This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.
If you were around in the 1930s you'd have been saying, "Look at what we've made the Germans do now!"
If you mean Versailles and Western Imperialism in general - somewhat - but that still wouldn't justify land invasion (although might have justified calls to end the occupation of the Rhineland, for example).
If you mean the Nazism and the Holocaust, of course not. Jewish people were in no way the "cause (as in "and effect)" of any of the wrongs done to post WW1 Germany, nor were the other targets of Nazi violence. Jewish people are also in no way the "cause (as in "and effect") of the Israel / Palestine conflict - because Israel is not a proxy for Jewish people - as I will keep pointing out to everyone who uses it as such. As I have said before, it is just as anti-Semitic to claim Israel is somehow a proxy for all Jewish people, or somehow represents all Jewish people as it is to claim that all Jewish people have "dual loyalty"; because its root is the same trope.
And yet, yesterday one of my son’s teachers woke up to find human faeces put through her letterbox, wrapped in paper with the message ‘eat shit dirty Jew’ and a swastika.
This is a women in her 20s, living alone. It’s not been like this for most British Jews in living memory. I have several other examples of the sorts of antisemitic abuse people (always women) have faced. The fear people are feeling is real and borne out actual stuff happening like this.
I can direct you to a kid in Ealing who was attacked for being dressed like an 18th Cent. German farmer.....
IIRC anti-semitic incidents are up 15x, anti-muslim incidents 2x
What's the betting that other racism is also up?
Is that because of extra shifts in the Met?
I don't do time-and-motion studies of racism in the Met, so I don't know.
I do know that as we speak, millions are being spent on reports that won't be read, written by people who haven't actually bothered to speak to anyone within x degrees of separation of the actual experience of the stuff the report is about.
But on the upside, implementing the report will mean writing lots more reports, and creating, giving and putting on shelves of nice awards.
No shit wielders will be inconvenienced.
Meanwhile the sons of a Rabbi I came across, who run a graffiti removal service, will be working 24/7. They did a nice job on some horrible stuff on a Thai temple (I think it was). They can remove anything from any surface without damaging the surface.....
This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.
If you were around in the 1930s you'd have been saying, "Look at what we've made the Germans do now!"
If you mean Versailles and Western Imperialism in general - somewhat - but that still wouldn't justify land invasion (although might have justified calls to end the occupation of the Rhineland, for example).
If you mean the Nazism and the Holocaust, of course not. Jewish people were in no way the "cause (as in "and effect)" of any of the wrongs done to post WW1 Germany, nor were the other targets of Nazi violence. Jewish people are also in no way the "cause (as in "and effect") of the Israel / Palestine conflict - because Israel is not a proxy for Jewish people - as I will keep pointing out to everyone who uses it as such. As I have said before, it is just as anti-Semitic to claim Israel is somehow a proxy for all Jewish people, or somehow represents all Jewish people as it is to claim that all Jewish people have "dual loyalty"; because its root is the same trope.
And yet, yesterday one of my son’s teachers woke up to find human faeces put through her letterbox, wrapped in paper with the message ‘eat shit dirty Jew’ and a swastika.
This is a women in her 20s, living alone. It’s not been like this for most British Jews in living memory. I have several other examples of the sorts of antisemitic abuse people (always women) have faced. The fear people are feeling is real and borne out actual stuff happening like this.
That is absolutely disgusting. That poor woman. I hope whoever did this can be found and punished accordingly. As I have written on here, I sympathise greatly with the Palestinians, but there is no excuse whatsoever for antisemitism. I wish these idiots could understand that they are doing their cause no good at all with this kind of despicable behaviour. Utter morons.
They have no cause. Don't give them the crumb of a cause.
The Palestinians certainly have a cause, but antisemitic behaviour by idiots is certainly not going to win any sympathy for it.
One would hope that the murderous barbarity of 7th October wouldn't either.
Of course not, but the equally murderous response by Israel is.
Incidentally, if the Germans join GCAD, it'll be a German/Swedish/Japanese/Italian program with British support. Color me stupid, but historically when the Germans, Swedes, Japanese and Italians join in a military project it doesn't always go as planned.
Sweden has been neutral since 1815.
Given they are joining NATO and their depth of experience in fighter aircraft production, they are actually a logical choice to join such a program.
Incidentally, if the Germans join GCAD, it'll be a German/Swedish/Japanese/Italian program with British support. Color me stupid, but historically when the Germans, Swedes, Japanese and Italians join in a military project it doesn't always go as planned.
Sweden has been neutral since 1815.
Sweden provided huge amounts of industrial and technical assistance to Germany during WW2. They were defintley neutral leaning towards the Axis rather than neutral leaning towards the Allies.
Yesterday I got a flu jab (thanks to my employer for paying for these for us). Slight headache this morning, slight ache in arm.
Today Wor Lass went for a Covid jab (vulnerable group). Managed to blag a flu jab while she was there, in the same arm. She might be feeling a bit rough tomorrow.
We have to wipe out this anti Semitism with ruthless vigour. We need prison, we need massive fines, we need deportations, we need exemplary sentences
It cannot be allowed to flourish. It is toxic
How do you deport anyone who is a British citizen who is born here who has British nationality only who commits these acts ?
Look at the legal battle still raging over celebrity terrorist Shamima Begum and her demands to chase her citizenship reinstated.
The courts would be in gridlock.
Better ye, if you can *claim* another nationality, that can be used to describe you a dual national under the law.
Dual nationals can lose their citizenship at the stroke of the Home Secs pen. It's done. They can try and get judicial review, but that's after the fact. So they would be waiting years to try and get citizenship back. And entry into the country.
We have to wipe out this anti Semitism with ruthless vigour. We need prison, we need massive fines, we need deportations, we need exemplary sentences
It cannot be allowed to flourish. It is toxic
How do you deport anyone who is a British citizen who is born here who has British nationality only who commits these acts ?
Look at the legal battle still raging over celebrity terrorist Shamima Begum and her demands to chase her citizenship reinstated.
The courts would be in gridlock.
Clearly I mean anyone with dual nationality or non British nationality. Sadly we have given British nationality to far too many anti semites, we shall have to account for them ourselves
The endpoint of all this is the death of multiculturalism. It is a catastrophic failure
I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.
True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
I think he remains a fairly influential onlooker in the same mould as Blair, Farage, Heseltine, Corbyn, Heath etc.
I'm not sure Ted remains an influential onlooker ?
Not now for obvious reasons but he did throughout Thatcher's tenure.
Heath certainly tried to stay in political relevance - his hatred of Thatcher slowly mutated into a hatred of the voters who refused to acknowledge that he (Ted Heath) was right. By the 90s he was openly praising the Chinese government - chiefly for not listening to The People on Important Decisions.
Boris dropped straight back into journalism - with rather a low political content. He certainly isn't trying to challenge the leadership of the Conservative Party in any meaningful way.
I don't know if you've read 'Agent Lavender', an Alt-History about what if Harold Wilson really was a Soviet spy, but Heath features large in that TL.
He makes his comeback in a big way as after Wilson runs off to the Soviets, Labour are 'banned' (for a bit) and Thatcher replaced as she isn't up to it. In steps Ted, and whilst its been a while, the author perfectly captures Heath's glee at being Prime Minister again.
I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.
True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
I think he remains a fairly influential onlooker in the same mould as Blair, Farage, Heseltine, Corbyn, Heath etc.
I'm not sure Ted remains an influential onlooker ?
Not now for obvious reasons but he did throughout Thatcher's tenure.
Heath certainly tried to stay in political relevance - his hatred of Thatcher slowly mutated into a hatred of the voters who refused to acknowledge that he (Ted Heath) was right. By the 90s he was openly praising the Chinese government - chiefly for not listening to The People on Important Decisions.
Boris dropped straight back into journalism - with rather a low political content. He certainly isn't trying to challenge the leadership of the Conservative Party in any meaningful way.
I don't know if you've read 'Agent Lavender', an Alt-History about what if Harold Wilson really was a Soviet spy, but Heath features large in that TL.
He makes his comeback in a big way as after Wilson runs off to the Soviets, Labour are 'banned' (for a bit) and Thatcher replaced as she isn't up to it. In steps Ted, and whilst its been a while, the author perfectly captures Heath's glee at being Prime Minister again.
A streamer, political activist and video essayist I enjoy has rephrased a Marxist quote to describe what she sees as the problem of modern political discourse: "They do not know it, but they do it" to "They know that it is nothing, but they are doing it". (Sie wissen es nicht, aber sie tun es to Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es)
This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.
Total agency is given to the state of Israel. The stated intent of "minimising civilian lives" is taken at face value. The actions of mass killing, child murder and displacement of Palestinians is waved away because of the need to prevent the mass killing, child murder and displacement of Israelis at the hand of Hamas is somehow logical, not paradoxical. The understanding that what made Hamas' attack so abhorrent was their targeting of civilians occurs at the same time as a defence of the indiscriminate bombing of North Gaza, of hospitals and refugee camps.
It reaches heights of absurdity with people here suggesting that Israel is making a tactical mistake in the eyes of the international community, instead of using the impunity that the international community has given it to do an ethnic cleansing, when it does these things. That "Israel has the right to defend itself" when attacked, but that Gaza, under blockade from land air and sea from Israel since 2005, has no reason to produce such hatred that could explain the violence of Hamas.
I can denounce Hamas and Israel, I can point to the causal acts and the historical parallels, the UN accounts over decades, that end up with this point we are in now. I can suggest what I think is the only political solution, one where Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens live in one state after truth and reconciliation happens. And the response boils down to "Palestinian Arabs / all Arabs are so inherently anti-Semitic that that is impossible", as if European anti-Semitism wasn't historically worse. I can argue against the genocide and ethnic cleansing happening now to the Palestinian people, and people here will defend it by pointing to the horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jewish people in Europe and the Middle East that partially led to the creation of the state of Israel, as if that somehow makes sense.
You cannot sincerely care about the value of life, of dead babies, of dying civilians, you cannot sincerely decry genocide, you cannot sincerely claim that the right to national self defence is sacrosanct and at the same time defend the acts of the state of Israel - what it has done to the Palestinians in the past, what it is doing now, and what it is proposing to do in the future.
"...h are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians."
No. It's perfectly possible to see that the attack had 'causes' (multiple); but also to say that that is essentially irrelevant. Hamas did what they did not because of the Palestinian 'cause'; but because they are anti-Semitic, homophobic and many other nasty things. Oh. and they also like power and money.
That is what you are incapable of seeing. Hamas is not dong this for the Palestinians; or for some sort of historic revenge. They are doing it because they are religious zealots who are about as far from what a leftist should see as 'good' as it is possible to get. But common enemies makes odd friends.
Your 'one state solution' is also one that will see genocide of the Jews in it; and you don't really address that. How can Jews live in a Hamas-led state? And if you don't think it'd be run by Hamas (or Iran, through proxies), how do you think you'll get them to give up power?
