"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
Well I'm waiting for a plumber to come and fix something urgent. They're late and I'm starting to fret. Then the doorbell goes and I'm so relieved I don't do the normal checking, I just scamper there, fling it open with a big smile and a "great, you're here!". But it's not the plumber. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Did you ask them to pray for the swift arrival of the plumber?
Well I'm waiting for a plumber to come and fix something urgent. They're late and I'm starting to fret. Then the doorbell goes and I'm so relieved I don't do the normal checking, I just scamper there, fling it open with a big smile and a "great, you're here!". But it's not the plumber. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses.
You could ask if they know anything about plumbing?
The fact that Biden is clearly also suffering cognitive decline slightly dents the effectiveness of the message.
Still: there's no doubt that Trump is massively less sharp than eight years ago. The debates could be "interesting".
lol yes. That’s quite a good attack ad until you hear the quavery voice at the end saying “I’m Joe Biden”
The other problem here is that if the Dems really do go for Trump’s mental decline (and I agree he is obviously much less sharp) then they can’t complain about the GOP attacking Biden’s senility on grounds of taste or vulgarity
Trump seems to have declined rapidly in a year or two. Tho this maybe because I happily filtered him out until he became a threat once again
For Biden to put out an ad that constrasts Haley with an older candidate who gets confused suggests that he doesn't expect to be running against her. It will be Trump v Biden.
Would be quite awkward for him if the GOP were to pick Haley. I think she would quite likely win against Biden.
I agree. But it helps him for Haley to criticise Trump from a Republican standpoint.
Well I'm waiting for a plumber to come and fix something urgent. They're late and I'm starting to fret. Then the doorbell goes and I'm so relieved I don't do the normal checking, I just scamper there, fling it open with a big smile and a "great, you're here!". But it's not the plumber. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses.
You could ask if they know anything about plumbing?
Or if their God can fix it for you?
How is he good and all powerful if he can't or won't fix a leak?
Well I'm waiting for a plumber to come and fix something urgent. They're late and I'm starting to fret. Then the doorbell goes and I'm so relieved I don't do the normal checking, I just scamper there, fling it open with a big smile and a "great, you're here!". But it's not the plumber. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses.
You could ask if they know anything about plumbing?
That's a great USP. "We'll fix your toilet for free if you join in with group readings of the Watchtower".
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
It’s bureaucratic nature, ‘systemic’ as you put it, is for me the main reason:
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented terror, so many routine cries.
Yes, the absolute dehumanization. People as vermin. Mass murder as pest control. That's the heart of the horror. And the numbers of course. And (imo) that it was applied to a specific race of people.
It wasn't though, was it? Think of the Soviet prisoners of war of the Nazis - how many survived to go home? Think of the gypsies, the gays etc. The handicapped.
There were many victims of the Nazis (inc in concentration camps), however what we call the holocaust came about primarily as a 'final solution' to the 'Jewish problem' - an attempt to wipe them out. This is an integral part of its horror. It demonstrates on the most macro level that 'hate crime' is a meaningful concept. Just as the Lawrence murder demonstrates the same point regarding an individual act of violence.
Well I'm waiting for a plumber to come and fix something urgent. They're late and I'm starting to fret. Then the doorbell goes and I'm so relieved I don't do the normal checking, I just scamper there, fling it open with a big smile and a "great, you're here!". But it's not the plumber. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Conflating two current topics and at the risk of resuscitating one of the dumbest debates in PB history (boy, is there competition), apparently Jimmy Carr’s ‘edgy’ joke about the extermination of the Roma was permissible cos Jehovah’s Witnesses or some such bullshit.
There is the concept of hate crimes to signal society's views about racism/sexism/homophobia/etc.
It is an aggravating factor because society wants people from affected groups to know that we won't tolerate discrimination purely on the grounds of a particular characteristic. Society also wants perpetrators to know that they can't act out their discrimination against other members of society.
Society does this because it has seen in the recent and not so recent past what can happen if such behaviour is allowed to go unchecked and is not singled out as being particularly egregious.
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
It’s bureaucratic nature, ‘systemic’ as you put it, is for me the main reason:
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented terror, so many routine cries.
Yes, the absolute dehumanization. People as vermin. Mass murder as pest control. That's the heart of the horror. And the numbers of course. And (imo) that it was applied to a specific race of people.
It wasn't though, was it? Think of the Soviet prisoners of war of the Nazis - how many survived to go home? Think of the gypsies, the gays etc. The handicapped.
There were many victims of the Nazis (inc in concentration camps), however what we call the holocaust came about primarily as a 'final solution' to the 'Jewish problem' - an attempt to wipe them out. This is an integral part of its horror. It demonstrates on the most macro level that 'hate crime' is a meaningful concept. Just as the Lawrence murder demonstrates the same point regarding an individual act of violence.
I don't think the pain of dying in the gas chanbers was worse because of the motivation. I don't think the use of hate crimes as worse than other crimes is valid. Hate is just another motivating factor.
Well I'm waiting for a plumber to come and fix something urgent. They're late and I'm starting to fret. Then the doorbell goes and I'm so relieved I don't do the normal checking, I just scamper there, fling it open with a big smile and a "great, you're here!". But it's not the plumber. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses.
You could ask if they know anything about plumbing?
Or if their God can fix it for you?
How is he good and all powerful if he can't or won't fix a leak?
I'm not sure I want God to fix the leak seeing as his Google reviews on fixing Palestine haven't been great.
Well I'm waiting for a plumber to come and fix something urgent. They're late and I'm starting to fret. Then the doorbell goes and I'm so relieved I don't do the normal checking, I just scamper there, fling it open with a big smile and a "great, you're here!". But it's not the plumber. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses.
The BBC's forecast of gusts round my way is all over the shop, with wind speeds doubling for the odd hour here and there, and this changing regularly. I'm starting to wonder if Fujitsu programmed their computer.
Weather type - the constant wind isn’t especially high (in West London) but much higher gusts are occuring.
If you use one of the weather apps that differentiates between constant wind and gusts, it stands out.
The BBC's weather forecasts have been weirdly shit for about 2 years. Often I have been struck by the difference between the BBC forecast and the Met Office forecast. It is very rare that the former is correct and the latter is wrong.
BBC dumped the Met Office, apparently under orders from HMG to use a private firm, in 2018.
Competitive tendering I assume was why they picked MeteoGroup.
I would agree that the Cameronite liberals were a major bloc in support of Sunak. I am one of that bloc and instinctively preferred someone who appeared an intelligent technocrat against the unpredictability and wildness of Truss.
But this group are probably the most upset by his absurd focus on Rwandan nonsense. Whilst it might bolster him somewhat with the red wallers/Brexiteers it is materially undermining him with this group (which, once upon a time might also have been called one nation Conservatives). And he needs this group even more than the Brexiteers.
I've felt for a while that the conservatives might outperform expectations in the Blue Wall at the election and the Lib Dems underperform there (not least because expectations have got a bit out of control with people expecting vast swathes of the commuter belt to turn yellow). And for the Lib Dems to outperform rather muted expectations in their old Wessex and West Country heartland. This sort of polling being the reason.
If he continues to pivot towards culture war he's not going to convince the hard core nationalists but he is going to erode a lot of that (rather unearned) quiet competence reputation among the Cameronites.
I expect the Lib Dems to be the dog that doesn't bark. They have made no impact on the polling in the last couple of years and are now regularly polling behind Reform. Then they have the Davey problem. They normally do much better when the Tories are making arses of themselves but maybe not this time.
Worth recalling that, in 1997, Lib Dem vote share dropped by one percentage point on 1992, and they gained 28 seats. Indeed, they never polled well in the early New Labour period, and had polls in single figures at times in early 1997.
They'd certainly hope to be polling better, but the MRP was quite positive for them, and they probably remain on course for reasonable gains.
And from memory, despite everything Swinson increased vote share by around 50% Just didn’t yield much in terms of actual seats.
A reminder - Lib Dem seat numbers correlate inversely with Con vote share. Changes in LD vote share make little difference by themselves.
Yay for FPTP! 👍
Hardly. On 10% of the vote, the LDs are not going to get 10% of the MPs (~ 60) no matter how badly the Tories do.
Yes, I was being sarcastic. It’s nuts that the number of LibDem MPs should be so poorly related to the number of people voting LibDem.
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
It’s bureaucratic nature, ‘systemic’ as you put it, is for me the main reason:
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented terror, so many routine cries.
Yes, the absolute dehumanization. People as vermin. Mass murder as pest control. That's the heart of the horror. And the numbers of course. And (imo) that it was applied to a specific race of people.
It wasn't though, was it? Think of the Soviet prisoners of war of the Nazis - how many survived to go home? Think of the gypsies, the gays etc. The handicapped.
There were many victims of the Nazis (inc in concentration camps), however what we call the holocaust came about primarily as a 'final solution' to the 'Jewish problem' - an attempt to wipe them out. This is an integral part of its horror. It demonstrates on the most macro level that 'hate crime' is a meaningful concept. Just as the Lawrence murder demonstrates the same point regarding an individual act of violence.
I don't think the pain of dying in the gas chanbers was worse because of the motivation. I don't think the use of hate crimes as worse than other crimes is valid. Hate is just another motivating factor.
I think the fear hate crimes create in a community is certainly an additional problem. Not venturing into a particular area because you might be targeted. Same logic as why terrorism or organised crime are treated differently - the wider fear they generate is part of the point.
To think I was accused of Hindiphobia (sic) for pointing out Sunak was a duffer back in late 2022.
His epitaph will be not as nutty as Truss or not as sleazy as Boris Johnson.
The Conservatives' problem is choosing as leaders, four times in a row, people who were just not up to it.
