A little historical background: In 1956, there were suggestions that Eisenhower should not run for re-election because of his heart attack: "Eisenhower initially planned on serving only one term, but he remained flexible in case leading Republicans wanted him to run again. He was recovering from a heart attack late in September 1955 when he met with his closest advisors to evaluate the GOP's potential candidates; the group concluded that a second term was well advised, and he announced that he would run again in February 1956.[163][164] Eisenhower was publicly noncommittal about having Nixon as the Vice President on his ticket; the question was an especially important one in light of his heart condition. He personally favored Robert B. Anderson, a Democrat who rejected his offer, so Eisenhower resolved to leave the matter in the hands of the party." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#Presidency_(1953–1961)
Eisenhower was famous throughout his presidency for his confusing answers in press conferences. Some, I learned long after his presidency, were deliberate: When he was preparing for one, aides asked him how he would answer a question that was likely to come up. Eisenhower told them not to worry, he would just confuse the reporters. It came up, and he did.
How would a full on proper right wing Farage-led Tory party perform?
if they got serious about immigration, and culture wars, combined with some rank populism about the health service, British biscuits, gardening, lovely old ladies, and the army, I reckon they could squeak a narrow majority in 2028 - EXCEPT that Farage will be 64 by then. Too old?
Hmmm
It would heavily depend on whether those themes you mention - which are largely boomer themes - get handed down to the next generation of elderly voters which by then will include a large chunk of GenX.
European populism is less nostalgic than our current Dad's Army version. It's more direct culture war - immigration, fear of Islam, and whatever cultural mores work in that country (gender politics, religion, anti-environmentalism etc). I think Farage and the Tories would need to wean themselves off the grumpy old man down pub voter and on to something younger and harder edged. Braverman potentially shows the way.
Yes I agree. They need to copy Le Pen in the way she rejuvenated the French right
The young are voting Le Pen in extraordinary numbers
Le Pen's pulled off the extraordinary feat of going from being a political pariah to cultivating almost a mother of the nation image. She should be the favourite to win the next presidential election.
Yes. I think she’s going to win (as things stand - we are a loooooong way from the next POTFR elex)
She will win as Meloni won in Italy. I cannot see the French voting for another young smooth male gay enarque, they already had macron and he’s not popular
All of Europe is swinging right. Its quite the conundrum for lefty Remoaners
It's interesting that the populist left is doing so badly. Usually when the populist right dominates the right of centre, the shouty left rises in response - partly because they're different flavours of the same response against general unhappiness at the state of the country, and partly in response to the other as woolly centrism becomes inadequate and the threat from the left|right appears to demand a more robust reply.
It's not as if they haven't had their chances or that the GFC and income inequalities don't provide fertile soil from which to grow their message. Some - Corbyn, Sanders, Syriza in Greece, Melenchon in France - have briefly come close-ish to power (or, in Syriza's case, managed to gain it, though to little effect and years ago now), but they've been comprehensively outplayed by the populist right.
I guess media has something to do with it but it can't be all down to that.
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Corbyn is a case study on why good campaigners often make terrible politicians. Though his behaviour on Salisbury was inexplicable. I kind of get* why he didn't take action on antisemitism, as I'm certain he doesn't consider himself to be antisemitic at all, and in his mind that means that the accusations were just wrong. But Salisbury is pretty open-and-shut - and was not only an assassination attempt, but the recklessness of it resulted in the death of an innocent, as well as serious health consequences to boot.
*as in, I don't agree with him, but I understand his behaviour - unlike his Salisbury response.
Er, it’s quite obvious
Corbyn hates Britain and the west. He hates white British people apart from the few solid lefties he can rely on as friends. He thinks we are all gammony imperialists and colonialists and slavishly united with the hated America and Israel. Especially people who live in Salisbury. That’s Tory central
I genuinely think he doesn’t give a fuck if white British people die as long as the murderers are some anti western type. Muslims, Russians, Chinese, the IRA, Boko Haram, doesn’t matter, he approves of anyone who opposes “us”
That is the mindset of Jeremy Corbyn. Soaked in adolescent lefty bigotry and too stupid to grow up
This is a textbook example of believing one's own attack lines and as a result misunderstanding the mindset of someone you disagree with. It's fine, I don't like Corbyn either and he won't care what you think of him, but if you want to have any insight into the man and people like him you'll not get very far with this kind of analysis.
How else do you explain his relentless agreement with literally every single enemy of Britain and the west? From the IRA to Putin, from Hamas to ISIS. He loves them all
I know it’s troubling for you. He was your party leader. It is nonetheless true
On topic, yes. Anyone who thinks otherwise is in cloud-cuckoo land.
Not only is he going to run again, he *is* running again. The race has been live for months now, votes are already being cast, filing deadlines for many states have passed and if Biden withdrew now it would cause merry havoc. If he planned not to run again, he would have said so no later than October 2023 and probably a few months earlier.
The only way Biden departs the race now is if there's a serious health issue; more than just looking a bit doddery. I'm talking a heart attack or stroke or death or terminal whatever; something like that. It's too late for serious candidates to enter the race* and so if Biden did quit, it'd have to be some kind of convention fudge, which'd look bad and leave the field to Trump for months, assuming he remains in the race - which health and/or judges and juries permitting, he will.
Biden's future as a candidate is not contingent on Trump's. The race is too far gone for that now.
* Other than as shadow candidates for the convention, if, say, Biden did have a major health incident. But they'd be out of the primaries.
Which, as I said, sadly means the next President will be Trump.
Why so confident Trump wins?
There's a long way to go before November, Biden won last time and the economy is going well.
If its Biden Trump, I make Biden a slight favourite.
Because I have been closely following the news from the US, talking to friends who are Democrats and who are losing hope, and also seeing countless reports about sections of the population who should be solidly Democrat who are turning away from Biden en masse. That is before you even start to look at the poll leads Trump is building up.
Trump wil be an unmitigated disaster for the US and for the rest of the world but I am utterly convinced that if his opponent in November is Joe Biden then Trump wins.
Not for the first time, I hope I am completely wrong on this and that you can say 'I told you so' in December.
Trump's numbers with black men, for example, are higher than ever.
And Hispanics. And Biden is losing young lefty urban people coz he’s so pro Israel
Could be a perfect storm brewing to create Trump 2.0
If it comes down to Trump v Biden (and presuming Trump has avoided a criminal conviction at that point) then Trump wins. And the Dems will have brought it all on themselves with their feeble inability to tell Sleepy Joe to go sleep in the spare room
And, like @Richard_Tyndall Please feel free to mock me when I am proved horribly wrong!
Thinking like Matt Gaetz is not a sign of good mental health.
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Corbyn is a case study on why good campaigners often make terrible politicians. Though his behaviour on Salisbury was inexplicable. I kind of get* why he didn't take action on antisemitism, as I'm certain he doesn't consider himself to be antisemitic at all, and in his mind that means that the accusations were just wrong. But Salisbury is pretty open-and-shut - and was not only an assassination attempt, but the recklessness of it resulted in the death of an innocent, as well as serious health consequences to boot.
*as in, I don't agree with him, but I understand his behaviour - unlike his Salisbury response.
Er, it’s quite obvious
Corbyn hates Britain and the west. He hates white British people apart from the few solid lefties he can rely on as friends. He thinks we are all gammony imperialists and colonialists and slavishly united with the hated America and Israel. Especially people who live in Salisbury. That’s Tory central
I genuinely think he doesn’t give a fuck if white British people die as long as the murderers are some anti western type. Muslims, Russians, Chinese, the IRA, Boko Haram, doesn’t matter, he approves of anyone who opposes “us”
That is the mindset of Jeremy Corbyn. Soaked in adolescent lefty bigotry and too stupid to grow up
WTF haha. You sound madder than Corbz himself here!
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Corbyn is a case study on why good campaigners often make terrible politicians. Though his behaviour on Salisbury was inexplicable. I kind of get* why he didn't take action on antisemitism, as I'm certain he doesn't consider himself to be antisemitic at all, and in his mind that means that the accusations were just wrong. But Salisbury is pretty open-and-shut - and was not only an assassination attempt, but the recklessness of it resulted in the death of an innocent, as well as serious health consequences to boot.
*as in, I don't agree with him, but I understand his behaviour - unlike his Salisbury response.
Er, it’s quite obvious
Corbyn hates Britain and the west. He hates white British people apart from the few solid lefties he can rely on as friends. He thinks we are all gammony imperialists and colonialists and slavishly united with the hated America and Israel. Especially people who live in Salisbury. That’s Tory central
I genuinely think he doesn’t give a fuck if white British people die as long as the murderers are some anti western type. Muslims, Russians, Chinese, the IRA, Boko Haram, doesn’t matter, he approves of anyone who opposes “us”
That is the mindset of Jeremy Corbyn. Soaked in adolescent lefty bigotry and too stupid to grow up
WTF haha. You sound madder than Corbz himself here!
TBF, no one made Leon leader of one of the two major parties. That's the most concerning thing about Corbyn*.
(*That, and autocorrect regularly wanting to change his name to that of a Republican Senator.)
How would a full on proper right wing Farage-led Tory party perform?
if they got serious about immigration, and culture wars, combined with some rank populism about the health service, British biscuits, gardening, lovely old ladies, and the army, I reckon they could squeak a narrow majority in 2028 - EXCEPT that Farage will be 64 by then. Too old?
Hmmm
It would heavily depend on whether those themes you mention - which are largely boomer themes - get handed down to the next generation of elderly voters which by then will include a large chunk of GenX.
European populism is less nostalgic than our current Dad's Army version. It's more direct culture war - immigration, fear of Islam, and whatever cultural mores work in that country (gender politics, religion, anti-environmentalism etc). I think Farage and the Tories would need to wean themselves off the grumpy old man down pub voter and on to something younger and harder edged. Braverman potentially shows the way.
Yes I agree. They need to copy Le Pen in the way she rejuvenated the French right
The young are voting Le Pen in extraordinary numbers
There's a basic difference between us and continental Europe though in that the struggles Western nations are facing are, there, associated with a failed social democratic establishment.
Here younger people associate them with with a failure of a right that has been in power for 14 years and got policies through that at one point were beyond its wildest dreams but are seen as having failed even on their own terms.
So people kicking out at that here trend left. There they trend right.
Doubling down on that with something edgier is therefore unlikely to help. At least for now. In 10-15 years if we're still in a funk that may change. For the moment though people like Braverman, Farage re seen as part of, perhaps a lot of, the problem.
This is correct.
People are reacting against the party in power. And here it is a party of the center right in power, and therefore voters will tend to swing left. While in Europe it is mostly parties of the center left in power, and therefore the swing is to the right.
With that said, there are clearly some - maybe even many - think that the current lot have failed because they are not right wing enough. Hence the rise of Reform. Hence the love for Farage.
The reality, of course, is that the challenges facing most developed nations will be there irrespective of the hue of the party in power.
There's still not *that* much love for Farage though. He has always been broadly unpopular outside of his core fanbase.
Also British politics has long been quite different to continental Europe.
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Corbyn is a case study on why good campaigners often make terrible politicians. Though his behaviour on Salisbury was inexplicable. I kind of get* why he didn't take action on antisemitism, as I'm certain he doesn't consider himself to be antisemitic at all, and in his mind that means that the accusations were just wrong. But Salisbury is pretty open-and-shut - and was not only an assassination attempt, but the recklessness of it resulted in the death of an innocent, as well as serious health consequences to boot.
*as in, I don't agree with him, but I understand his behaviour - unlike his Salisbury response.
