If we have a Canada 1993 experience, who will the 2 Conservative MPs left standing be?
Sunak and Truss would be interesting.
They could come to Westminster on a tandem.
It's not impossible they could be Scottish. Different dynamics north of the border, the SNP are the main challengers to the Tories in several of their seats, especially in the North East, and Reform is not such a thing up there.
Indeed. If Swinney matches his previous record as SNP leader it is not impossible that we might be talking about the odd Tory gain north of the border, not that that is going to affect the bloodbath to the south much.
It was stupid from Trump, and it's stupid from Biden.
If the US and EU both put up tariffs, perhaps we open our market up to surplus Chinese electric cars and solar panels and achieve a step change in emissions on the cheap.
Given we import both anyway, you are absolutely right that it could be a massive boon to the UK, in terms of reducing our dependence on imported energy.
In my left - leaning but considered opinion, if you want to know what the death of the capitalist west might look like, you need to look little further than the themes drawn out in this podcast. I would highly recommend a full listen but, knowing that's hard to make time for, just two anecdotes from the programme:
1. After the point at which it was obvious that Oxycontin was being heavily abused and was far more addictive than had been first admitted, its manufacturers commissioned McKinsey to explore how they could reinvigorate its flagging sales.
McKinsey found that 7% of US doctors were prescribing half of all Oxycontin.
Rather than highlighting this as a worrying statistic in light of it's clear misuse and sale on the black market, they recommended that the manufacturers create a special incentive scheme aimed at those 7% to 'turbocharge' sales. WTAF?
2. Since the manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy (partly as a result of the Sackler family having extracted £11 billion from the company) over 200,000 people have died as a result of opioid addiction in USA.
200,000.
That puts the little shindigs in Ukraine and Gaza into perspective doesn't it? Not sure even the Chinese have bumped off that many Uighurs.
Right now, the Supreme Court is deciding between a bankruptcy case that will protect the Sackler family from future civil litigation but is pretty paltry, or throwing out the case and letting more people die with no compensation as lawyers go back to square one.
The moral bankruptcy is truly breathtaking. I would like to remain a defender of capitalism but if this is the result I find it increasingly hard to stomach.
The Sacklers make those who made a fortune out of tobacco look like latter day saints. Why they are not all in jail for the rest of their natural is beyond me. This is manslaughter on a truly epic scale.
Anyone got an opinion on this? (From Guardian Live Politics Blog)
"Court order blocking publication of article about Lucy Letby case 'in defiance of open justice', David Davis tells MPs A former cabinet minister told MPs this morning that a court order blocking publication of an article about the Lucy Letby, the nurse and convicted child serial killer, seemed to be “in defiance of open justice”.
David Davis, the former Brexit secretary who has a record of campaigning on miscarriage of justice issue, raised the matter during justice questions, where he asked about an article published in the US but not available online to readers in the UK.
He said:
Yesterday the New Yorker magazine published a 13,000-word inquiry into the Lucy Letby trial, which raised enormous concerns about both the logic and competence of the statistical evidence that was a central part of that trial.
That article was blocked from publication on the UK internet, I understand because of a court order. Now, I’m sure that court order was well intended but it seems to me in defiance of open justice.
Will the lord chancellor look into this matter and report back to the house?"
The article is of course easily available to find on TwiXer
I would imagine that this topic is next to impossible to discuss here for obvious legal reasons.
fwiw, I agree with David Davis though - the ban on any discussion of this issue by the court when simultaneously the police get to go on TV and crow about how right they were in glorious technicolour is obviously completely unfair & counter to natural justice. Those who think Letby has been wrongly convicted have been silenced in the UK by the courts.
I’ve read the article in question. You can disagree with lots in it. But like most stuff written for and published in the New Yorker, a serious, sensible piece that asks questions.
I’d like to know what is so upsetting that it needs blocking.
Presumably it counts as reporting on an ongoing case (ongoing because she’s been charged with another case and is appealing her original case)…?
I didn't know there was an ongoing case wrt Letby.
The Guardian in September 2023 reported that there would be a Letby retrial on one count, taking place in June 2024.
There was an application for leave to appeal in April this year. I don't think judgement has yet been given.
He's ungenerous and attracted by the most unpleasant of the 'deep' Tories. Patel Braverman and Jenrick. He lacks the ingredient that makes you want to engage with him on any level. Something even Starmer has got.
You may want to revise your opinion - Suella has come out for scrapping the 2 child benefit cap, making her officially more compassionate and left wing than Kier Starmer.
This is a great example of the double-standards that prevail within British political debate.
If a similar figure in Labour had advocated for such a change of policy the discussion about it would be dominated by recurring all the times they had voted for the 2 child benefit cap, ridiculing them for the u-turn.
When a Tory makes such a shift then the debate is all about how Labour have been outmanoeuvred.
On this particular issue we've had years of it being a sign of how Labour aren't serious about controlling welfare spending, of Labour being on the side of slackers, while the Tories were on the side of strivers. Now that a single Tory pulls a 180 on the policy and Labour are still in the wrong.
British political debate is dominated by people for whom Labour is always wrong, regardless of the conditions the commentator has to pull on the issues of the day. It gives us a shallow debate dominated by Oxford Union debating points, where the game is always the same: "This House believes that on issue x the Labour Party are wrong."
I'd love to discuss why some Tories are now changing their mind on this policy, and what the benefits of dumping it would be.
I think you means
British political debate is dominated by people for whom Labour/Conservatives [delete as appropriate] is always wrong, regardless of the conditions the commentator has to pull on the issues of the day
I'm not sure that you're not right in this!
British politics has been completely undermined by Labour. They make all sorts of hay with good (and bad) arguments about all sorts of issues. This, that, and the other. What they've never managed though is to bring any sort of sense to this wave of stumbling thought. (I refer of course to the long-term effects of Labour since their inception)
Now in itself this is nothing to concern anyone. The ghastly repercussions are of huge concern though - big picture politics in the UK died a while ago. We didn't spot it because Blair went from big picture to limp rag. It was all supposed to make sense, and then it didn't and then everyone was squabbling over the left-overs.
I don't imagine for a moment that Starmer might bring back something wiser in British politics, but someone will, and it's not so very hard.
In my left - leaning but considered opinion, if you want to know what the death of the capitalist west might look like, you need to look little further than the themes drawn out in this podcast. I would highly recommend a full listen but, knowing that's hard to make time for, just two anecdotes from the programme:
1. After the point at which it was obvious that Oxycontin was being heavily abused and was far more addictive than had been first admitted, its manufacturers commissioned McKinsey to explore how they could reinvigorate its flagging sales.
McKinsey found that 7% of US doctors were prescribing half of all Oxycontin.
Rather than highlighting this as a worrying statistic in light of it's clear misuse and sale on the black market, they recommended that the manufacturers create a special incentive scheme aimed at those 7% to 'turbocharge' sales. WTAF?
2. Since the manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy (partly as a result of the Sackler family having extracted £11 billion from the company) over 200,000 people have died as a result of opioid addiction in USA.
200,000.
That puts the little shindigs in Ukraine and Gaza into perspective doesn't it? Not sure even the Chinese have bumped off that many Uighurs.
Right now, the Supreme Court is deciding between a bankruptcy case that will protect the Sackler family from future civil litigation but is pretty paltry, or throwing out the case and letting more people die with no compensation as lawyers go back to square one.
The moral bankruptcy is truly breathtaking. I would like to remain a defender of capitalism but if this is the result I find it increasingly hard to stomach.
I agree the Sacklers are scumbags but is that allopioid deaths or prescription opioid deaths?
Good question, not sure without relistening, sorry.
It was stupid from Trump, and it's stupid from Biden.
It may well push China into an even more serious recession. It definitely has shades of the Smoot-Hartley Tariff Act of 1930 which drove the recession in the pre war period. Thank goodness nothing serious came of that, eh?
Having said that I think that I would blame Obama Bush and Clinton as much as Trump and Biden. The US turned a blind eye to IP theft and unfair trading practices on the part of China for far too long making the radical steps taken now even more precipitous. We are moving into a mercantilist world where the naivety of simple free trade is dead.
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
Too hard for me, but much more interesting.
Also interesting:
Biden’s EV tariffs Kwarteng’s interview on “Leading” Today’s very poor productivity numbers. What we should read into Sunak’s speech if anything. Caulfield’s conspiracy-mongering.