You attack Israel for what it is 'proposing' to do. You ignore what Hamas, Iran and others want to do to Israel.
And Jews.
Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es
I already address the issue of "a one state solution being a genocide of the Jews" by a) pointing out that European anti-Semitism has historically been much worse and we have manages to create a society that is much more tolerant of Jewish people, if still harbouring anti-Semites and b) that truth and reconciliation between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens should occur. Do you think that statement somehow endorses the killing of all Jewish Israeli citizens? Or the creation of a Hamas-led state?
I have already expressed why I dismiss the idea that Hamas is only motivated by anti-Semitism - both above and elsewhere - and until you can explain why that is their only motivation outside of "because they are evil", I am not going to treat it like a grown up argument, because it isn't.
What single thing did I write here, or elsewhere, that suggests I believe Hamas is "good"? Explicable, given the context, yes. But good?
I do, above, denounce what Israel is proposing to do. I will also denounce any future violence aimed at civilians that may come from any state or non state actor that is not Israel. I can do both. But you cannot do the first.
And Israel is, categorically, not a proxy for all Jewish people.
"I already address the issue of "a one state solution being a genocide of the Jews ..." "
And your 'proposal' may happen; as it did in Europe. After the Jews have been nearly wiped out, or totally wiped out. For the Holocaust was the one big thing that made anti-Semitism in Europe unacceptable for most in Europe. Is that a risk you are really willing to take?
I did not say Hamas are only motivated by racism. They are also motivated by power, religion, ideology, politics and money. It's a heady mix. But racism is in there.
Again, you think my proposal for truth and reconciliation, for how to foster less anti-Semitism with Palestinian Arabs - is to allow them to commit a genocide against Jewish Israelis? Again, this is not a sincere response to anything I have said, and I will not treat it as such.
And you cannot conceive, cannot allow that some of their ideology, some of their political thought, is because of the treatment of the Palestinian people in Gaza by the state of Israel - and that the state of Israel is unjust in its treatment of the Palestinian people in Gaza?
How ill you make 'truth and reconciliation' work? What happens if/when it fails? (My guess is that it would, very quickly). How do you protect the Jews?
You judge me as insincere; fair enough, You are wrong, though.
See, that feels like a sincere question. And my answer, although probably unsatisfying, is "with great difficulty".
I think it would need international oversight, I think it would need international cooperation and I think it would need a great deal of international bureaucracy. It would also require significant political will to not allow it to fail. Something akin to the Nuremburg trials and the occupation of East and West Germany, with troops from a coalition of countries assuring the safety of Israeli Jews and Arab Palestinians. Hell, akin to the Balfour Declaration and the partitioning of land, except with this time understanding that you cannot impose a solution only one side signed up to. It would mean involving Egyptian, Saudi Arabian and, potentially, even Iranian politicians. These are doable things, it would just take work - and a degree of work that certain states (namely Israel and the US) have hitherto refused to do. It would lead to the trials of Israeli politicians, I'm sure, as well as Hamas terrorists. That is what is required.
Yes, this is near utopian (although I don't think it is impossible). But compared to the current position of "let Israel kill all Palestinians if they want to" I think it is significantly preferable.
"See, that feels like a sincere question"
How very condescending.
So you want Israelis to submit to a process that gives people who want to kill them power over them, in the hope that a T&R process will work - as you put it - "with great difficulty" . And if - when - that process fails, you have no answer as to how to keep Israelis safe beside handwavium.
"But compared to the current position of "let Israel kill all Palestinians if they want to""
This is an odd thing to say. Firstly, I think you have to be rather (ahem) anti-Israeli to suggest that they want to kill all Palestinians. Secondly, you strain every sinew in attempts to ignore that Hamas want exactly the opposite - to kill all Israelis and Jews in the land.
Yesterday I got a flu jab (thanks to my employer for paying for these for us). Slight headache this morning, slight ache in arm.
Today Wor Lass went for a Covid jab (vulnerable group). Managed to blag a flu jab while she was there, in the same arm. She might be feeling a bit rough tomorrow.
I had both together as well, a couple of weeks ago. No adverse symptoms at all.
Incidentally, if the Germans join GCAD, it'll be a German/Swedish/Japanese/Italian program with British support. Color me stupid, but historically when the Germans, Swedes, Japanese and Italians join in a military project it doesn't always go as planned.
Sweden has been neutral since 1815.
Sweden provided huge amounts of industrial and technical assistance to Germany during WW2. They were definitely neutral leaning towards the Axis rather than neutral leaning towards the Allies.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.
True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
I think he remains a fairly influential onlooker in the same mould as Blair, Farage, Heseltine, Corbyn, Heath etc.
I'm not sure Ted remains an influential onlooker ?
Not now for obvious reasons but he did throughout Thatcher's tenure.
Heath certainly tried to stay in political relevance - his hatred of Thatcher slowly mutated into a hatred of the voters who refused to acknowledge that he (Ted Heath) was right. By the 90s he was openly praising the Chinese government - chiefly for not listening to The People on Important Decisions.
Boris dropped straight back into journalism - with rather a low political content. He certainly isn't trying to challenge the leadership of the Conservative Party in any meaningful way.
I don't know if you've read 'Agent Lavender', an Alt-History about what if Harold Wilson really was a Soviet spy, but Heath features large in that TL.
He makes his comeback in a big way as after Wilson runs off to the Soviets, Labour are 'banned' (for a bit) and Thatcher replaced as she isn't up to it. In steps Ted, and whilst its been a while, the author perfectly captures Heath's glee at being Prime Minister again.
In the darkness of the alley, The Finn's construct sits. Does it's laser scan the snow, the candles and the Moskovaskaya bottles? Does it think, ponder, by itself? Or is it only an empty puppet that wakes when humans pass by?
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
Those Britain Trump comparisons weren't far off in hindsight.
Just when you thought you'd heard it all....
Boris Johnson asked scientists if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose
Boris Johnson asked scientists if people could kill Covid by blowing a hairdryer up their nose after he watched a YouTube video suggesting this.
The then-PM shared the clip on a WhatsApp group including Government health experts and senior No10 officials. In a written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of spreading misinformation during the pandemic.
I mean, if I had access to important and knowledgeable scientists and there was a new disease going around, I bet I would ask some pretty dumb questions about it.
Trump started musing out loud in a public press conference, which was the problem. I’m prepared to cut Boris some slack on this, which I am not often accustomed to do.
Not even a cretin would begin to imagine blowing a hairdryer up your nose would do anything good.
Some of the best science comes from thinking a bit differently. Sometimes the consensus is wrong.
Take H. Pylori (or rather don't take it orally). Stomach ulcers were long thought to be down to stress. Then someone thought differently and wondered if a pathogen might be involved. There was a fair bit of skepticism, but it turned out to be right. Barry Marshal even infected himself to prove it.
Does that make Johnson's comments sesnsible? Not really, but thinking outside the box ought to be encouraged.
Quite.
And how can his actions be considered non-sensible? He didn't tell the public to rush to their hairdryers, he sent it to the 'experts' to check out. That seems exactly what he should have done.
No he shouldn't. They have better things to do than look at every crackpot idea from the internet. By your logic (Boris being a non expert) we should all have been sending them our pet theories and by god there were enough of them on the internet and they could have wasted their entire time investigating all of them rather using you know, science.
Yes we should be encouraged to think outside the box. It can produce great results. It is however not recommended that the likes of Boris and Trump bombard their scientists (who were under severe pressure) with videos posted by loons on the internet.
Next suggestions: Email NASA with youtube videos on how to land on the sun. Maybe Trump did that when president and I'm guessing you think that is a good idea?
This post is infantile rubbish. He didn't ask them to look at 'every crackpot idea from the internet', he saw something that seemed plausible, and asked the people he needed to ask until he got a (presumably) satisfactory response. We haven't seen the video, and we don't know how cogently argued, or grounded in science the points made in it were. I have already mentioned that Covid incubates in the nasal cavity for 24 hours before it spreads to the rest of the body, and that other treatments for Covid that have made it into production have focused on this crucial period. The people that he asked to provide him with answers were Government advisors - that was their literal job. The idea that he should have not sought their advice on this because of some spurious notion of not overtaxing them is absurd.
You are utterly nuts. It is you talking infantile rubbish if you think it sensible that scientists should drop what they were doing because Boris, who has no scientific skills whatsoever, sees a youtube video of someone pointing a hairdryer up their nose as a cure for covid.
I mean are you real - 'it seemed plausible'? How in gods earth is that plausible? A hairdryer up the nose.
You are absolutely barking.
Do you not think that scientists would have already done humidity and temperature tests way before this. All the research worldwide and the solution is a hairdryer up the nose? You are as batty as hell.
You also completely missed the logic of 'all the crackpot ideas on the internet'. If they investigate this one, why shouldn't they investigate all the others? This only takes priority because a completely unqualified but influential person suggested it. It has no other merit over the other stuff on the internet. So instead of them doing real science, they spend their valuable time dismissing one crackpot idea after another. It is people like you, Boris and Trump who are a danger to science. Although in your case I assume you are far enough away from it to be harmless.
And in case you thought that was personal by pointing out how really dim you are, maybe you should have considered that before starting your post by being insulting.
Courthouse News - In closing, prosecutors say Bankman-Fried stole billions from FTX customers via ‘pyramid of deceit’
Sam Bankman-Fried knew that looting billions of customers' deposits was wrong and drove his cryptocurrency companies into insolvency, but he repeatedly doubled down on the scheme, prosecutors claimed in closing arguments on Wednesday.
MANHATTAN (CN) — In closing arguments on Wednesday, federal prosecutors urged jurors to convict Sam Bankman-Fried for plundering more than $8 billion from FTX customer funds in one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history. . . .
Federal prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of fraudulently gambling with customers' money in his own casino by directing his Alameda Research hedge fund to secretly commingle billions of dollars of customers’ deposit funds from his FTX exchange platform as stolen capital for cryptocurrency futures trading on the FTX exchange he also co-founded and controlled. . . .
The Southern District of New York prosecutor urged jurors not to be distracted or confused by the minutiae of the novel digital finance industry in deliberating Bankman-Fried’s guilt.
“This is not about complicated issues of cryptocurrency,” he said. “It’s not about hedging, it's not about jargon — it’s about deception, it’s about lies, it’s about stealing, it’s about greed.”
At trial, prosecutors showed evidence that Bankman-Fried spent billions of dollars of customer money on real estate purchases, straw donations to politicians, celebrity endorsements and publicity deals, in addition to large venture capital investments. . . .
Bankman-Fried’s public statements, in advertisements and in testimony before Congress, about FTX being the safest and most trustworthy custodian for customers to trade cryptocurrency were in complete contrast with the reality of his spending billions of customers’ fiat deposit fund, prosecutors argued in their closing summation.