Er, it’s quite obvious
Corbyn hates Britain and the west. He hates white British people apart from the few solid lefties he can rely on as friends. He thinks we are all gammony imperialists and colonialists and slavishly united with the hated America and Israel. Especially people who live in Salisbury. That’s Tory central
I genuinely think he doesn’t give a fuck if white British people die as long as the murderers are some anti western type. Muslims, Russians, Chinese, the IRA, Boko Haram, doesn’t matter, he approves of anyone who opposes “us”
That is the mindset of Jeremy Corbyn. Soaked in adolescent lefty bigotry and too stupid to grow up
WTF haha. You sound madder than Corbz himself here!
TBF, no one made Leon leader of one of the two major parties. That's the most concerning thing about Cornyn.
A little more historical background: There were doubts about Ronald Reagan's age and declining abilities, raised in the 1984 election. He put them to rest, politically, with his famous quip about not criticizing Mondale for his youth and inexperience.
Of course, going back earlier, Woodrow Wilson's stroke in October 1918 severely damaged his ability to act as president. (The damage done was mostly concealed from the public.)
On topic, yes. Anyone who thinks otherwise is in cloud-cuckoo land.
Not only is he going to run again, he *is* running again. The race has been live for months now, votes are already being cast, filing deadlines for many states have passed and if Biden withdrew now it would cause merry havoc. If he planned not to run again, he would have said so no later than October 2023 and probably a few months earlier.
The only way Biden departs the race now is if there's a serious health issue; more than just looking a bit doddery. I'm talking a heart attack or stroke or death or terminal whatever; something like that. It's too late for serious candidates to enter the race* and so if Biden did quit, it'd have to be some kind of convention fudge, which'd look bad and leave the field to Trump for months, assuming he remains in the race - which health and/or judges and juries permitting, he will.
Biden's future as a candidate is not contingent on Trump's. The race is too far gone for that now.
* Other than as shadow candidates for the convention, if, say, Biden did have a major health incident. But they'd be out of the primaries.
Which, as I said, sadly means the next President will be Trump.
Why so confident Trump wins?
There's a long way to go before November, Biden won last time and the economy is going well.
If its Biden Trump, I make Biden a slight favourite.
Because I have been closely following the news from the US, talking to friends who are Democrats and who are losing hope, and also seeing countless reports about sections of the population who should be solidly Democrat who are turning away from Biden en masse. That is before you even start to look at the poll leads Trump is building up.
Trump wil be an unmitigated disaster for the US and for the rest of the world but I am utterly convinced that if his opponent in November is Joe Biden then Trump wins.
Not for the first time, I hope I am completely wrong on this and that you can say 'I told you so' in December.
Trump's numbers with black men, for example, are higher than ever.
And Hispanics. And Biden is losing young lefty urban people coz he’s so pro Israel
Could be a perfect storm brewing to create Trump 2.0
If it comes down to Trump v Biden (and presuming Trump has avoided a criminal conviction at that point) then Trump wins. And the Dems will have brought it all on themselves with their feeble inability to tell Sleepy Joe to go sleep in the spare room
And, like @Richard_Tyndall Please feel free to mock me when I am proved horribly wrong!
Thinking like Matt Gaetz is not a sign of good mental health.
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
Except that in February 21, his first month, US GDP was $22.34T. In November 2023 it reached $27.78T, an increase of 24%. Or, to put it another way, debt actually fell as a share of GDP. And not by a little.
A little more historical background: There were doubts about Ronald Reagan's age and declining abilities, raised in the 1984 election. He put them to rest, politically, with his famous quip about not criticizing Mondale for his youth and inexperience.
Of course, going back earlier, Woodrow Wilson's stroke in October 1918 severely damaged his ability to act as president. (The damage done was mostly concealed from the public.)
And FDR. But as I've noted several times, it's *really* hard to stop a sitting President running again unless they've FUBARed the entire job.
On topic, yes. Anyone who thinks otherwise is in cloud-cuckoo land.
Not only is he going to run again, he *is* running again. The race has been live for months now, votes are already being cast, filing deadlines for many states have passed and if Biden withdrew now it would cause merry havoc. If he planned not to run again, he would have said so no later than October 2023 and probably a few months earlier.
The only way Biden departs the race now is if there's a serious health issue; more than just looking a bit doddery. I'm talking a heart attack or stroke or death or terminal whatever; something like that. It's too late for serious candidates to enter the race* and so if Biden did quit, it'd have to be some kind of convention fudge, which'd look bad and leave the field to Trump for months, assuming he remains in the race - which health and/or judges and juries permitting, he will.
Biden's future as a candidate is not contingent on Trump's. The race is too far gone for that now.
* Other than as shadow candidates for the convention, if, say, Biden did have a major health incident. But they'd be out of the primaries.
Which, as I said, sadly means the next President will be Trump.
Why so confident Trump wins?
There's a long way to go before November, Biden won last time and the economy is going well.
If its Biden Trump, I make Biden a slight favourite.
Because I have been closely following the news from the US, talking to friends who are Democrats and who are losing hope, and also seeing countless reports about sections of the population who should be solidly Democrat who are turning away from Biden en masse. That is before you even start to look at the poll leads Trump is building up.
Trump wil be an unmitigated disaster for the US and for the rest of the world but I am utterly convinced that if his opponent in November is Joe Biden then Trump wins.
Not for the first time, I hope I am completely wrong on this and that you can say 'I told you so' in December.
Trump's numbers with black men, for example, are higher than ever.
And Hispanics. And Biden is losing young lefty urban people coz he’s so pro Israel
Could be a perfect storm brewing to create Trump 2.0
If it comes down to Trump v Biden (and presuming Trump has avoided a criminal conviction at that point) then Trump wins. And the Dems will have brought it all on themselves with their feeble inability to tell Sleepy Joe to go sleep in the spare room
And, like @Richard_Tyndall Please feel free to mock me when I am proved horribly wrong!
Thinking like Matt Gaetz is not a sign of good mental health.
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Corbyn is a case study on why good campaigners often make terrible politicians. Though his behaviour on Salisbury was inexplicable. I kind of get* why he didn't take action on antisemitism, as I'm certain he doesn't consider himself to be antisemitic at all, and in his mind that means that the accusations were just wrong. But Salisbury is pretty open-and-shut - and was not only an assassination attempt, but the recklessness of it resulted in the death of an innocent, as well as serious health consequences to boot.
*as in, I don't agree with him, but I understand his behaviour - unlike his Salisbury response.
Er, it’s quite obvious
Corbyn hates Britain and the west. He hates white British people apart from the few solid lefties he can rely on as friends. He thinks we are all gammony imperialists and colonialists and slavishly united with the hated America and Israel. Especially people who live in Salisbury. That’s Tory central
I genuinely think he doesn’t give a fuck if white British people die as long as the murderers are some anti western type. Muslims, Russians, Chinese, the IRA, Boko Haram, doesn’t matter, he approves of anyone who opposes “us”
That is the mindset of Jeremy Corbyn. Soaked in adolescent lefty bigotry and too stupid to grow up
WTF haha. You sound madder than Corbz himself here!
TBF, no one made Leon leader of one of the two major parties. That's the most concerning thing about Corbyn*.
(*That, and autocorrect regularly wanting to change his name to that of a Republican Senator.)
Cut me some slack. I’m already an international jet setter and globally renowned stone sex toy flint knapper and now somewhat abstinent alcoholic, major party leader is on my To Do list, it may take time
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
Except that in February 21, his first month, US GDP was $22.34T. In November 2023 it reached $27.78T, an increase of 24%. Or, to put it another way, debt actually fell as a share of GDP. And not by a little.
Part of that is getting lucky with US oil and gas production, and the resultant massive windfall cash benefits of the war in Ukraine. But he's genuinely confounded every economist who was expecting a hard landing for the US economy after the Fed kept on putting up interest rates.
A Japanese spacecraft reached the moon's surface early Saturday morning, and the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) "seems to be communicating with the Earth," a JAXA official said. https://twitter.com/NikkeiAsia/status/1748390256037007421
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Corbyn is a case study on why good campaigners often make terrible politicians. Though his behaviour on Salisbury was inexplicable. I kind of get* why he didn't take action on antisemitism, as I'm certain he doesn't consider himself to be antisemitic at all, and in his mind that means that the accusations were just wrong. But Salisbury is pretty open-and-shut - and was not only an assassination attempt, but the recklessness of it resulted in the death of an innocent, as well as serious health consequences to boot.
*as in, I don't agree with him, but I understand his behaviour - unlike his Salisbury response.
Er, it’s quite obvious
Corbyn hates Britain and the west. He hates white British people apart from the few solid lefties he can rely on as friends. He thinks we are all gammony imperialists and colonialists and slavishly united with the hated America and Israel. Especially people who live in Salisbury. That’s Tory central
I genuinely think he doesn’t give a fuck if white British people die as long as the murderers are some anti western type. Muslims, Russians, Chinese, the IRA, Boko Haram, doesn’t matter, he approves of anyone who opposes “us”
That is the mindset of Jeremy Corbyn. Soaked in adolescent lefty bigotry and too stupid to grow up
WTF haha. You sound madder than Corbz himself here!
TBF, no one made Leon leader of one of the two major parties. That's the most concerning thing about Corbyn*.
(*That, and autocorrect regularly wanting to change his name to that of a Republican Senator.)
Cut me some slack. I’m already an international jet setter and globally renowned stone sex toy flint knapper and now somewhat abstinent alcoholic, major party leader is on my To Do list, it may take time
Ah. we've just heard on the Japanese space agency's live feed that they're planning to give an update on the mission in about 10 minutes - that's 02:10 local time (17:10 GMT).
A little more historical background: There were doubts about Ronald Reagan's age and declining abilities, raised in the 1984 election. He put them to rest, politically, with his famous quip about not criticizing Mondale for his youth and inexperience.
Of course, going back earlier, Woodrow Wilson's stroke in October 1918 severely damaged his ability to act as president. (The damage done was mostly concealed from the public.)
If only we could have someone like Ronald Reagan as president today. Morning In America.
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
He is also on the point of delivering his election promise of 1m additional manufacturing jobs. The latest figure was just under 900k. His record on employment is genuinely stunning. It is one metric the UK has done well on but the US is miles ahead of us.
A little more historical background: There were doubts about Ronald Reagan's age and declining abilities, raised in the 1984 election. He put them to rest, politically, with his famous quip about not criticizing Mondale for his youth and inexperience.
Of course, going back earlier, Woodrow Wilson's stroke in October 1918 severely damaged his ability to act as president. (The damage done was mostly concealed from the public.)
If only we could have someone like Ronald Reagan as president today. Morning In America.
As Reagan would say, there you go again. Trying to talk down American success.
A Japanese spacecraft reached the moon's surface early Saturday morning, and the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) "seems to be communicating with the Earth," a JAXA official said. https://twitter.com/NikkeiAsia/status/1748390256037007421
The US Army will cut 157 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters from its fleet. They plan on selling them via Foreign Military Sales for approx $2 million each. These could actually be an Excess Defense Articles transfer to Ukraine, but don't hold your breath. https://twitter.com/ColbyBadhwar/status/1737858198818980030
On topic, yes. Anyone who thinks otherwise is in cloud-cuckoo land.
Not only is he going to run again, he *is* running again. The race has been live for months now, votes are already being cast, filing deadlines for many states have passed and if Biden withdrew now it would cause merry havoc. If he planned not to run again, he would have said so no later than October 2023 and probably a few months earlier.