Or a more philosophical question. Is Israel an apartheid state and if it is (almost certainly) should all Labour members who have been expelled for saying so be reinstated?
I can see why some people call Israel an apartheid state but I don't think it is. There's nothing stopping an Israeli Arab voting, standing for election, being elected or even in theory becoming Prime Minister or President. There's no Jew-only or Arab-only benches, beaches or parks. By the Constitution of Israel all citizens have equal rights.
Does that mean that because it's not an apartheid state it's perfect, no, there's systemic discrimination against non-Jewish citizens, the immigration process, housing policy and education systems are discriminatory.
What Israel is doing in the West Bank and Gaza is almost without parallel. There's a military occupation but with the movement of the occupying force's civilian population to settle some areas of the occupied territory but without annexation. It's similar to China annexing Tibet or Morocco annexing Western Sahara but wanting to keep the existing occupied population as non-citizens. It doesn't seem sustainable, but I've thought that since before Oslo so what do I know?
The parallels don't work because the situations are so historically different - but are reached for because of their rhetorical power.
If the situation in Israel/Palestine were like apartheid it would, perhaps with a tragic irony, be far more soluble than it actually is, because there'd be a clear answer of a shared polity with some carve outs for the protection of minority ethnic groups against the majority - and merely require a powerful colonialist group to give up political power to that.
But that's not the case in Israel given Jewish history, the reasons for Israel's creation, and the fact most of its residents are or descended themselves from refugees from neighbouring Arab regimes that mistreated Jews. And which in modern times have a spectacularly poor record (even compared to Israel's treatment of Palestinians) of treatment of even Muslims who disagree with those running each country's flavour of nationalism or theocracy.
Alternatively, a two state solution of states with largely equal standing. But that was what the Palestinians/Arabs rejected in 1948 and have repeatedly since on admittedly worse terms after each attempt to get rid of Israel. Hamas and others on the Palestinian side certainly don't want that or a secular shared liberal polity with protections - it's for them an all or nothing proposition that replaces the Jewish state with an entirely Arab one - so it never becomes an option.
So everything is stuck and getting worse for Palestinians. As that rejectionism in turn has strengthened those in Israel who believe their country is just always going to be in a fight for survival against enemies who hate its existence, and that hardens and empowers each side's hardliners in turn.
Broadly successful peace in other conflicts has been either in partition or in convincing different groups who have been at odds to share a polity. Neither appears an easy option here, as Palestinians (and hardline Israelis) reject partition and the Israelis - with good reason - are never going to trust living under majority Arab rule nor support their own destruction.
So forever war it is, with lulls, until some major things change to change those fundamentals.
A Jewish centric view I'm afraid.
Hardly given it sticks to the broader facts and what both sides say, or have said and done themselves. I suspect you just want the Arab side and to ignore Jews as that makes it a lot more simple to turn into a battle of 'good' and 'bad' rather than one that is far more difficult to solve because right comes up against right, and wrongs perpetuate wrongs.
While I have sympathy with that view, I think it would hold more water if it was essentially a frozen conflict.
But it isn't.
As they expand their settlements Israel is engaged in a slow motion invasion of the West Bank. And every expansion makes any viable Palestinian state all the less possible. And it pretty much ensures every Palestinian is going to hate Israel (and by extension Israelis) with a passion.
The majority of people born in the West Bank were born after the Oslo Accords. If I lived there - even though I'm a committed atheist - I would support whoever fought back against the hated invaders. Wouldn't you?
Statista registers it's lowest ever vote leave support.... again. I think we can all see where things are heading in the medium term. As soon as labour enters government and has to contend with reality their polling will wane. They will throw red meat at their eu loving, rejoiner voting base to stay in power.
What sort of red meat are you thinking of here?
All of the formerly pro-EU type people I know are resigned to staying-out-but-trying-to-have-better-relations. The more fervent ones hope for a limited free movement deal for young people and/or musicians. A few might wish for EEA membership. But going through another decade of upheaval to rejoin isn't something that motivates them.
It was stupid from Trump, and it's stupid from Biden.
It may well push China into an even more serious recession. It definitely has shades of the Smoot-Hartley Tariff Act of 1930 which drove the recession in the pre war period. Thank goodness nothing serious came of that, eh?
Having said that I think that I would blame Obama Bush and Clinton as much as Trump and Biden. The US turned a blind eye to IP theft and unfair trading practices on the part of China for far too long making the radical steps taken now even more precipitous. We are moving into a mercantilist world where the naivety of simple free trade is dead.
Indeed, and it is likely that Trump will go full Smoot-Hawley, and that is going to be a disaster for the world.
It was stupid from Trump, and it's stupid from Biden.
It may well push China into an even more serious recession. It definitely has shades of the Smoot-Hartley Tariff Act of 1930 which drove the recession in the pre war period. Thank goodness nothing serious came of that, eh?
Having said that I think that I would blame Obama Bush and Clinton as much as Trump and Biden. The US turned a blind eye to IP theft and unfair trading practices on the part of China for far too long making the radical steps taken now even more precipitous. We are moving into a mercantilist world where the naivety of simple free trade is dead.
Indeed, and it is likely that Trump will go full Smoot-Hawley, and that is going to be a disaster for the world.
Not sure about the world but it is certainly going to be a disaster for a medium sized open economy like ours.
Anyone got an opinion on this? (From Guardian Live Politics Blog)
"Court order blocking publication of article about Lucy Letby case 'in defiance of open justice', David Davis tells MPs A former cabinet minister told MPs this morning that a court order blocking publication of an article about the Lucy Letby, the nurse and convicted child serial killer, seemed to be “in defiance of open justice”.
David Davis, the former Brexit secretary who has a record of campaigning on miscarriage of justice issue, raised the matter during justice questions, where he asked about an article published in the US but not available online to readers in the UK.
He said:
Yesterday the New Yorker magazine published a 13,000-word inquiry into the Lucy Letby trial, which raised enormous concerns about both the logic and competence of the statistical evidence that was a central part of that trial.
That article was blocked from publication on the UK internet, I understand because of a court order. Now, I’m sure that court order was well intended but it seems to me in defiance of open justice.
Will the lord chancellor look into this matter and report back to the house?"
The article is of course easily available to find on TwiXer
I would imagine that this topic is next to impossible to discuss here for obvious legal reasons.
fwiw, I agree with David Davis though - the ban on any discussion of this issue by the court when simultaneously the police get to go on TV and crow about how right they were in glorious technicolour is obviously completely unfair & counter to natural justice. Those who think Letby has been wrongly convicted have been silenced in the UK by the courts.
I’ve read the article in question. You can disagree with lots in it. But like most stuff written for and published in the New Yorker, a serious, sensible piece that asks questions.
I’d like to know what is so upsetting that it needs blocking.
Presumably it counts as reporting on an ongoing case (ongoing because she’s been charged with another case and is appealing her original case)…?
I didn't know there was an ongoing case wrt Letby.
There’s an ongoing retrial of one of the murder charges where the jury was unable to reach a conclusion & Letby has appealed the original convictions.
No trial date for either of these cases has been set yet.
It’s not clear to me why so much court time needs to be taken up chasing a further murder conviction for a woman who is going to spend the rest of her life in jail regardless of the outcome. I’m sure the family would like closure, but this case will inevitably come at the expense of other cases which are surely more urgent?
If we have a Canada 1993 experience, who will the 2 Conservative MPs left standing be?
Sunak and Truss would be interesting.
They could come to Westminster on a tandem.
It's not impossible they could be Scottish. Different dynamics north of the border, the SNP are the main challengers to the Tories in several of their seats, especially in the North East, and Reform is not such a thing up there.
Indeed. If Swinney matches his previous record as SNP leader it is not impossible that we might be talking about the odd Tory gain north of the border, not that that is going to affect the bloodbath to the south much.
On a marginally related matter, if you Baxter the worst polling for the Tories (Con 18, Lab 48 etc) the Tories come out ludicrously with 13 seats. Of these, 6 are in Scotland. BTW, The Magnificent 7 English survivors would be: Jupp, Rebecca Harris, Joy Morrissey, Whittingdale, Gavin Williamson (and spider), Unknown, and Hayes.
The moment has arrived for a small flutter on the Spider as next Tory leader.