I was actually surprised by how inept Theresa May proved to be. I thought she'd be uninspiring, but very much a safe pair of hands.
WRT Sunak, I'm unclear why he even wanted the job.
I think that’s harsh on May.
She was faced with an intractable problem and lacked the imagination to solve it.
That’s not the same an inept.
I think Brexit destroyed her chance of a decent run as PM as much as covid did to Johnson. Johnson would surely have been brought down by his own flaws eventually, but I think it would have been a fair bit longer than he actually got.
Well I'm waiting for a plumber to come and fix something urgent. They're late and I'm starting to fret. Then the doorbell goes and I'm so relieved I don't do the normal checking, I just scamper there, fling it open with a big smile and a "great, you're here!". But it's not the plumber. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses.
You could ask if they know anything about plumbing?
That's a great USP. "We'll fix your toilet for free if you join in with group readings of the Watchtower".
JW's can also get quick access to plumbers (or any other tradesman for that matter) as a fellow Witness will probably be one or know one. So if you want speedy household repairs and don't mind giving up your Sundays to proselytize then it might be worth converting.
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
It’s bureaucratic nature, ‘systemic’ as you put it, is for me the main reason:
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented terror, so many routine cries.
Yes, the absolute dehumanization. People as vermin. Mass murder as pest control. That's the heart of the horror. And the numbers of course. And (imo) that it was applied to a specific race of people.
It wasn't just one race of people. The Roma/Sinti were also murdered becase of their race. There were also two other groups that were systematically sent to concentration camps and eventually murdered: homosexuals and communists.
Yes, it shouldn't be forgotten that there were many victims in addition to Jews.
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
Well I'm waiting for a plumber to come and fix something urgent. They're late and I'm starting to fret. Then the doorbell goes and I'm so relieved I don't do the normal checking, I just scamper there, fling it open with a big smile and a "great, you're here!". But it's not the plumber. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Well I'm waiting for a plumber to come and fix something urgent. They're late and I'm starting to fret. Then the doorbell goes and I'm so relieved I don't do the normal checking, I just scamper there, fling it open with a big smile and a "great, you're here!". But it's not the plumber. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses.
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
Exactly. the crime is the murder. not the motivation,
The fact that Biden is clearly also suffering cognitive decline slightly dents the effectiveness of the message.
Still: there's no doubt that Trump is massively less sharp than eight years ago. The debates could be "interesting".
lol yes. That’s quite a good attack ad until you hear the quavery voice at the end saying “I’m Joe Biden”
The other problem here is that if the Dems really do go for Trump’s mental decline (and I agree he is obviously much less sharp) then they can’t complain about the GOP attacking Biden’s senility on grounds of taste or vulgarity
Trump seems to have declined rapidly in a year or two. Tho this maybe because I happily filtered him out until he became a threat once again
For Biden to put out an ad that constrasts Haley with an older candidate who gets confused suggests that he doesn't expect to be running against her. It will be Trump v Biden.
Would be quite awkward for him if the GOP were to pick Haley. I think she would quite likely win against Biden.
See my predictions - if Trump goes Biden has a far harder battle
If Trump leaves the scene, e.g. dies, then Biden has a far harder battle. If Trump is not the GOP candidate, but still around, mouthing off, muddying the waters, dominating the news, then that’s a very different scenario.
The BBC's forecast of gusts round my way is all over the shop, with wind speeds doubling for the odd hour here and there, and this changing regularly. I'm starting to wonder if Fujitsu programmed their computer.
Weather type - the constant wind isn’t especially high (in West London) but much higher gusts are occuring.
If you use one of the weather apps that differentiates between constant wind and gusts, it stands out.
The BBC's weather forecasts have been weirdly shit for about 2 years. Often I have been struck by the difference between the BBC forecast and the Met Office forecast. It is very rare that the former is correct and the latter is wrong.
BBC dumped the Met Office, apparently under orders from HMG to use a private firm, in 2018.
Competitive tendering I assume was why they picked MeteoGroup.
I like looking at Netweather as well as the Met Office, though.
The Netweather rain radar animation feature is especially useful for working out if you have time to go and do the shopping before getting soaked...
All of the sites we're talking about here have automated information based on data from weather models. The quality really depends on three things:
- Whether the site takes data from only one medium range model (often the US GFS as much of its data is free) or multiple models, - Whether source data includes high resolution short term models like UKV, Arome etc or just the larger scale ones like GFS or ECMWF, and - How precise is the geolocation of your chosen town e.g. is your village actually based on a large grid point including nearby mountains or sea, or is it a very precise location
For all these reasons I actually think the iPhone weather app is one of the best. I understand it uses both medium range and hi-res model inputs as well as radar-based nowcasting. The big annoyance I have with it is that when it's windy it just shows the wind icon, no indication whether cloudy or sunny, as well as its tendency not to show rainfall risk if it's below 30%.
The fact that Biden is clearly also suffering cognitive decline slightly dents the effectiveness of the message.
Still: there's no doubt that Trump is massively less sharp than eight years ago. The debates could be "interesting".
lol yes. That’s quite a good attack ad until you hear the quavery voice at the end saying “I’m Joe Biden”
The other problem here is that if the Dems really do go for Trump’s mental decline (and I agree he is obviously much less sharp) then they can’t complain about the GOP attacking Biden’s senility on grounds of taste or vulgarity
Trump seems to have declined rapidly in a year or two. Tho this maybe because I happily filtered him out until he became a threat once again
For Biden to put out an ad that constrasts Haley with an older candidate who gets confused suggests that he doesn't expect to be running against her. It will be Trump v Biden.
Would be quite awkward for him if the GOP were to pick Haley. I think she would quite likely win against Biden.
I agree. But it helps him for Haley to criticise Trump from a Republican standpoint.
Violence is, also, the inevitable endpoint if illegal migration continues and worsens, and no other alternative is found
Which is one reason we desperately need to solve this, now, and humanely
I imagine you would have said this at any point over the past 50 years. Indeed I believe it was said with a degree of rhetorical flourish some 55 years ago.
Yes, yawn, whatever, bur I'm not wrong, am I?
In the end if illegal immigration just gets worse and worse, governments will be forced to extreme methods to deter it
We can already see it in parts of the world. It is also a particular hazard on the US Southern Border, where the local citizens are well armed, and generally not known for accepting fate with stoic pacifism
Yawn yourself. We are a huge country with plenty of room and the areas where immigration is most prevalent isn't Little Rissington in the Cotswolds. Londoners meanwhile don't mind it at all.
Saying "there will be blood" is just posturing and alarmist. And has been shown in the UK not to be the case.
At the end of the day borders need to be enforced. Just as the law needs to be enforced. You arrest, detain and deport.
I struggle to work out how, somewhere along the line, this became controversial.
That’s the issue. The Tories talk a lot about Rwanda, but they’re not doing the basics.
Two reasons for the reduction in deportations:
1. Illegals deliberately arriving with no documents or paperwork, meaning that it costs a lot of time and money to even work out who they are.
2. Organised groups of British individuals funding limitless appeals and legal processes, including harrasment of airlines.
Fix those two issues, the first with Rwanda or the Falklands, and the second by legislating for a single appeal before automatic deportation, and the problem gets a lot easier.
What’s your evidence for this? (Daily Mail headlines don’t count.)
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
Exactly. the crime is the murder. not the motivation,
There are many situations where we treat murders differently because of the motivation. The woman who has been abused for years by her husband and then kills him. The man who kills his wife who is suffering from a terminal disease in an act of euthanasia. These can be murder in British law, but there is a desire to treat them differently.
Well I'm waiting for a plumber to come and fix something urgent. They're late and I'm starting to fret. Then the doorbell goes and I'm so relieved I don't do the normal checking, I just scamper there, fling it open with a big smile and a "great, you're here!". But it's not the plumber. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses.
You could ask if they know anything about plumbing?
To think I was accused of Hindiphobia (sic) for pointing out Sunak was a duffer back in late 2022.
His epitaph will be not as nutty as Truss or not as sleazy as Boris Johnson.
The Conservatives' problem is choosing as leaders, four times in a row, people who were just not up to it.
I was actually surprised by how inept Theresa May proved to be. I thought she'd be uninspiring, but very much a safe pair of hands.
WRT Sunak, I'm unclear why he even wanted the job.
I have mixed feelings about May (unlike Johnson and Truss), but May was brought down by events largely outside her control. Specifically Brexit. She went initially for a hard line rather than accommodation. I think that was a mistake, but more importantly she seemed to come to the same realisation and spent the remaining time in her premiership in trying to square the circle. Ultimately I doubt anyone else would have done better because no-one was interested in damage limitation - except for the EU interestingly.
" What always happens, going back to the fall of Jerusalem, is that when things get tough, people turn on the Jews. It’s the equivalent of kicking the cat or screaming at the secretary."
Mamet praises Jews for taking unpopular jobs. His examples are lawyers and Hollywood. With that level of incisive thinking, is it any surprise the man supports Trump?
I don't thnk it is Zionist fantasy to say Jews were famously excluded from a lot of prestigious jobs or careers in Europe (and to an extent, but lesser, in the USA)
His point about Hollywood is more that Jews CREATED Hollywood. Which they did. Virtually all the early studio moguls were Jews, hence the names we still see today - Goldwyn, Mayer, Fox
Yes but passing over the irony that it has become an antisemitic trope that Jews run the entertainment industry, Mamet is saying working in the movies is an unpopular job. It is not. Mamet's is a fluently-written rant that does not stand up to a moment's reflection; what Hollywood types would describe as an old man yelling at clouds.
Working on movies *was* unpopular. It *was* the shitty end of the entertainment business when it started.
