anyone expressing explicit support for Palestinians is, at best being manipulated by antisemitic elements in the press and wider society, and quite often is betraying their own prejudices in that direction as well.
Well there's the 1st (sad) point that we don't care much about Africa and Africans. Then the 2nd (also sad) point is that Israel Palestine is a hot button 'left v right' topic. When you analyse responses and counterresponses what you find (very often) is that people on the left are more animated about what people on the right are saying about the conflict than the conflict itself. Likewise on the right the anger is more focused on what people on the left are saying about the conflict than the conflict itself. The discourse is quite meta.
A few things: 1) We also don't care very much about Arabs, unless there happens to be Jews on the other side. Why? 2) Easy to see why the right doesn't care very much about Africa and Africans (at least from your point of view). What's the Left's excuse? 3) Also easy to see why the Right is energised by Left wing antisemitism being displayed around the conflict. What's the Left's excuse for getting animated about people supporting Israel's right to defend itself following a massacre?
You say the right, unlike the racist driven left, are energized purely by revulsion at antisemitism and by Israel's right to defend itself against a massacre. I think that's a little too kind. I think there's something going on in their brain chemistry whereby Palestinians are lesser beings than Israelis. The antisemitism angle gets discussed a lot (quite rightly because it's there) but this angle rather less so. It seems to aggravate people just to mention it. I'm not sure why. It's interesting to ponder where that feeling (that Palestinians don't count) comes from.
EXC: Pressure piles on Keir Starmer - More than 150 Muslim Labour Councillors have written directly to the Labour leader demanding he call for a ceasefire in Gaza as backlash over his policy from within his party grows
My prediction of an Islamic Party forming seems to be more likely because of this latest trouble. I can’t find when I suggested it using the search function
Nah, there was an attempt after the Iraq war thar went nowhere. There isn't a political will for it in Britain, other than as someone to make up the numbers alongside Lord Buckethead and Britain First on election night.
No, because while faith is important to many, there are few of us that make it the defining point of our politics.
Hence the absence of such religious dogma from out politics, unlike the USA. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Atheists and Pastafarians can find a home in any of our political parties, at least outside Northern Ireland.
George Galloway's two election wins, and the success of Aspire in Tower Hamlets, suggest that such a party would gain traction in some areas. IIRC Justice for Kashmir used to win some seats in Birmingham, too.
Ankit Love is very focused on justice for Kashmir. He stood in two of the recent by-elections… double digit votes both times however.
I've just heard on radio news (Deutschlandfunk) that the Rusian parliament has voted to break from the agreement not to carry out nuclear tests. (Reported by Reuters)
The news just seems to get worse day by day, bit by bit.
Check FlightRadar for test flights from American air bases in Europe for the next couple of days. That was what happened the last couple of times Russia rattled its nuclear sabre.
#1 on FlightRadar this morning, is an American RC-135 Combat Sent surveillance aircraft out of Mildenhall, currently just off the coast of Kaliningrad, presumably watching for bears and submarines.
COMBAT SENT collects radar emitter data. This is used to compile the threat libraries for RWR and other systems.
RC-135 variants are a stiff identification challenge. Only the true Experten can tell a COBRA BALL from a RIVET JOINT.
Translation: they are all Boeing 707s painted gray and white with different bumps here and there
This is one Covid treatment which should be withdrawn from the market. The anti-vaxx crowd have barely noticed it.
Anti-COVID drug accelerates viral evolution Molnupiravir, an antiviral drug used to treat COVID-19, induces numerous mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 genome that can increase the rate at which the virus evolves — yielding viral variants that might survive and be passed on. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03248-3
When people who are deeply invested in Palestinian freedom are asked about condemning Hamas or October 7th directly, and they don't answer, it is not because they condone Hamas - it is because it immediately shifts the conversation to the premise that the lives of Israelis matter and the lives of Palestinians do not.
(Snipped a load of an interesting post as I wanted to focus on this bit)
I disagree on this. Prevaricating and refusing to condemn Hamas shifts the conversation on to the October 7 attacks and undermines the person being asked as it makes them look like they condone the violence.