In my left - leaning but considered opinion, if you want to know what the death of the capitalist west might look like, you need to look little further than the themes drawn out in this podcast. I would highly recommend a full listen but, knowing that's hard to make time for, just two anecdotes from the programme:
1. After the point at which it was obvious that Oxycontin was being heavily abused and was far more addictive than had been first admitted, its manufacturers commissioned McKinsey to explore how they could reinvigorate its flagging sales.
McKinsey found that 7% of US doctors were prescribing half of all Oxycontin.
Rather than highlighting this as a worrying statistic in light of it's clear misuse and sale on the black market, they recommended that the manufacturers create a special incentive scheme aimed at those 7% to 'turbocharge' sales. WTAF?
2. Since the manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy (partly as a result of the Sackler family having extracted £11 billion from the company) over 200,000 people have died as a result of opioid addiction in USA.
200,000.
That puts the little shindigs in Ukraine and Gaza into perspective doesn't it? Not sure even the Chinese have bumped off that many Uighurs.
Right now, the Supreme Court is deciding between a bankruptcy case that will protect the Sackler family from future civil litigation but is pretty paltry, or throwing out the case and letting more people die with no compensation as lawyers go back to square one.
The moral bankruptcy is truly breathtaking. I would like to remain a defender of capitalism but if this is the result I find it increasingly hard to stomach.
The Sacklers make those who made a fortune out of tobacco look like latter day saints. Why they are not all in jail for the rest of their natural is beyond me. This is manslaughter on a truly epic scale.
Agreed but the bigger challenge to all of us, I think, is that we cheerlead a system that enables and indeed encourages this sort of behaviour.
There will always be Sacklers in this world. Our current capitalist setup funnels them to the top of the profit -making pyramid precisely because they have no restraint and no morals. That's on us to sort, not them.
I think the most shocking part of the story for me was McKinsey's involvement. I've worked in a management consultancy type job, I understand the pressures to provide what the client asks for rather than to stick a spanner in the mechanism. But the extent of their complicity is unconscionable, in my view.
In my left - leaning but considered opinion, if you want to know what the death of the capitalist west might look like, you need to look little further than the themes drawn out in this podcast. I would highly recommend a full listen but, knowing that's hard to make time for, just two anecdotes from the programme:
1. After the point at which it was obvious that Oxycontin was being heavily abused and was far more addictive than had been first admitted, its manufacturers commissioned McKinsey to explore how they could reinvigorate its flagging sales.
McKinsey found that 7% of US doctors were prescribing half of all Oxycontin.
Rather than highlighting this as a worrying statistic in light of it's clear misuse and sale on the black market, they recommended that the manufacturers create a special incentive scheme aimed at those 7% to 'turbocharge' sales. WTAF?
2. Since the manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy (partly as a result of the Sackler family having extracted £11 billion from the company) over 200,000 people have died as a result of opioid addiction in USA.
200,000.
That puts the little shindigs in Ukraine and Gaza into perspective doesn't it? Not sure even the Chinese have bumped off that many Uighurs.
Right now, the Supreme Court is deciding between a bankruptcy case that will protect the Sackler family from future civil litigation but is pretty paltry, or throwing out the case and letting more people die with no compensation as lawyers go back to square one.
The moral bankruptcy is truly breathtaking. I would like to remain a defender of capitalism but if this is the result I find it increasingly hard to stomach.
By the way, one would expect that a relatively small number of doctors would be a disproportionate share of pain killer prescriptions even if there was nothing dodgy going on, because there are going to be fields where prescribing painkillers is going to be extremely uncommon.
It was stupid from Trump, and it's stupid from Biden.
If the US and EU both put up tariffs, perhaps we open our market up to surplus Chinese electric cars and solar panels and achieve a step change in emissions on the cheap.
Given we import both anyway, you are absolutely right that it could be a massive boon to the UK, in terms of reducing our dependence on imported energy.
It would be a very rare victory for basic economics over populism. Amazing how the former has basically vanished from debate over the last couple of decades.
So I hope that'll happen, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
It was stupid from Trump, and it's stupid from Biden.
It may well push China into an even more serious recession. It definitely has shades of the Smoot-Hartley Tariff Act of 1930 which drove the recession in the pre war period. Thank goodness nothing serious came of that, eh?
Having said that I think that I would blame Obama Bush and Clinton as much as Trump and Biden. The US turned a blind eye to IP theft and unfair trading practices on the part of China for far too long making the radical steps taken now even more precipitous. We are moving into a mercantilist world where the naivety of simple free trade is dead.
Indeed, and it is likely that Trump will go full Smoot-Hawley, and that is going to be a disaster for the world.
Not sure about the world but it is certainly going to be a disaster for a medium sized open economy like ours.
Selling down my home bias as we speak. Selling into strength happily.
The workers' voice was heard today. My Job is to defend workers. @UKLabour have listened. The words on the page will now matter. #Labour #JobsPayConditions
Statista registers it's lowest ever vote leave support.... again. I think we can all see where things are heading in the medium term. As soon as labour enters government and has to contend with reality their polling will wane. They will throw red meat at their eu loving, rejoiner voting base to stay in power.
What sort of red meat are you thinking of here?
All of the formerly pro-EU type people I know are resigned to staying-out-but-trying-to-have-better-relations. The more fervent ones hope for a limited free movement deal for young people and/or musicians. A few might wish for EEA membership. But going through another decade of upheaval to rejoin isn't something that motivates them.
How many active rejoiners are there?
Few I should think. But Switzerland, Norway and Iceland are not in the EU and are not basket cases, and doing what they do (in some form) is entirely consistent with the Brexit vote; even more so as it was close.
I've just read Sunak's speech from yesterday in full. Amazingly, the government has only published a severely redacted version, removing all the attacks on Labour etc. Anyway, the speech is vacuous; it has no real analysis, no depth, just description. It's like he instructed AI: Write me a speech that puts a positive gloss on everything in the world from a Tory point of view.
Anyway, in short: 1. The world is a dangerous place, and although we've made some mistakes the Tories have had a glorious 14 years. 2. Don't let Starmer make even more of a mess than we have.
On a more serious note, I don't think Sunak's central claim that we will be 'less safe' under PM Starmer will have much mileage with voters.
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
Too hard for me, but much more interesting.
Also interesting:
Biden’s EV tariffs Kwarteng’s interview on “Leading” Today’s very poor productivity numbers. What we should read into Sunak’s speech if anything. Caulfield’s conspiracy-mongering.
Or a more philosophical question. Is Israel an apartheid state and if it is (almost certainly) should all Labour members who have been expelled for saying so be reinstated?
I can see why some people call Israel an apartheid state but I don't think it is. There's nothing stopping an Israeli Arab voting, standing for election, being elected or even in theory becoming Prime Minister or President. There's no Jew-only or Arab-only benches, beaches or parks. By the Constitution of Israel all citizens have equal rights.
Does that mean that because it's not an apartheid state it's perfect, no, there's systemic discrimination against non-Jewish citizens, the immigration process, housing policy and education systems are discriminatory.
What Israel is doing in the West Bank and Gaza is almost without parallel. There's a military occupation but with the movement of the occupying force's civilian population to settle some areas of the occupied territory but without annexation. It's similar to China annexing Tibet or Morocco annexing Western Sahara but wanting to keep the existing occupied population as non-citizens. It doesn't seem sustainable, but I've thought that since before Oslo so what do I know?
The parallels don't work because the situations are so historically different - but are reached for because of their rhetorical power.
If the situation in Israel/Palestine were like apartheid it would, perhaps with a tragic irony, be far more soluble than it actually is, because there'd be a clear answer of a shared polity with some carve outs for the protection of minority ethnic groups against the majority - and merely require a powerful colonialist group to give up political power to that.
But that's not the case in Israel given Jewish history, the reasons for Israel's creation, and the fact most of its residents are or descended themselves from refugees from neighbouring Arab regimes that mistreated Jews. And which in modern times have a spectacularly poor record (even compared to Israel's treatment of Palestinians) of treatment of even Muslims who disagree with those running each country's flavour of nationalism or theocracy.
Alternatively, a two state solution of states with largely equal standing. But that was what the Palestinians/Arabs rejected in 1948 and have repeatedly since on admittedly worse terms after each attempt to get rid of Israel. Hamas and others on the Palestinian side certainly don't want that or a secular shared liberal polity with protections - it's for them an all or nothing proposition that replaces the Jewish state with an entirely Arab one - so it never becomes an option.