Bankman-Fried publicly claimed that Alameda was “a wholly separate entity” and “a neutral piece of market infrastructure,” Roos said.
He told media outlets he had “worked to eliminate conflicts of interest” at the same time that he was “internally freaking out about the close relationship between Alameda," [prosecutor] Roos told jurors.
“He was lying to the public, and he told the same lies on the witness stand," Roos said.
During his direct testimony, he testified “for hours about things that don’t matter,” Roos said. “Suddenly on cross examination, he couldn’t remember a single detail about his company.” . . .
“He never said he couldn’t recall during his direct testimony, but he said it over 140 times on cross-examination,” the prosecutor noted. . . .
Those Britain Trump comparisons weren't far off in hindsight.
Just when you thought you'd heard it all....
Boris Johnson asked scientists if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose
Boris Johnson asked scientists if people could kill Covid by blowing a hairdryer up their nose after he watched a YouTube video suggesting this.
The then-PM shared the clip on a WhatsApp group including Government health experts and senior No10 officials. In a written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of spreading misinformation during the pandemic.
I mean, if I had access to important and knowledgeable scientists and there was a new disease going around, I bet I would ask some pretty dumb questions about it.
Trump started musing out loud in a public press conference, which was the problem. I’m prepared to cut Boris some slack on this, which I am not often accustomed to do.
Not even a cretin would begin to imagine blowing a hairdryer up your nose would do anything good.
Some of the best science comes from thinking a bit differently. Sometimes the consensus is wrong.
Take H. Pylori (or rather don't take it orally). Stomach ulcers were long thought to be down to stress. Then someone thought differently and wondered if a pathogen might be involved. There was a fair bit of skepticism, but it turned out to be right. Barry Marshal even infected himself to prove it.
Does that make Johnson's comments sesnsible? Not really, but thinking outside the box ought to be encouraged.
Quite.
And how can his actions be considered non-sensible? He didn't tell the public to rush to their hairdryers, he sent it to the 'experts' to check out. That seems exactly what he should have done.
No he shouldn't. They have better things to do than look at every crackpot idea from the internet. By your logic (Boris being a non expert) we should all have been sending them our pet theories and by god there were enough of them on the internet and they could have wasted their entire time investigating all of them rather using you know, science.
Yes we should be encouraged to think outside the box. It can produce great results. It is however not recommended that the likes of Boris and Trump bombard their scientists (who were under severe pressure) with videos posted by loons on the internet.
Next suggestions: Email NASA with youtube videos on how to land on the sun. Maybe Trump did that when president and I'm guessing you think that is a good idea?
This post is infantile rubbish. He didn't ask them to look at 'every crackpot idea from the internet', he saw something that seemed plausible, and asked the people he needed to ask until he got a (presumably) satisfactory response. We haven't seen the video, and we don't know how cogently argued, or grounded in science the points made in it were. I have already mentioned that Covid incubates in the nasal cavity for 24 hours before it spreads to the rest of the body, and that other treatments for Covid that have made it into production have focused on this crucial period. The people that he asked to provide him with answers were Government advisors - that was their literal job. The idea that he should have not sought their advice on this because of some spurious notion of not overtaxing them is absurd.
You are utterly nuts. It is you talking infantile rubbish if you think it sensible that scientists should drop what they were doing because Boris, who has no scientific skills whatsoever, sees a youtube video of someone pointing a hairdryer up their nose as a cure for covid.
I mean are you real - 'it seemed plausible'? How in gods earth is that plausible? A hairdryer up the nose.
You are absolutely barking.
Do you not think that scientists would have already done humidity and temperature tests way before this. All the research worldwide and the solution is a hairdryer up the nose? You are as batty as hell.
You also completely missed the logic of 'all the crackpot ideas on the internet'. If they investigate this one, why shouldn't they investigate all the others? Why does it take priority? So instead of them doing real science, they spend their valuable time dismissing one crackpot idea after another. It is people like you, Boris and Trump who are a danger to science. Although in your case I assume you are far enough away from it to be harmless.
And in case you thought that was personal by pointing out how really dim you are, maybe you should have considered that before starting your post by being insulting.
I could imagine a perfectly reasonable conversation along the following lines:
BJ: "Chaps, probably sounds bonkers but bear with, I saw somewhere that blowing a hairdryer up your nose could help to kill Covid. Presumably by drying the little blighters out. Any merit in that?" CW: "Well it's a theory. Dessication can affect viral survival. But if you think about the physics of this it seems pretty far fetched. How long would you need to be blowing continuously to maintain dry enough conditions for the viruses to die off in sufficient quantities? And how narrow would the hairdryer need to be? But a nice idea" BJ: "Oh Chris you old spoilsport. Knew you'd say that. Seems like the old blower can stay in Carrie's bathroom cabinet for now then. By the way did I hear dear old Helen Macmanaman's volunteered to run the Karaoke at this week's Friday shindig? Dark horse that one."
We have to wipe out this anti Semitism with ruthless vigour. We need prison, we need massive fines, we need deportations, we need exemplary sentences
It cannot be allowed to flourish. It is toxic
How do you deport anyone who is a British citizen who is born here who has British nationality only who commits these acts ?
Look at the legal battle still raging over celebrity terrorist Shamima Begum and her demands to chase her citizenship reinstated.
The courts would be in gridlock.
They already are.
I’m well aware of that. A friend’s sister stood trial in Newcastle last November. Case was postponed as it ran on longer than expected. It was scheduled for October this year and has but put back a couple more times to June 24. She was charged in mid 2021.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
We have to wipe out this anti Semitism with ruthless vigour. We need prison, we need massive fines, we need deportations, we need exemplary sentences
It cannot be allowed to flourish. It is toxic
How do you deport anyone who is a British citizen who is born here who has British nationality only who commits these acts ?
Look at the legal battle still raging over celebrity terrorist Shamima Begum and her demands to chase her citizenship reinstated.
The courts would be in gridlock.
Clearly I mean anyone with dual nationality or non British nationality. Sadly we have given British nationality to far too many anti semites, we shall have to account for them ourselves
The endpoint of all this is the death of multiculturalism. It is a catastrophic failure
We certainly can’t go on blindly wishing things were all fine and dandy while being oblivious to the flaws in our society across the whole spectrum.
Yesterday I got a flu jab (thanks to my employer for paying for these for us). Slight headache this morning, slight ache in arm.
Today Wor Lass went for a Covid jab (vulnerable group). Managed to blag a flu jab while she was there, in the same arm. She might be feeling a bit rough tomorrow.
I had both together as well, a couple of weeks ago. No adverse symptoms at all.
Nor me, but my Better Half was quite knocked out. It may depend which vax one gets. Mine was Comirnaty (Pfizer/BioNTech), BH's was Spikevax (Moderna)
I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.
True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
I think he remains a fairly influential onlooker in the same mould as Blair, Farage, Heseltine, Corbyn, Heath etc.
I'm not sure Ted remains an influential onlooker ?
Not now for obvious reasons but he did throughout Thatcher's tenure.
Heath certainly tried to stay in political relevance - his hatred of Thatcher slowly mutated into a hatred of the voters who refused to acknowledge that he (Ted Heath) was right. By the 90s he was openly praising the Chinese government - chiefly for not listening to The People on Important Decisions.
Boris dropped straight back into journalism - with rather a low political content. He certainly isn't trying to challenge the leadership of the Conservative Party in any meaningful way.
I don't know if you've read 'Agent Lavender', an Alt-History about what if Harold Wilson really was a Soviet spy, but Heath features large in that TL.
He makes his comeback in a big way as after Wilson runs off to the Soviets, Labour are 'banned' (for a bit) and Thatcher replaced as she isn't up to it. In steps Ted, and whilst its been a while, the author perfectly captures Heath's glee at being Prime Minister again.
They did then mumble something about “change it to V V Putin instead” but the damage was done.
Terrible end to a great story.
I bought and read Agent Lavender at the time, probably following a recommendation here, but I'm damned if I can remember how it ended. Since writing that, I've flipped through the final chapter and, hmm.
Those Britain Trump comparisons weren't far off in hindsight.
Just when you thought you'd heard it all....
Boris Johnson asked scientists if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose
Boris Johnson asked scientists if people could kill Covid by blowing a hairdryer up their nose after he watched a YouTube video suggesting this.
The then-PM shared the clip on a WhatsApp group including Government health experts and senior No10 officials. In a written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of spreading misinformation during the pandemic.
I mean, if I had access to important and knowledgeable scientists and there was a new disease going around, I bet I would ask some pretty dumb questions about it.
Trump started musing out loud in a public press conference, which was the problem. I’m prepared to cut Boris some slack on this, which I am not often accustomed to do.
Not even a cretin would begin to imagine blowing a hairdryer up your nose would do anything good.
Some of the best science comes from thinking a bit differently. Sometimes the consensus is wrong.
Take H. Pylori (or rather don't take it orally). Stomach ulcers were long thought to be down to stress. Then someone thought differently and wondered if a pathogen might be involved. There was a fair bit of skepticism, but it turned out to be right. Barry Marshal even infected himself to prove it.
Does that make Johnson's comments sesnsible? Not really, but thinking outside the box ought to be encouraged.
Quite.
And how can his actions be considered non-sensible? He didn't tell the public to rush to their hairdryers, he sent it to the 'experts' to check out. That seems exactly what he should have done.
No he shouldn't. They have better things to do than look at every crackpot idea from the internet. By your logic (Boris being a non expert) we should all have been sending them our pet theories and by god there were enough of them on the internet and they could have wasted their entire time investigating all of them rather using you know, science.
Yes we should be encouraged to think outside the box. It can produce great results. It is however not recommended that the likes of Boris and Trump bombard their scientists (who were under severe pressure) with videos posted by loons on the internet.
Next suggestions: Email NASA with youtube videos on how to land on the sun. Maybe Trump did that when president and I'm guessing you think that is a good idea?
This post is infantile rubbish. He didn't ask them to look at 'every crackpot idea from the internet', he saw something that seemed plausible, and asked the people he needed to ask until he got a (presumably) satisfactory response. We haven't seen the video, and we don't know how cogently argued, or grounded in science the points made in it were. I have already mentioned that Covid incubates in the nasal cavity for 24 hours before it spreads to the rest of the body, and that other treatments for Covid that have made it into production have focused on this crucial period. The people that he asked to provide him with answers were Government advisors - that was their literal job. The idea that he should have not sought their advice on this because of some spurious notion of not overtaxing them is absurd.
You are utterly nuts. It is you talking infantile rubbish if you think it sensible that scientists should drop what they were doing because Boris, who has no scientific skills whatsoever, sees a youtube video of someone pointing a hairdryer up their nose as a cure for covid.
I mean are you real - 'it seemed plausible'? How in gods earth is that plausible? A hairdryer up the nose.