It still is, for all but a few hundred of those right at the top of the industry. Mostly poorly-paid contract work involving long hours and little job security.
Violence is, also, the inevitable endpoint if illegal migration continues and worsens, and no other alternative is found
Which is one reason we desperately need to solve this, now, and humanely
I imagine you would have said this at any point over the past 50 years. Indeed I believe it was said with a degree of rhetorical flourish some 55 years ago.
Yes, yawn, whatever, bur I'm not wrong, am I?
In the end if illegal immigration just gets worse and worse, governments will be forced to extreme methods to deter it
We can already see it in parts of the world. It is also a particular hazard on the US Southern Border, where the local citizens are well armed, and generally not known for accepting fate with stoic pacifism
Yawn yourself. We are a huge country with plenty of room and the areas where immigration is most prevalent isn't Little Rissington in the Cotswolds. Londoners meanwhile don't mind it at all.
Saying "there will be blood" is just posturing and alarmist. And has been shown in the UK not to be the case.
At the end of the day borders need to be enforced. Just as the law needs to be enforced. You arrest, detain and deport.
I struggle to work out how, somewhere along the line, this became controversial.
That’s the issue. The Tories talk a lot about Rwanda, but they’re not doing the basics.
Two reasons for the reduction in deportations:
1. Illegals deliberately arriving with no documents or paperwork, meaning that it costs a lot of time and money to even work out who they are.
2. Organised groups of British individuals funding limitless appeals and legal processes, including harrasment of airlines.
Fix those two issues, the first with Rwanda or the Falklands, and the second by legislating for a single appeal before automatic deportation, and the problem gets a lot easier.
What’s your evidence for this? (Daily Mail headlines don’t count.)
That article does not demonstrate anyone funding “limitless appeals and legal processes”. The charity believes it is funding appropriate legal proceedings. There’s nothing there about the harassment of airlines.
There’s nothing in that article to suggest that any practices are commoner than in the past, or that they are responsible for the precipitous drop in deportations under this government.
And of course, you haven’t even touched on your (1) above.
Appropriate evidence would be data showing, at minimum, that these supposed reasons have become commoner than in the past, correlating with the collapse in deportations. Better evidence would be demonstrating a clear causal link between these supposed reasons and reduced deportations.
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
Of course the family of a victim will have their own perspective. That's important but it's not the only valid one and it's (rightly) not the only one the justice system takes into account.
Eg when somebody is killed by reckless driving the family will often consider it tantamount to murder and wish to see a long sentence. They'll feel cheated when this doesn't happen.
In general thoughts are always relevant in addition to actions and outcomes. That's why we have alternatives to "murder" for instances of a person being killed by another. It's also why sentences for murder itself can vary.
The BBC's forecast of gusts round my way is all over the shop, with wind speeds doubling for the odd hour here and there, and this changing regularly. I'm starting to wonder if Fujitsu programmed their computer.
I stopped using BBC weather when they started confidently predicting 0% chance of rain when it was raining outside (and, e.g. 3-4 whole days of 0% chance of rain in a fairly wet week - clearly some kind of error with default value replacement). Definitely some bugs in there, presumably in putting the forecast into the app/postcode matching, but maybe the actual forecast, who knows.
Tend to use the Met Office app/website now which had not been too bad.
That reminds me of the F1 teams all glued to watching a weather radar on their computer screens to see if it’s raining, rather than simply looking out of the window.
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
Exactly. the crime is the murder. not the motivation,
The crime is the murder, yes, but this is not 'end of'. There are then a number of relevant factors in sentencing, one of which is motivation.
Well I'm waiting for a plumber to come and fix something urgent. They're late and I'm starting to fret. Then the doorbell goes and I'm so relieved I don't do the normal checking, I just scamper there, fling it open with a big smile and a "great, you're here!". But it's not the plumber. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses.
You could ask if they know anything about plumbing?
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
Exactly. the crime is the murder. not the motivation,
The crime is the murder, yes, but this is not 'end of'. There are then a number of relevant factors in sentencing, one of which is motivation.
Hypothetically if the gang that murdered Lawrence had also murdered a white kid, would you be happy for the sentence to be shorter for the latter crime? I would not.
@bondegezou raises an interesting point re domestic murders (be they abuse, abused partners fighting back, or partners ending suffering). I understand the point, that when sentencing those crimes, the motivation is taken into account. I just don't believe it should be the case for hate crimes.
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
It’s bureaucratic nature, ‘systemic’ as you put it, is for me the main reason:
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented terror, so many routine cries.
Yes, the absolute dehumanization. People as vermin. Mass murder as pest control. That's the heart of the horror. And the numbers of course. And (imo) that it was applied to a specific race of people.
It wasn't though, was it? Think of the Soviet prisoners of war of the Nazis - how many survived to go home? Think of the gypsies, the gays etc. The handicapped.
There were many victims of the Nazis (inc in concentration camps), however what we call the holocaust came about primarily as a 'final solution' to the 'Jewish problem' - an attempt to wipe them out. This is an integral part of its horror. It demonstrates on the most macro level that 'hate crime' is a meaningful concept. Just as the Lawrence murder demonstrates the same point regarding an individual act of violence.
I don't think the pain of dying in the gas chanbers was worse because of the motivation. I don't think the use of hate crimes as worse than other crimes is valid. Hate is just another motivating factor.
That's obviously true about the pain but it's true in general rather than as a point in this argument. Eg if I'm squashed to death under the wheels of a Lexus by a reckless driver I'll suffer just as much as if I'm cold-bloodedly shot in the heart by a Hampstead Reggie Kray. Different crimes nevertheless. NW3 Reggie will (rightly) get a longer sentence than the Lexus driver.
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
It isn't a dangerous route and indeed it's been embedded into the justice system since time immemorial; intent - thoughts, essentially - is the nature of the difference between murder and manslaughter. I see no reason not to nuance that stark divide further, as circumstances determine.
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
It’s bureaucratic nature, ‘systemic’ as you put it, is for me the main reason:
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented terror, so many routine cries.
Yes, the absolute dehumanization. People as vermin. Mass murder as pest control. That's the heart of the horror. And the numbers of course. And (imo) that it was applied to a specific race of people.
It wasn't though, was it? Think of the Soviet prisoners of war of the Nazis - how many survived to go home? Think of the gypsies, the gays etc. The handicapped.
There were many victims of the Nazis (inc in concentration camps), however what we call the holocaust came about primarily as a 'final solution' to the 'Jewish problem' - an attempt to wipe them out. This is an integral part of its horror. It demonstrates on the most macro level that 'hate crime' is a meaningful concept. Just as the Lawrence murder demonstrates the same point regarding an individual act of violence.
I don't think the pain of dying in the gas chanbers was worse because of the motivation. I don't think the use of hate crimes as worse than other crimes is valid. Hate is just another motivating factor.
That's obviously true about the pain but it's true in general rather than as a point in this argument. Eg if I'm squashed to death under the wheels of a Lexus by a reckless driver I'll suffer just as much as if I'm cold-bloodedly shot in the heart by a Hampstead Reggie Kray. Different crimes nevertheless. NW3 Reggie will (rightly) get a longer sentence than the Lexus driver.
Not if the Lexus driver set out to murder you, surely?
To think I was accused of Hindiphobia (sic) for pointing out Sunak was a duffer back in late 2022.
His epitaph will be not as nutty as Truss or not as sleazy as Boris Johnson.
The Conservatives' problem is choosing as leaders, four times in a row, people who were just not up to it.
I was actually surprised by how inept Theresa May proved to be. I thought she'd be uninspiring, but very much a safe pair of hands.
WRT Sunak, I'm unclear why he even wanted the job.
I have mixed feelings about May (unlike Johnson and Truss), but May was brought down by events largely outside her control. Specifically Brexit. She went initially for a hard line rather than accommodation. I think that was a mistake, but more importantly she seemed to come to the same realisation and spent the remaining time in her premiership in trying to square the circle. Ultimately I doubt anyone else would have done better because no-one was interested in damage limitation - except for the EU interestingly.
That’s a very technical article, but in short the Hugo awards were held in China this year and there were a lot of irregularities, like authors who Beijing don’t approve of being declared ineligible for no apparent reason.
To think I was accused of Hindiphobia (sic) for pointing out Sunak was a duffer back in late 2022.
His epitaph will be not as nutty as Truss or not as sleazy as Boris Johnson.
The Conservatives' problem is choosing as leaders, four times in a row, people who were just not up to it.
I was actually surprised by how inept Theresa May proved to be. I thought she'd be uninspiring, but very much a safe pair of hands.
WRT Sunak, I'm unclear why he even wanted the job.
Is it the Prime Minister or is it the SpAds and CCHQ apparatchiks they are surrounded with? I've written before about the out of character, cheap stunts they force on the leader, and it seems policies too. Liz Truss's sidekick Kwasi Kwarteng described Theresa May's Number 10 as "a shitshow". Boris was arguably brought down by his so-called friends. Is Rishi supposed to be the adult in the room or driving the populist right?
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
The CPS definition is here -
"Any crime can be prosecuted as a hate crime if the offender has either:
demonstrated hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity Or
been motivated by hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity"
I find it very troubling that sex is not included in those factors, given that (a) it is a protected characteristic and (b) how many women are the targets of crime - and particularly awful crimes at that - precisely because they are women.
It's as if what women suffer doesn't really matter in our society.
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
The CPS definition is here -
"Any crime can be prosecuted as a hate crime if the offender has either:
demonstrated hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity Or
been motivated by hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity"
I find it very troubling that sex is not included in those factors, given that (a) it is a protected characteristic and (b) how many women are the targets of crime - and particularly awful crimes at that - precisely because they are women.
It's as if what women suffer doesn't really matter in our society.