So everything is stuck and getting worse for Palestinians. As that rejectionism in turn has strengthened those in Israel who believe their country is just always going to be in a fight for survival against enemies who hate its existence, and that hardens and empowers each side's hardliners in turn.
Broadly successful peace in other conflicts has been either in partition or in convincing different groups who have been at odds to share a polity. Neither appears an easy option here, as Palestinians (and hardline Israelis) reject partition and the Israelis - with good reason - are never going to trust living under majority Arab rule nor support their own destruction.
So forever war it is, with lulls, until some major things change to change those fundamentals.
A Jewish centric view I'm afraid.
Hardly given it sticks to the broader facts and what both sides say, or have said and done themselves. I suspect you just want the Arab side and to ignore Jews as that makes it a lot more simple to turn into a battle of 'good' and 'bad' rather than one that is far more difficult to solve because right comes up against right, and wrongs perpetuate wrongs.
While I have sympathy with that view, I think it would hold more water if it was essentially a frozen conflict.
But it isn't.
As they expand their settlements Israel is engaged in a slow motion invasion of the West Bank. And every expansion makes any viable Palestinian state all the less possible. And it pretty much ensures every Palestinian is going to hate Israel (and by extension Israelis) with a passion.
The majority of people born in the West Bank were born after the Oslo Accords. If I lived there - even though I'm a committed atheist - I would support whoever fought back against the hated invaders. Wouldn't you?
I've just read Sunak's speech from yesterday in full. Amazingly, the government has only published a severely redacted version, removing all the attacks on Labour etc.
Apparently they can't publish party political attacks on a Government website
but they were quite happy for them to be delivered behind a Government crest on the lectern...
In my left - leaning but considered opinion, if you want to know what the death of the capitalist west might look like, you need to look little further than the themes drawn out in this podcast. I would highly recommend a full listen but, knowing that's hard to make time for, just two anecdotes from the programme:
1. After the point at which it was obvious that Oxycontin was being heavily abused and was far more addictive than had been first admitted, its manufacturers commissioned McKinsey to explore how they could reinvigorate its flagging sales.
McKinsey found that 7% of US doctors were prescribing half of all Oxycontin.
Rather than highlighting this as a worrying statistic in light of it's clear misuse and sale on the black market, they recommended that the manufacturers create a special incentive scheme aimed at those 7% to 'turbocharge' sales. WTAF?
2. Since the manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy (partly as a result of the Sackler family having extracted £11 billion from the company) over 200,000 people have died as a result of opioid addiction in USA.
200,000.
That puts the little shindigs in Ukraine and Gaza into perspective doesn't it? Not sure even the Chinese have bumped off that many Uighurs.
Right now, the Supreme Court is deciding between a bankruptcy case that will protect the Sackler family from future civil litigation but is pretty paltry, or throwing out the case and letting more people die with no compensation as lawyers go back to square one.
The moral bankruptcy is truly breathtaking. I would like to remain a defender of capitalism but if this is the result I find it increasingly hard to stomach.
By the way, one would expect that a relatively small number of doctors would be a disproportionate share of pain killer prescriptions even if there was nothing dodgy going on, because there are going to be fields where prescribing painkillers is going to be extremely uncommon.
Yes fair point, one not explicitly made by the podcast, thanks. Though to be fair to the presenter they did make clear that Oxycontin tended to be prescribed in specific situations.
Statista registers it's lowest ever vote leave support.... again. I think we can all see where things are heading in the medium term. As soon as labour enters government and has to contend with reality their polling will wane. They will throw red meat at their eu loving, rejoiner voting base to stay in power.
What sort of red meat are you thinking of here?
All of the formerly pro-EU type people I know are resigned to staying-out-but-trying-to-have-better-relations. The more fervent ones hope for a limited free movement deal for young people and/or musicians. A few might wish for EEA membership. But going through another decade of upheaval to rejoin isn't something that motivates them.
How many active rejoiners are there?
Essentially only the activists.
Many seem to be labouring under the misconception there's a latent majority for Rejoin.
There isn't. And, as soon as someone opened up that can of worms again, would support there looked like for Rejoin would substantially melt away.
CBC - Former journalist drops out of Conservative nomination race, claims the process has been 'corrupted'; Conservative Party says Sabrina Maddeaux's allegations are 'completely false'
A former National Post journalist is bowing out of the race to carry the Conservative Party banner in a Toronto-area [federal] riding because she says she has "clear evidence of a corrupted process."
In a social media post Thursday, Sabrina Maddeaux said she's suspending her race for the party's nomination in Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill. She said she has been "the clear target of highly unethical, and potential illegal, efforts to sway the vote" because another candidate allegedly had the party's membership list before she did. . . .
A spokesperson for the party told CBC News Maddeaux's allegations about a competitor and the membership list are "completely false." "It's common for the party to receive complaints from nomination candidates about their competitors over suspicions of wrongdoing and the use of lists," Sarah Fischer said.
"In fact, we received a complaint about Ms. Maddeaux's campaign sending out an email to current and former members of the party when she should not have had access to a membership list."
Conservative sources who spoke to CBC News on the condition they not be named said Maddeaux sold only about 50 memberships in the nomination race — a low number that means she likely had no chance of winning the nomination. [However] Maddeaux said . . . her campaign has sold "over 200" memberships. . . .
Maddeaux was in a tough fight for the York Region riding nomination against former MP Costas Menegakis, who held the riding from 2011 until the party's defeat in the 2015 election. . . .
The riding they both were jockeying to represent was held by a Conservative as recently as 2019, which suggests it's a winnable seat for the party, given how well the Conservatives are doing in the national polls.
The party membership list is a crucial document disseminated to prospective party nominees. It's what candidates use to focus their campaigns on members who are actually expected to vote, which saves the campaign time and resources. . . .
Maddeaux said she has evidence to suggest that another unnamed candidate had a list [and sent a mass email citing] her past writings on firearms, former prime minister Stephen Harper, lingerie and Marilyn Monroe and suggested she was out of step with Conservative values.
A&E in north London on a Tuesday night. (I’ve been sent by 111).
This is why the Tories will lose the election.
(Fuzzy photo a product of vanilla? not my phone)
Chat to some people. See why people are in, and if anyone has anything so 'funny' (*) as the guy I met in one the other year. I tend to find people like to chat, and it whiles away the time.
Statista registers it's lowest ever vote leave support.... again. I think we can all see where things are heading in the medium term. As soon as labour enters government and has to contend with reality their polling will wane. They will throw red meat at their eu loving, rejoiner voting base to stay in power.
What sort of red meat are you thinking of here?
All of the formerly pro-EU type people I know are resigned to staying-out-but-trying-to-have-better-relations. The more fervent ones hope for a limited free movement deal for young people and/or musicians. A few might wish for EEA membership. But going through another decade of upheaval to rejoin isn't something that motivates them.
How many active rejoiners are there?
Essentially only the activists.
Many seem to be labouring under the misconception there's a latent majority for Rejoin.
There isn't. And, as soon as someone opened up that can of worms again, would support there looked like for Rejoin would substantially melt away.
No-one wants to reopen that old wound.
A great good of the EU is that there was a plausible way to leave. There is definitely a plausible rejoin path too, but the obstacles (from both sides) are insurmountable. Nonetheless a great feather in the EU cap that such things are possible.
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
In my left - leaning but considered opinion, if you want to know what the death of the capitalist west might look like, you need to look little further than the themes drawn out in this podcast. I would highly recommend a full listen but, knowing that's hard to make time for, just two anecdotes from the programme:
1. After the point at which it was obvious that Oxycontin was being heavily abused and was far more addictive than had been first admitted, its manufacturers commissioned McKinsey to explore how they could reinvigorate its flagging sales.
McKinsey found that 7% of US doctors were prescribing half of all Oxycontin.
Rather than highlighting this as a worrying statistic in light of it's clear misuse and sale on the black market, they recommended that the manufacturers create a special incentive scheme aimed at those 7% to 'turbocharge' sales. WTAF?
2. Since the manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy (partly as a result of the Sackler family having extracted £11 billion from the company) over 200,000 people have died as a result of opioid addiction in USA.
200,000.
That puts the little shindigs in Ukraine and Gaza into perspective doesn't it? Not sure even the Chinese have bumped off that many Uighurs.
Right now, the Supreme Court is deciding between a bankruptcy case that will protect the Sackler family from future civil litigation but is pretty paltry, or throwing out the case and letting more people die with no compensation as lawyers go back to square one.