You are absolutely barking.
Do you not think that scientists would have already done humidity and temperature tests way before this. All the research worldwide and the solution is a hairdryer up the nose? You are as batty as hell.
You also completely missed the logic of 'all the crackpot ideas on the internet'. If they investigate this one, why shouldn't they investigate all the others? This only takes priority because a completely unqualified but influential person suggested it. It has no other merit over the other stuff on the internet. So instead of them doing real science, they spend their valuable time dismissing one crackpot idea after another. It is people like you, Boris and Trump who are a danger to science. Although in your case I assume you are far enough away from it to be harmless.
And in case you thought that was personal by pointing out how really dim you are, maybe you should have considered that before starting your post by being insulting.
Thats a proper dressing down, you are almost giving him the hairdryer treatment.
Yesterday I got a flu jab (thanks to my employer for paying for these for us). Slight headache this morning, slight ache in arm.
Today Wor Lass went for a Covid jab (vulnerable group). Managed to blag a flu jab while she was there, in the same arm. She might be feeling a bit rough tomorrow.
I had both together as well, a couple of weeks ago. No adverse symptoms at all.
I had both a few weeks ago. I then did quite a bit of physical work chopping and sawing logs. That night I got the shakes badly and was very cold. Went to bed and was fine in the morning. Brother in law was ill for a week.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
So it appears that Boris was desperate to finish his Shakespeare book when the hairdryer-up-the-nose episode occurred. Makes sense - Boris was exasperated by the whole inconvenience of Covid, had better things to be getting on with, and therefore 'did his own research' on the internet in the hope of stumbling across a solution science had missed.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
No proof but I'm fairly certain a lot of the Cameron-era PB Tories were astroturfers.
So it appears that Boris was desperate to finish his Shakespeare book when the hairdryer-up-the-nose episode occurred. Makes sense - Boris was exasperated by the whole inconvenience of Covid, had better things to be getting on with, and therefore 'did his own research' on the internet in the hope of stumbling across a solution science had missed.
It's also a bit WW2 cosplay; boffins are eccentrics in sheds coming up with quirky cheap ideas that win the war
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
I know polling fails are a thing, but that would be a helluva polling fail...
It's a joking reference to those more innocent times on PB ten or so years ago, when it seemed like every poster would be called a 'PB Tory', and even hardcore Labour supporters. ISTR even the sainted Tim was called one, once.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
No proof but I'm fairly certain a lot of the Cameron-era PB Tories were astroturfers.
Why? The site seems to attract lots of right of centre, socially liberal, highly educated people. Which is exactly what Cameron was making a pitch for.
Starmer is selling a slightly leftier version of that. Hence numbers of people, here, switching to his version of Labour.
Looks like Yousaf's position could be as vulnerable as Sunak's after the next general election.
Labour heading for most seats in England and Scotland for the first time since 2005 too and a clear UK overall majority
As a Scottish Nationalist, I have mixed feelings. I automatically feel sad at the fall in SNP support. On the other hand, I want the SNP to get a well deserved kicking.
So it appears that Boris was desperate to finish his Shakespeare book when the hairdryer-up-the-nose episode occurred. Makes sense - Boris was exasperated by the whole inconvenience of Covid, had better things to be getting on with, and therefore 'did his own research' on the internet in the hope of stumbling across a solution science had missed.
It's also a bit WW2 cosplay; boffins are eccentrics in sheds coming up with quirky cheap ideas that win the war
(Geoffrey Pyke was Magnus's cousin, if anything even more of the boffin stereotype.)
The sort of demented inventors which Fleming (I not P) mocked up in Q and his department in the Bond novels. Admiralty Miscellaneous Weapon Development Department or something similar firing spigot mortars from Birnbeck Pier near Weston-s-Mare out into the mudflats to see where they landed when the tide went out; the SOE equivalent, with dead rats stuffed with explosive for unwary Continental firemen to shovel into the boiler when they came across them in the coal; and so on.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
No proof but I'm fairly certain a lot of the Cameron-era PB Tories were astroturfers.
Why? The site seems to attract lots of right of centre, socially liberal, highly educated people. Which is exactly what Cameron was making a pitch for.
Starmer is selling a slightly leftier version of that. Hence numbers of people, here, switching to his version of Labour.
Why were there astroturfers on pb, you mean? Probably because sometimes journalists picked up stories from here. Twitter now serves the same function.
Which poster was it that breathlessly reported back from somewhere, I think Leeds, on how Liz Truss' magnetic charisma and eloquence had energised the whole crowd and proved to him that she was the future of our country. A new Thatcher, a new Gloriana, a new Boadicea to lead us to the promised land? That's the sort of verve and spirit I like to see in my PB Tories. Driving their battered campaign bus straight into the bottomless swamp!
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
No proof but I'm fairly certain a lot of the Cameron-era PB Tories were astroturfers.
Why? The site seems to attract lots of right of centre, socially liberal, highly educated people. Which is exactly what Cameron was making a pitch for.
Starmer is selling a slightly leftier version of that. Hence numbers of people, here, switching to his version of Labour.
Why were there astroturfers on pb, you mean? Probably because sometimes journalists picked up stories from here. Twitter now serves the same function.
The Russian bots / astroturfers are even weirder....PB is one of the last places to go and try the "just saying, here is a link to some BS fake news"...when most of the posters pick each up on the smallest error in their posts.
It would be hilarious to see how all these senior politicians and civil servants are dumping all over each other at the Covid enquiry, if it wasn’t thoroughly depressing to reflect this bunch of poisonous, lying, cowardly nitwits are meant to be the cream of our government system.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
No proof but I'm fairly certain a lot of the Cameron-era PB Tories were astroturfers.
Why? The site seems to attract lots of right of centre, socially liberal, highly educated people. Which is exactly what Cameron was making a pitch for.
Starmer is selling a slightly leftier version of that. Hence numbers of people, here, switching to his version of Labour.
Why were there astroturfers on pb, you mean? Probably because sometimes journalists picked up stories from here. Twitter now serves the same function.
Who were the astroturfers? Tim? Plato? I was there and don’t recall lots of short term posters.
The lefties have always complained about PB being too Right. It’s just the demographics of the place.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
No proof but I'm fairly certain a lot of the Cameron-era PB Tories were astroturfers.
Why? The site seems to attract lots of right of centre, socially liberal, highly educated people. Which is exactly what Cameron was making a pitch for.
Starmer is selling a slightly leftier version of that. Hence numbers of people, here, switching to his version of Labour.
Why were there astroturfers on pb, you mean? Probably because sometimes journalists picked up stories from here. Twitter now serves the same function.
The Russian bots / astroturfers are even weirder....PB is one of the last places to go and try the "just saying, here is a link to some BS fake news"...when most of the posters pick each up on the smallest error in their posts.
The one that cracks me up is the antivax Russian trolls.
Whilst we might disagree about say lockdowns PB is pretty much pro-vax.
So it appears that Boris was desperate to finish his Shakespeare book when the hairdryer-up-the-nose episode occurred. Makes sense - Boris was exasperated by the whole inconvenience of Covid, had better things to be getting on with, and therefore 'did his own research' on the internet in the hope of stumbling across a solution science had missed.
It would be hilarious to see how all these senior politicians and civil servants are dumping all over each other at the Covid enquiry, if it wasn’t thoroughly depressing to reflect this bunch of poisonous, lying, cowardly nitwits are meant to be the cream of our government system.
So it appears that Boris was desperate to finish his Shakespeare book when the hairdryer-up-the-nose episode occurred. Makes sense - Boris was exasperated by the whole inconvenience of Covid, had better things to be getting on with, and therefore 'did his own research' on the internet in the hope of stumbling across a solution science had missed.
So it appears that Boris was desperate to finish his Shakespeare book when the hairdryer-up-the-nose episode occurred. Makes sense - Boris was exasperated by the whole inconvenience of Covid, had better things to be getting on with, and therefore 'did his own research' on the internet in the hope of stumbling across a solution science had missed.
What I don't get about Bozo appearing on GB News is that he has zero real experience of being a TV presenter (unlike even Nigel Farage who had experience doing a Radio show) to the extent it's likely to be a grade A car crash,,
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
No proof but I'm fairly certain a lot of the Cameron-era PB Tories were astroturfers.
Why? The site seems to attract lots of right of centre, socially liberal, highly educated people. Which is exactly what Cameron was making a pitch for.
Starmer is selling a slightly leftier version of that. Hence numbers of people, here, switching to his version of Labour.
Why were there astroturfers on pb, you mean? Probably because sometimes journalists picked up stories from here. Twitter now serves the same function.
Who were the astroturfers? Tim? Plato? I was there and don’t recall lots of short term posters.
The lefties have always complained about PB being too Right. It’s just the demographics of the place.
We do get a lot of short term posters during campaigns that disappear when votes are counted. Astroturfers or just folk who don't stick around for the long term? Who knows.
What I don't get about Bozo appearing on GB News is that he has zero real experience of being a TV presenter (unlike even Nigel Farage who had experience doing a Radio show) to the extent it's likely to be a grade A car crash,,
I don't think he is doing live tv. I thought it was more like their deal with John Cleese that he will make special programmes for them. He has got experience in that, I remember correctly he did some history shows for BBC that were actually quite well received.
Now given how lazy he is, how many other jobs he is taking on and how disorganised he is, if / when these shows actually get made is another matter.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
No proof but I'm fairly certain a lot of the Cameron-era PB Tories were astroturfers.
Why? The site seems to attract lots of right of centre, socially liberal, highly educated people. Which is exactly what Cameron was making a pitch for.
Starmer is selling a slightly leftier version of that. Hence numbers of people, here, switching to his version of Labour.
Why were there astroturfers on pb, you mean? Probably because sometimes journalists picked up stories from here. Twitter now serves the same function.
Who were the astroturfers? Tim? Plato? I was there and don’t recall lots of short term posters.
The lefties have always complained about PB being too Right. It’s just the demographics of the place.
We do get a lot of short term posters during campaigns that disappear when votes are counted. Astroturfers or just folk who don't stick around for the long term? Who knows.
There are also some very long term lurkers who only occasionally post.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
For me, as a Lib Dem, and I have been on the site since 2005, a "PB Tory" is some-one who wants the LDs to simultaneously: 1) replace the Labour party; and 2) agree with Tory policies
We're seeing the media, and witnesses with reputational damage to shift, focusing only on the worst 0.1% of what was being said, and 0.0% of what was being done. Only the most reckless PM would write anything down in future.
We're seeing the media, and witnesses with reputational damage to shift, focusing only on the worst 0.1% of what was being said, and 0.0% of what was being done. Only the most reckless PM would write anything down in future.
"Once valued at $47 billion, coworking-space provider WeWork nears bankruptcy WeWork bankruptcy filing may happen next week as market cap falls to $60 million."