The only way Biden departs the race now is if there's a serious health issue; more than just looking a bit doddery. I'm talking a heart attack or stroke or death or terminal whatever; something like that. It's too late for serious candidates to enter the race* and so if Biden did quit, it'd have to be some kind of convention fudge, which'd look bad and leave the field to Trump for months, assuming he remains in the race - which health and/or judges and juries permitting, he will.
Biden's future as a candidate is not contingent on Trump's. The race is too far gone for that now.
* Other than as shadow candidates for the convention, if, say, Biden did have a major health incident. But they'd be out of the primaries.
Which, as I said, sadly means the next President will be Trump.
Why so confident Trump wins?
There's a long way to go before November, Biden won last time and the economy is going well.
If its Biden Trump, I make Biden a slight favourite.
Because I have been closely following the news from the US, talking to friends who are Democrats and who are losing hope, and also seeing countless reports about sections of the population who should be solidly Democrat who are turning away from Biden en masse. That is before you even start to look at the poll leads Trump is building up.
Trump wil be an unmitigated disaster for the US and for the rest of the world but I am utterly convinced that if his opponent in November is Joe Biden then Trump wins.
Not for the first time, I hope I am completely wrong on this and that you can say 'I told you so' in December.
Would you care for a bet, winnings to charity? Bet void if its not Trump vs Biden or if a 3rd party candidate wins.
I'll pay £50 to charity of your choice if I lose, you pay £100 to MSF if I win. I'm Biden, you're Trump.
Thing I really don't get about US opinion is that Trump is not a new exciting unknown quantity. He was president for 4 years during which he did bugger all apart from fall out with most of his close associates, one after the other. We are always told of the danger when politicians over-promise and then nothing changes - look at the red wall now - yet that's exactly what he did and his approval ratings whilst still poor by historical standards are no worse than when he ran first time. He didn't build the wall, he didn't restore the rust belt, and he was punished heavily in that area in particular in 2020.
The sorts of chaotic scenes we saw in his Whitehouse and afterwards, culminating in the Four Seasons Total Landscaping, would have sunk any Tory or Labour leader without trace. Yet here we are.
That's why I'm still expecting the incumbent to win, but Trump makes me doubt my own judgment because I worry I do not remotely understand the American mind.
I’ve travelled widely in America this last two years. Two long road trips. Meeting lots of people
The unnerving moment is when you encounter the educated, funny; intelligent Trump voter. They readily admit - yes he’s a twat, he’s a narcissist, a misogynist, all of that - but then they say, with a dark frown “the others are even worse”
And it’s not easy to contradict. Because the woke American left IS awful and Biden is deeply compromised in multiple ways
If Trump wins a lot of us might not be visiting the US again for a while.
Why? Was America literally uninhabitable from 2016-2020 when Trump was in power? Were they shooting old ladies on sight?
This hyperbole about Trump, from the left, is actively harmful for the Democrat cause. Trump has been in power. America did not collapse
The problem could be groups like Antifa making life in American cities difficult if he wins. Not necessarily problems caused by him or his supporters.
A Japanese spacecraft reached the moon's surface early Saturday morning, and the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) "seems to be communicating with the Earth," a JAXA official said. https://twitter.com/NikkeiAsia/status/1748390256037007421
Just posted.
More arrogance from humankind.
Dumping our shit on the moon.
Not ours, just America, Russia, China, India and Japan.
The US Army will cut 157 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters from its fleet. They plan on selling them via Foreign Military Sales for approx $2 million each. These could actually be an Excess Defense Articles transfer to Ukraine, but don't hold your breath. https://twitter.com/ColbyBadhwar/status/1737858198818980030
Finally, a fair valuation being put on surplus US military equipment.
How would a full on proper right wing Farage-led Tory party perform?
if they got serious about immigration, and culture wars, combined with some rank populism about the health service, British biscuits, gardening, lovely old ladies, and the army, I reckon they could squeak a narrow majority in 2028 - EXCEPT that Farage will be 64 by then. Too old?
Hmmm
It would heavily depend on whether those themes you mention - which are largely boomer themes - get handed down to the next generation of elderly voters which by then will include a large chunk of GenX.
European populism is less nostalgic than our current Dad's Army version. It's more direct culture war - immigration, fear of Islam, and whatever cultural mores work in that country (gender politics, religion, anti-environmentalism etc). I think Farage and the Tories would need to wean themselves off the grumpy old man down pub voter and on to something younger and harder edged. Braverman potentially shows the way.
Yes I agree. They need to copy Le Pen in the way she rejuvenated the French right
The young are voting Le Pen in extraordinary numbers
Le Pen's pulled off the extraordinary feat of going from being a political pariah to cultivating almost a mother of the nation image. She should be the favourite to win the next presidential election.
Yes. I think she’s going to win (as things stand - we are a loooooong way from the next POTFR elex)
She will win as Meloni won in Italy. I cannot see the French voting for another young smooth male gay enarque, they already had macron and he’s not popular
All of Europe is swinging right. Its quite the conundrum for lefty Remoaners
It's interesting that the populist left is doing so badly. Usually when the populist right dominates the right of centre, the shouty left rises in response - partly because they're different flavours of the same response against general unhappiness at the state of the country, and partly in response to the other as woolly centrism becomes inadequate and the threat from the left|right appears to demand a more robust reply.
It's not as if they haven't had their chances or that the GFC and income inequalities don't provide fertile soil from which to grow their message. Some - Corbyn, Sanders, Syriza in Greece, Melenchon in France - have briefly come close-ish to power (or, in Syriza's case, managed to gain it, though to little effect and years ago now), but they've been comprehensively outplayed by the populist right.
I guess media has something to do with it but it can't be all down to that.
Populism benefits from an 'identity' element and you get that more on the right than the left. Nationalising things taxing the rich, fine, but if you want to bring them flocking you need to spice it up with some 'taking our country back' sauce.
The US Army will cut 157 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters from its fleet. They plan on selling them via Foreign Military Sales for approx $2 million each. These could actually be an Excess Defense Articles transfer to Ukraine, but don't hold your breath. https://twitter.com/ColbyBadhwar/status/1737858198818980030
Finally, a fair valuation being put on surplus US military equipment.
Let's see where they end up before getting too excited.
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
How would a full on proper right wing Farage-led Tory party perform?
if they got serious about immigration, and culture wars, combined with some rank populism about the health service, British biscuits, gardening, lovely old ladies, and the army, I reckon they could squeak a narrow majority in 2028 - EXCEPT that Farage will be 64 by then. Too old?
Hmmm
It would heavily depend on whether those themes you mention - which are largely boomer themes - get handed down to the next generation of elderly voters which by then will include a large chunk of GenX.
European populism is less nostalgic than our current Dad's Army version. It's more direct culture war - immigration, fear of Islam, and whatever cultural mores work in that country (gender politics, religion, anti-environmentalism etc). I think Farage and the Tories would need to wean themselves off the grumpy old man down pub voter and on to something younger and harder edged. Braverman potentially shows the way.
Yes I agree. They need to copy Le Pen in the way she rejuvenated the French right
The young are voting Le Pen in extraordinary numbers
Le Pen's pulled off the extraordinary feat of going from being a political pariah to cultivating almost a mother of the nation image. She should be the favourite to win the next presidential election.
A Japanese spacecraft reached the moon's surface early Saturday morning, and the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) "seems to be communicating with the Earth," a JAXA official said. https://twitter.com/NikkeiAsia/status/1748390256037007421
Just posted.
More arrogance from humankind.
Dumping our shit on the moon.
That's just a bonkers comment. The moon is bombarded with all kinds of shit pretty well continuously. Why shouldn't we go there ?
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
If your economy is growing at a faster rate than your debt, then you're getting it right. As is the case with the US at the moment.
A Japanese spacecraft reached the moon's surface early Saturday morning, and the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) "seems to be communicating with the Earth," a JAXA official said. https://twitter.com/NikkeiAsia/status/1748390256037007421
Just posted.
More arrogance from humankind.
Dumping our shit on the moon.
That's just a bonkers comment. The moon is bombarded with all kinds of shit pretty well continuously. Why shouldn't we go there ?
The world was young, the mountains green, No stain yet on the Moon was seen, No words were laid on stream or stone, When Durin woke and walked alone.
How would a full on proper right wing Farage-led Tory party perform?
if they got serious about immigration, and culture wars, combined with some rank populism about the health service, British biscuits, gardening, lovely old ladies, and the army, I reckon they could squeak a narrow majority in 2028 - EXCEPT that Farage will be 64 by then. Too old?
Hmmm
It would heavily depend on whether those themes you mention - which are largely boomer themes - get handed down to the next generation of elderly voters which by then will include a large chunk of GenX.
European populism is less nostalgic than our current Dad's Army version. It's more direct culture war - immigration, fear of Islam, and whatever cultural mores work in that country (gender politics, religion, anti-environmentalism etc). I think Farage and the Tories would need to wean themselves off the grumpy old man down pub voter and on to something younger and harder edged. Braverman potentially shows the way.
Yes I agree. They need to copy Le Pen in the way she rejuvenated the French right
The young are voting Le Pen in extraordinary numbers
Le Pen's pulled off the extraordinary feat of going from being a political pariah to cultivating almost a mother of the nation image. She should be the favourite to win the next presidential election.
Yes. I think she’s going to win (as things stand - we are a loooooong way from the next POTFR elex)
She will win as Meloni won in Italy. I cannot see the French voting for another young smooth male gay enarque, they already had macron and he’s not popular
All of Europe is swinging right. Its quite the conundrum for lefty Remoaners
It's interesting that the populist left is doing so badly. Usually when the populist right dominates the right of centre, the shouty left rises in response - partly because they're different flavours of the same response against general unhappiness at the state of the country, and partly in response to the other as woolly centrism becomes inadequate and the threat from the left|right appears to demand a more robust reply.
It's not as if they haven't had their chances or that the GFC and income inequalities don't provide fertile soil from which to grow their message. Some - Corbyn, Sanders, Syriza in Greece, Melenchon in France - have briefly come close-ish to power (or, in Syriza's case, managed to gain it, though to little effect and years ago now), but they've been comprehensively outplayed by the populist right.
I guess media has something to do with it but it can't be all down to that.
Populism benefits from an 'identity' element and you get that more on the right than the left. Nationalising things taxing the rich, fine, but if you want to bring them flocking you need to spice it up with some 'taking our country back' sauce.
Also the populist left - frankly - struggles because it has to face off against the vested interests of capitalism and the endless resources of those who benefit from it at the high end (with whom the populist right are, to borrow a phrase, intensely relaxed).
Which is why I've a lot more faith in Kier's centrist dad ascendency than in something more aligned to my personal politics, which is further along the redistributist spectrum.
A Japanese spacecraft reached the moon's surface early Saturday morning, and the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) "seems to be communicating with the Earth," a JAXA official said. https://twitter.com/NikkeiAsia/status/1748390256037007421
Just posted.
More arrogance from humankind.
Dumping our shit on the moon.
Actually, it does science, improves the neighbourhood and will provide valuable scrap material for future inhabitants.
A Japanese spacecraft reached the moon's surface early Saturday morning, and the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) "seems to be communicating with the Earth," a JAXA official said. https://twitter.com/NikkeiAsia/status/1748390256037007421
Just posted.
More arrogance from humankind.
Dumping our shit on the moon.
Actually, it does science, improves the neighbourhood and will provide valuable scrap material for future inhabitants.
Handy for when Rishi installs an electric arc furnace on the moon.
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Shamina Begum was also a particularly politically foolish albeit principled stand to take.