The moral bankruptcy is truly breathtaking. I would like to remain a defender of capitalism but if this is the result I find it increasingly hard to stomach.
By the way, one would expect that a relatively small number of doctors would be a disproportionate share of pain killer prescriptions even if there was nothing dodgy going on, because there are going to be fields where prescribing painkillers is going to be extremely uncommon.
Yes fair point, one not explicitly made by the podcast, thanks. Though to be fair to the presenter they did make clear that Oxycontin tended to be prescribed in specific situations.
Also by specific specific doctors, clinics, pharmacies in deprived areas of America, ranging from whole swaths of counties in Appalachia to the city of Everett on Puget Sound in WA State.
Also plenty of other rural nooks and urban crannies . . . ditto suburban cul de sacs (bad French but ok American).
According to CONSIDERABLE evidence uncovered in court cases from sea to shining sea.
Statista registers it's lowest ever vote leave support.... again. I think we can all see where things are heading in the medium term. As soon as labour enters government and has to contend with reality their polling will wane. They will throw red meat at their eu loving, rejoiner voting base to stay in power.
What sort of red meat are you thinking of here?
All of the formerly pro-EU type people I know are resigned to staying-out-but-trying-to-have-better-relations. The more fervent ones hope for a limited free movement deal for young people and/or musicians. A few might wish for EEA membership. But going through another decade of upheaval to rejoin isn't something that motivates them.
How many active rejoiners are there?
Essentially only the activists.
Many seem to be labouring under the misconception there's a latent majority for Rejoin.
There isn't. And, as soon as someone opened up that can of worms again, would support there looked like for Rejoin would substantially melt away.
No-one wants to reopen that old wound.
Indeed:
As @AlsoLei says, most people (and especially Remainers) simply want more cordial relations with the EU. No one, except a few total nutjobs, actually wants another referendum and to go through the stresses of rejoin negotiations. (Even in the unlikely event the EU would have us, which I don't think they would.)
A&E in north London on a Tuesday night. (I’ve been sent by 111).
This is why the Tories will lose the election.
(Fuzzy photo a product of vanilla? not my phone)
Chat to some people. See why people are in, and if anyone has anything so 'funny' (*) as the guy I met in one the other year. I tend to find people like to chat, and it whiles away the time.
(*) In a sad way
Yes. The last time I was in A&E I had a lengthy chat with the man that ran my wedding venue years before.
Sunak is a better PM than Truss but he doesn't have the achievements Boris had of getting the vaccines out and delivering Brexit as PM. He also looks unlikely to match the landslide general election victory Boris won in 2019
A&E in north London on a Tuesday night. (I’ve been sent by 111).
This is why the Tories will lose the election.
(Fuzzy photo a product of vanilla? not my phone)
Chat to some people. See why people are in, and if anyone has anything so 'funny' (*) as the guy I met in one the other year. I tend to find people like to chat, and it whiles away the time.
(*) In a sad way
Yes. The last time I was in A&E I had a lengthy chat with the man that ran my wedding venue years before.
Well, the first person I’m talking to has just said that they were here this morning and it was this busy then; so they left and only came back because they got worse… so feeling great about my likelihood of being seen in a reasonable time
A&E in north London on a Tuesday night. (I’ve been sent by 111).
This is why the Tories will lose the election.
(Fuzzy photo a product of vanilla? not my phone)
Chat to some people. See why people are in, and if anyone has anything so 'funny' (*) as the guy I met in one the other year. I tend to find people like to chat, and it whiles away the time.
(*) In a sad way
Yes. The last time I was in A&E I had a lengthy chat with the man that ran my wedding venue years before.
You'd never get such calm and inactivity in the traditional venues such as churches or libraries.
Sunak is a better PM than Truss but he doesn't have the achievements Boris had of getting the vaccines out and delivering Brexit as PM. He also looks unlikely to match the landslide general election victory Boris won in 2019
He managed to put some petrol in a car, almost unaided though. Don't do the man down.
Interestingly Jamie Carragher agrees with me and @isam that it is natural that Spurs fans from north London want their own team to lose. Says he was brought up in a city that had a great rivalry too, and he would be the same. Sure, if you are a modern fan from Surrey etc that has no connection with the local area then you won't really understand the hell of going to school/work etc with the other lot. But if you live and work in north London you just don't want the other lot to win the title. "And that is right," says Carragher.
I am reminded of two occassions from Liverpool about this sort of thing.
The first from my work - An 'Everton' fan (Sorry @dixiedean ) who I carefully asked one Monday morning, would he prefer it if Liverpool and Everton had both LOST at the weekend, or Liverpool and Everton had both WON at the weekend. Without a seconds beat, he'd prefer they both lost. I use the term 'Everton' fan, as clearly he'd become so eaten up by his dislike of Liverpool he'd just become an 'anti-Liverpool' fan rather than an Evertonian.
Then there was the time in 1995, when the final game of the season saw Blackburn Rovers face Liverpool, with Rovers top of the table. Rovers could be pipped by Man Utd however, if United could win and Rovers lose. United were facing West Ham, and no one expected United to do anything other than roll over them. Cue lots and lots of me listening to the radio on the week leading to the game, with Liverpool fan after Liverpool fan coming on to Radio Merseyside, telling us how Liverpool would just throw the game and let Rovers score as many as they liked.
Of course, the final result was that Liverpool won (though I believe the goalscorer - was it Fowler - mouthed 'what have I done?') but United lost to West Ham anyway.... so all was right in the world.
But both Everton fans hate Liverpool so much they'd gladly lose a game if it meant Liverpool didn't win something, and the same is true of Liverpool fans and Manchester United.
Only because your memory is failing you. Sunak achieves next to nothing, has some bizarre priorities and few clear ideas of what he should do next but Truss was positively malignant and brought chaos in her wake.
Statista registers it's lowest ever vote leave support.... again. I think we can all see where things are heading in the medium term. As soon as labour enters government and has to contend with reality their polling will wane. They will throw red meat at their eu loving, rejoiner voting base to stay in power.
What sort of red meat are you thinking of here?
All of the formerly pro-EU type people I know are resigned to staying-out-but-trying-to-have-better-relations. The more fervent ones hope for a limited free movement deal for young people and/or musicians. A few might wish for EEA membership. But going through another decade of upheaval to rejoin isn't something that motivates them.
How many active rejoiners are there?
Me for one. Although whether you can describe me as ‘active’ apart from on t’internet i very much doubt!
It was stupid from Trump, and it's stupid from Biden.
It may well push China into an even more serious recession. It definitely has shades of the Smoot-Hartley Tariff Act of 1930 which drove the recession in the pre war period. Thank goodness nothing serious came of that, eh?
Having said that I think that I would blame Obama Bush and Clinton as much as Trump and Biden. The US turned a blind eye to IP theft and unfair trading practices on the part of China for far too long making the radical steps taken now even more precipitous. We are moving into a mercantilist world where the naivety of simple free trade is dead.
Indeed, and it is likely that Trump will go full Smoot-Hawley, and that is going to be a disaster for the world.
Not sure about the world but it is certainly going to be a disaster for a medium sized open economy like ours.
Last time round, we sparked a frenzy of competitive devaluations that fucked the world economy much harder than Smoot-Hawley did - but, by getting in first, we probably came out ahead during the 1930s.
From a purely mercenary UK point of view, is there some sort of similar path we might follow in a Trump 2 world?
Breaking from the US / EU and aligning ourselves with China might do the trick... do we have a Chamberlain waiting in the wings to propose it?
Statista registers it's lowest ever vote leave support.... again. I think we can all see where things are heading in the medium term. As soon as labour enters government and has to contend with reality their polling will wane. They will throw red meat at their eu loving, rejoiner voting base to stay in power.
What sort of red meat are you thinking of here?
All of the formerly pro-EU type people I know are resigned to staying-out-but-trying-to-have-better-relations. The more fervent ones hope for a limited free movement deal for young people and/or musicians. A few might wish for EEA membership. But going through another decade of upheaval to rejoin isn't something that motivates them.
How many active rejoiners are there?
No. But the problem is people haven't accepted the permanent disadvantage of being out of the EU either. There was a reason why the UK joined the EU in the first place. Those perceived reasons broadly apply again, now.
Statista registers it's lowest ever vote leave support.... again. I think we can all see where things are heading in the medium term. As soon as labour enters government and has to contend with reality their polling will wane. They will throw red meat at their eu loving, rejoiner voting base to stay in power.