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
Of course the family of a victim will have their own perspective. That's important but it's not the only valid one and it's (rightly) not the only one the justice system takes into account.
Eg when somebody is killed by reckless driving the family will often consider it tantamount to murder and wish to see a long sentence. They'll feel cheated when this doesn't happen.
In general thoughts are always relevant in addition to actions and outcomes. That's why we have alternatives to "murder" for instances of a person being killed by another. It's also why sentences for murder itself can vary.
You - and @david_herdson - make fair points. However the problem remains. Who gets to decide which is a hate crime, and which isn’t? Why are some characteristics protected, but not others?
There is no satisfying answer to either of these questions, which is why the hate crime concept is ultimately more damaging than it is worth. It undermines the principle of equity in Justice
There is the concept of hate crimes to signal society's views about racism/sexism/homophobia/etc.
It is an aggravating factor because society wants people from affected groups to know that we won't tolerate discrimination purely on the grounds of a particular characteristic. Society also wants perpetrators to know that they can't act out their discrimination against other members of society.
Society does this because it has seen in the recent and not so recent past what can happen if such behaviour is allowed to go unchecked and is not singled out as being particularly egregious.
So what signal is society sending out when women are excluded? Because sexism, which you list above, is not a basis for making a crime a hate crime.
To think I was accused of Hindiphobia (sic) for pointing out Sunak was a duffer back in late 2022.
His epitaph will be not as nutty as Truss or not as sleazy as Boris Johnson.
The Conservatives' problem is choosing as leaders, four times in a row, people who were just not up to it.
I was actually surprised by how inept Theresa May proved to be. I thought she'd be uninspiring, but very much a safe pair of hands.
WRT Sunak, I'm unclear why he even wanted the job.
Is it the Prime Minister or is it the SpAds and CCHQ apparatchiks they are surrounded with? I've written before about the out of character, cheap stunts they force on the leader, and it seems policies too. Liz Truss's sidekick Kwasi Kwarteng described Theresa May's Number 10 as "a shitshow". Boris was arguably brought down by his so-called friends. Is Rishi supposed to be the adult in the room or driving the populist right?
The problem seems to be that most of the SpAds and party apparatchiks are still wet behind the ears, mostly being 25 or younger. They totally fail to grasp that May, Johnson, and Sunak, are totally different personalities with different strengths and weaknesses.
They’re constantly putting Sunak up for stunts that they would have put Johnson up to, which ends up with the PM not understanding how to put petrol in a car in front of the full court press.
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
Exactly. the crime is the murder. not the motivation,
The crime is the murder, yes, but this is not 'end of'. There are then a number of relevant factors in sentencing, one of which is motivation.
Hypothetically if the gang that murdered Lawrence had also murdered a white kid, would you be happy for the sentence to be shorter for the latter crime? I would not.
@bondegezou raises an interesting point re domestic murders (be they abuse, abused partners fighting back, or partners ending suffering). I understand the point, that when sentencing those crimes, the motivation is taken into account. I just don't believe it should be the case for hate crimes.
I don’t know what the answer is. I do think that intent and risk to the public do matter in sentencing, and that flexible sentencing that can take into account the circumstances of a specific crime is more sensible than flat sentencing laws that treat every instance as the same. Where precisely “hate crimes” falls in that is more difficult. (But I concur with Cyclefree that sex shouldn’t be left of the list.)
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
It’s bureaucratic nature, ‘systemic’ as you put it, is for me the main reason:
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented terror, so many routine cries.
Yes, the absolute dehumanization. People as vermin. Mass murder as pest control. That's the heart of the horror. And the numbers of course. And (imo) that it was applied to a specific race of people.
It wasn't though, was it? Think of the Soviet prisoners of war of the Nazis - how many survived to go home? Think of the gypsies, the gays etc. The handicapped.
There were many victims of the Nazis (inc in concentration camps), however what we call the holocaust came about primarily as a 'final solution' to the 'Jewish problem' - an attempt to wipe them out. This is an integral part of its horror. It demonstrates on the most macro level that 'hate crime' is a meaningful concept. Just as the Lawrence murder demonstrates the same point regarding an individual act of violence.
I don't think the pain of dying in the gas chanbers was worse because of the motivation. I don't think the use of hate crimes as worse than other crimes is valid. Hate is just another motivating factor.
I think the fear hate crimes create in a community is certainly an additional problem. Not venturing into a particular area because you might be targeted. Same logic as why terrorism or organised crime are treated differently - the wider fear they generate is part of the point.
Also why (eg) if the murder victim is a police officer it's an aggravating factor in sentencing.
TBH I think some people are just bugged by the term 'hate crime'. They think it's sloppy woke postmodern language because surely all crime is hateful. I find it a rather banal point, I must say, but I do at a pinch get it. Perhaps a different term for "crime aggravated by hatred of the perceived group identity of the victim" can be developed.
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
Of course the family of a victim will have their own perspective. That's important but it's not the only valid one and it's (rightly) not the only one the justice system takes into account.
Eg when somebody is killed by reckless driving the family will often consider it tantamount to murder and wish to see a long sentence. They'll feel cheated when this doesn't happen.
In general thoughts are always relevant in addition to actions and outcomes. That's why we have alternatives to "murder" for instances of a person being killed by another. It's also why sentences for murder itself can vary.
You - and @david_herdson - make fair points. However the problem remains. Who gets to decide which is a hate crime, and which isn’t? Why are some characteristics protected, but not others?
There is no satisfying answer to either of these questions, which is why the hate crime concept is ultimately more damaging than it is worth. It undermines the principle of equity in Justice
But isn't it how a person perceives it so the individual gets to decide based on how they have perceived it. You can have a dozen people and if one of them perceives a comment or action as motivated by hate then there it is.
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
What makes me laugh is that the people screaming about woke stopping us patriotically bellowing RULE BRITANNIA, BRITANNIA RULES THE WAVES are the same wankers who have degraded the Navy so much that we can barely supply a fleet in our own waters, never mind ruling waves elsewhere.
It is faux patriotism, flag-shagging whilst destroying everything they claim the flag represents. We need not take lessons from them about woke or anything else.
To think I was accused of Hindiphobia (sic) for pointing out Sunak was a duffer back in late 2022.
His epitaph will be not as nutty as Truss or not as sleazy as Boris Johnson.
The Conservatives' problem is choosing as leaders, four times in a row, people who were just not up to it.
I was actually surprised by how inept Theresa May proved to be. I thought she'd be uninspiring, but very much a safe pair of hands.
WRT Sunak, I'm unclear why he even wanted the job.
Is it the Prime Minister or is it the SpAds and CCHQ apparatchiks they are surrounded with? I've written before about the out of character, cheap stunts they force on the leader, and it seems policies too. Liz Truss's sidekick Kwasi Kwarteng described Theresa May's Number 10 as "a shitshow". Boris was arguably brought down by his so-called friends. Is Rishi supposed to be the adult in the room or driving the populist right?
The problem seems to be that most of the SpAds and party apparatchiks are still wet behind the ears, mostly being 25 or younger. They totally fail to grasp that May, Johnson, and Sunak, are totally different personalities with different strengths and weaknesses.
They’re constantly putting Sunak up for stunts that they would have put Johnson up to, which ends up with the PM not understanding how to put petrol in a car in front of the full court press.
There’s a failure to understand that governance is not the same as shitposting. Never mind the “blob”, we’ve let 25-year-old social media managers run HMG.
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
The CPS definition is here -
"Any crime can be prosecuted as a hate crime if the offender has either:
demonstrated hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity Or
been motivated by hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity"
I find it very troubling that sex is not included in those factors, given that (a) it is a protected characteristic and (b) how many women are the targets of crime - and particularly awful crimes at that - precisely because they are women.
It's as if what women suffer doesn't really matter in our society.
Pipe down - the men are talking...
(For avoidance of doubt - that was a joke!)
Though like all good jokes, it has more than a hint of truth in it.
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
It’s bureaucratic nature, ‘systemic’ as you put it, is for me the main reason:
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented terror, so many routine cries.
Yes, the absolute dehumanization. People as vermin. Mass murder as pest control. That's the heart of the horror. And the numbers of course. And (imo) that it was applied to a specific race of people.
It wasn't though, was it? Think of the Soviet prisoners of war of the Nazis - how many survived to go home? Think of the gypsies, the gays etc. The handicapped.
There were many victims of the Nazis (inc in concentration camps), however what we call the holocaust came about primarily as a 'final solution' to the 'Jewish problem' - an attempt to wipe them out. This is an integral part of its horror. It demonstrates on the most macro level that 'hate crime' is a meaningful concept. Just as the Lawrence murder demonstrates the same point regarding an individual act of violence.
I don't think the pain of dying in the gas chanbers was worse because of the motivation. I don't think the use of hate crimes as worse than other crimes is valid. Hate is just another motivating factor.
I think the fear hate crimes create in a community is certainly an additional problem. Not venturing into a particular area because you might be targeted. Same logic as why terrorism or organised crime are treated differently - the wider fear they generate is part of the point.
Also why (eg) if the murder victim is a police officer it's an aggravating factor in sentencing.
TBH I think some people are just bugged by the term 'hate crime'. They think it's sloppy woke postmodern language because surely all crime is hateful. I find it a rather banal point, I must say, but I do at a pinch get it. Perhaps a different term for "crime aggravated by hatred of the perceived group identity of the victim" can be developed.
Any offers?
I don't buy the aggravated nature. For me the hate is the cause of the crime. Lawrence was murdered because he was black. The crime is the murder, the motivation his colour. Was it a worse crime than any other murder in similar (but not racial) circumstances?