We're seeing the media, and witnesses with reputational damage to shift, focusing only on the worst 0.1% of what was being said, and 0.0% of what was being done. Only the most reckless PM would write anything down in future.
It was always going to be the way. Also, only a wally would think that a) some sort of public inquiry wouldn't eventually come along and b) that all comms would be requested by those running it.
One thing for certain is there will be zero reflection by the media one how piss poor they were, consistently wrong about even the most basic of things.
We're seeing the media, and witnesses with reputational damage to shift, focusing only on the worst 0.1% of what was being said, and 0.0% of what was being done. Only the most reckless PM would write anything down in future.
It was always going to be the way. Also, only a wally would think that a) some sort of public inquiry wouldn't eventually come along and b) that all comms would be requested by those running it.
The problem was - and is - our entire system of government is being run by people who can’t be called wallies without defaming people who would be considered genuine wallies.
We're seeing the media, and witnesses with reputational damage to shift, focusing only on the worst 0.1% of what was being said, and 0.0% of what was being done. Only the most reckless PM would write anything down in future.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
Wanking on about airline seat upgrades. Socially liberal and fiscally dry which expresses itself in prolapsing over drag queens and amnesia about the bollox 13 years of the Tory party has made of the economy. Loving Europe and hating the EU which inevitably descends into weedy griping about individual European countries.
We're seeing the media, and witnesses with reputational damage to shift, focusing only on the worst 0.1% of what was being said, and 0.0% of what was being done. Only the most reckless PM would write anything down in future.
It was always going to be the way. Also, only a wally would think that a) some sort of public inquiry wouldn't eventually come along and b) that all comms would be requested by those running it.
One thing for certain is there will be zero reflection by the media one how piss poor they were, consistently wrong about even the most basic of things.
Yes, the media were poor, instead of sending their science correspondents to the COVID briefings they would send their political correspondents, hoping for a "gotcha" moment.
We're seeing the media, and witnesses with reputational damage to shift, focusing only on the worst 0.1% of what was being said, and 0.0% of what was being done. Only the most reckless PM would write anything down in future.
It was always going to be the way. Also, only a wally would think that a) some sort of public inquiry wouldn't eventually come along and b) that all comms would be requested by those running it.
The problem was - and is - our entire system of government is being run by people who can’t be called wallies without defaming people who would be considered genuine wallies.
Its wider than just the system of highest level of governance e.g. remember when we all used to wait for the daily data dump, so then PB own ran their scripts to build the charts etc.....and from time to time, not only was it late, it was delayed until the next day.
This was because they had to hired a team to write this complex code to pre-process all the raw data, because across the NHS, data couldn't be provided in standardised formats, there were multiple repetitions and edge cases in the raw datasets etc etc etc. It was an absolute nightmare and took months to really start to get on top of it.
Even then, these scripts had to run for several hours to preprocess this data to even get it into any sort of usable form. The days it was very late, was because these scripts crashed because of somebody had entered further non-standard entries.
We of course also had Excel-gate.
And instead so far all the focus seems to be on how rude Big Dom was to people etc and lots of people all pointing at a) Boris and b) everybody but themselves. And the media lapping up the drawm.
It would be hilarious to see how all these senior politicians and civil servants are dumping all over each other at the Covid enquiry, if it wasn’t thoroughly depressing to reflect this bunch of poisonous, lying, cowardly nitwits are meant to be the cream of our government system.
Certainly plenty of clots.
The clotted cream of our government system, rich and thick.
For me, as a Lib Dem, and I have been on the site since 2005, a "PB Tory" is some-one who wants the LDs to simultaneously: 1) replace the Labour party; and 2) agree with Tory policies
‘Where the LDs went wrong was not proudly emphasising the success of the Coalition’ is a sure sign of PB Toryism.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
One point that does strike me when reading the blog is that the outrageous and ridiculous stuff is being (perfectly understandably) picked out by the media, and there's a mass of perfectly sensible discussion in level-headed terms as everyone gropes for the best way through. I don't think Boris is coming out of it well, but the general impression of total chaos of everyone involved is probably exaggerated.
The shocking thing today was the Deputy Cabinet Secretary staring into the abyss when she realised there was no plan.
Also very interesting was her point about leaders clinging to 'following the science' as a way to avoid having to think too much about all the other stuff.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
One point that does strike me when reading the blog is that the outrageous and ridiculous stuff is being (perfectly understandably) picked out by the media, and there's a mass of perfectly sensible discussion in level-headed terms as everyone gropes for the best way through. I don't think Boris is coming out of it well, but the general impression of total chaos of everyone involved is probably exaggerated.
The shocking thing today was the Deputy Cabinet Secretary staring into the abyss when she realised there was no plan.
Also very interesting was her point about leaders clinging to 'following the science' as a way to avoid having to think too much about all the other stuff.
'Following the science' just is inherently populist and wrong. When it comes to actions there is no such thing. Science may, to a degree, indicate what may occur if you do X, Y or Z, or how to calculate QALYS, but science can't tell you what to do with the information. Science may give background facts about choices, but the govern is to choose.
We're seeing the media, and witnesses with reputational damage to shift, focusing only on the worst 0.1% of what was being said, and 0.0% of what was being done. Only the most reckless PM would write anything down in future.
It was always going to be the way. Also, only a wally would think that a) some sort of public inquiry wouldn't eventually come along and b) that all comms would be requested by those running it.
One thing for certain is there will be zero reflection by the media one how piss poor they were, consistently wrong about even the most basic of things.
Yes, the media were poor, instead of sending their science correspondents to the COVID briefings they would send their political correspondents, hoping for a "gotcha" moment.
This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.
If you were around in the 1930s you'd have been saying, "Look at what we've made the Germans do now!"
If you mean Versailles and Western Imperialism in general - somewhat - but that still wouldn't justify land invasion (although might have justified calls to end the occupation of the Rhineland, for example).
If you mean the Nazism and the Holocaust, of course not. Jewish people were in no way the "cause (as in "and effect)" of any of the wrongs done to post WW1 Germany, nor were the other targets of Nazi violence. Jewish people are also in no way the "cause (as in "and effect") of the Israel / Palestine conflict - because Israel is not a proxy for Jewish people - as I will keep pointing out to everyone who uses it as such. As I have said before, it is just as anti-Semitic to claim Israel is somehow a proxy for all Jewish people, or somehow represents all Jewish people as it is to claim that all Jewish people have "dual loyalty"; because its root is the same trope.
And yet, yesterday one of my son’s teachers woke up to find human faeces put through her letterbox, wrapped in paper with the message ‘eat shit dirty Jew’ and a swastika.
This is a women in her 20s, living alone. It’s not been like this for most British Jews in living memory. I have several other examples of the sorts of antisemitic abuse people (always women) have faced. The fear people are feeling is real and borne out actual stuff happening like this.
That is absolutely disgusting. That poor woman. I hope whoever did this can be found and punished accordingly. As I have written on here, I sympathise greatly with the Palestinians, but there is no excuse whatsoever for antisemitism. I wish these idiots could understand that they are doing their cause no good at all with this kind of despicable behaviour. Utter morons.
They have no cause. Don't give them the crumb of a cause.
The Palestinians certainly have a cause, but antisemitic behaviour by idiots is certainly not going to win any sympathy for it.
One would hope that the murderous barbarity of 7th October wouldn't either.
Of course not, but the equally murderous response by Israel is.
What equally murderous response by Israel?
Hamas deliberately murdered children, at point-blank range, knowing they were children and without any attempt to get at a legitimate target, simply killing children because they're Israeli.
What has Israel done in response?
Its lawfully targeted Hamas in response, although Hamas deliberately use human shields so sometimes civilians get caught in the crossfire. Which is legal in war.
Had Israel been equally brutal they'd be killing every Palestinian man, woman and child they can get their hands on without any mercy. They've not done that - quite rightly!
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
One point that does strike me when reading the blog is that the outrageous and ridiculous stuff is being (perfectly understandably) picked out by the media, and there's a mass of perfectly sensible discussion in level-headed terms as everyone gropes for the best way through. I don't think Boris is coming out of it well, but the general impression of total chaos of everyone involved is probably exaggerated.
The shocking thing today was the Deputy Cabinet Secretary staring into the abyss when she realised there was no plan.
Also very interesting was her point about leaders clinging to 'following the science' as a way to avoid having to think too much about all the other stuff.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
One point that does strike me when reading the blog is that the outrageous and ridiculous stuff is being (perfectly understandably) picked out by the media, and there's a mass of perfectly sensible discussion in level-headed terms as everyone gropes for the best way through. I don't think Boris is coming out of it well, but the general impression of total chaos of everyone involved is probably exaggerated.
The shocking thing today was the Deputy Cabinet Secretary staring into the abyss when she realised there was no plan.
Also very interesting was her point about leaders clinging to 'following the science' as a way to avoid having to think too much about all the other stuff.
'Following the science' just is inherently populist and wrong. When it comes to actions there is no such thing. Science may, to a degree, indicate what may occur if you do X, Y or Z, or how to calculate QALYS, but science can't tell you what to do with the information. Science may give background facts about choices, but the govern is to choose.
But it is also worth remembering as soon as any politician tried to deviate from it, even a delay of a day or two, they got absolutely trashed in the media. SAGE would leak out their recommendations, the media would run with the latest absolute craptactic models that showed 6 billion new cases and a million dead in 3 months, and the media would be straight away why aren't you following the science.
Now really strong leadership would have said I'm in charge, screw the media, we are doing what I think is right, and eventually we did get that, with if you remember Boris was told Christmas 2021 we all needed locking in our homes again, it was going to be another killer wave, and finally he said no, we aren't doing this anymore....he got absolutely shelled in the media and nobody ever said actually he made the right call there.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
No proof but I'm fairly certain a lot of the Cameron-era PB Tories were astroturfers.
Why? The site seems to attract lots of right of centre, socially liberal, highly educated people. Which is exactly what Cameron was making a pitch for.
Starmer is selling a slightly leftier version of that. Hence numbers of people, here, switching to his version of Labour.
Why were there astroturfers on pb, you mean? Probably because sometimes journalists picked up stories from here. Twitter now serves the same function.
Who were the astroturfers? Tim? Plato? I was there and don’t recall lots of short term posters.
The lefties have always complained about PB being too Right. It’s just the demographics of the place.
We do get a lot of short term posters during campaigns that disappear when votes are counted. Astroturfers or just folk who don't stick around for the long term? Who knows.
There are also some very long term lurkers who only occasionally post.
Not Plato or Tim. Possibly councillors, SpAds or PPCs. One sign was that every PMQs was declared a resounding win for Cameron even when he'd plainly been KO'd by the clunking great fist. Another, as Foxy said, their disappearance during counts. As for lurkers, David Cameron himself was said to read pb.