What sort of red meat are you thinking of here?
All of the formerly pro-EU type people I know are resigned to staying-out-but-trying-to-have-better-relations. The more fervent ones hope for a limited free movement deal for young people and/or musicians. A few might wish for EEA membership. But going through another decade of upheaval to rejoin isn't something that motivates them.
How many active rejoiners are there?
No. But the problem is people haven't accepted the permanent disadvantage of being out of the EU either. There was a reason why the UK joined the EU in the first place. Those perceived reasons broadly apply again, now.
Sunak is a better PM than Truss but he doesn't have the achievements Boris had of getting the vaccines out and delivering Brexit as PM. He also looks unlikely to match the landslide general election victory Boris won in 2019
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
Statista registers it's lowest ever vote leave support.... again. I think we can all see where things are heading in the medium term. As soon as labour enters government and has to contend with reality their polling will wane. They will throw red meat at their eu loving, rejoiner voting base to stay in power.
What sort of red meat are you thinking of here?
All of the formerly pro-EU type people I know are resigned to staying-out-but-trying-to-have-better-relations. The more fervent ones hope for a limited free movement deal for young people and/or musicians. A few might wish for EEA membership. But going through another decade of upheaval to rejoin isn't something that motivates them.
How many active rejoiners are there?
No. But the problem is people haven't accepted the permanent disadvantage of being out of the EU either. There was a reason why the UK joined the EU in the first place. Those perceived reasons broadly apply again, now.
The sick man of Europe, all over again
Not really that. At the moment the consensus is Brexit was a mistake. People currently neither want to live with the mistake and accept things won't be as good, nor do they want to take steps to fix the mistake. The contradiction will have to resolve itself at some point.
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
A&E in north London on a Tuesday night. (I’ve been sent by 111).
This is why the Tories will lose the election.
(Fuzzy photo a product of vanilla? not my phone)
Chat to some people. See why people are in, and if anyone has anything so 'funny' (*) as the guy I met in one the other year. I tend to find people like to chat, and it whiles away the time.
(*) In a sad way
Yes. The last time I was in A&E I had a lengthy chat with the man that ran my wedding venue years before.
Well, the first person I’m talking to has just said that they were here this morning and it was this busy then; so they left and only came back because they got worse… so feeling great about my likelihood of being seen in a reasonable time
The last two times I've been to A&E we were seen instantly. One time at 7pm on a Friday night; the next two on a Saturday mornings. Both for kids <10 years old, so that might have something to do with it, especially as both had potentially serious illnesses. Both are, thankfully, now fine.
I do wonder how much A&E gets filled up with non-A&E cases.
(In the case I mentioned, a man said he'd previously ripped open his sternum moving a fish tank. He gave a painful laugh and said that perhaps he should have emptied it first...)
Only because your memory is failing you. Sunak achieves next to nothing, has some bizarre priorities and few clear ideas of what he should do next but Truss was positively malignant and brought chaos in her wake.
There's really no need to compound your thudding lack of insight in not realising what a third-rater Sunak was by indulging in ever wilder exaggerations about Truss.
Statista registers it's lowest ever vote leave support.... again. I think we can all see where things are heading in the medium term. As soon as labour enters government and has to contend with reality their polling will wane. They will throw red meat at their eu loving, rejoiner voting base to stay in power.
What sort of red meat are you thinking of here?
All of the formerly pro-EU type people I know are resigned to staying-out-but-trying-to-have-better-relations. The more fervent ones hope for a limited free movement deal for young people and/or musicians. A few might wish for EEA membership. But going through another decade of upheaval to rejoin isn't something that motivates them.
How many active rejoiners are there?
Essentially only the activists.
Many seem to be labouring under the misconception there's a latent majority for Rejoin.
There isn't. And, as soon as someone opened up that can of worms again, would support there looked like for Rejoin would substantially melt away.
No-one wants to reopen that old wound.
Indeed:
As @AlsoLei says, most people (and especially Remainers) simply want more cordial relations with the EU. No one, except a few total nutjobs, actually wants another referendum and to go through the stresses of rejoin negotiations. (Even in the unlikely event the EU would have us, which I don't think they would.)
Hardly any one wants to have it yet, but at the next GE +1 it is likely to be seriously discussed.
Brexit has been a failure, and the polling shows that people want it reversed
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
He also wrote a lot of amazing books, over a very long period of time.
You know... I think I'm going to download some to the Kindle.
Also generated one of the great reviews by Martin Amis in the Guardian reprinted in the Moronic Inferno. I can't lay my hands on it but from memory it finished, "You finish the book slightly baffled and confused. But that is only half the story. You wait for it to haunt you. And it does."
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
Only because your memory is failing you. Sunak achieves next to nothing, has some bizarre priorities and few clear ideas of what he should do next but Truss was positively malignant and brought chaos in her wake.
There's really no need to compound your thudding lack of insight in not realising what a third-rater Sunak was by indulging in ever wilder exaggerations about Truss.
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
He also wrote a lot of amazing books, over a very long period of time.
You know... I think I'm going to download some to the Kindle.
Also generated one of the great reviews by Martin Amis in the Guardian reprinted in the Moronic Inferno. I can't lay my hands on it but from memory it finished, "You finish the book slightly baffled and confused. But that is only half the story. You wait for it to haunt you. And it does."
While on the topic of SF - I remember reading a short story, maybe Ballard, maybe not, probably in the Pan collected SF stories series edited by Amis and Conquest. It was set in some sort of arid tropical zone, possibly an old military base, with animals mutating like armoured armadillos and dried out swimming pools. Can anyone identify it, please?
A&E is taking the heat for GPS not being accessible. Many who are there would be more appropriate at the GP but they cannot get seen. A&E is open, so they go there, and get sent there by NHS111.
I believe we need more walk in GPs. Every town should have one. No booking, turn up and wait.
Of course we are steering pharmacies in that direction too, with Pharmacy First. Starting to wonder what GPs actually do…
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
He also wrote a lot of amazing books, over a very long period of time.
You know... I think I'm going to download some to the Kindle.
Also generated one of the great reviews by Martin Amis in the Guardian reprinted in the Moronic Inferno. I can't lay my hands on it but from memory it finished, "You finish the book slightly baffled and confused. But that is only half the story. You wait for it to haunt you. And it does."
While on the topic of SF - I remember reading a short story, maybe Ballard, maybe not, probably in the Pan collected SF stories series edited by Amis and Conquest. It was set in some sort of arid tropical zone, possibly an old military base, with animals mutating like armoured armadillos and dried out swimming pools. Can anyone identify it, please?
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
He also wrote a lot of amazing books, over a very long period of time.
You know... I think I'm going to download some to the Kindle.
Also generated one of the great reviews by Martin Amis in the Guardian reprinted in the Moronic Inferno. I can't lay my hands on it but from memory it finished, "You finish the book slightly baffled and confused. But that is only half the story. You wait for it to haunt you. And it does."
While on the topic of SF - I remember reading a short story, maybe Ballard, maybe not, probably in the Pan collected SF stories series edited by Amis and Conquest. It was set in some sort of arid tropical zone, possibly an old military base, with animals mutating like armoured armadillos and dried out swimming pools. Can anyone identify it, please?
Pretty sure that's the story I linked to a few minutes ago - 'The Drowned World'. Or possibly not. I've listened to too much R4 Ballard dramatisations I think!
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
He also wrote a lot of amazing books, over a very long period of time.
You know... I think I'm going to download some to the Kindle.
Also generated one of the great reviews by Martin Amis in the Guardian reprinted in the Moronic Inferno. I can't lay my hands on it but from memory it finished, "You finish the book slightly baffled and confused. But that is only half the story. You wait for it to haunt you. And it does."
While on the topic of SF - I remember reading a short story, maybe Ballard, maybe not, probably in the Pan collected SF stories series edited by Amis and Conquest. It was set in some sort of arid tropical zone, possibly an old military base, with animals mutating like armoured armadillos and dried out swimming pools. Can anyone identify it, please?
Pretty sure that's the story I linked to a few minutes ago - 'The Drowned World'.
Wasn't, I think - I had that myself. It was definitelyt a short story not a novel.
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
He also wrote a lot of amazing books, over a very long period of time.
You know... I think I'm going to download some to the Kindle.