If I wasn’t such a fair minded man I’d say Starmer is a fucking liar
That the Tories have been seeking to amplify outrage and division is hardly new news. Absurd to call Starmer a liar about it.
Have you forgot Braverman’s rant against the “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati”?
He’s claiming this woke agenda against Britishness is imaginary - on the same day some woke campaign begins, to cancel the singing of “Rule Britannia”. I mean, what can one say, apart from Starmer is a lying shyster?
And now I must to the gym, apace
I’m in an exciting new hotel which is. unexpectedly, located in Blade Runner
Well I'm waiting for a plumber to come and fix something urgent. They're late and I'm starting to fret. Then the doorbell goes and I'm so relieved I don't do the normal checking, I just scamper there, fling it open with a big smile and a "great, you're here!". But it's not the plumber. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Conflating two current topics and at the risk of resuscitating one of the dumbest debates in PB history (boy, is there competition), apparently Jimmy Carr’s ‘edgy’ joke about the extermination of the Roma was permissible cos Jehovah’s Witnesses or some such bullshit.
Oh dear, yes, that one. Where "edgy" has its all too common meaning of "ooo look at me saying crass shit in a colourful confident amusing manner."
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
The CPS definition is here -
"Any crime can be prosecuted as a hate crime if the offender has either:
demonstrated hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity Or
been motivated by hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity"
I find it very troubling that sex is not included in those factors, given that (a) it is a protected characteristic and (b) how many women are the targets of crime - and particularly awful crimes at that - precisely because they are women.
It's as if what women suffer doesn't really matter in our society.
Pipe down - the men are talking...
(For avoidance of doubt - that was a joke!)
Though like all good jokes, it has more than a hint of truth in it.
Should have made it a Palestine flag, or an LGBTQIA++ flag. Those would have been totally fine.
The article reports that the Council introduced a rule saying only the union flag can be displayed. He can now display the union flag, but not the Palestinian flag or the LGBTQ+ flag or the Welsh flag or any other flag.
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
How? You seem to be saying someone having an opinion on whether a stupid piece of music is played at a stupid concert is proof of a 'Woke agenda against Britishness'
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
What makes me laugh is that the people screaming about woke stopping us patriotically bellowing RULE BRITANNIA, BRITANNIA RULES THE WAVES are the same wankers who have degraded the Navy so much that we can barely supply a fleet in our own waters, never mind ruling waves elsewhere.
It is faux patriotism, flag-shagging whilst destroying everything they claim the flag represents. We need not take lessons from them about woke or anything else.
I don't think that's true. Most of the complaints about this sort of thing come from people with very little power at all, let alone for naval spending.
Also, it's Britannia RULE the waves. Not rules. It's an exhortation, not a statement of fact.
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
Of course the family of a victim will have their own perspective. That's important but it's not the only valid one and it's (rightly) not the only one the justice system takes into account.
Eg when somebody is killed by reckless driving the family will often consider it tantamount to murder and wish to see a long sentence. They'll feel cheated when this doesn't happen.
In general thoughts are always relevant in addition to actions and outcomes. That's why we have alternatives to "murder" for instances of a person being killed by another. It's also why sentences for murder itself can vary.
You - and @david_herdson - make fair points. However the problem remains. Who gets to decide which is a hate crime, and which isn’t? Why are some characteristics protected, but not others?
There is no satisfying answer to either of these questions, which is why the hate crime concept is ultimately more damaging than it is worth. It undermines the principle of equity in Justice
But isn't it how a person perceives it so the individual gets to decide based on how they have perceived it. You can have a dozen people and if one of them perceives a comment or action as motivated by hate then there it is.
IIRC
No. It’s a decision made by the court, with reference to legislation and precedents.
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
It’s bureaucratic nature, ‘systemic’ as you put it, is for me the main reason:
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented terror, so many routine cries.
Yes, the absolute dehumanization. People as vermin. Mass murder as pest control. That's the heart of the horror. And the numbers of course. And (imo) that it was applied to a specific race of people.
It wasn't though, was it? Think of the Soviet prisoners of war of the Nazis - how many survived to go home? Think of the gypsies, the gays etc. The handicapped.
There were many victims of the Nazis (inc in concentration camps), however what we call the holocaust came about primarily as a 'final solution' to the 'Jewish problem' - an attempt to wipe them out. This is an integral part of its horror. It demonstrates on the most macro level that 'hate crime' is a meaningful concept. Just as the Lawrence murder demonstrates the same point regarding an individual act of violence.
I don't think the pain of dying in the gas chanbers was worse because of the motivation. I don't think the use of hate crimes as worse than other crimes is valid. Hate is just another motivating factor.
I think the fear hate crimes create in a community is certainly an additional problem. Not venturing into a particular area because you might be targeted. Same logic as why terrorism or organised crime are treated differently - the wider fear they generate is part of the point.
Also why (eg) if the murder victim is a police officer it's an aggravating factor in sentencing.
TBH I think some people are just bugged by the term 'hate crime'. They think it's sloppy woke postmodern language because surely all crime is hateful. I find it a rather banal point, I must say, but I do at a pinch get it. Perhaps a different term for "crime aggravated by hatred of the perceived group identity of the victim" can be developed.
Any offers?
"Aggravating factors" surely covers it - and it should not be limited to only certain characteristics.
In short, if a man deliberately sets out to kill middle aged women because he has a particular hatred of them, and thinks they should pipe down permanently (a joke, @turbotubbs, for the avoidance of doubt) then that should be seen as an aggravating factor affecting sentencing.
What is objectionable is not the use of the term "hate" but the way this category is only limited to certain characteristics which implies that the people with those characteristics are especially valued above others. And that those without them are not so valued. That is wrong. A Top Trumps approach is not the right way to go about this.
There is the concept of hate crimes to signal society's views about racism/sexism/homophobia/etc.
It is an aggravating factor because society wants people from affected groups to know that we won't tolerate discrimination purely on the grounds of a particular characteristic. Society also wants perpetrators to know that they can't act out their discrimination against other members of society.
Society does this because it has seen in the recent and not so recent past what can happen if such behaviour is allowed to go unchecked and is not singled out as being particularly egregious.
Yep. Always good to have the Captain on-side. Doesn't happen that often.
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
How? You seem to be saying someone having an opinion on whether a stupid piece of music is played at a stupid concert is proof of a 'Woke agenda against Britishness'
Get a grip FFS!
@Leon’s point is that Starmer is wrong when he says that the cultural stuff is invented by Tories as a wedge issue, when it’s clearly the far-left extremists pushing this agenda - as was demonstrated live on television this morning.
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
The CPS definition is here -
"Any crime can be prosecuted as a hate crime if the offender has either:
demonstrated hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity Or
been motivated by hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity"
I find it very troubling that sex is not included in those factors, given that (a) it is a protected characteristic and (b) how many women are the targets of crime - and particularly awful crimes at that - precisely because they are women.
It's as if what women suffer doesn't really matter in our society.
Pipe down - the men are talking...
(For avoidance of doubt - that was a joke!)
Though like all good jokes, it has more than a hint of truth in it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/21/amid-class-prejudice-and-sensitivities-over-race-rochdales-abused-girls-were-failed ...Amber’s story sums up the scorn of officialdom for those whom they regarded as loose, working-class girls. Aged 14 when first targeted by the grooming gang, she described to the police how she was plied with alcohol before being “passed around” groups of men. She identified more than 20 abusers, providing names, addresses, telephone numbers and car registrations. Her information helped initiate Operation Span, a belated, though half-hearted, drive against grooming gangs launched in 2010.
Yet no one was charged with offences against Amber. So disdainful were the police and lawyers of what one social worker called her “lifestyle choice” they imagined no jury would believe her. Shockingly, Amber was, in 2009, herself arrested for “soliciting” because, under duress from the gang, she had brought along some of her friends. It was two years before the CPS agreed not to treat her as a suspect.
Then, astonishingly, in 2011, Amber, having provided the information that led to nine men appearing in court on rape and trafficking charges, was named in the indictment as a co-conspirator in child sexual exploitation. It came as a complete surprise, the CPS having deliberately withheld information from her. It is difficult to describe this as anything but cowardice and betrayal. The lead prosecutor claimed in court that Amber had played “an active role in helping… these defendants sexually exploit the other girls”. National newspapers demonised her as the “Honey Monster”, a “pimp” and a “bully”. She was denounced on social media as a “paedo” and her address identified, leading to bomb threats...
If I wasn’t such a fair minded man I’d say Starmer is a fucking liar
That the Tories have been seeking to amplify outrage and division is hardly new news. Absurd to call Starmer a liar about it.
Have you forgot Braverman’s rant against the “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati”?
He’s claiming this woke agenda against Britishness is imaginary - on the same day some woke campaign begins, to cancel the singing of “Rule Britannia”. I mean, what can one say, apart from Starmer is a lying shyster?
And now I must to the gym, apace
I’m in an exciting new hotel which is. unexpectedly, located in Blade Runner
A campaign?
Or one individual giving an opinion on Desert Island Discs?
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
How? You seem to be saying someone having an opinion on whether a stupid piece of music is played at a stupid concert is proof of a 'Woke agenda against Britishness'
Get a grip FFS!
They are literally trying to cancel a famous, much-loved song called “Rule Britannia” - the only anthem, AFAIK, that actually mentions the concept “Britain”
And yet we are told by Starmer that there is no woke agenda against Britain or Britishness. It’s all in our heads. Apparently
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
What makes me laugh is that the people screaming about woke stopping us patriotically bellowing RULE BRITANNIA, BRITANNIA RULES THE WAVES are the same wankers who have degraded the Navy so much that we can barely supply a fleet in our own waters, never mind ruling waves elsewhere.