We have to wipe out this anti Semitism with ruthless vigour. We need prison, we need massive fines, we need deportations, we need exemplary sentences
It cannot be allowed to flourish. It is toxic
How do you deport anyone who is a British citizen who is born here who has British nationality only who commits these acts ?
Look at the legal battle still raging over celebrity terrorist Shamima Begum and her demands to chase her citizenship reinstated.
The courts would be in gridlock.
Clearly I mean anyone with dual nationality or non British nationality. Sadly we have given British nationality to far too many anti semites, we shall have to account for them ourselves
The endpoint of all this is the death of multiculturalism. It is a catastrophic failure
Do you need some sort of higher qualification to engage in such an advanced level of hyperbole?
My general take away from COVID was Boris was weak, definitely the wrong person to be leader, and COVID definitely f##ked him for most of 2020, he couldn't even remember people's names. Many other politicians were also very poor. Certain members of SAGE were clearly politically driven and the media were not only moronically ignorant, they often made everything all very toxic with deliberate misrepresentations and talks of being confused, while deliberately confusing very simple instructions.
I actually give the government a bit of a free pass on early COVID, virtually no country really knew what they were doing. Everybody was fumbling around in the dark, with nobody really knowing what the real risks were, how it was transmitted (much of early advice turns out to be bollocks).
My biggest issue was after that first lockdown, the flip flopping. We needed consistent set of rules nationwide until vaccinations were rolled out, not you are in Tier 1 this week, Tier 3 next, Tier 2 after that, but the town 2 mins down the road is totally different Tier. Then when vaccinated we need to be swifter to getting back to living with the virus e.g. furlough went on for far too long.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
One point that does strike me when reading the blog is that the outrageous and ridiculous stuff is being (perfectly understandably) picked out by the media, and there's a mass of perfectly sensible discussion in level-headed terms as everyone gropes for the best way through. I don't think Boris is coming out of it well, but the general impression of total chaos of everyone involved is probably exaggerated.
The shocking thing today was the Deputy Cabinet Secretary staring into the abyss when she realised there was no plan.
Also very interesting was her point about leaders clinging to 'following the science' as a way to avoid having to think too much about all the other stuff.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
One point that does strike me when reading the blog is that the outrageous and ridiculous stuff is being (perfectly understandably) picked out by the media, and there's a mass of perfectly sensible discussion in level-headed terms as everyone gropes for the best way through. I don't think Boris is coming out of it well, but the general impression of total chaos of everyone involved is probably exaggerated.
The shocking thing today was the Deputy Cabinet Secretary staring into the abyss when she realised there was no plan.
Also very interesting was her point about leaders clinging to 'following the science' as a way to avoid having to think too much about all the other stuff.
'Following the science' just is inherently populist and wrong. When it comes to actions there is no such thing. Science may, to a degree, indicate what may occur if you do X, Y or Z, or how to calculate QALYS, but science can't tell you what to do with the information. Science may give background facts about choices, but the govern is to choose.
But it is also worth remembering as soon as any politician tried to deviate from it, even a delay of a day or two, they got absolutely trashed in the media. SAGE would leak out their recommendations, the media would run with the latest absolute craptactic models that showed 6 billion new cases and a million dead in 3 months, and the media would be straight away why aren't you following the science.
Now really strong leadership would have said I'm in charge, screw the media, we are doing what I think is right, and eventually we did get that, with if you remember Boris was told Christmas 2021 we all needed locking in our homes again, it was going to be another killer wave, and finally he said no, we aren't doing this anymore....he got absolutely shelled in the media and nobody ever said actually he made the right call there.
Christmas 2021? And no card-carrying Conservative would ever shut up about Boris getting the big calls right.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
No proof but I'm fairly certain a lot of the Cameron-era PB Tories were astroturfers.
Why? The site seems to attract lots of right of centre, socially liberal, highly educated people. Which is exactly what Cameron was making a pitch for.
Starmer is selling a slightly leftier version of that. Hence numbers of people, here, switching to his version of Labour.
Why were there astroturfers on pb, you mean? Probably because sometimes journalists picked up stories from here. Twitter now serves the same function.
Who were the astroturfers? Tim? Plato? I was there and don’t recall lots of short term posters.
The lefties have always complained about PB being too Right. It’s just the demographics of the place.
We do get a lot of short term posters during campaigns that disappear when votes are counted. Astroturfers or just folk who don't stick around for the long term? Who knows.
There are also some very long term lurkers who only occasionally post.
Not Plato or Tim. Possibly councillors, SpAds or PPCs. One sign was that every PMQs was declared a resounding win for Cameron even when he'd plainly been KO'd by the clunking great fist. Another, as Foxy said, their disappearance during counts. As for lurkers, David Cameron himself was said to read pb.
I really can't recall that, esp. the PMQs thing.
"...he'd plainly been KO'd by the clunking great fist."
Surely that's in the eye of the beholder? It's still the case that people post differing takes on PMQs; sometimes wildly differing.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
One point that does strike me when reading the blog is that the outrageous and ridiculous stuff is being (perfectly understandably) picked out by the media, and there's a mass of perfectly sensible discussion in level-headed terms as everyone gropes for the best way through. I don't think Boris is coming out of it well, but the general impression of total chaos of everyone involved is probably exaggerated.
The shocking thing today was the Deputy Cabinet Secretary staring into the abyss when she realised there was no plan.
Also very interesting was her point about leaders clinging to 'following the science' as a way to avoid having to think too much about all the other stuff.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
One point that does strike me when reading the blog is that the outrageous and ridiculous stuff is being (perfectly understandably) picked out by the media, and there's a mass of perfectly sensible discussion in level-headed terms as everyone gropes for the best way through. I don't think Boris is coming out of it well, but the general impression of total chaos of everyone involved is probably exaggerated.
The shocking thing today was the Deputy Cabinet Secretary staring into the abyss when she realised there was no plan.
Also very interesting was her point about leaders clinging to 'following the science' as a way to avoid having to think too much about all the other stuff.
'Following the science' just is inherently populist and wrong. When it comes to actions there is no such thing. Science may, to a degree, indicate what may occur if you do X, Y or Z, or how to calculate QALYS, but science can't tell you what to do with the information. Science may give background facts about choices, but the govern is to choose.
But it is also worth remembering as soon as any politician tried to deviate from it, even a delay of a day or two, they got absolutely trashed in the media. SAGE would leak out their recommendations, the media would run with the latest absolute craptactic models that showed 6 billion new cases and a million dead in 3 months, and the media would be straight away why aren't you following the science.
Now really strong leadership would have said I'm in charge, screw the media, we are doing what I think is right, and eventually we did get that, with if you remember Boris was told Christmas 2021 we all needed locking in our homes again, it was going to be another killer wave, and finally he said no, we aren't doing this anymore....he got absolutely shelled in the media and nobody ever said actually he made the right call there.
Christmas 2021? And no card-carrying Conservative would ever shut up about Boris getting the big calls right.
He did get the big calls right, or less wrong than others.
He got the little calls wrong, that's what brought him down.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
No proof but I'm fairly certain a lot of the Cameron-era PB Tories were astroturfers.
Why? The site seems to attract lots of right of centre, socially liberal, highly educated people. Which is exactly what Cameron was making a pitch for.
Starmer is selling a slightly leftier version of that. Hence numbers of people, here, switching to his version of Labour.
Why were there astroturfers on pb, you mean? Probably because sometimes journalists picked up stories from here. Twitter now serves the same function.
Who were the astroturfers? Tim? Plato? I was there and don’t recall lots of short term posters.
The lefties have always complained about PB being too Right. It’s just the demographics of the place.
We do get a lot of short term posters during campaigns that disappear when votes are counted. Astroturfers or just folk who don't stick around for the long term? Who knows.
There are also some very long term lurkers who only occasionally post.
Not Plato or Tim. Possibly councillors, SpAds or PPCs. One sign was that every PMQs was declared a resounding win for Cameron even when he'd plainly been KO'd by the clunking great fist. Another, as Foxy said, their disappearance during counts. As for lurkers, David Cameron himself was said to read pb.
How does this "said to" work? If I speculatively say Rishi reads pb, does that become "said to" folklore in 10 years time?
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
One point that does strike me when reading the blog is that the outrageous and ridiculous stuff is being (perfectly understandably) picked out by the media, and there's a mass of perfectly sensible discussion in level-headed terms as everyone gropes for the best way through. I don't think Boris is coming out of it well, but the general impression of total chaos of everyone involved is probably exaggerated.
The shocking thing today was the Deputy Cabinet Secretary staring into the abyss when she realised there was no plan.
Also very interesting was her point about leaders clinging to 'following the science' as a way to avoid having to think too much about all the other stuff.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
One point that does strike me when reading the blog is that the outrageous and ridiculous stuff is being (perfectly understandably) picked out by the media, and there's a mass of perfectly sensible discussion in level-headed terms as everyone gropes for the best way through. I don't think Boris is coming out of it well, but the general impression of total chaos of everyone involved is probably exaggerated.
The shocking thing today was the Deputy Cabinet Secretary staring into the abyss when she realised there was no plan.
Also very interesting was her point about leaders clinging to 'following the science' as a way to avoid having to think too much about all the other stuff.
'Following the science' just is inherently populist and wrong. When it comes to actions there is no such thing. Science may, to a degree, indicate what may occur if you do X, Y or Z, or how to calculate QALYS, but science can't tell you what to do with the information. Science may give background facts about choices, but the govern is to choose.
But it is also worth remembering as soon as any politician tried to deviate from it, even a delay of a day or two, they got absolutely trashed in the media. SAGE would leak out their recommendations, the media would run with the latest absolute craptactic models that showed 6 billion new cases and a million dead in 3 months, and the media would be straight away why aren't you following the science.
Now really strong leadership would have said I'm in charge, screw the media, we are doing what I think is right, and eventually we did get that, with if you remember Boris was told Christmas 2021 we all needed locking in our homes again, it was going to be another killer wave, and finally he said no, we aren't doing this anymore....he got absolutely shelled in the media and nobody ever said actually he made the right call there.
Christmas 2021? And no card-carrying Conservative would ever shut up about Boris getting the big calls right.
He did get the big calls right, or less wrong than others.
He got the little calls wrong, that's what brought him down.
No he fucking didn’t. The few things that went right were despite him not because of him.
We have to wipe out this anti Semitism with ruthless vigour. We need prison, we need massive fines, we need deportations, we need exemplary sentences
It cannot be allowed to flourish. It is toxic
How do you deport anyone who is a British citizen who is born here who has British nationality only who commits these acts ?
Look at the legal battle still raging over celebrity terrorist Shamima Begum and her demands to chase her citizenship reinstated.
The courts would be in gridlock.
Clearly I mean anyone with dual nationality or non British nationality. Sadly we have given British nationality to far too many anti semites, we shall have to account for them ourselves
The endpoint of all this is the death of multiculturalism. It is a catastrophic failure
Do you need some sort of higher qualification to engage in such an advanced level of hyperbole?