Also generated one of the great reviews by Martin Amis in the Guardian reprinted in the Moronic Inferno. I can't lay my hands on it but from memory it finished, "You finish the book slightly baffled and confused. But that is only half the story. You wait for it to haunt you. And it does."
While on the topic of SF - I remember reading a short story, maybe Ballard, maybe not, probably in the Pan collected SF stories series edited by Amis and Conquest. It was set in some sort of arid tropical zone, possibly an old military base, with animals mutating like armoured armadillos and dried out swimming pools. Can anyone identify it, please?
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
He also wrote a lot of amazing books, over a very long period of time.
You know... I think I'm going to download some to the Kindle.
Also generated one of the great reviews by Martin Amis in the Guardian reprinted in the Moronic Inferno. I can't lay my hands on it but from memory it finished, "You finish the book slightly baffled and confused. But that is only half the story. You wait for it to haunt you. And it does."
While on the topic of SF - I remember reading a short story, maybe Ballard, maybe not, probably in the Pan collected SF stories series edited by Amis and Conquest. It was set in some sort of arid tropical zone, possibly an old military base, with animals mutating like armoured armadillos and dried out swimming pools. Can anyone identify it, please?
Pretty sure that's the story I linked to a few minutes ago - 'The Drowned World'.
Wasn't, I think - I had that myself. It was definitelyt a short story not a novel.
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
He also wrote a lot of amazing books, over a very long period of time.
You know... I think I'm going to download some to the Kindle.
Also generated one of the great reviews by Martin Amis in the Guardian reprinted in the Moronic Inferno. I can't lay my hands on it but from memory it finished, "You finish the book slightly baffled and confused. But that is only half the story. You wait for it to haunt you. And it does."
While on the topic of SF - I remember reading a short story, maybe Ballard, maybe not, probably in the Pan collected SF stories series edited by Amis and Conquest. It was set in some sort of arid tropical zone, possibly an old military base, with animals mutating like armoured armadillos and dried out swimming pools. Can anyone identify it, please?
Pretty sure that's the story I linked to a few minutes ago - 'The Drowned World'.
Wasn't, I think - I had that myself. It was definitelyt a short story not a novel.
A&E is taking the heat for GPS not being accessible. Many who are there would be more appropriate at the GP but they cannot get seen. A&E is open, so they go there, and get sent there by NHS111.
I believe we need more walk in GPs. Every town should have one. No booking, turn up and wait.
Of course we are steering pharmacies in that direction too, with Pharmacy First. Starting to wonder what GPs actually do…
Actually doing that we’re going back to the early 19thC when, in England and Wales, the apothecaries became GP’s and the supply function went over to the ‘druggists’. Today the ‘druggists’ are the supermarkets!
A&E is taking the heat for GPS not being accessible. Many who are there would be more appropriate at the GP but they cannot get seen. A&E is open, so they go there, and get sent there by NHS111.
I believe we need more walk in GPs. Every town should have one. No booking, turn up and wait.
Of course we are steering pharmacies in that direction too, with Pharmacy First. Starting to wonder what GPs actually do…
The irony though is at the same time as a crisis of GP access, this government has managed to create a GP unemployment crisis.
A&E is taking the heat for GPS not being accessible. Many who are there would be more appropriate at the GP but they cannot get seen. A&E is open, so they go there, and get sent there by NHS111.
I believe we need more walk in GPs. Every town should have one. No booking, turn up and wait.
Of course we are steering pharmacies in that direction too, with Pharmacy First. Starting to wonder what GPs actually do…
We had one of those in our local town. We used it once; only to find that people from our 'village' were now banned from it as we were using it too often. As our GP surgery was hopeless. Which, to be fair, was why we had gone there in the first place...
Having said that, our recent experience with our GP was absolutely top-notch, both in the immediate need and the follow-up.
You were all over the "Elon Musk angle" when Trump was proposing big tariffs on Chinese electric cars. When Biden actually does it, it's part of a sensible and strategic foreign policy.
Because Trump's policy was incoherent. He wanted - and still wants - to hinder US production of EVs, in sharp contrast to Biden's determination to help build resilient US manufacturing.
We've discussed this us some detail today, so you ought to have taken that in.
The gourmet equivalent would be that of opting for s*** on toast or a s*** sandwich. Although to be fair to them both, Johnson's offering was sans bread.
If we have a Canada 1993 experience, who will the 2 Conservative MPs left standing be?
Sunak and Truss would be interesting.
They could come to Westminster on a tandem.
It's not impossible they could be Scottish. Different dynamics north of the border, the SNP are the main challengers to the Tories in several of their seats, especially in the North East, and Reform is not such a thing up there.
Indeed. If Swinney matches his previous record as SNP leader it is not impossible that we might be talking about the odd Tory gain north of the border, not that that is going to affect the bloodbath to the south much.
On a marginally related matter, if you Baxter the worst polling for the Tories (Con 18, Lab 48 etc) the Tories come out ludicrously with 13 seats. Of these, 6 are in Scotland. BTW, The Magnificent 7 English survivors would be: Jupp, Rebecca Harris, Joy Morrissey, Whittingdale, Gavin Williamson (and spider), Unknown, and Hayes.
The moment has arrived for a small flutter on the Spider as next Tory leader.
Surely a better idea to just close it down if it comes to that.
A&E is taking the heat for GPS not being accessible. Many who are there would be more appropriate at the GP but they cannot get seen. A&E is open, so they go there, and get sent there by NHS111.
I believe we need more walk in GPs. Every town should have one. No booking, turn up and wait.
Of course we are steering pharmacies in that direction too, with Pharmacy First. Starting to wonder what GPs actually do…
The irony though is at the same time as a crisis of GP access, this government has managed to create a GP unemployment crisis.
That's not much difference from where we are now - the Con/Ref bloc (and don't assume all Reform voters are automatically Conservative voters) is at 37%. 37% also with the latest Deltapoll, 36% with the latest R&W, 35% with Savanta.
Farage doesn't seem to be the "game changer" some think he is.
Perhaps it's because the thinking on Reform is one-dimensional - yes, some Reform voters would vote Conservative absent a Reform candidate but the voters aren't the leadership and those who came to Reform following the ousting of Boris Johnson aren't going to run back to a party led by someone complicit in Johnson's downfall.
That's not much difference from where we are now - the Con/Ref bloc (and don't assume all Reform voters are automatically Conservative voters) is at 37%. 37% also with the latest Deltapoll, 36% with the latest R&W, 35% with Savanta.
Farage doesn't seem to be the "game changer" some think he is.
Perhaps it's because the thinking on Reform is one-dimensional - yes, some Reform voters would vote Conservative absent a Reform candidate but the voters aren't the leadership and those who came to Reform following the ousting of Boris Johnson aren't going to run back to a party led by someone complicit in Johnson's downfall.
Yes, MOE from current polling was my first thought.
Speaking on @GBNEWS tonight@Jacob_Rees_Mogg has called for senior members of Reform UK to be Conservative Party candidates at the next election, with Nigel Farage being made Home Secretary should the Conservatives win at the next election.
You were all over the "Elon Musk angle" when Trump was proposing big tariffs on Chinese electric cars. When Biden actually does it, it's part of a sensible and strategic foreign policy.
Because Trump's policy was incoherent. He wanted - and still wants - to hinder US production of EVs, in sharp contrast to Biden's determination to help build resilient US manufacturing.
We've discussed this us some detail today, so you ought to have taken that in.
Trump is more coherent on Chinese manufacturers using Mexico as a workaround. Biden's policy doesn't address this.
Speaking on @GBNEWS tonight@Jacob_Rees_Mogg has called for senior members of Reform UK to be Conservative Party candidates at the next election, with Nigel Farage being made Home Secretary should the Conservatives win at the next election.
I think it's time the Tories came up with some new solutions to their drug problem.
Speaking on @GBNEWS tonight@Jacob_Rees_Mogg has called for senior members of Reform UK to be Conservative Party candidates at the next election, with Nigel Farage being made Home Secretary should the Conservatives win at the next election.
Longer term, as we all know, the bigger the defeat for the Conservatives the bigger the opportunity for Reform to consume the corpse and seek to re-invent the Conservative Party more in its image.
The problem is Reform isn't Tice or Farage - the voters are different to the leadership.