A simple "I condemn Hamas and the attacks on 7 October" enables moving the conversation on to what should happen next and what Israel is doing to Gaza and whether that should also be condemned.
Although it doesn't always work out that way. Eg an exchange on here yesterday. A poster condemned the Hamas atrocity and went on to make a couple of pro Palestinian observations (nothing radical just the usual type stuff about their plight).
He got accused of 'buttery'. ie where you are seen to devalue what you've said about something (and cast doubt on your sincerity about it) by going straight into a 'but'. Bit harsh, I thought.
Still, we all post what we like, don't we. All equal in that regard.
When people who are deeply invested in Palestinian freedom are asked about condemning Hamas or October 7th directly, and they don't answer, it is not because they condone Hamas - it is because it immediately shifts the conversation to the premise that the lives of Israelis matter and the lives of Palestinians do not.
(Snipped a load of an interesting post as I wanted to focus on this bit)
I disagree on this. Prevaricating and refusing to condemn Hamas shifts the conversation on to the October 7 attacks and undermines the person being asked as it makes them look like they condone the violence.
A simple "I condemn Hamas and the attacks on 7 October" enables moving the conversation on to what should happen next and what Israel is doing to Gaza and whether that should also be condemned.
Although it doesn't always work out that way. Eg an exchange on here yesterday. A poster condemned the Hamas atrocity and went on to make a couple of pro Palestinian observations (nothing radical just the usual type stuff about their plight).
He got accused of 'buttery'. ie where you are seen to devalue what you've said about something (and cast doubt on your sincerity about it) by going straight into a 'but'. Bit harsh, I thought.
Still, we all post what we like, don't we. All equal in that regard.
Lots of mentions in that article of: airstrikes on civilians, war crimes, atrocities, etc. Thousands have died; millions have been displaced. I have seen zero coverage in the international press, and no discussions on here. There have been no passionate calls for ceasefires, no large scale demonstrations in the UK, not much of anything at all. There are obviously lots of differences between that war and the one between Israel and Hamas, but it's difficult to move past the fact that one involves the world's only Jewish state, and the other doesn't.
It's stuff like this that makes it very easy to believe that anyone expressing explicit support for Palestinians is, at best being manipulated by antisemitic elements in the press and wider society, and quite often is betraying their own prejudices in that direction as well.
Well there's the 1st (sad) point that we don't care much about Africa and Africans. Then the 2nd (also sad) point is that Israel Palestine is a hot button 'left v right' topic. When you analyse responses and counterresponses what you find (very often) is that people on the left are more animated about what people on the right are saying about the conflict than the conflict itself. Likewise on the right the anger is more focused on what people on the left are saying about the conflict than the conflict itself. The discourse is quite meta.
A few things: 1) We also don't care very much about Arabs, unless there happens to be Jews on the other side. Why? 2) Easy to see why the right doesn't care very much about Africa and Africans (at least from your point of view). What's the Left's excuse? 3) Also easy to see why the Right is energised by Left wing antisemitism being displayed around the conflict. What's the Left's excuse for getting animated about people supporting Israel's right to defend itself following a massacre?
You say the right, unlike the racist driven left, are energized purely by revulsion at antisemitism and by Israel's right to defend itself against a massacre. I think that's a little too kind. I think there's something going on in their brain chemistry whereby Palestinians are lesser beings than Israelis. The antisemitism angle gets discussed a lot (quite rightly because it's there) but this angle rather less so. It seems to aggravate people just to mention it. I'm not sure why. It's interesting to ponder where that feeling (that Palestinians don't count) comes from.
Comments
In Opposition they will certainly move further right as Labour moved further left after the Blair and Brown years and New Labour losing power in 2010
Sunak isn't particularly good at politics, at least at the very top level - that's fairly clear. But he isn't an idiot, is able to sustain a functional working relationship with colleagues, does have some ability to take advice, and is very unlikely to be caught breaking into London Zoo whilst high of crystal meth and trying to shag an ostrich. So he meets the basic requirement that a Tory candidate can knock on a door, and tell a sceptical householder with a straight face that Sunak is a capable person to be PM (who by the way shares their views on various things) and should remain so.
The downside risk of ditching him simply isn't worth it, and I think it very unlikely the 1922 will conclude differently.