Weirdly it feels like a dry heat as well. Much less humid than most tropical cities (eg Singapore or Bangkok). So 33C feels more like 28/30C. And yet humidity is over 70%. It feels perfect, in short
Still haven’t worked out why. Large rivers and lakes everywhere? Lots of greenery and parks? Temples with trees? Also: virtually no mosquitoes (tho that appears to be true everywhere, these days)
In the colonial period it was regarded as the pearl of south east Asia. THE most seductive city. I can see why
A Japanese spacecraft reached the moon's surface early Saturday morning, and the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) "seems to be communicating with the Earth," a JAXA official said. https://twitter.com/NikkeiAsia/status/1748390256037007421
Just posted.
More arrogance from humankind.
Dumping our shit on the moon.
Actually, it does science, improves the neighbourhood and will provide valuable scrap material for future inhabitants.
Handy for when Rishi installs an electric arc furnace on the moon.
Actually, it will probably be solar furnaces on the moon.
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
If your economy is growing at a faster rate than your debt, then you're getting it right. As is the case with the US at the moment.
Especially when growth is being driven by investment rather than consumption. There has been, until recently, no increase in real wages on average. Like us, the trade deficit remains a concern but it has been on a declining trend of late, partly driven by oil and gas production as you said.
And coming up for 14m additional jobs. Just a mind blowing figure.
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Shamina Begum was also a particularly politically foolish albeit principled stand to take.
Sir Keir took that principled stand about Shamima Begum too… until a year or so later when he said it’s the right decision to ban her from coming home
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Shamina Begum was also a particularly politically foolish albeit principled stand to take.
Sir Keir took that principled stand about Shamima Begum too… until a year or so later when he said it’s the right decision to ban her from coming home
In fairness, waiting a year to completely reverse his decision on something is one of his better efforts.
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Shamina Begum was also a particularly politically foolish albeit principled stand to take.
He was right on Shamima Begum. Bad politics maybe, but correct.
Law is law. If we don't like the law, we change it with proper mandate and scrutiny. I wouldn't have a problem, necessarily, with somebody leaving the UK to join a proscribed terrorist organisation or enemy state forgoing their right to citizenship and legal aid (though honestly, I think someone doing at 15 years of age I think mitigates as well). But that needs to be the rules.
We don't just ignore it when the Mail tells us we should. See also Rwanda.
I have no great love for Hunter Biden, but his reluctance to attend a 'closed door' interview with Comer is entirely understandable.
James Comer made a lot of claims after Kevin Morris interview
Morris then accused Comer of misleading & cherry-picking his testimony in letter I obtained: “Just release the full transcript. Why would you be reluctant or afraid to do that, other than it will disprove your spin?” https://twitter.com/AnnieGrayerCNN/status/1748356321290625163
As we've seen time and again, if you get your lies in the headlines first, correcting them after the event doesn't mend the damage.
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Shamina Begum was also a particularly politically foolish albeit principled stand to take.
He was right on Shamima Begum. Bad politics maybe, but correct.
Law is law. If we don't like the law, we change it with proper mandate and scrutiny. I wouldn't have a problem, necessarily, with somebody leaving the UK to join a proscribed terrorist organisation or enemy state forgoing their right to citizenship and legal aid (though honestly, I think someone doing at 15 years of age I think mitigates as well). But that needs to be the rules.
We don't just ignore it when the Mail tells us we should. See also Rwanda.
I want her brought home to be tried for the war crimes she committed.
How would a full on proper right wing Farage-led Tory party perform?
if they got serious about immigration, and culture wars, combined with some rank populism about the health service, British biscuits, gardening, lovely old ladies, and the army, I reckon they could squeak a narrow majority in 2028 - EXCEPT that Farage will be 64 by then. Too old?
Hmmm
It would heavily depend on whether those themes you mention - which are largely boomer themes - get handed down to the next generation of elderly voters which by then will include a large chunk of GenX.
European populism is less nostalgic than our current Dad's Army version. It's more direct culture war - immigration, fear of Islam, and whatever cultural mores work in that country (gender politics, religion, anti-environmentalism etc). I think Farage and the Tories would need to wean themselves off the grumpy old man down pub voter and on to something younger and harder edged. Braverman potentially shows the way.
Yes I agree. They need to copy Le Pen in the way she rejuvenated the French right
The young are voting Le Pen in extraordinary numbers
Le Pen's pulled off the extraordinary feat of going from being a political pariah to cultivating almost a mother of the nation image. She should be the favourite to win the next presidential election.
Yes. I think she’s going to win (as things stand - we are a loooooong way from the next POTFR elex)
She will win as Meloni won in Italy. I cannot see the French voting for another young smooth male gay enarque, they already had macron and he’s not popular
All of Europe is swinging right. Its quite the conundrum for lefty Remoaners
It's interesting that the populist left is doing so badly. Usually when the populist right dominates the right of centre, the shouty left rises in response - partly because they're different flavours of the same response against general unhappiness at the state of the country, and partly in response to the other as woolly centrism becomes inadequate and the threat from the left|right appears to demand a more robust reply.
It's not as if they haven't had their chances or that the GFC and income inequalities don't provide fertile soil from which to grow their message. Some - Corbyn, Sanders, Syriza in Greece, Melenchon in France - have briefly come close-ish to power (or, in Syriza's case, managed to gain it, though to little effect and years ago now), but they've been comprehensively outplayed by the populist right.
I guess media has something to do with it but it can't be all down to that.
Populism benefits from an 'identity' element and you get that more on the right than the left. Nationalising things taxing the rich, fine, but if you want to bring them flocking you need to spice it up with some 'taking our country back' sauce.
Also the populist left - frankly - struggles because it has to face off against the vested interests of capitalism and the endless resources of those who benefit from it at the high end (with whom the populist right are, to borrow a phrase, intensely relaxed).
Which is why I've a lot more faith in Kier's centrist dad ascendency than in something more aligned to my personal politics, which is further along the redistributist spectrum.
Pretty much where I am now. I'd rather win and bring about some solid unspectacular change for the better than excite and scare and lose with 'visions' and promises of 'transformation'.
That's me in the corner. That's me in the spotlight. Losing my religion.
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
If your economy is growing at a faster rate than your debt, then you're getting it right. As is the case with the US at the moment.
Especially when growth is being driven by investment rather than consumption. There has been, until recently, no increase in real wages on average. Like us, the trade deficit remains a concern but it has been on a declining trend of late, partly driven by oil and gas production as you said.
And coming up for 14m additional jobs. Just a mind blowing figure.
One reason America is doing quite well, economically, compared to stagnant Europe, is that America seized the opportunity of the Ukraine war to blow up Nordstream (via proxies) thus fucking up the German economy, a major industrial rival
What makes this especially piquant is that Biden and others literally and explicitly promised they would do this. Destroy Nordstream. And Germans meekly accept it, or they are entirely unaware of it
You have to admire American chutzpah and brio, here. They barely bothered to hide what they planned to do: to a major ally
It’s on the moon. Whether or not it’s in anything approaching a serviceable condition, we should find out shortly.
Solar panels not working. Battery power only.
Looks like the lander was so happy at successfully landing, it did a celebratory roll and ended up with its solar panels pointing in the wrong direction...
I don't think we have. Labour up, LD and Ref down. That's what Labour will be looking for, to consolidate their position as the chosen alternative. Tories and Green flat (Green already low at 5%).
The RefUK trend is probably the most interesting development of the last couple of months, solidly low double figures now. Their media profile has increased a little as well (no doubt Farage flashing his ankles has helped) - I'll be interested to see how they do at the locals.
BTW, referring to comments downthread I genuinely do not see Farage ever joining or leading the Conservative Party.
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Shamina Begum was also a particularly politically foolish albeit principled stand to take.
But at least that was principled (and right imo). His Salisbury debacle otoh, I couldn't detect a saving grace.
Well, don't look to us for help - I wouldn't pay you £4.50.
Interesting chap Chris O’Shea. I worked with him many years ago at a previous role. He’s an extremely intelligent, somewhat unorthodox and versatile individual. Background in tax and finance and now a CEO.
How would a full on proper right wing Farage-led Tory party perform?
if they got serious about immigration, and culture wars, combined with some rank populism about the health service, British biscuits, gardening, lovely old ladies, and the army, I reckon they could squeak a narrow majority in 2028 - EXCEPT that Farage will be 64 by then. Too old?
Hmmm
It would heavily depend on whether those themes you mention - which are largely boomer themes - get handed down to the next generation of elderly voters which by then will include a large chunk of GenX.
European populism is less nostalgic than our current Dad's Army version. It's more direct culture war - immigration, fear of Islam, and whatever cultural mores work in that country (gender politics, religion, anti-environmentalism etc). I think Farage and the Tories would need to wean themselves off the grumpy old man down pub voter and on to something younger and harder edged. Braverman potentially shows the way.
Yes I agree. They need to copy Le Pen in the way she rejuvenated the French right
The young are voting Le Pen in extraordinary numbers
Le Pen's pulled off the extraordinary feat of going from being a political pariah to cultivating almost a mother of the nation image. She should be the favourite to win the next presidential election.
I wouldn't go as far as "mother of the nation" but she is certainly a very highly polished turd these days.
Is there any right wing xenophobe you don't admire?
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
If your economy is growing at a faster rate than your debt, then you're getting it right. As is the case with the US at the moment.
Especially when growth is being driven by investment rather than consumption. There has been, until recently, no increase in real wages on average. Like us, the trade deficit remains a concern but it has been on a declining trend of late, partly driven by oil and gas production as you said.
And coming up for 14m additional jobs. Just a mind blowing figure.
One reason America is doing quite well, economically, compared to stagnant Europe, is that America seized the opportunity of the Ukraine war to blow up Nordstream (via proxies) thus fucking up the German economy, a major industrial rival
What makes this especially piquant is that Biden and others literally and explicitly promised they would do this. Destroy Nordstream. And Germans meekly accept it, or they are entirely unaware of it
You have to admire American chutzpah and brio, here. They barely bothered to hide what they planned to do: to a major ally
How would a full on proper right wing Farage-led Tory party perform?
if they got serious about immigration, and culture wars, combined with some rank populism about the health service, British biscuits, gardening, lovely old ladies, and the army, I reckon they could squeak a narrow majority in 2028 - EXCEPT that Farage will be 64 by then. Too old?
Hmmm
It would heavily depend on whether those themes you mention - which are largely boomer themes - get handed down to the next generation of elderly voters which by then will include a large chunk of GenX.
European populism is less nostalgic than our current Dad's Army version. It's more direct culture war - immigration, fear of Islam, and whatever cultural mores work in that country (gender politics, religion, anti-environmentalism etc). I think Farage and the Tories would need to wean themselves off the grumpy old man down pub voter and on to something younger and harder edged. Braverman potentially shows the way.
Yes I agree. They need to copy Le Pen in the way she rejuvenated the French right
The young are voting Le Pen in extraordinary numbers
Le Pen's pulled off the extraordinary feat of going from being a political pariah to cultivating almost a mother of the nation image. She should be the favourite to win the next presidential election.
I wouldn't go as far as "mother of the nation" but she is certainly a very highly polished turd these days.
Is there any right wing xenophobe you don't admire?
I think she is helped hugely by Giorgia Meloni who’s turned out not too scary as PM. Even I would take Meloni over Berlusconi.
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
If your economy is growing at a faster rate than your debt, then you're getting it right. As is the case with the US at the moment.
Especially when growth is being driven by investment rather than consumption. There has been, until recently, no increase in real wages on average. Like us, the trade deficit remains a concern but it has been on a declining trend of late, partly driven by oil and gas production as you said.
And coming up for 14m additional jobs. Just a mind blowing figure.