No, just a twitter account and a high level of gullibility.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
It seems I'm not a PB Tory at all then.
Absolutely zero of those represent me.
Apart from a slight prejudice against diversity training because I don't know what it is but it sounds like something delivered by women of a certain sort with dangly earrings who don't like being asked questions by older white males, I score Zero too. Where do I put in my application for the Socialist Workers Party?
On another planet a PB Tory could be someone who thinks Kenneth Clarke should now be in about his 30th year as PM and intends to honour this thought by voting Labour. Tick.
We're seeing the media, and witnesses with reputational damage to shift, focusing only on the worst 0.1% of what was being said, and 0.0% of what was being done. Only the most reckless PM would write anything down in future.
It was always going to be the way. Also, only a wally would think that a) some sort of public inquiry wouldn't eventually come along and b) that all comms would be requested by those running it.
One thing for certain is there will be zero reflection by the media one how piss poor they were, consistently wrong about even the most basic of things.
Yes, the media were poor, instead of sending their science correspondents to the COVID briefings they would send their political correspondents, hoping for a "gotcha" moment.
The media share a lot of the culpability for perpetuating the sense of crisis. Some of their criticism was legitimate, but much was carping from the sidelines about every decision the government took.
So it appears that Boris was desperate to finish his Shakespeare book when the hairdryer-up-the-nose episode occurred. Makes sense - Boris was exasperated by the whole inconvenience of Covid, had better things to be getting on with, and therefore 'did his own research' on the internet in the hope of stumbling across a solution science had missed.
Hair dryer up nose?!?
What have I missed?
Oh, Boris just saw something on the internet about blowing air up your nose with a hairdryer as a cure for Covid. He then instructed his scientists to brief him about it.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
It seems I'm not a PB Tory at all then.
Absolutely zero of those represent me.
Apart from a slight prejudice against diversity training because I don't know what it is but it sounds like something delivered by women of a certain sort with dangly earrings who don't like being asked questions by older white males, I score Zero too. Where do I put in my application for the Socialist Workers Party?
On another planet a PB Tory could be someone who thinks Kenneth Clarke should now be in about his 30th year as PM and intends to honour this thought by voting Labour. Tick.
Anyone who likes Test Match Special is a fool anyway.
Agnew is a dud commentator and a pretty nasty piece of work.
"Germany is considering abandoning its flagship €100 billion future combat jet project with France and joining a rival programme with Britain instead, The Times has been told.
As an overture to a potential deal, the German chancellor is also understood to be in talks over lifting Berlin’s veto on a delivery of Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Saudi Arabia, which the UK views as an important strategic priority.
A pact along these lines would be a significant coup for London and reflect a steadily worsening rift between France and Germany, which are at odds over issues from energy and air defence to diplomatic protocol."
Macron will be le grumpy again if this transpires.
What's the equivalent AUKUS-style acronym? DEUK? As in "Germany DEUKs French relationship with knockout blow to fighter jet programme".
The UK will have to let Germans in out of economic necessity but it's starting to make the Global Hyper Fighter coalition a bit unwieldy and dilutes the British influence over the program's direction. It would mean rebalancing the industrial participation and operational requirements for UK, Italy, Japan AND Germany. If they can prise Spain out of FCAS they've got the Eurofighter band back together.
My general take away from COVID was Boris was weak, definitely the wrong person to be leader, and COVID definitely f##ked him for most of 2020, he couldn't even remember people's names. Many other politicians were also very poor. Certain members of SAGE were clearly politically driven and the media were not only moronically ignorant, they often made everything all very toxic with deliberate misrepresentations and talks of being confused, while deliberately confusing very simple instructions.
I actually give the government a bit of a free pass on early COVID, virtually no country really knew what they were doing. Everybody was fumbling around in the dark, with nobody really knowing what the real risks were, how it was transmitted (much of early advice turns out to be bollocks).
My biggest issue was after that first lockdown, the flip flopping. We needed consistent set of rules nationwide until vaccinations were rolled out, not you are in Tier 1 this week, Tier 3 next, Tier 2 after that, but the town 2 mins down the road is totally different Tier. Then when vaccinated we need to be swifter to getting back to living with the virus e.g. furlough went on for far too long.
Pretty much my exact feelings on the whole episode.
We're seeing the media, and witnesses with reputational damage to shift, focusing only on the worst 0.1% of what was being said, and 0.0% of what was being done. Only the most reckless PM would write anything down in future.
It was always going to be the way. Also, only a wally would think that a) some sort of public inquiry wouldn't eventually come along and b) that all comms would be requested by those running it.
One thing for certain is there will be zero reflection by the media one how piss poor they were, consistently wrong about even the most basic of things.
Yes, the media were poor, instead of sending their science correspondents to the COVID briefings they would send their political correspondents, hoping for a "gotcha" moment.
The media share a lot of the culpability for perpetuating the sense of crisis. Some of their criticism was legitimate, but much was carping from the sidelines about every decision the government took.
The classics being immediately pointing out how one could bend the rules being implemented, then saying well this is all too confusing. When there job should have been to disseminate the information as clearly and concisely as possible with the general undertone of the best way we can minimise deaths is really try to limit contact with people outside your household.
"Germany is considering abandoning its flagship €100 billion future combat jet project with France and joining a rival programme with Britain instead, The Times has been told.
As an overture to a potential deal, the German chancellor is also understood to be in talks over lifting Berlin’s veto on a delivery of Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Saudi Arabia, which the UK views as an important strategic priority.
A pact along these lines would be a significant coup for London and reflect a steadily worsening rift between France and Germany, which are at odds over issues from energy and air defence to diplomatic protocol."
Macron will be le grumpy again if this transpires.
Incidentally, if the Germans join GCAD, it'll be a German/Swedish/Japanese/Italian program with British support. Color me stupid, but historically when the Germans, Swedes, Japanese and Italians join in a military project it doesn't always go as planned.
Given the propensity of the British to name their fighters after wind/storms (Tornado, Typhoon, Tempest, Whirlwind, and of course Hurricane), we may end up calling it the RAF Divine Wind...
Here’s old school for you. I’m currently sitting on a station platform shelter and a guy opposite me just flicked through his, obviously new, printed copy of Mayfair before returning it to his bag. Who buys soft porn in hard copy these days? For the articles?
We're seeing the media, and witnesses with reputational damage to shift, focusing only on the worst 0.1% of what was being said, and 0.0% of what was being done. Only the most reckless PM would write anything down in future.
It was always going to be the way. Also, only a wally would think that a) some sort of public inquiry wouldn't eventually come along and b) that all comms would be requested by those running it.
The problem was - and is - our entire system of government is being run by people who can’t be called wallies without defaming people who would be considered genuine wallies.
Its wider than just the system of highest level of governance e.g. remember when we all used to wait for the daily data dump, so then PB own ran their scripts to build the charts etc.....and from time to time, not only was it late, it was delayed until the next day.
This was because they had to hired a team to write this complex code to pre-process all the raw data, because across the NHS, data couldn't be provided in standardised formats, there were multiple repetitions and edge cases in the raw datasets etc etc etc. It was an absolute nightmare and took months to really start to get on top of it.
Even then, these scripts had to run for several hours to preprocess this data to even get it into any sort of usable form. The days it was very late, was because these scripts crashed because of somebody had entered further non-standard entries.
We of course also had Excel-gate.
And instead so far all the focus seems to be on how rude Big Dom was to people etc and lots of people all pointing at a) Boris and b) everybody but themselves. And the media lapping up the drawm.
The dashboard ended up being a brilliant example of aggregating data and making it publicly available.
The civil service made very sure that funding was reduced and the team dispersed.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
No proof but I'm fairly certain a lot of the Cameron-era PB Tories were astroturfers.
Why? The site seems to attract lots of right of centre, socially liberal, highly educated people. Which is exactly what Cameron was making a pitch for.
Starmer is selling a slightly leftier version of that. Hence numbers of people, here, switching to his version of Labour.
Why were there astroturfers on pb, you mean? Probably because sometimes journalists picked up stories from here. Twitter now serves the same function.
Who were the astroturfers? Tim? Plato? I was there and don’t recall lots of short term posters.
The lefties have always complained about PB being too Right. It’s just the demographics of the place.
We do get a lot of short term posters during campaigns that disappear when votes are counted. Astroturfers or just folk who don't stick around for the long term? Who knows.
There are also some very long term lurkers who only occasionally post.
Not Plato or Tim. Possibly councillors, SpAds or PPCs. One sign was that every PMQs was declared a resounding win for Cameron even when he'd plainly been KO'd by the clunking great fist. Another, as Foxy said, their disappearance during counts. As for lurkers, David Cameron himself was said to read pb.
How does this "said to" work? If I speculatively say Rishi reads pb, does that become "said to" folklore in 10 years time?
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
I am surprised that there are so few comments on PB in relation to the Covid inquiry? Is that because it is embarrassing for PB Tories?
What are PB Tories? How many posters express detailed support for this government, principled adherence to its underlying ethos and philosophy and what it is doing, delight that this parliament and cabinet is doing so well, and a conviction that a better one is not really thinkable or available, and that a right thinking public should send them back with a large majority at the next election?
I think they are few in number. This One Nation Burkean Tory is voting Labour as the nearest thing available to my principles.
“PB Tories” has become a very confusing moniker when it is used nowadays on this site, IMHO. Back in the runup to 2010, or during the coalition, I could see the point because the site was rather heavily populated by Cameroony Tory voters. Nowadays it feels to me most Tory voters on here have either switched camps, or left the site, other than a handful of holdouts. But very few of those holdouts would defend everything the current government does to the hilt. So it just doesn’t feel like a particularly accurate observation anymore.
"PB Tory" is a state of mind, a worldview, a particular position in the political and cultural map of British society rather than an indication of current voting intention. Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory. Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory. Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory. Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory. Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory. Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
No proof but I'm fairly certain a lot of the Cameron-era PB Tories were astroturfers.
Why? The site seems to attract lots of right of centre, socially liberal, highly educated people. Which is exactly what Cameron was making a pitch for.
Starmer is selling a slightly leftier version of that. Hence numbers of people, here, switching to his version of Labour.
Why were there astroturfers on pb, you mean? Probably because sometimes journalists picked up stories from here. Twitter now serves the same function.
Who were the astroturfers? Tim? Plato? I was there and don’t recall lots of short term posters.
The lefties have always complained about PB being too Right. It’s just the demographics of the place.
We do get a lot of short term posters during campaigns that disappear when votes are counted. Astroturfers or just folk who don't stick around for the long term? Who knows.
There are also some very long term lurkers who only occasionally post.
Not Plato or Tim. Possibly councillors, SpAds or PPCs. One sign was that every PMQs was declared a resounding win for Cameron even when he'd plainly been KO'd by the clunking great fist. Another, as Foxy said, their disappearance during counts. As for lurkers, David Cameron himself was said to read pb.