There were many other trials, some are still technically open. But the total number of Nazi criminals who actually stood trial is a very small proportion.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1717106961152446604
I really fear that many people are underplaying the rise in anti-Semitism, being hidden behind concern - real or otherwise - for Palestinians.
This example is probably more substantive than that, but I don't get the impression as an outsider that Starmer needs to worry yet
I don't support tearing them down or defacing, but I'm not quite sure what those putting these posters up are trying to achieve.
That split to
- 3,324 sentenced
- 72 people not fit to stand trial
- 43 died during the trials
- 4 other
Of the 3,324 sentenced, most received long sentences and some received death sentences. Appeals were allowed but most were denied and most of those that were retried resulted in higher sentences (oh that wacky East German humour!)Trial times were measured in minutes. Defences were not allowed. Sometimes even prosecutions were not allowed, with summary verdicts from the judges.
For all those decrying the way the West handled its Nazi prisoners, it needs to be pointed out that the East handled its quota in a far more mechanical fashion that was certainly more efficient but at the price of what we would consider just.
Sources:
* https://www.legal-tools.org/doc/f17d9f/pdf/
* https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldheimer_Prozesse
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLkgBbFYffw
The public have inspected the steady-ish ship, and simply don't like it. It's not the tempest of the brief Truss (or even Johnson) period. It's just a crap boat.
In that respect, I don't really get the argument that has been raised for an elder statesman to "steady the ship". If you were to get anyone in, it would be someone to energise and reinvent the pitch to voters (as Sunak has tried and failed to do over the past month or so). But anyone who might vaguely do that would either much prefer to wait until after the election, or flounced out of Parliament a while ago to avoid a suspension.
But I assume putting them up so random people see and remember them is the main point. Hence those tearing them down presumably wanting people to forget about them for reasons I'm fairly comfortable guessing, given I cannot think of a non awful reason.
Whither the environment?
Hence the absence of such religious dogma from out politics, unlike the USA. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Atheists and Pastafarians can find a home in any of our political parties, at least outside Northern Ireland.
How did I miss that one?
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/israel-must-be-urged-to-follow-the-laws-of-war-ministers-told/ar-AA1iMuRr?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=2dd5acb5e2194760b6068e0d0678bcbb&ei=12
Isn't it just example 798 of where the current Govt knows neither the price nor the value of anything?
They are not Church of England or Church of Scotland liberals or atheists or agnostics as most of the UK population are.
Religion is only less of an issue in UK politics as fewer of us are Christian than in the USA now and those that are are less likely to be evangelical than Christians in the US (and evangelicals do translate their religious faith to their vote).
However Muslims can be as fervent as evangelicals in how their religion translates to politics and if they have a Muslim Party to vote for many would and desert Labour for it
Are those a minority of those wanting instant ceasefire? Probably, but it's easy to find and not hidden by those who engage in it, they are proud of it. So it's a significant level of some kind.
If I were Jewish in this country I'd not feel safe, and that's appalling. I think a lot of generally hidden hatred is bring unleashed under the guise of events.
And I do imagine others will use events to unleash their hatred of Muslims too. That needs attention and action when it happens too. That doesn't mean the other hatred we are seeing should be underplayed. We should not undereact to such fears.
Also why it is a good thing that religion is generally kept out of our politics. Northern Ireland makes the Republican search for a Speaker of the House seem purposeful and progressive!
Sadly, some people seem to be very keen to forget Israeli victims.
They also serve the secondary benefit of showing the anti-Semitic lovely souls who rip them down, and deface them, for what they are.
*a paramilitary organisation fighting a military dictator, with involvement of Wagner (or whatever it's now called), and the UAE, with some involvement of minority ethnic groups, for control of lucrative natural resource franchises.
Saudi Arabia is a possible peacemaker, which gives some idea of how f*cked up it is.
Some Muslims are religious fanatics, which is bad. Others are quite happy to sit at Wetherspoons drinking a beer to go with their bacon cheeseburger, which is good.
And others are somewhere in-between.
Hopefully more Muslims will overtime become more secular and integrated into the UK, I would hate to see the UK regress back into being a less secular nation.