One reason America is doing quite well, economically, compared to stagnant Europe, is that America seized the opportunity of the Ukraine war to blow up Nordstream (via proxies) thus fucking up the German economy, a major industrial rival
What makes this especially piquant is that Biden and others literally and explicitly promised they would do this. Destroy Nordstream. And Germans meekly accept it, or they are entirely unaware of it
You have to admire American chutzpah and brio, here. They barely bothered to hide what they planned to do: to a major ally
Its this the standard of "analysis" in the Gazette these days?
An utterly unfounded conjecture with not a shred of evidence being inflated into a ludicrous conspiracy theory with implications so earth shattering that of course it *must* be true.
Of did you just have a fifth pitcher of Cambodian woo-woo?
Either way, in vino veritas (or in woo woo, veritas, anyway)
No wonder the right wing media is imploding under the weight of its own stupidity.
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Shamina Begum was also a particularly politically foolish albeit principled stand to take.
He was right on Shamima Begum. Bad politics maybe, but correct.
Law is law. If we don't like the law, we change it with proper mandate and scrutiny. I wouldn't have a problem, necessarily, with somebody leaving the UK to join a proscribed terrorist organisation or enemy state forgoing their right to citizenship and legal aid (though honestly, I think someone doing at 15 years of age I think mitigates as well). But that needs to be the rules.
We don't just ignore it when the Mail tells us we should. See also Rwanda.
I want her brought home to be tried for the war crimes she committed.
IANAL but isn't the trial meant to come before the verdict?
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
If your economy is growing at a faster rate than your debt, then you're getting it right. As is the case with the US at the moment.
Especially when growth is being driven by investment rather than consumption. There has been, until recently, no increase in real wages on average. Like us, the trade deficit remains a concern but it has been on a declining trend of late, partly driven by oil and gas production as you said.
And coming up for 14m additional jobs. Just a mind blowing figure.
One reason America is doing quite well, economically, compared to stagnant Europe, is that America seized the opportunity of the Ukraine war to blow up Nordstream (via proxies) thus fucking up the German economy, a major industrial rival
What makes this especially piquant is that Biden and others literally and explicitly promised they would do this. Destroy Nordstream. And Germans meekly accept it, or they are entirely unaware of it
You have to admire American chutzpah and brio, here. They barely bothered to hide what they planned to do: to a major ally
Its this the standard of "analysis" in the Gazette these days?
An utterly unfounded conjecture with not a shred of evidence being inflated into a ludicrous conspiracy theory with implications so earth shattering that of course it *must* be true.
Of did you just have a fifth pitcher of Cambodian woo-woo?
Either way, in vino veritas (or in woo woo, veritas, anyway)
No wonder the right wing media is imploding under the weight of its own stupidity.
When it comes to Nordstream, just ask: cui bono?
Above all others, it’s the USA. Now you can go back to digging your fall-out shelter
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
If your economy is growing at a faster rate than your debt, then you're getting it right. As is the case with the US at the moment.
Especially when growth is being driven by investment rather than consumption. There has been, until recently, no increase in real wages on average. Like us, the trade deficit remains a concern but it has been on a declining trend of late, partly driven by oil and gas production as you said.
And coming up for 14m additional jobs. Just a mind blowing figure.
One reason America is doing quite well, economically, compared to stagnant Europe, is that America seized the opportunity of the Ukraine war to blow up Nordstream (via proxies) thus fucking up the German economy, a major industrial rival
What makes this especially piquant is that Biden and others literally and explicitly promised they would do this. Destroy Nordstream. And Germans meekly accept it, or they are entirely unaware of it
You have to admire American chutzpah and brio, here. They barely bothered to hide what they planned to do: to a major ally
But the primary reason for their outperformance since about 2010 is indeed their lower energy costs.
World’s largest oil producer now too.
Blowing up Nordstream was win-win-win for the USA
It cut off a serious source of income for Putin It reduced Putin’s leverage over Europe It chivvied Germany into the American team It made America stronger, relatively, as a major energy producer It screwed a major economic rival, Germany, creating more jobs in America
I think the last was probably the least of America’s aims but it surely still figured. Superpowers act with intense selfishness: because they can
And the Ukraine war gave the Americans the perfect cover to do all this: via Ukrainian and Polish proxies so giving DC plausible deniability. A master stroke. Genuinely admirable statecraft allied with very clever subterfuge
How would a full on proper right wing Farage-led Tory party perform?
if they got serious about immigration, and culture wars, combined with some rank populism about the health service, British biscuits, gardening, lovely old ladies, and the army, I reckon they could squeak a narrow majority in 2028 - EXCEPT that Farage will be 64 by then. Too old?
Hmmm
It would heavily depend on whether those themes you mention - which are largely boomer themes - get handed down to the next generation of elderly voters which by then will include a large chunk of GenX.
European populism is less nostalgic than our current Dad's Army version. It's more direct culture war - immigration, fear of Islam, and whatever cultural mores work in that country (gender politics, religion, anti-environmentalism etc). I think Farage and the Tories would need to wean themselves off the grumpy old man down pub voter and on to something younger and harder edged. Braverman potentially shows the way.
Yes I agree. They need to copy Le Pen in the way she rejuvenated the French right
The young are voting Le Pen in extraordinary numbers
There's a basic difference between us and continental Europe though in that the struggles Western nations are facing are, there, associated with a failed social democratic establishment.
Here younger people associate them with with a failure of a right that has been in power for 14 years and got policies through that at one point were beyond its wildest dreams but are seen as having failed even on their own terms.
So people kicking out at that here trend left. There they trend right.
Doubling down on that with something edgier is therefore unlikely to help. At least for now. In 10-15 years if we're still in a funk that may change. For the moment though people like Braverman, Farage re seen as part of, perhaps a lot of, the problem.
But this is a misdiagnosis. We might have had a right wing government on paper, but in practice we have been at the extreme end of an experiment in governing by a dehumanised system of 'rights'. The Tories have failed completely, not because they were too right wing but because they didn't challenge the framework that had been entrenched under Tony Blair.
There was a good example of the pathologies of the system yesterday where someone documented his attempts to track down his mother after she was admitted to hospital and was met with Kafkaesque obstruction.
The West faces two major issues that significantly impact the path of economic growth.
The first is demographics. We have more and more old people, and they take up an increasing share of government spending. Look at the percentage of GDP that is spent on social care plus health plus pensions and compare now to 1980. And we know this is only going to rise. More and more of peoples' income is going to be spent on looking after old people, and that's true irrespective of who the government is.
The second is the rise of developing economies. The reality is that people in China, India, Vietnam and the like are willing to work for less than Brits. And even if that had absolutely no impact on British exports (which is optimistic), it still means there is more competition for commodities. In the past, the developed world was the dominant purchaser of oil, natural gas, pork and the like. That's simply not true anymore. And that means that the price we're going to be paying for those imports is going to be higher.
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Corbyn is a case study on why good campaigners often make terrible politicians. Though his behaviour on Salisbury was inexplicable. I kind of get* why he didn't take action on antisemitism, as I'm certain he doesn't consider himself to be antisemitic at all, and in his mind that means that the accusations were just wrong. But Salisbury is pretty open-and-shut - and was not only an assassination attempt, but the recklessness of it resulted in the death of an innocent, as well as serious health consequences to boot.
*as in, I don't agree with him, but I understand his behaviour - unlike his Salisbury response.
Er, it’s quite obvious
Corbyn hates Britain and the west. He hates white British people apart from the few solid lefties he can rely on as friends. He thinks we are all gammony imperialists and colonialists and slavishly united with the hated America and Israel. Especially people who live in Salisbury. That’s Tory central
I genuinely think he doesn’t give a fuck if white British people die as long as the murderers are some anti western type. Muslims, Russians, Chinese, the IRA, Boko Haram, doesn’t matter, he approves of anyone who opposes “us”
That is the mindset of Jeremy Corbyn. Soaked in adolescent lefty bigotry and too stupid to grow up
You're missing some of the complexity here. Actually there's also something quintessentially English about Corbyn. His allotment. His fondness for making jam. His deep love of London. His support of Arsenal. His unerring politeness (usually) and his reluctance to 'personalise' politics (reminiscent of Tony Benn's 'policies not personalities' mantra). And, even his penchant for attending marches for every popular left-wing cause is a fine English tradition for those on the left. In conclusion, he's not atypical of many left-wing English gentlemen of a certain age influenced by the postwar socialist movement.
So you're wrong. He loves his country. He just has a very different vision of it from you. And no, I'm not a fan of his.
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
How would a full on proper right wing Farage-led Tory party perform?
if they got serious about immigration, and culture wars, combined with some rank populism about the health service, British biscuits, gardening, lovely old ladies, and the army, I reckon they could squeak a narrow majority in 2028 - EXCEPT that Farage will be 64 by then. Too old?
Hmmm
It would heavily depend on whether those themes you mention - which are largely boomer themes - get handed down to the next generation of elderly voters which by then will include a large chunk of GenX.
European populism is less nostalgic than our current Dad's Army version. It's more direct culture war - immigration, fear of Islam, and whatever cultural mores work in that country (gender politics, religion, anti-environmentalism etc). I think Farage and the Tories would need to wean themselves off the grumpy old man down pub voter and on to something younger and harder edged. Braverman potentially shows the way.
Yes I agree. They need to copy Le Pen in the way she rejuvenated the French right
The young are voting Le Pen in extraordinary numbers
There's a basic difference between us and continental Europe though in that the struggles Western nations are facing are, there, associated with a failed social democratic establishment.
Here younger people associate them with with a failure of a right that has been in power for 14 years and got policies through that at one point were beyond its wildest dreams but are seen as having failed even on their own terms.
So people kicking out at that here trend left. There they trend right.
Doubling down on that with something edgier is therefore unlikely to help. At least for now. In 10-15 years if we're still in a funk that may change. For the moment though people like Braverman, Farage re seen as part of, perhaps a lot of, the problem.
But this is a misdiagnosis. We might have had a right wing government on paper, but in practice we have been at the extreme end of an experiment in governing by a dehumanised system of 'rights'. The Tories have failed completely, not because they were too right wing but because they didn't challenge the framework that had been entrenched under Tony Blair.
There was a good example of the pathologies of the system yesterday where someone documented his attempts to track down his mother after she was admitted to hospital and was met with Kafkaesque obstruction.
The West faces two major issues that significantly impact the path of economic growth.
The first is demographics. We have more and more old people, and they take up an increasing share of government spending. Look at the percentage of GDP that is spent on social care plus health plus pensions and compare now to 1980. And we know this is only going to rise. More and more of peoples' income is going to be spent on looking after old people, and that's true irrespective of who the government is.
The second is the rise of developing economies. The reality is that people in China, India, Vietnam and the like are willing to work for less than Brits. And even if that had absolutely no impact on British exports (which is optimistic), it still means there is more competition for commodities. In the past, the developed world was the dominant purchaser of oil, natural gas, pork and the like. That's simply not true anymore. And that means that the price we're going to be paying for those imports is going to be higher.
That may all be true but it's orthogonal to the question of whether the UK government has been too right wing or not.
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
THe USSR, China and India. All have made successful soft moon landings.
For the avoidance of doubt, here is Biden saying - before the Ukraine war - if Russia invades Ukraine “Nordstream will end”. When asked how, he says “i promise you, we will do it”. Then he smirks
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
Ummm: you mean landed humans. Several countries have landed probes.
He is so much better at writing newspaper articles than being a PM. A lively, entertaining piece, even if I disagree with it.
How does Johnson square his support for Ukraine with Trump's stance on the war?
As so:
My thoughts, of course, go first to Ukraine.