It is faux patriotism, flag-shagging whilst destroying everything they claim the flag represents. We need not take lessons from them about woke or anything else.
I don't think that's true. Most of the complaints about this sort of thing come from people with very little power at all, let alone for naval spending.
Also, it's Britannia RULE the waves. Not rules. It's an exhortation, not a statement of fact.
Either way, we can't rule shit with whats left of the Royal Navy. Flag shaggers vote Tory, and Tories destroy our armed forces. Same people.
There is the concept of hate crimes to signal society's views about racism/sexism/homophobia/etc.
It is an aggravating factor because society wants people from affected groups to know that we won't tolerate discrimination purely on the grounds of a particular characteristic. Society also wants perpetrators to know that they can't act out their discrimination against other members of society.
Society does this because it has seen in the recent and not so recent past what can happen if such behaviour is allowed to go unchecked and is not singled out as being particularly egregious.
So what signal is society sending out when women are excluded? Because sexism, which you list above, is not a basis for making a crime a hate crime.
If I wasn’t such a fair minded man I’d say Starmer is a fucking liar
That the Tories have been seeking to amplify outrage and division is hardly new news. Absurd to call Starmer a liar about it.
Have you forgot Braverman’s rant against the “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati”?
He’s claiming this woke agenda against Britishness is imaginary - on the same day some woke campaign begins, to cancel the singing of “Rule Britannia”. I mean, what can one say, apart from Starmer is a lying shyster?
And now I must to the gym, apace
I’m in an exciting new hotel which is. unexpectedly, located in Blade Runner
A campaign?
Or one individual giving an opinion on Desert Island Discs?
Or is any sort of wrongthink unacceptable these days?
The campaign against the songs in Last Night of the Proms is hardly limited to this one cellist. It has been going on for years, this is just another push
“BBC Music magazine columnist calls for 'crudely jingoistic' songs Rule, Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory to be scrapped from Last Night of the Proms because they are 'insensitive' in wake of BLM movement”
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
What makes me laugh is that the people screaming about woke stopping us patriotically bellowing RULE BRITANNIA, BRITANNIA RULES THE WAVES are the same wankers who have degraded the Navy so much that we can barely supply a fleet in our own waters, never mind ruling waves elsewhere.
It is faux patriotism, flag-shagging whilst destroying everything they claim the flag represents. We need not take lessons from them about woke or anything else.
I don't think that's true. Most of the complaints about this sort of thing come from people with very little power at all, let alone for naval spending.
Also, it's Britannia RULE the waves. Not rules. It's an exhortation, not a statement of fact.
Paragraph 1.
Most of the complaints come from Daily Mail and Telegraph hacks and the oddities who appear on GBNews some of whom are Conservative MP culture warriors. One of these people as I recall is a discredited former Prime Minister who had it is his gift to throw as much money as he desired to the Royal Navy.
If I wasn’t such a fair minded man I’d say Starmer is a fucking liar
That the Tories have been seeking to amplify outrage and division is hardly new news. Absurd to call Starmer a liar about it.
Have you forgot Braverman’s rant against the “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati”?
He’s claiming this woke agenda against Britishness is imaginary - on the same day some woke campaign begins, to cancel the singing of “Rule Britannia”. I mean, what can one say, apart from Starmer is a lying shyster?
And now I must to the gym, apace
I’m in an exciting new hotel which is. unexpectedly, located in Blade Runner
A campaign?
Or one individual giving an opinion on Desert Island Discs?
Or is any sort of wrongthink unacceptable these days?
The campaign against the songs in Last Night of the Proms is hardly limited to this one cellist. It has been going on for years, this is just another push
“BBC Music magazine columnist calls for 'crudely jingoistic' songs Rule, Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory to be scrapped from Last Night of the Proms because they are 'insensitive' in wake of BLM movement”
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
How? You seem to be saying someone having an opinion on whether a stupid piece of music is played at a stupid concert is proof of a 'Woke agenda against Britishness'
Get a grip FFS!
They are literally trying to cancel a famous, much-loved song called “Rule Britannia” - the only anthem, AFAIK, that actually mentions the concept “Britain”
And yet we are told by Starmer that there is no woke agenda against Britain or Britishness. It’s all in our heads. Apparently
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
How? You seem to be saying someone having an opinion on whether a stupid piece of music is played at a stupid concert is proof of a 'Woke agenda against Britishness'
Get a grip FFS!
@Leon’s point is that Starmer is wrong when he says that the cultural stuff is invented by Tories as a wedge issue, when it’s clearly the far-left extremists pushing this agenda - as was demonstrated live on television this morning.
Or you could read the actual speech, instead of a hack's precis.
Instead of working with the National Trust so more people can learn about – and celebrate – our culture and our history, they’ve managed to demean their work.
In its desperation to cling onto power at all costs, the Tory Party is undertaking a kind of weird McCarthyism, trying to find woke agendas in the very civic institutions they once regarded with respect.
The rest of it is pretty well precision targeted to tickle the fancy of the kind of civic minded types who haven't really been happy since Dave was PM and were a bit disappointed how TMay turned out.
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
How? You seem to be saying someone having an opinion on whether a stupid piece of music is played at a stupid concert is proof of a 'Woke agenda against Britishness'
Get a grip FFS!
@Leon’s point is that Starmer is wrong when he says that the cultural stuff is invented by Tories as a wedge issue, when it’s clearly the far-left extremists pushing this agenda - as was demonstrated live on television this morning.
Or you could read the actual speech, instead of a hack's precis.
Instead of working with the National Trust so more people can learn about – and celebrate – our culture and our history, they’ve managed to demean their work.
In its desperation to cling onto power at all costs, the Tory Party is undertaking a kind of weird McCarthyism, trying to find woke agendas in the very civic institutions they once regarded with respect.
The rest of it is pretty well precision targeted to tickle the fancy of the kind of civic minded types who haven't really been happy since Dave was PM and were a bit disappointed how TMay turned out.
He’s talking bollocks, because he knows there’s woke agendas in all sorts of civic institutions, that the left are pretending to ignore and Starmer will absolutely support once he’s in No.10.
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
How? You seem to be saying someone having an opinion on whether a stupid piece of music is played at a stupid concert is proof of a 'Woke agenda against Britishness'
Get a grip FFS!
@Leon’s point is that Starmer is wrong when he says that the cultural stuff is invented by Tories as a wedge issue, when it’s clearly the far-left extremists pushing this agenda - as was demonstrated live on television this morning.
Or you could read the actual speech, instead of a hack's precis.
Instead of working with the National Trust so more people can learn about – and celebrate – our culture and our history, they’ve managed to demean their work.
In its desperation to cling onto power at all costs, the Tory Party is undertaking a kind of weird McCarthyism, trying to find woke agendas in the very civic institutions they once regarded with respect.
The rest of it is pretty well precision targeted to tickle the fancy of the kind of civic minded types who haven't really been happy since Dave was PM and were a bit disappointed how TMay turned out.
He’s talking bollocks, because he knows there’s woke agendas in all sorts of civic institutions, that the left are pretending to ignore and Startner will absolutely let happen once he’s in No.10.
Yes it’s a load of appalling lies. And this on the same day Labour promises to return all migrants to France coz France will like keir starmer better
"Hate crime" has a valid meaning. It's a crime where the victim is targeted due to an aspect of their identity, eg their race, their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality. To see how it accords with how most of us feel consider the greatest hate crime of all - the holocaust.
In the annals of horrors this has a special place. It's right at the top. Why is this? Is it purely and simply because of the numbers? Or is it also because of the "racially aggravating factor" - that it was a systemic attempt to erase Jewish people from the face of the earth?
It’s bureaucratic nature, ‘systemic’ as you put it, is for me the main reason:
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented terror, so many routine cries.
Yes, the absolute dehumanization. People as vermin. Mass murder as pest control. That's the heart of the horror. And the numbers of course. And (imo) that it was applied to a specific race of people.
It wasn't though, was it? Think of the Soviet prisoners of war of the Nazis - how many survived to go home? Think of the gypsies, the gays etc. The handicapped.
There were many victims of the Nazis (inc in concentration camps), however what we call the holocaust came about primarily as a 'final solution' to the 'Jewish problem' - an attempt to wipe them out. This is an integral part of its horror. It demonstrates on the most macro level that 'hate crime' is a meaningful concept. Just as the Lawrence murder demonstrates the same point regarding an individual act of violence.
I don't think the pain of dying in the gas chanbers was worse because of the motivation. I don't think the use of hate crimes as worse than other crimes is valid. Hate is just another motivating factor.
I think the fear hate crimes create in a community is certainly an additional problem. Not venturing into a particular area because you might be targeted. Same logic as why terrorism or organised crime are treated differently - the wider fear they generate is part of the point.
Also why (eg) if the murder victim is a police officer it's an aggravating factor in sentencing.
TBH I think some people are just bugged by the term 'hate crime'. They think it's sloppy woke postmodern language because surely all crime is hateful. I find it a rather banal point, I must say, but I do at a pinch get it. Perhaps a different term for "crime aggravated by hatred of the perceived group identity of the victim" can be developed.
Any offers?
"Aggravating factors" surely covers it - and it should not be limited to only certain characteristics.
In short, if a man deliberately sets out to kill middle aged women because he has a particular hatred of them, and thinks they should pipe down permanently (a joke, @turbotubbs, for the avoidance of doubt) then that should be seen as an aggravating factor affecting sentencing.
What is objectionable is not the use of the term "hate" but the way this category is only limited to certain characteristics which implies that the people with those characteristics are especially valued above others. And that those without them are not so valued. That is wrong. A Top Trumps approach is not the right way to go about this.