Sunak relying on Coffey (the wind blows from the wrong direction) to address the issue says it all
Each time Sunak stands up and says how marvellous a job he is doing. So Tories *know* the country is broken. And will rightly be punished for it.
Oh, and then we get:
Q: why has the PM not told the house about the £2m he paid to his wife?
A: Labour wanted us to spend more money so its their fault
https://x.com/ShehabKhan/status/1717137955637121084?s=20
Don’t underestimate how business is done “differently” and how human interaction and etiquette is different but important.
So how many people do we have who have worked to a high level in business available. How many of them have a helpful Swiss network to open doors where necessary. How many of these understand how Swiss business and gov do things and approach things. The answer is very few and once you have the person at the top, a figurehead and chair effectively there will of course be a team of Sherpas behind.
What’s the other option? Someone who has worked in the department of trade in London for 15 years who is working their way through the CS to a higher salary and role but has no practical and real understanding of the Swiss?
I lived and worked there and experienced first hand that what and how you do and see things in an Anglo setting is not often the same way that senior Swiss do.
New Thread
but not Alan's which is clearly being saved for a day with less rumours (so betting worthy stories) around.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Bell_(politician)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12670277/russia-plot-space-rocket-crash-kyiv-ukraine.html
In relation to the claim the “some historians” claim “some acts of violence” that caused the Jewish exodus in the Middle East could have been done by Zionists in an attempt to get Jewish communities to move to Israel with specific reference to the Baghdad bombings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950–1951_Baghdad_bombings
Many of the citations rely on the Waybackmachine, which will not work on my phone.
To the allegations of anti-Semitism; you can say what you want. I was in my therapy group yesterday with a Jewish woman in her mid 70s in tears in anger over what Israel had done - she shared stories from her mother and her good times in the Kabutz and the loss of whole branches of her family tree in the Holocaust. I know the conversations I’ve had with Jewish people, I know the research I’ve done, I know that Zionism and Israel is not an inherent part of Jewishness of Judaism.
As to me discussing the nature of the sympathy and the reaction to the captors - this was not an excuse, it was an example - like people giving a single example yesterday of horrific child murder meaning Hamas are Nazis - of how you can easily see a different perspective. I take the view of many Israeli Jews who, even now, are being locked up for demoralising the IDF - that the cycle of violence starting with partition but specifically exacerbated over the policies of the Netanyahu government - cannot be and will not be ended by the mass casualties and continued oppression of Palestinians by Israel.
*a paramilitary organisation fighting a military dictator, with involvement of Wagner (or whatever it's now called), and the UAE, with some involvement of minority ethnic groups, It's not a conCrete story.
The Frome guy had something to do with drugs, but Dorries is the only MP to get intimate with an ostrich anus, AFAIK.
RC-135 variants are a stiff identification challenge. Only the true Experten can tell a COBRA BALL from a RIVET JOINT.
1. The usual critics on the far left, who can scarcely contain their glee at being presented with an excuse to weigh in against Keir Starmer as strongly as possible. They see it as an opportunity. The Momentum-supporting Oxford councillor on the radio this morning was an example.
2. A broad swathe of opinion within the wider Labour Party, people who are mostly supportive of the leadership and certainly not those habitually seeking to undermine it from within. That includes amongst others Muslim councillors, most of whom are quite willing to condemn Hamas's actions on 7th October unreservedly but nonetheless are appalled by the humanitarian situation unfolding in Gaza and the relentless killing through bombing and are getting it in the neck from their local communities who are similarly appalled.
In political terms, Keir Starmer should be concerned. The usual critics are not of much relevance, they have already been marginalised within the party and there is no way back now. However, the criticism from within the Muslim community will lose Labour electoral support if not properly addressed, some of it in marginal seats. If Israel continues on its present course, the situation in Gaza is going to get even worse and I think that public opinion will increasingly become critical of the actions of the Israeli government going forward.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law
The anti-vaxx crowd have barely noticed it.
Anti-COVID drug accelerates viral evolution
Molnupiravir, an antiviral drug used to treat COVID-19, induces numerous mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 genome that can increase the rate at which the virus evolves — yielding viral variants that might survive and be passed on.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03248-3