How does this "said to" work? If I speculatively say Rishi reads pb, does that become "said to" folklore in 10 years time?
Comments
I do know that as we speak, millions are being spent on reports that won't be read, written by people who haven't actually bothered to speak to anyone within x degrees of separation of the actual experience of the stuff the report is about.
But on the upside, implementing the report will mean writing lots more reports, and creating, giving and putting on shelves of nice awards.
No shit wielders will be inconvenienced.
Meanwhile the sons of a Rabbi I came across, who run a graffiti removal service, will be working 24/7. They did a nice job on some horrible stuff on a Thai temple (I think it was). They can remove anything from any surface without damaging the surface.....
Look at the legal battle still raging over celebrity terrorist Shamima Begum and her demands to chase her citizenship reinstated.
The courts would be in gridlock.
Yesterday I got a flu jab (thanks to my employer for paying for these for us). Slight headache this morning, slight ache in arm.
Today Wor Lass went for a Covid jab (vulnerable group). Managed to blag a flu jab while she was there, in the same arm. She might be feeling a bit rough tomorrow.
Dual nationals can lose their citizenship at the stroke of the Home Secs pen. It's done. They can try and get judicial review, but that's after the fact. So they would be waiting years to try and get citizenship back. And entry into the country.
Lovely, isn't it?
The endpoint of all this is the death of multiculturalism. It is a catastrophic failure
http://www.changingthetimes.net/samples/brooks/alison_brooks.htm
They did then mumble something about “change it to V V Putin instead” but the damage was done.
Terrible end to a great story.
How very condescending.
So you want Israelis to submit to a process that gives people who want to kill them power over them, in the hope that a T&R process will work - as you put it - "with great difficulty" . And if - when - that process fails, you have no answer as to how to keep Israelis safe beside handwavium.
"But compared to the current position of "let Israel kill all Palestinians if they want to""
This is an odd thing to say. Firstly, I think you have to be rather (ahem) anti-Israeli to suggest that they want to kill all Palestinians. Secondly, you strain every sinew in attempts to ignore that Hamas want exactly the opposite - to kill all Israelis and Jews in the land.
In the darkness of the alley, The Finn's construct sits. Does it's laser scan the snow, the candles and the Moskovaskaya bottles? Does it think, ponder, by itself? Or is it only an empty puppet that wakes when humans pass by?
@HYUFD
We are all PB Tories now, comrade.
I mean are you real - 'it seemed plausible'? How in gods earth is that plausible? A hairdryer up the nose.
You are absolutely barking.
Do you not think that scientists would have already done humidity and temperature tests way before this. All the research worldwide and the solution is a hairdryer up the nose? You are as batty as hell.
You also completely missed the logic of 'all the crackpot ideas on the internet'. If they investigate this one, why shouldn't they investigate all the others? This only takes priority because a completely unqualified but influential person suggested it. It has no other merit over the other stuff on the internet. So instead of them doing real science, they spend their valuable time dismissing one crackpot idea after another. It is people like you, Boris and Trump who are a danger to science. Although in your case I assume you are far enough away from it to be harmless.
And in case you thought that was personal by pointing out how really dim you are, maybe you should have considered that before starting your post by being insulting.
Sam Bankman-Fried knew that looting billions of customers' deposits was wrong and drove his cryptocurrency companies into insolvency, but he repeatedly doubled down on the scheme, prosecutors claimed in closing arguments on Wednesday.
MANHATTAN (CN) — In closing arguments on Wednesday, federal prosecutors urged jurors to convict Sam Bankman-Fried for plundering more than $8 billion from FTX customer funds in one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history. . . .
Federal prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of fraudulently gambling with customers' money in his own casino by directing his Alameda Research hedge fund to secretly commingle billions of dollars of customers’ deposit funds from his FTX exchange platform as stolen capital for cryptocurrency futures trading on the FTX exchange he also co-founded and controlled. . . .
The Southern District of New York prosecutor urged jurors not to be distracted or confused by the minutiae of the novel digital finance industry in deliberating Bankman-Fried’s guilt.
“This is not about complicated issues of cryptocurrency,” he said. “It’s not about hedging, it's not about jargon — it’s about deception, it’s about lies, it’s about stealing, it’s about greed.”
At trial, prosecutors showed evidence that Bankman-Fried spent billions of dollars of customer money on real estate purchases, straw donations to politicians, celebrity endorsements and publicity deals, in addition to large venture capital investments. . . .
Bankman-Fried’s public statements, in advertisements and in testimony before Congress, about FTX being the safest and most trustworthy custodian for customers to trade cryptocurrency were in complete contrast with the reality of his spending billions of customers’ fiat deposit fund, prosecutors argued in their closing summation.
Bankman-Fried publicly claimed that Alameda was “a wholly separate entity” and “a neutral piece of market infrastructure,” Roos said.
He told media outlets he had “worked to eliminate conflicts of interest” at the same time that he was “internally freaking out about the close relationship between Alameda," [prosecutor] Roos told jurors.
“He was lying to the public, and he told the same lies on the witness stand," Roos said.
During his direct testimony, he testified “for hours about things that don’t matter,” Roos said. “Suddenly on cross examination, he couldn’t remember a single detail about his company.” . . .
“He never said he couldn’t recall during his direct testimony, but he said it over 140 times on cross-examination,” the prosecutor noted. . . .
https://www.courthousenews.com/in-closing-prosecutors-say-bankman-fried-stole-billions-from-ftx-customers-via-pyramid-of-deceit/
BJ: "Chaps, probably sounds bonkers but bear with, I saw somewhere that blowing a hairdryer up your nose could help to kill Covid. Presumably by drying the little blighters out. Any merit in that?"
CW: "Well it's a theory. Dessication can affect viral survival. But if you think about the physics of this it seems pretty far fetched. How long would you need to be blowing continuously to maintain dry enough conditions for the viruses to die off in sufficient quantities? And how narrow would the hairdryer need to be? But a nice idea"
BJ: "Oh Chris you old spoilsport. Knew you'd say that. Seems like the old blower can stay in Carrie's bathroom cabinet for now then. By the way did I hear dear old Helen Macmanaman's volunteered to run the Karaoke at this week's Friday shindig? Dark horse that one."
Labour heading for most seats in England and Scotland for the first time since 2005 too and a clear UK overall majority
Do you prefer Rugby to Association Football? You are a PB Tory.
Do you instinctively hate diversity training, the ULEZ and people who travel in small waterborne craft other than during the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race? You are a PB Tory.
Are you at home in the Home Counties and at a stretch the posher bits of the Midlands, but nervous of the no go zones of Londonistan and need an interpreter if you venture north of the Watford Gap? You are a PB Tory.
Do you now claim to have seen through Boris Johnson all along, but when he was PM got a semi every time he appeared at the dispatch box? You are a PB Tory.
Are you currently losing your shit over Labour proposing VAT on private school fees, but remain silent when real per pupil spending is cut in the state sector? You are a PB Tory.
Know about wine? PB Tory. Wash your car? PB Tory (or Dura_Ace). Hate the BBC, apart from Test Match Special? PB Tory. Oppose immigration, but not for any kind of racist reasons? PB Tory.
Amazingly HQ video about Somalia in 1976.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axRnibxTYBM
I'm reminded a bit of Pykrete;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete
(Geoffrey Pyke was Magnus's cousin, if anything even more of the boffin stereotype.)
Starmer is selling a slightly leftier version of that. Hence numbers of people, here, switching to his version of Labour.
The lefties have always complained about PB being too Right. It’s just the demographics of the place.
Whilst we might disagree about say lockdowns PB is pretty much pro-vax.
What have I missed?
Now given how lazy he is, how many other jobs he is taking on and how disorganised he is, if / when these shows actually get made is another matter.
1) replace the Labour party; and
2) agree with Tory policies
WeWork bankruptcy filing may happen next week as market cap falls to $60 million."
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/11/once-valued-at-47-billion-coworking-space-provider-wework-nears-bankruptcy/
Still, it had a better business model than What3Words...
One thing for certain is there will be zero reflection by the media one how piss poor they were, consistently wrong about even the most basic of things.
Socially liberal and fiscally dry which expresses itself in prolapsing over drag queens and amnesia about the bollox 13 years of the Tory party has made of the economy.
Loving Europe and hating the EU which inevitably descends into weedy griping about individual European countries.
This was because they had to hired a team to write this complex code to pre-process all the raw data, because across the NHS, data couldn't be provided in standardised formats, there were multiple repetitions and edge cases in the raw datasets etc etc etc. It was an absolute nightmare and took months to really start to get on top of it.
Even then, these scripts had to run for several hours to preprocess this data to even get it into any sort of usable form. The days it was very late, was because these scripts crashed because of somebody had entered further non-standard entries.
We of course also had Excel-gate.
And instead so far all the focus seems to be on how rude Big Dom was to people etc and lots of people all pointing at a) Boris and b) everybody but themselves. And the media lapping up the drawm.
Not having that.
Hamas deliberately murdered children, at point-blank range, knowing they were children and without any attempt to get at a legitimate target, simply killing children because they're Israeli.
What has Israel done in response?
Its lawfully targeted Hamas in response, although Hamas deliberately use human shields so sometimes civilians get caught in the crossfire. Which is legal in war.
Had Israel been equally brutal they'd be killing every Palestinian man, woman and child they can get their hands on without any mercy. They've not done that - quite rightly!
Now really strong leadership would have said I'm in charge, screw the media, we are doing what I think is right, and eventually we did get that, with if you remember Boris was told Christmas 2021 we all needed locking in our homes again, it was going to be another killer wave, and finally he said no, we aren't doing this anymore....he got absolutely shelled in the media and nobody ever said actually he made the right call there.
Absolutely zero of those represent me.
I actually give the government a bit of a free pass on early COVID, virtually no country really knew what they were doing. Everybody was fumbling around in the dark, with nobody really knowing what the real risks were, how it was transmitted (much of early advice turns out to be bollocks).
My biggest issue was after that first lockdown, the flip flopping. We needed consistent set of rules nationwide until vaccinations were rolled out, not you are in Tier 1 this week, Tier 3 next, Tier 2 after that, but the town 2 mins down the road is totally different Tier. Then when vaccinated we need to be swifter to getting back to living with the virus e.g. furlough went on for far too long.
"...he'd plainly been KO'd by the clunking great fist."
Surely that's in the eye of the beholder? It's still the case that people post differing takes on PMQs; sometimes wildly differing.
He got the little calls wrong, that's what brought him down.
On another planet a PB Tory could be someone who thinks Kenneth Clarke should now be in about his 30th year as PM and intends to honour this thought by voting Labour. Tick.
Agnew is a dud commentator and a pretty nasty piece of work.
The civil service made very sure that funding was reduced and the team dispersed.