It is the paramount struggle of our time, and we are still not doing enough to help that heroic nation. In the past two years Ukrainians have been laying down their lives, and bearing unimaginable hardship, in the cause of freedom — not just their own freedom, but the principles of freedom and democracy around the world.
They can, must and will win. That will mean patience and determination from their friends in the West — and so, yes, I am worried, frankly, by some of the defeatist nonsense I read, and I am alarmed by the thought that some members of the Republican Party seem to want to throw in the sponge, and consign a sovereign and democratic European country to darkness and tyranny. And so yes, of course, given some of the views that are glibly ascribed to Donald Trump on this subject, I have been pondering deeply what a Trump victory might mean for the war. What can we deduce from the record?
Well, ask yourself first: which American president was the first to stand up for Ukraine, after Putin’s invasion of 2014?
Was it the great liberal internationalist Barack Obama? No sir-ree.
He did nothing to push Putin out of Ukraine, either from Crimea or the Donbas. Nor did the French, nor did the Germans, and nor, frankly, did the UK government of the day which decided — mystifyingly — to wash its hands of the matter and entrust the fate of the Ukrainians to the morally bankrupt ‘Normandy Format’.
It was Donald Trump who gave the Ukrainians those Javelin anti-tank weapons which — together with the UK NLAW missiles and other weapons — were so valuable to the Ukrainians in the battle for Kyiv; and it was at least partly thanks to that bold decision by Trump that the Ukrainians were able to stun the world and send Putin’s armies scuttling from the Ukrainian capital.
So, whatever they now say about President Trump, I cannot believe that he will want to go down in history as the president who abandoned a country that he has already signally helped to keep free.
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
If your economy is growing at a faster rate than your debt, then you're getting it right. As is the case with the US at the moment.
Especially when growth is being driven by investment rather than consumption. There has been, until recently, no increase in real wages on average. Like us, the trade deficit remains a concern but it has been on a declining trend of late, partly driven by oil and gas production as you said.
And coming up for 14m additional jobs. Just a mind blowing figure.
One reason America is doing quite well, economically, compared to stagnant Europe, is that America seized the opportunity of the Ukraine war to blow up Nordstream (via proxies) thus fucking up the German economy, a major industrial rival
What makes this especially piquant is that Biden and others literally and explicitly promised they would do this. Destroy Nordstream. And Germans meekly accept it, or they are entirely unaware of it
You have to admire American chutzpah and brio, here. They barely bothered to hide what they planned to do: to a major ally
But the primary reason for their outperformance since about 2010 is indeed their lower energy costs.
World’s largest oil producer now too.
Blowing up Nordstream was win-win-win for the USA
It cut off a serious source of income for Putin It reduced Putin’s leverage over Europe It chivvied Germany into the American team It made America stronger, relatively, as a major energy producer It screwed a major economic rival, Germany, creating more jobs in America
I think the last was probably the least of America’s aims but it surely still figured. Superpowers act with intense selfishness: because they can
And the Ukraine war gave the Americans the perfect cover to do all this: via Ukrainian and Polish proxies so giving DC plausible deniability. A master stroke. Genuinely admirable statecraft allied with very clever subterfuge
It’s been noted before, but your analytical approach is admirably consistent: you will always opt for the most exciting, box office explanation of events that have happened, and the most exciting scenario for events that haven’t yet happened. And then force through the logic however strong or shaky against all comers.
This means you are sometimes right and sometimes wrong. When you’re right it’s memorable because it means something exciting happened; when you’re wrong it’s forgettable because nothing exciting happened. Neat.
The USA blowing nordstream would be the most box office explanation - Ukraine or Russia are boring options - but I don’t buy it, I think it was Russia as a means to avoid legal recourse to Gazprom for cutting supply.
The Lab leak is of course the most exciting explanation for Covid, but it’s also credible and since late 2020 I’ve been - with reservations - on board with Lab leak.
On the rivers of blood stuff you’re also opting for the Hollywood blockbuster timeline and there I think and hope you are wrong but am not confident on the matter.
Is there a mirror image PBer who’s predictions are always the most boring possible outcome?
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Corbyn is a case study on why good campaigners often make terrible politicians. Though his behaviour on Salisbury was inexplicable. I kind of get* why he didn't take action on antisemitism, as I'm certain he doesn't consider himself to be antisemitic at all, and in his mind that means that the accusations were just wrong. But Salisbury is pretty open-and-shut - and was not only an assassination attempt, but the recklessness of it resulted in the death of an innocent, as well as serious health consequences to boot.
*as in, I don't agree with him, but I understand his behaviour - unlike his Salisbury response.
Er, it’s quite obvious
Corbyn hates Britain and the west. He hates white British people apart from the few solid lefties he can rely on as friends. He thinks we are all gammony imperialists and colonialists and slavishly united with the hated America and Israel. Especially people who live in Salisbury. That’s Tory central
I genuinely think he doesn’t give a fuck if white British people die as long as the murderers are some anti western type. Muslims, Russians, Chinese, the IRA, Boko Haram, doesn’t matter, he approves of anyone who opposes “us”
That is the mindset of Jeremy Corbyn. Soaked in adolescent lefty bigotry and too stupid to grow up
You're missing some of the complexity here. Actually there's also something quintessentially English about Corbyn. His allotment. His fondness for making jam. His deep love of London. His support of Arsenal. His unerring politeness (usually) and his reluctance to 'personalise' politics (reminiscent of Tony Benn's 'policies not personalities' mantra). And, even his penchant for attending marches for every popular left-wing cause is a fine English tradition for those on the left. In conclusion, he's not atypical of many left-wing English gentlemen of a certain age influenced by the postwar socialist movement.
So you're wrong. He loves his country. He just has a very different vision of it from you. And no, I'm not a fan of his.
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
If your economy is growing at a faster rate than your debt, then you're getting it right. As is the case with the US at the moment.
Especially when growth is being driven by investment rather than consumption. There has been, until recently, no increase in real wages on average. Like us, the trade deficit remains a concern but it has been on a declining trend of late, partly driven by oil and gas production as you said.
And coming up for 14m additional jobs. Just a mind blowing figure.
One reason America is doing quite well, economically, compared to stagnant Europe, is that America seized the opportunity of the Ukraine war to blow up Nordstream (via proxies) thus fucking up the German economy, a major industrial rival
What makes this especially piquant is that Biden and others literally and explicitly promised they would do this. Destroy Nordstream. And Germans meekly accept it, or they are entirely unaware of it
You have to admire American chutzpah and brio, here. They barely bothered to hide what they planned to do: to a major ally
Its this the standard of "analysis" in the Gazette these days?
An utterly unfounded conjecture with not a shred of evidence being inflated into a ludicrous conspiracy theory with implications so earth shattering that of course it *must* be true.
Of did you just have a fifth pitcher of Cambodian woo-woo?
Either way, in vino veritas (or in woo woo, veritas, anyway)
No wonder the right wing media is imploding under the weight of its own stupidity.
When it comes to Nordstream, just ask: cui bono?
Above all others, it’s the USA. Now you can go back to digging your fall-out shelter
Cui bono doesn’t prove anything. It's just a bit of learned sounding greek. People often bono from something they've haven't themselves done. Happens all the time.
How would a full on proper right wing Farage-led Tory party perform?
if they got serious about immigration, and culture wars, combined with some rank populism about the health service, British biscuits, gardening, lovely old ladies, and the army, I reckon they could squeak a narrow majority in 2028 - EXCEPT that Farage will be 64 by then. Too old?
Hmmm
It would heavily depend on whether those themes you mention - which are largely boomer themes - get handed down to the next generation of elderly voters which by then will include a large chunk of GenX.
European populism is less nostalgic than our current Dad's Army version. It's more direct culture war - immigration, fear of Islam, and whatever cultural mores work in that country (gender politics, religion, anti-environmentalism etc). I think Farage and the Tories would need to wean themselves off the grumpy old man down pub voter and on to something younger and harder edged. Braverman potentially shows the way.
Yes I agree. They need to copy Le Pen in the way she rejuvenated the French right
The young are voting Le Pen in extraordinary numbers
There's a basic difference between us and continental Europe though in that the struggles Western nations are facing are, there, associated with a failed social democratic establishment.
Here younger people associate them with with a failure of a right that has been in power for 14 years and got policies through that at one point were beyond its wildest dreams but are seen as having failed even on their own terms.
So people kicking out at that here trend left. There they trend right.
Doubling down on that with something edgier is therefore unlikely to help. At least for now. In 10-15 years if we're still in a funk that may change. For the moment though people like Braverman, Farage re seen as part of, perhaps a lot of, the problem.
But this is a misdiagnosis. We might have had a right wing government on paper, but in practice we have been at the extreme end of an experiment in governing by a dehumanised system of 'rights'. The Tories have failed completely, not because they were too right wing but because they didn't challenge the framework that had been entrenched under Tony Blair.
There was a good example of the pathologies of the system yesterday where someone documented his attempts to track down his mother after she was admitted to hospital and was met with Kafkaesque obstruction.
The West faces two major issues that significantly impact the path of economic growth.
The first is demographics. We have more and more old people, and they take up an increasing share of government spending. Look at the percentage of GDP that is spent on social care plus health plus pensions and compare now to 1980. And we know this is only going to rise. More and more of peoples' income is going to be spent on looking after old people, and that's true irrespective of who the government is.
The second is the rise of developing economies. The reality is that people in China, India, Vietnam and the like are willing to work for less than Brits. And even if that had absolutely no impact on British exports (which is optimistic), it still means there is more competition for commodities. In the past, the developed world was the dominant purchaser of oil, natural gas, pork and the like. That's simply not true anymore. And that means that the price we're going to be paying for those imports is going to be higher.
Back in the old days before the 2010GE I would often ask here how this country was going to compete with people who would be as intelligent and educated as us but who were willing to work harder for less money and under few restrictions.
I never received an answer - judging by subsequent events no government in the western world has had the answer either.
So okay that means very limited economic growth in the western world.
We can live with that as we started from a high base.
But we've acted and spent as though we were entitled to the benefits of economic growth even if it wasn't being achieved.
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
lol, thoughts on the shape of the Earth?
If the Soviets hadn’t landed on the Moon the US would have made a huge song and dance about it.
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
If your economy is growing at a faster rate than your debt, then you're getting it right. As is the case with the US at the moment.
Especially when growth is being driven by investment rather than consumption. There has been, until recently, no increase in real wages on average. Like us, the trade deficit remains a concern but it has been on a declining trend of late, partly driven by oil and gas production as you said.
And coming up for 14m additional jobs. Just a mind blowing figure.
One reason America is doing quite well, economically, compared to stagnant Europe, is that America seized the opportunity of the Ukraine war to blow up Nordstream (via proxies) thus fucking up the German economy, a major industrial rival
What makes this especially piquant is that Biden and others literally and explicitly promised they would do this. Destroy Nordstream. And Germans meekly accept it, or they are entirely unaware of it
You have to admire American chutzpah and brio, here. They barely bothered to hide what they planned to do: to a major ally
Its this the standard of "analysis" in the Gazette these days?
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
lol, thoughts on the shape of the Earth?
If the Soviets hadn’t landed on the Moon the US would have made a huge song and dance about it.
No other country than the us has landed humans on the moon....if so name one an no I dont like america just pointing it out. The original post was japan might be the fifth....cant have a fifth without a second third and fourth
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
If your economy is growing at a faster rate than your debt, then you're getting it right. As is the case with the US at the moment.
Especially when growth is being driven by investment rather than consumption. There has been, until recently, no increase in real wages on average. Like us, the trade deficit remains a concern but it has been on a declining trend of late, partly driven by oil and gas production as you said.