Dispense with the whole notion of protected characteristics because the list of them is too short? I wouldn't go that route, I find it a valid and useful concept. Which is not to say I think it couldn't be amended or expanded.
Remember that the government had its own appointed director on the Board to represent the taxpayers' interests. That independent director at the time was Tom Cooper, ex UBS and Deutsche Bank banker.
Perhaps he could also pick up the fact that the PO has appointed a director who is also on the Board of the CPS and ask what the government knows about this.
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
Here we go again... Your "woke conspiracy" is most people´s irrelevant and rather silly comments. You massively overreact and spray around absurd allegations in order to fan the flames of outrage. If "Rule Britannia is dropped I would be surprised, but it is surely legitimate to question whether it is a song that says anything in the twenty-first century.
Yet your faux anger is really just a cheap way to flog your propaganda.
The thing is that much of the problems of our society are simply that we do not explain "how we know, what we know". It is the most important feature of any education, but the populists don´t talk about truth they talk about "their truth", which is not truth in any conventional sense, but simply their own opinions and views, however badly supported by objective, actual truth.
Facts and opinions are not the same thing. I would call your views a matter of sloppy thinking, but in fact you manufacture this stuff to support your pre-existing prejudices and indeed your political agenda.
If there is any "conspiracy" it is the corrosive nihilism based on prejudice and ignorance that you and your other members of the "political/media complex" have attempted to to foist on the rest of us. It is a direct threat not just to democracy but the entire political culture upon which our freedoms rest.
However, the discrediting of Cummings, Johnson, Gove et al and the likely defeat of the Tory Party at the next GE should put you on notice that you have failed and that populism can and will be rolled back. The collapse of newspaper circulation is not just the result of technology but a growing rejection of media bullshitters, in politics as well as in print. (well, we can at least hope).
My hope is that we ultimately get a more disciplined approach to understanding facts and creating ideas that rest on some body of knowledge instead of Bullshit.
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
Here we go again... Your "woke conspiracy" is most people´s irrelevant and rather silly comments. You massively overreact and spray around absurd allegations in order to fan the flames of outrage. If "Rule Britannia is dropped I would be surprised, but it is surely legitimate to question whether it is a song that says anything in the twenty-first century.
Yet your faux anger is really just a cheap way to flog your propaganda.
The thing is that much of the problems of our society are simply that we do not explain "how we know, what we know". It is the most important feature of any education, but the populists don´t talk about truth they talk about "their truth", which is not truth in any conventional sense, but simply their own opinions and views, however badly supported by objective, actual truth.
Facts and opinions are not the same thing. I would call your views a matter of sloppy thinking, but in fact you manufacture this stuff to support your pre-existing prejudices and indeed your political agenda.
If there is any "conspiracy" it is the corrosive nihilism based on prejudice and ignorance that you and your other members of the "political/media complex" have attempted to to foist on the rest of us. It is a direct threat not just to democracy but the entire political culture upon which our freedoms rest.
However, the discrediting of Cummings, Johnson, Gove et al and the likely defeat of the Tory Party at the next GE should put you on notice that you have failed and that populism can and will be rolled back. The collapse of newspaper circulation is not just the result of technology but a growing rejection of media bullshitters, in politics as well as in print. (well, we can at least hope).
My hope is that we ultimately get a more disciplined approach to understanding facts and creating ideas that rest on some body of knowledge instead of Bullshit.
I would agree that the Cameronite liberals were a major bloc in support of Sunak. I am one of that bloc and instinctively preferred someone who appeared an intelligent technocrat against the unpredictability and wildness of Truss.
But this group are probably the most upset by his absurd focus on Rwandan nonsense. Whilst it might bolster him somewhat with the red wallers/Brexiteers it is materially undermining him with this group (which, once upon a time might also have been called one nation Conservatives). And he needs this group even more than the Brexiteers.
I've felt for a while that the conservatives might outperform expectations in the Blue Wall at the election and the Lib Dems underperform there (not least because expectations have got a bit out of control with people expecting vast swathes of the commuter belt to turn yellow). And for the Lib Dems to outperform rather muted expectations in their old Wessex and West Country heartland. This sort of polling being the reason.
If he continues to pivot towards culture war he's not going to convince the hard core nationalists but he is going to erode a lot of that (rather unearned) quiet competence reputation among the Cameronites.
I expect the Lib Dems to be the dog that doesn't bark. They have made no impact on the polling in the last couple of years and are now regularly polling behind Reform. Then they have the Davey problem. They normally do much better when the Tories are making arses of themselves but maybe not this time.
Worth recalling that, in 1997, Lib Dem vote share dropped by one percentage point on 1992, and they gained 28 seats. Indeed, they never polled well in the early New Labour period, and had polls in single figures at times in early 1997.
They'd certainly hope to be polling better, but the MRP was quite positive for them, and they probably remain on course for reasonable gains.
A strong drive toward tactical voting should depress the LD national share, since there are more Labour targets than LibDem ones.
To think I was accused of Hindiphobia (sic) for pointing out Sunak was a duffer back in late 2022.
His epitaph will be not as nutty as Truss or not as sleazy as Boris Johnson.
The Conservatives' problem is choosing as leaders, four times in a row, people who were just not up to it.
I was actually surprised by how inept Theresa May proved to be. I thought she'd be uninspiring, but very much a safe pair of hands.
WRT Sunak, I'm unclear why he even wanted the job.
I think that’s harsh on May.
She was faced with an intractable problem and lacked the imagination to solve it.
That’s not the same an inept.
I think Brexit destroyed her chance of a decent run as PM as much as covid did to Johnson. Johnson would surely have been brought down by his own flaws eventually, but I think it would have been a fair bit longer than he actually got.
Yet so long as he was in the ICU, he couldn’t get up to any mischief.
There is the concept of hate crimes to signal society's views about racism/sexism/homophobia/etc.
It is an aggravating factor because society wants people from affected groups to know that we won't tolerate discrimination purely on the grounds of a particular characteristic. Society also wants perpetrators to know that they can't act out their discrimination against other members of society.
Society does this because it has seen in the recent and not so recent past what can happen if such behaviour is allowed to go unchecked and is not singled out as being particularly egregious.
So what signal is society sending out when women are excluded? Because sexism, which you list above, is not a basis for making a crime a hate crime.
That society was drawn up by men.
A good start. But let's be a little more precise.
The signal it sends out is of a society drawn up by men for men's benefit and in which men, however progressive or liberal they like to claim they are, find it remarkably hard to accommodate the desires or needs of women where this would involve any restrictions on or changes to their own behaviour.
Indeed - and drawing in another thread of today's comments - the last few years have seen a very determined attempt, supported to a greater or lesser extent at various times by all the main parties - to limit or remove some of the existing rights women have, often accompanied by some pretty insulting and, at times, downright hateful language.
"Culture wars" - whatever they mean - are not a phenomenon restricted to the right.
Violence is, also, the inevitable endpoint if illegal migration continues and worsens, and no other alternative is found
Which is one reason we desperately need to solve this, now, and humanely
I imagine you would have said this at any point over the past 50 years. Indeed I believe it was said with a degree of rhetorical flourish some 55 years ago.
Yes, yawn, whatever, bur I'm not wrong, am I?
In the end if illegal immigration just gets worse and worse, governments will be forced to extreme methods to deter it
We can already see it in parts of the world. It is also a particular hazard on the US Southern Border, where the local citizens are well armed, and generally not known for accepting fate with stoic pacifism
Yawn yourself. We are a huge country with plenty of room and the areas where immigration is most prevalent isn't Little Rissington in the Cotswolds. Londoners meanwhile don't mind it at all.
Saying "there will be blood" is just posturing and alarmist. And has been shown in the UK not to be the case.
At the end of the day borders need to be enforced. Just as the law needs to be enforced. You arrest, detain and deport.
I struggle to work out how, somewhere along the line, this became controversial.
That’s the issue. The Tories talk a lot about Rwanda, but they’re not doing the basics.
Two reasons for the reduction in deportations:
1. Illegals deliberately arriving with no documents or paperwork, meaning that it costs a lot of time and money to even work out who they are.
2. Organised groups of British individuals funding limitless appeals and legal processes, including harrasment of airlines.
Fix those two issues, the first with Rwanda or the Falklands, and the second by legislating for a single appeal before automatic deportation, and the problem gets a lot easier.
First one is easy, just make it taht having no documents means you are deported immediately. Second one jsut run 24x7 courts and apply your 3rd suggestion. You can have them wrapped up and on the plane/boat in a day.
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
Exactly. the crime is the murder. not the motivation,
There are many situations where we treat murders differently because of the motivation. The woman who has been abused for years by her husband and then kills him. The man who kills his wife who is suffering from a terminal disease in an act of euthanasia. These can be murder in British law, but there is a desire to treat them differently.
The court says “this is murder. However because of the situation we will be merciful.”
That’s totally different. Implicitly you are saying “the murder of the white kid is less important because… [reasons]”
Comments
How is he good and all powerful if he can't or won't fix a leak?
It is an aggravating factor because society wants people from affected groups to know that we won't tolerate discrimination purely on the grounds of a particular characteristic. Society also wants perpetrators to know that they can't act out their discrimination against other members of society.
Society does this because it has seen in the recent and not so recent past what can happen if such behaviour is allowed to go unchecked and is not singled out as being particularly egregious.
She was faced with an intractable problem and lacked the imagination to solve it.
That’s not the same an inept.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
- Whether the site takes data from only one medium range model (often the US GFS as much of its data is free) or multiple models,
- Whether source data includes high resolution short term models like UKV, Arome etc or just the larger scale ones like GFS or ECMWF, and
- How precise is the geolocation of your chosen town e.g. is your village actually based on a large grid point including nearby mountains or sea, or is it a very precise location
For all these reasons I actually think the iPhone weather app is one of the best. I understand it uses both medium range and hi-res model inputs as well as radar-based nowcasting. The big annoyance I have with it is that when it's windy it just shows the wind icon, no indication whether cloudy or sunny, as well as its tendency not to show rainfall risk if it's below 30%.