And coming up for 14m additional jobs. Just a mind blowing figure.
One reason America is doing quite well, economically, compared to stagnant Europe, is that America seized the opportunity of the Ukraine war to blow up Nordstream (via proxies) thus fucking up the German economy, a major industrial rival
What makes this especially piquant is that Biden and others literally and explicitly promised they would do this. Destroy Nordstream. And Germans meekly accept it, or they are entirely unaware of it
You have to admire American chutzpah and brio, here. They barely bothered to hide what they planned to do: to a major ally
But the primary reason for their outperformance since about 2010 is indeed their lower energy costs.
World’s largest oil producer now too.
Blowing up Nordstream was win-win-win for the USA
It cut off a serious source of income for Putin It reduced Putin’s leverage over Europe It chivvied Germany into the American team It made America stronger, relatively, as a major energy producer It screwed a major economic rival, Germany, creating more jobs in America
I think the last was probably the least of America’s aims but it surely still figured. Superpowers act with intense selfishness: because they can
And the Ukraine war gave the Americans the perfect cover to do all this: via Ukrainian and Polish proxies so giving DC plausible deniability. A master stroke. Genuinely admirable statecraft allied with very clever subterfuge
It’s been noted before, but your analytical approach is admirably consistent: you will always opt for the most exciting, box office explanation of events that have happened, and the most exciting scenario for events that haven’t yet happened. And then force through the logic however strong or shaky against all comers.
This means you are sometimes right and sometimes wrong. When you’re right it’s memorable because it means something exciting happened; when you’re wrong it’s forgettable because nothing exciting happened. Neat.
The USA blowing nordstream would be the most box office explanation - Ukraine or Russia are boring options - but I don’t buy it, I think it was Russia as a means to avoid legal recourse to Gazprom for cutting supply.
The Lab leak is of course the most exciting explanation for Covid, but it’s also credible and since late 2020 I’ve been - with reservations - on board with Lab leak.
On the rivers of blood stuff you’re also opting for the Hollywood blockbuster timeline and there I think and hope you are wrong but am not confident on the matter.
Is there a mirror image PBer who’s predictions are always the most boring possible outcome?
I do like a bit of drama but it’s not true I always go for the more exciting explanation. Eg that weird semi conductor story? Meh. And I said so
Believe it or not - ok it’s quite believable - I entertain lots of wild theories but i also dismiss many. I do come to this forum with the ones I believe, because they make for provocative discussion and because PB is - I fear - quite hidebound and over-staffed with cautious nerdy types who are overly respectful of consensus and authority (especially scientific) and also socially introvert - so scared of going out on a limb and being even lonelier
All that said: I love pb. And PBers. I have learned many many things on here from some exceedingly wise people - some on here tonight. And for that I am genuinely and properly thankful. X
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
lol, thoughts on the shape of the Earth?
If the Soviets hadn’t landed on the Moon the US would have made a huge song and dance about it.
No other country than the us has landed humans on the moon....if so name one an no I dont like america just pointing it out. The original post was japan might be the fifth....cant have a fifth without a second third and fourth
Why would the US, during the Cold War, be in on a Soviet-led conspiracy to fake the moon landing?
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
THe USSR, China and India. All have made successful soft moon landings.
Alternatively, a large part of the problem for the Conservatives is unfixable under any leader.
But that Corbyn comparison ought to terrify them.
And Johnson's ratings are almost identical to Corbin's by the end.
At least no-one in Labour is saying that Corbyn wasn't such a bad campaigner; let's give him another try...
Or, someone probably is, but no-one is listening
The difference is that Boris was surrounded by scandal at the time of those ratings, the others were just doing their job
With Corbyn aren't we forgetting the antisemitism scandal? He was never particularly popular but along with his dire Skripals stuff it fatally holed perceptions of him and reduced what chance he had of convincing people he wasn't quite the far left crank opponents said of him. Not that he'd have won but 2019 might have been more like 2017.
I think Salisbury hurt him a lot. I thought so at the time. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy", I remember thinking, when he started digging that hole for himself. There was no upside there whatsoever. It handed an arsenal of ammo to all those pushing the 'dislikes his own country' line.
Corbyn is a case study on why good campaigners often make terrible politicians. Though his behaviour on Salisbury was inexplicable. I kind of get* why he didn't take action on antisemitism, as I'm certain he doesn't consider himself to be antisemitic at all, and in his mind that means that the accusations were just wrong. But Salisbury is pretty open-and-shut - and was not only an assassination attempt, but the recklessness of it resulted in the death of an innocent, as well as serious health consequences to boot.
*as in, I don't agree with him, but I understand his behaviour - unlike his Salisbury response.
Er, it’s quite obvious
Corbyn hates Britain and the west. He hates white British people apart from the few solid lefties he can rely on as friends. He thinks we are all gammony imperialists and colonialists and slavishly united with the hated America and Israel. Especially people who live in Salisbury. That’s Tory central
I genuinely think he doesn’t give a fuck if white British people die as long as the murderers are some anti western type. Muslims, Russians, Chinese, the IRA, Boko Haram, doesn’t matter, he approves of anyone who opposes “us”
That is the mindset of Jeremy Corbyn. Soaked in adolescent lefty bigotry and too stupid to grow up
You're missing some of the complexity here. Actually there's also something quintessentially English about Corbyn. His allotment. His fondness for making jam. His deep love of London. His support of Arsenal. His unerring politeness (usually) and his reluctance to 'personalise' politics (reminiscent of Tony Benn's 'policies not personalities' mantra). And, even his penchant for attending marches for every popular left-wing cause is a fine English tradition for those on the left. In conclusion, he's not atypical of many left-wing English gentlemen of a certain age influenced by the postwar socialist movement.
So you're wrong. He loves his country. He just has a very different vision of it from you. And no, I'm not a fan of his.
Yes - I've known him personally for many years (and I do like him), and he's a very English type. He's a bit too consistent in the "policies not personalities" thing to the point that he didn't attack obvious Tory failures, and on the "weigh up issues before you comment" thing, which IMO is why he took so long to pin the blame for Salisbury (when he did, he renewed his call for sanctions on Putin).
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
THe USSR, China and India. All have made successful soft moon landings.
With humans which was what was specified
No, it was not. It said to “land on the moon”, which does not mean a person.
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
If your economy is growing at a faster rate than your debt, then you're getting it right. As is the case with the US at the moment.
Especially when growth is being driven by investment rather than consumption. There has been, until recently, no increase in real wages on average. Like us, the trade deficit remains a concern but it has been on a declining trend of late, partly driven by oil and gas production as you said.
And coming up for 14m additional jobs. Just a mind blowing figure.
One reason America is doing quite well, economically, compared to stagnant Europe, is that America seized the opportunity of the Ukraine war to blow up Nordstream (via proxies) thus fucking up the German economy, a major industrial rival
What makes this especially piquant is that Biden and others literally and explicitly promised they would do this. Destroy Nordstream. And Germans meekly accept it, or they are entirely unaware of it
You have to admire American chutzpah and brio, here. They barely bothered to hide what they planned to do: to a major ally
Its this the standard of "analysis" in the Gazette these days?
An utterly unfounded conjecture with not a shred of evidence being inflated into a ludicrous conspiracy theory with implications so earth shattering that of course it *must* be true.
Of did you just have a fifth pitcher of Cambodian woo-woo?
Either way, in vino veritas (or in woo woo, veritas, anyway)
No wonder the right wing media is imploding under the weight of its own stupidity.
When it comes to Nordstream, just ask: cui bono?
Above all others, it’s the USA. Now you can go back to digging your fall-out shelter
Cui bono doesn’t prove anything. It's just a bit of learned sounding greek. People often bono from something they've haven't themselves done. Happens all the time.
Are you subtly flaunting your working class origins by mistaking it for Greek?
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
THe USSR, China and India. All have made successful soft moon landings.
With humans which was what was specified
You said "countries":
"Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the US"
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
lol, thoughts on the shape of the Earth?
If the Soviets hadn’t landed on the Moon the US would have made a huge song and dance about it.
No other country than the us has landed humans on the moon....if so name one an no I dont like america just pointing it out. The original post was japan might be the fifth....cant have a fifth without a second third and fourth
Why would the US, during the Cold War, be in on a Soviet-led conspiracy to fake the moon landing?
Where did you even get that....no russia landed people on the moon? You are just being bizarre I haven't claimed the moon landing was a lie?
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
THe USSR, China and India. All have made successful soft moon landings.
With humans which was what was specified
You said "countries":
"Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the US"
Who apart from the us has landed humans on the moon?
I agree that he will stand if Trump is the GOP nominee. If the SC ruled that Trump was not eligible (highly unlikely in my view) he may well feel that he has done his duty and stand down.
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
He has massively increased the budget deficit
On 31/12/21 (post Covid) government debt was $29.5 trillion
As of 31/12/23 $34 trillion
That’s a lot of money in just 2 years.
It's a 15% increase. Trump increased the debt from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion in four years - that's a 37% increase.
It's not going to be significant in the result, one way or the other.
More significantly, a large part of Biden's spending was genuine investment.
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
We are spending like drunken sailors but that’s ok because everyone else is too:
If your economy is growing at a faster rate than your debt, then you're getting it right. As is the case with the US at the moment.
Especially when growth is being driven by investment rather than consumption. There has been, until recently, no increase in real wages on average. Like us, the trade deficit remains a concern but it has been on a declining trend of late, partly driven by oil and gas production as you said.
And coming up for 14m additional jobs. Just a mind blowing figure.
One reason America is doing quite well, economically, compared to stagnant Europe, is that America seized the opportunity of the Ukraine war to blow up Nordstream (via proxies) thus fucking up the German economy, a major industrial rival
What makes this especially piquant is that Biden and others literally and explicitly promised they would do this. Destroy Nordstream. And Germans meekly accept it, or they are entirely unaware of it
You have to admire American chutzpah and brio, here. They barely bothered to hide what they planned to do: to a major ally
Its this the standard of "analysis" in the Gazette these days?
An utterly unfounded conjecture with not a shred of evidence being inflated into a ludicrous conspiracy theory with implications so earth shattering that of course it *must* be true.
Of did you just have a fifth pitcher of Cambodian woo-woo?
Either way, in vino veritas (or in woo woo, veritas, anyway)
No wonder the right wing media is imploding under the weight of its own stupidity.
When it comes to Nordstream, just ask: cui bono?
Above all others, it’s the USA. Now you can go back to digging your fall-out shelter
Cui bono doesn’t prove anything. It's just a bit of learned sounding greek. People often bono from something they've haven't themselves done. Happens all the time.
Are you subtly flaunting your working class origins by mistaking it for Greek?
lol. He actually thinks it is Greek
You can take the lad out of Darlington
He may be joking but I think he’s just a member of THE hoi polloi
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
THe USSR, China and India. All have made successful soft moon landings.
With humans which was what was specified
You said "countries":
"Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the US"
Who apart from the us has landed humans on the moon?
Sigh...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959.[3]
No one has claimed Japan would be the fifth country to send a manned mission to land on the moon.
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
THe USSR, China and India. All have made successful soft moon landings.
With humans which was what was specified
No, it was not. It said to “land on the moon”, which does not mean a person.
Well the original quote said about apollo 11 landing humans on the moon....frankly I dont call dropping a brick on the moon from an orbiter a moon landing but that would fit your criteria
...The Japanese attempt to land on the Moon just 100m from its target is "unprecedented", says Dr Emma Gatti, a former Nasa scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global.
Most spacecraft touch down kilometres away from their intended target, she tells the BBC.
Apollo 11 - the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon - landed around 6.5 kilometres from the target, which is "a bit like if you wanted to land in Buckingham Palace and you arrive in Brixton," she says.
She adds that it would be "historic" for Japan - a country much smaller than the United States or China - to join them in becoming only the fifth country to land on the Moon...
Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the us....oh right you cant because it is zero
THe USSR, China and India. All have made successful soft moon landings.
With humans which was what was specified
No, it was not. It said to “land on the moon”, which does not mean a person.
Well the original quote said about apollo 11 landing humans on the moon....frankly I dont call dropping a brick on the moon from an orbiter a moon landing but that would fit your criteria
That was a bit of trivia regarding how accurate the landing was, comparing it to the most well-known moon landing.
Comments
"Eisenhower initially planned on serving only one term, but he remained flexible in case leading Republicans wanted him to run again. He was recovering from a heart attack late in September 1955 when he met with his closest advisors to evaluate the GOP's potential candidates; the group concluded that a second term was well advised, and he announced that he would run again in February 1956.[163][164] Eisenhower was publicly noncommittal about having Nixon as the Vice President on his ticket; the question was an especially important one in light of his heart condition. He personally favored Robert B. Anderson, a Democrat who rejected his offer, so Eisenhower resolved to leave the matter in the hands of the party."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#Presidency_(1953–1961)
Eisenhower was famous throughout his presidency for his confusing answers in press conferences. Some, I learned long after his presidency, were deliberate: When he was preparing for one, aides asked him how he would answer a question that was likely to come up. Eisenhower told them not to worry, he would just confuse the reporters. It came up, and he did.
It's not as if they haven't had their chances or that the GFC and income inequalities don't provide fertile soil from which to grow their message. Some - Corbyn, Sanders, Syriza in Greece, Melenchon in France - have briefly come close-ish to power (or, in Syriza's case, managed to gain it, though to little effect and years ago now), but they've been comprehensively outplayed by the populist right.
I guess media has something to do with it but it can't be all down to that.
I know it’s troubling for you. He was your party leader. It is nonetheless true
Gaetz explains why Republicans don’t need women voters: “For every Karen we lose, there’s a Julio and a Jamaal ready to sign up for the MAGA movement.”
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1747783273252569128
Trump gave America's wealthier a $2T tax cut. Biden gave subsidies to get back chip manufacturing to the US - along with battery and EV factories.
https://news.sky.com/story/dragonfire-uk-fires-high-power-laser-at-aerial-targets-for-first-time-with-intense-beam-of-light-able-to-cut-through-drones-13051553
Though it probably doesn't work very well when it's raining...
That's the most concerning thing about Corbyn*.
(*That, and autocorrect regularly wanting to change his name to that of a Republican Senator.)
Also British politics has long been quite different to continental Europe.
Of course, going back earlier, Woodrow Wilson's stroke in October 1918 severely damaged his ability to act as president. (The damage done was mostly concealed from the public.)
https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_monthly_gdp
But as I've noted several times, it's *really* hard to stop a sitting President running again unless they've FUBARed the entire job.
And even then...
But he's genuinely confounded every economist who was expecting a hard landing for the US economy after the Fed kept on putting up interest rates.
https://twitter.com/NikkeiAsia/status/1748390256037007421
Just posted.
Ah.
we've just heard on the Japanese space agency's live feed that they're planning to give an update on the mission in about 10 minutes - that's 02:10 local time (17:10 GMT).
Trying to talk down American success.
Dumping our shit on the moon.
https://twitter.com/ColbyBadhwar/status/1737858198818980030
Al Murray: Why the British Never Went to the Moon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmlSLxnfOQc
The moon is bombarded with all kinds of shit pretty well continuously. Why shouldn't we go there ?
As is the case with the US at the moment.
No stain yet on the Moon was seen,
No words were laid on stream or stone,
When Durin woke and walked alone.
Which is why I've a lot more faith in Kier's centrist dad ascendency than in something more aligned to my personal politics, which is further along the redistributist spectrum.
Weirdly it feels like a dry heat as well. Much less humid than most tropical cities (eg Singapore or Bangkok). So 33C feels more like 28/30C. And yet humidity is over 70%. It feels perfect, in short
Still haven’t worked out why. Large rivers and lakes everywhere? Lots of greenery and parks? Temples with trees? Also: virtually no mosquitoes (tho that appears to be true everywhere, these days)
In the colonial period it was regarded as the pearl of south east Asia. THE most seductive city. I can see why
And coming up for 14m additional jobs. Just a mind blowing figure.
Law is law. If we don't like the law, we change it with proper mandate and scrutiny. I wouldn't have a problem, necessarily, with somebody leaving the UK to join a proscribed terrorist organisation or enemy state forgoing their right to citizenship and legal aid (though honestly, I think someone doing at 15 years of age I think mitigates as well). But that needs to be the rules.
We don't just ignore it when the Mail tells us we should. See also Rwanda.
James Comer made a lot of claims after Kevin Morris interview
Morris then accused Comer of misleading & cherry-picking his testimony in letter I obtained: “Just release the full transcript. Why would you be reluctant or afraid to do that, other than it will disprove your spin?”
https://twitter.com/AnnieGrayerCNN/status/1748356321290625163
As we've seen time and again, if you get your lies in the headlines first, correcting them after the event doesn't mend the damage.
British Gas boss Chris O'Shea: 'I can't justify my pay of £4.5m'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68029653
Well, don't look to us for help - I wouldn't pay you £4.50.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12983807/BORIS-JOHNSON-negronis-Trump-presidency-just-world-needs.html
That's me in the corner. That's me in the spotlight. Losing my religion.
What makes this especially piquant is that Biden and others literally and explicitly promised they would do this. Destroy Nordstream. And Germans meekly accept it, or they are entirely unaware of it
You have to admire American chutzpah and brio, here. They barely bothered to hide what they planned to do: to a major ally
PS: the Germans may, finally, be cottoning on
https://x.com/berlinerzeitung/status/1748060431422292054?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
BTW, referring to comments downthread I genuinely do not see Farage ever joining or leading the Conservative Party.
Is there any right wing xenophobe you don't admire?
But the primary reason for their outperformance since about 2010 is indeed their lower energy costs.
World’s largest oil producer now too.
An utterly unfounded conjecture with not a shred of evidence being inflated into a ludicrous conspiracy theory with implications so earth shattering that of course it *must* be true.
Of did you just have a fifth pitcher of Cambodian woo-woo?
Either way, in vino veritas (or in woo woo, veritas, anyway)
No wonder the right wing media is imploding under the weight of its own stupidity.
Above all others, it’s the USA. Now you can go back to digging your fall-out shelter
It cut off a serious source of income for Putin
It reduced Putin’s leverage over Europe
It chivvied Germany into the American team
It made America stronger, relatively, as a major energy producer
It screwed a major economic rival, Germany, creating more jobs in America
I think the last was probably the least of America’s aims but it surely still figured. Superpowers act with intense selfishness: because they can
And the Ukraine war gave the Americans the perfect cover to do all this: via Ukrainian and Polish proxies so giving DC plausible deniability. A master stroke. Genuinely admirable statecraft allied with very clever subterfuge
Here's another one.
The West faces two major issues that significantly impact the path of economic growth.
The first is demographics. We have more and more old people, and they take up an increasing share of government spending. Look at the percentage of GDP that is spent on social care plus health plus pensions and compare now to 1980. And we know this is only going to rise. More and more of peoples' income is going to be spent on looking after old people, and that's true irrespective of who the government is.
The second is the rise of developing economies. The reality is that people in China, India, Vietnam and the like are willing to work for less than Brits. And even if that had absolutely no impact on British exports (which is optimistic), it still means there is more competition for commodities. In the past, the developed world was the dominant purchaser of oil, natural gas, pork and the like. That's simply not true anymore. And that means that the price we're going to be paying for those imports is going to be higher.
In conclusion, he's not atypical of many left-wing English gentlemen of a certain age influenced by the postwar socialist movement.
So you're wrong. He loves his country. He just has a very different vision of it from you. And no, I'm not a fan of his.
I mean, they barely tried to hide it. lol
https://x.com/jackposobiec/status/1706659353787261159?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
My thoughts, of course, go first to Ukraine.
It is the paramount struggle of our time, and we are still not doing enough to help that heroic nation. In the past two years Ukrainians have been laying down their lives, and bearing unimaginable hardship, in the cause of freedom — not just their own freedom, but the principles of freedom and democracy around the world.
They can, must and will win. That will mean patience and determination from their friends in the West — and so, yes, I am worried, frankly, by some of the defeatist nonsense I read, and I am alarmed by the thought that some members of the Republican Party seem to want to throw in the sponge, and consign a sovereign and democratic European country to darkness and tyranny. And so yes, of course, given some of the views that are glibly ascribed to Donald Trump on this subject, I have been pondering deeply what a Trump victory might mean for the war. What can we deduce from the record?
Well, ask yourself first: which American president was the first to stand up for Ukraine, after Putin’s invasion of 2014?
Was it the great liberal internationalist Barack Obama? No sir-ree.
He did nothing to push Putin out of Ukraine, either from Crimea or the Donbas. Nor did the French, nor did the Germans, and nor, frankly, did the UK government of the day which decided — mystifyingly — to wash its hands of the matter and entrust the fate of the Ukrainians to the morally bankrupt ‘Normandy Format’.
It was Donald Trump who gave the Ukrainians those Javelin anti-tank weapons which — together with the UK NLAW missiles and other weapons — were so valuable to the Ukrainians in the battle for Kyiv; and it was at least partly thanks to that bold decision by Trump that the Ukrainians were able to stun the world and send Putin’s armies scuttling from the Ukrainian capital.
So, whatever they now say about President Trump, I cannot believe that he will want to go down in history as the president who abandoned a country that he has already signally helped to keep free.
This means you are sometimes right and sometimes wrong. When you’re right it’s memorable because it means something exciting happened; when you’re wrong it’s forgettable because nothing exciting happened. Neat.
The USA blowing nordstream would be the most box office explanation - Ukraine or Russia are boring options - but I don’t buy it, I think it was Russia as a means to avoid legal recourse to Gazprom for cutting supply.
The Lab leak is of course the most exciting explanation for Covid, but it’s also credible and since late 2020 I’ve been - with reservations - on board with Lab leak.
On the rivers of blood stuff you’re also opting for the Hollywood blockbuster timeline and there I think and hope you are wrong but am not confident on the matter.
Is there a mirror image PBer who’s predictions are always the most boring possible outcome?
I never received an answer - judging by subsequent events no government in the western world has had the answer either.
So okay that means very limited economic growth in the western world.
We can live with that as we started from a high base.
But we've acted and spent as though we were entitled to the benefits of economic growth even if it wasn't being achieved.
If the Soviets hadn’t landed on the Moon the US would have made a huge song and dance about it.
Believe it or not - ok it’s quite believable - I entertain lots of wild theories but i also dismiss many. I do come to this forum with the ones I believe, because they make for provocative discussion and because PB is - I fear - quite hidebound and over-staffed with cautious nerdy types who are overly respectful of consensus and authority (especially scientific) and also socially introvert - so scared of going out on a limb and being even lonelier
All that said: I love pb. And PBers. I have learned many many things on here from some exceedingly wise people - some on here tonight. And for that I am genuinely and properly thankful. X
All a bit irrelevant now though!
"Name the countries that have landed on the moon except the US"
You can take the lad out of Darlington
He may be joking but I think he’s just a member of THE hoi polloi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing
A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959.[3]
No one has claimed Japan would be the fifth country to send a manned mission to land on the moon.