There wont be any imho.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/20/more-than-750000-donated-to-guardian-and-observer-charity-appeal
There’s nothing in that article to suggest that any practices are commoner than in the past, or that they are responsible for the precipitous drop in deportations under this government.
And of course, you haven’t even touched on your (1) above.
Appropriate evidence would be data showing, at minimum, that these supposed reasons have become commoner than in the past, correlating with the collapse in deportations. Better evidence would be demonstrating a clear causal link between these supposed reasons and reduced deportations.
Eg when somebody is killed by reckless driving the family will often consider it tantamount to murder and wish to see a long sentence. They'll feel cheated when this doesn't happen.
In general thoughts are always relevant in addition to actions and outcomes. That's why we have alternatives to "murder" for instances of a person being killed by another. It's also why sentences for murder itself can vary.
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
@bondegezou raises an interesting point re domestic murders (be they abuse, abused partners fighting back, or partners ending suffering). I understand the point, that when sentencing those crimes, the motivation is taken into account. I just don't believe it should be the case for hate crimes.
That’s a very technical article, but in short the Hugo awards were held in China this year and there were a lot of irregularities, like authors who Beijing don’t approve of being declared ineligible for no apparent reason.
"Any crime can be prosecuted as a hate crime if the offender has either:
demonstrated hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity
Or
been motivated by hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity"
I find it very troubling that sex is not included in those factors, given that (a) it is a protected characteristic and (b) how many women are the targets of crime - and particularly awful crimes at that - precisely because they are women.
It's as if what women suffer doesn't really matter in our society.
(For avoidance of doubt - that was a joke!)
There is no satisfying answer to either of these questions, which is why the hate crime concept is ultimately more damaging than it is worth. It undermines the principle of equity in Justice
https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/local-hubs/north-shropshire/market-drayton/2024/01/15/common-sense-prevails-says-taxi-driver-after-hes-allowed-to-put-union-flag-on-vehicle/
They’re constantly putting Sunak up for stunts that they would have put Johnson up to, which ends up with the PM not understanding how to put petrol in a car in front of the full court press.
Have you forgot Braverman’s rant against the “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati”?
TBH I think some people are just bugged by the term 'hate crime'. They think it's sloppy woke postmodern language because surely all crime is hateful. I find it a rather banal point, I must say, but I do at a pinch get it. Perhaps a different term for "crime aggravated by hatred of the perceived group identity of the victim" can be developed.
Any offers?
IIRC
It is faux patriotism, flag-shagging whilst destroying everything they claim the flag represents. We need not take lessons from them about woke or anything else.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/two-tories-defect-to-labour-with-devastating-verdict-on-weak-rishi-sunak/ar-BB1h4oeH?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=6f6ee61f9b7c453092399524db6830d2&ei=8
And now I must to the gym, apace
I’m in an exciting new hotel which is. unexpectedly, located in Blade Runner
Get a grip FFS!
Also, it's Britannia RULE the waves. Not rules. It's an exhortation, not a statement of fact.
In short, if a man deliberately sets out to kill middle aged women because he has a particular hatred of them, and thinks they should pipe down permanently (a joke, @turbotubbs, for the avoidance of doubt) then that should be seen as an aggravating factor affecting sentencing.
What is objectionable is not the use of the term "hate" but the way this category is only limited to certain characteristics which implies that the people with those characteristics are especially valued above others. And that those without them are not so valued. That is wrong. A Top Trumps approach is not the right way to go about this.
Most victims of domestic homicide have contacted police or NHS, review shows
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/06/most-victims-of-domestic-homicide-have-contacted-police-or-nhs-review-shows
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/21/amid-class-prejudice-and-sensitivities-over-race-rochdales-abused-girls-were-failed
...Amber’s story sums up the scorn of officialdom for those whom they regarded as loose, working-class girls. Aged 14 when first targeted by the grooming gang, she described to the police how she was plied with alcohol before being “passed around” groups of men. She identified more than 20 abusers, providing names, addresses, telephone numbers and car registrations. Her information helped initiate Operation Span, a belated, though half-hearted, drive against grooming gangs launched in 2010.
Yet no one was charged with offences against Amber. So disdainful were the police and lawyers of what one social worker called her “lifestyle choice” they imagined no jury would believe her. Shockingly, Amber was, in 2009, herself arrested for “soliciting” because, under duress from the gang, she had brought along some of her friends. It was two years before the CPS agreed not to treat her as a suspect.
Then, astonishingly, in 2011, Amber, having provided the information that led to nine men appearing in court on rape and trafficking charges, was named in the indictment as a co-conspirator in child sexual exploitation. It came as a complete surprise, the CPS having deliberately withheld information from her. It is difficult to describe this as anything but cowardice and betrayal. The lead prosecutor claimed in court that Amber had played “an active role in helping… these defendants sexually exploit the other girls”. National newspapers demonised her as the “Honey Monster”, a “pimp” and a “bully”. She was denounced on social media as a “paedo” and her address identified, leading to bomb threats...
Or one individual giving an opinion on Desert Island Discs?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68034779
Or is any sort of wrongthink unacceptable these days?
And yet we are told by Starmer that there is no woke agenda against Britain or Britishness. It’s all in our heads. Apparently
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jul/27/simon-rattle-i-always-avoided-jingoistic-last-night-of-the-proms
https://www.thearticle.com/should-the-bbc-be-ashamed-of-the-last-night-of-the-proms
“BBC Music magazine columnist calls for 'crudely jingoistic' songs Rule, Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory to be scrapped from Last Night of the Proms because they are 'insensitive' in wake of BLM movement”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8509685/Calls-Rule-Britannia-banned-Night-Proms.html
Most of the complaints come from Daily Mail and Telegraph hacks and the oddities who appear on GBNews some of whom are Conservative MP culture warriors. One of these people as I recall is a discredited former Prime Minister who had it is his gift to throw as much money as he desired to the Royal Navy.
https://labourlist.org/2024/01/read-watch-keir-starmer-full-speech-civil-society-today/
Instead of working with the National Trust so more people can learn about – and celebrate – our culture and our history, they’ve managed to demean their work.
In its desperation to cling onto power at all costs, the Tory Party is undertaking a kind of weird McCarthyism, trying to find woke agendas in the very civic institutions they once regarded with respect.
The rest of it is pretty well precision targeted to tickle the fancy of the kind of civic minded types who haven't really been happy since Dave was PM and were a bit disappointed how TMay turned out.
Not good
Well, well.
You'll recall my recent header here - https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/01/15/conflicts-of-interest-2/ (a longer version with more detail is on my website here - https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/time-to-stamp-this-out/) and what I said about the part-time Chair of the Post Office also being the Chair of HM Courts and Tribunals Service at the time when the Post Office - astonishingly - sought to get Mr Justice Fraser, the judge who had ruled against the Post Office in the Bates litigation recused.
And - even more astonishingly - sought the advice of the former Head of the Supreme Court in relation to this.
The attempt was dismissed with contempt by the Court of Appeal.
This has now been picked up by Computer Weekly and a Labour peer is asking an urgent question about what the government knew about this.
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366567032/Urgent-question-asks-which-ministers-knew-of-Post-Offices-shocking-plan-to-remove-judge
Remember that the government had its own appointed director on the Board to represent the taxpayers' interests. That independent director at the time was Tom Cooper, ex UBS and Deutsche Bank banker.
Perhaps he could also pick up the fact that the PO has appointed a director who is also on the Board of the CPS and ask what the government knows about this.
All poor people should move to Phnom Penh and they’ll be able to afford a lot more. That’s my solution to world poverty
This stuff if quite easy if you apply yourself
Yet your faux anger is really just a cheap way to flog your propaganda.
The thing is that much of the problems of our society are simply that we do not explain "how we know, what we know". It is the most important feature of any education, but the populists don´t talk about truth they talk about "their truth", which is not truth in any conventional sense, but simply their own opinions and views, however badly supported by objective, actual truth.
Facts and opinions are not the same thing. I would call your views a matter of sloppy thinking, but in fact you manufacture this stuff to support your pre-existing prejudices and indeed your political agenda.
If there is any "conspiracy" it is the corrosive nihilism based on prejudice and ignorance that you and your other members of the "political/media complex" have attempted to to foist on the rest of us. It is a direct threat not just to democracy but the entire political culture upon which our freedoms rest.
However, the discrediting of Cummings, Johnson, Gove et al and the likely defeat of the Tory Party at the next GE should put you on notice that you have failed and that populism can and will be rolled back. The collapse of newspaper circulation is not just the result of technology but a growing rejection of media bullshitters, in politics as well as in print. (well, we can at least hope).
My hope is that we ultimately get a more disciplined approach to understanding facts and creating ideas that rest on some body of knowledge instead of Bullshit.
I believe senokot works well.
NEW THREAD
The signal it sends out is of a society drawn up by men for men's benefit and in which men, however progressive or liberal they like to claim they are, find it remarkably hard to accommodate the desires or needs of women where this would involve any restrictions on or changes to their own behaviour.
Indeed - and drawing in another thread of today's comments - the last few years have seen a very determined attempt, supported to a greater or lesser extent at various times by all the main parties - to limit or remove some of the existing rights women have, often accompanied by some pretty insulting and, at times, downright hateful language.
"Culture wars" - whatever they mean - are not a phenomenon restricted to the right.
That’s totally different. Implicitly you are saying “the murder of the white kid is less important because… [reasons]”