Conservative MPs nervous about another potential defection tomorrow at PMQs, rightly or wrongly
If the rip roaring success of last week is anything to go by Starmer will be introducing the new Labour MP for South Holland and the Deepings
It's when he introduces the new Labour member for Richmond (Yorks) that the popcorn shortage becomes a crisis.
Rumour has it that Nokes is on defection watch.
Caroline Nokes strikes me as a very agreeable moderate. The decent pathway is the Temple -Morris route. Cross to Independent and then dovetail into the Labour Party when the dust settles.
Speaking on @GBNEWS tonight@Jacob_Rees_Mogg has called for senior members of Reform UK to be Conservative Party candidates at the next election, with Nigel Farage being made Home Secretary should the Conservatives win at the next election.
On that reality the floor of the House of Commons will be reminiscent of the Shibuya Crossing during rush hour.
It was stupid from Trump, and it's stupid from Biden.
Is it ? Certainly the old US auto industry needs a breathing space, or it will simply disappear. Similarly with semiconductors - multiple new plants are used construction thanks to Biden's incentives, and thus will help jump start them.
Let's see what happens next before calling it stupid.
Comments
There was an application for leave to appeal in April this year. I don't think judgement has yet been given.
British politics has been completely undermined by Labour. They make all sorts of hay with good (and bad) arguments about all sorts of issues. This, that, and the other. What they've never managed though is to bring any sort of sense to this wave of stumbling thought. (I refer of course to the long-term effects of Labour since their inception)
Now in itself this is nothing to concern anyone. The ghastly repercussions are of huge concern though - big picture politics in the UK died a while ago. We didn't spot it because Blair went from big picture to limp rag. It was all supposed to make sense, and then it didn't and then everyone was squabbling over the left-overs.
I don't imagine for a moment that Starmer might bring back something wiser in British politics, but someone will, and it's not so very hard.
Having said that I think that I would blame Obama Bush and Clinton as much as Trump and Biden. The US turned a blind eye to IP theft and unfair trading practices on the part of China for far too long making the radical steps taken now even more precipitous. We are moving into a mercantilist world where the naivety of simple free trade is dead.
But it isn't.
As they expand their settlements Israel is engaged in a slow motion invasion of the West Bank. And every expansion makes any viable Palestinian state all the less possible. And it pretty much ensures every Palestinian is going to hate Israel (and by extension Israelis) with a passion.
The majority of people born in the West Bank were born after the Oslo Accords. If I lived there - even though I'm a committed atheist - I would support whoever fought back against the hated invaders. Wouldn't you?
All of the formerly pro-EU type people I know are resigned to staying-out-but-trying-to-have-better-relations. The more fervent ones hope for a limited free movement deal for young people and/or musicians. A few might wish for EEA membership. But going through another decade of upheaval to rejoin isn't something that motivates them.
How many active rejoiners are there?
No trial date for either of these cases has been set yet.
It’s not clear to me why so much court time needs to be taken up chasing a further murder conviction for a woman who is going to spend the rest of her life in jail regardless of the outcome. I’m sure the family would like closure, but this case will inevitably come at the expense of other cases which are surely more urgent?
🚨NEW Westminster Voting Intention for @Telegraph
📈18pt Labour lead
🌹Lab 43 (=)
🌳Con 25 (-2)
🔶LD 12 (+1)
➡️Reform 10 (+1)
🌍Green 4 (=)
🎗️SNP 3 (=)
⬜️Other 4 (=)
2,090 UK adults, 10-12 May
The moment has arrived for a small flutter on the Spider as next Tory leader.
A&E in north London on a Tuesday night. (I’ve been sent by 111).
This is why the Tories will lose the election.
(Fuzzy photo a product of vanilla? not my phone)
There will always be Sacklers in this world. Our current capitalist setup funnels them to the top of the profit -making pyramid precisely because they have no restraint and no morals. That's on us to sort, not them.
I think the most shocking part of the story for me was McKinsey's involvement. I've worked in a management consultancy type job, I understand the pressures to provide what the client asks for rather than to stick a spanner in the mechanism. But the extent of their complicity is unconscionable, in my view.
So I hope that'll happen, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Anyway, in short:
1. The world is a dangerous place, and although we've made some mistakes the Tories have had a glorious 14 years.
2. Don't let Starmer make even more of a mess than we have.
On a more serious note, I don't think Sunak's central claim that we will be 'less safe' under PM Starmer will have much mileage with voters.
but they were quite happy for them to be delivered behind a Government crest on the lectern...
Many seem to be labouring under the misconception there's a latent majority for Rejoin.
There isn't. And, as soon as someone opened up that can of worms again, would support there looked like for Rejoin would substantially melt away.
No-one wants to reopen that old wound.
CBC - Former journalist drops out of Conservative nomination race, claims the process has been 'corrupted'; Conservative Party says Sabrina Maddeaux's allegations are 'completely false'
A former National Post journalist is bowing out of the race to carry the Conservative Party banner in a Toronto-area [federal] riding because she says she has "clear evidence of a corrupted process."
In a social media post Thursday, Sabrina Maddeaux said she's suspending her race for the party's nomination in Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill. She said she has been "the clear target of highly unethical, and potential illegal, efforts to sway the vote" because another candidate allegedly had the party's membership list before she did. . . .
A spokesperson for the party told CBC News Maddeaux's allegations about a competitor and the membership list are "completely false." "It's common for the party to receive complaints from nomination candidates about their competitors over suspicions of wrongdoing and the use of lists," Sarah Fischer said.
"In fact, we received a complaint about Ms. Maddeaux's campaign sending out an email to current and former members of the party when she should not have had access to a membership list."
Conservative sources who spoke to CBC News on the condition they not be named said Maddeaux sold only about 50 memberships in the nomination race — a low number that means she likely had no chance of winning the nomination. [However] Maddeaux said . . . her campaign has sold "over 200" memberships. . . .
Maddeaux was in a tough fight for the York Region riding nomination against former MP Costas Menegakis, who held the riding from 2011 until the party's defeat in the 2015 election. . . .
The riding they both were jockeying to represent was held by a Conservative as recently as 2019, which suggests it's a winnable seat for the party, given how well the Conservatives are doing in the national polls.
The party membership list is a crucial document disseminated to prospective party nominees. It's what candidates use to focus their campaigns on members who are actually expected to vote, which saves the campaign time and resources. . . .
Maddeaux said she has evidence to suggest that another unnamed candidate had a list [and sent a mass email citing] her past writings on firearms, former prime minister Stephen Harper, lingerie and Marilyn Monroe and suggested she was out of step with Conservative values.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-nomination-fight-sabrina-maddeaux-1.7198969
(*) In a sad way
Make sure you’re okay and let us know you are 👍
I've just realised what an interesting person and writer JG Ballard was. Hardly paid any attention to him or his work until recently. Shows how easy it is to miss things in life. This is the South Bank show featuring him from 2006.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le0tW1y609w
You know... I think I'm going to download some to the Kindle.
Also plenty of other rural nooks and urban crannies . . . ditto suburban cul de sacs (bad French but ok American).
According to CONSIDERABLE evidence uncovered in court cases from sea to shining sea.
As @AlsoLei says, most people (and especially Remainers) simply want more cordial relations with the EU. No one, except a few total nutjobs, actually wants another referendum and to go through the stresses of rejoin negotiations. (Even in the unlikely event the EU would have us, which I don't think they would.)
There will be 'ever closer union'
Political and economic gravity both point the same way
The first from my work - An 'Everton' fan (Sorry @dixiedean ) who I carefully asked one Monday morning, would he prefer it if Liverpool and Everton had both LOST at the weekend, or Liverpool and Everton had both WON at the weekend. Without a seconds beat, he'd prefer they both lost.
I use the term 'Everton' fan, as clearly he'd become so eaten up by his dislike of Liverpool he'd just become an 'anti-Liverpool' fan rather than an Evertonian.
Then there was the time in 1995, when the final game of the season saw Blackburn Rovers face Liverpool, with Rovers top of the table. Rovers could be pipped by Man Utd however, if United could win and Rovers lose. United were facing West Ham, and no one expected United to do anything other than roll over them.
Cue lots and lots of me listening to the radio on the week leading to the game, with Liverpool fan after Liverpool fan coming on to Radio Merseyside, telling us how Liverpool would just throw the game and let Rovers score as many as they liked.
Of course, the final result was that Liverpool won (though I believe the goalscorer - was it Fowler - mouthed 'what have I done?') but United lost to West Ham anyway.... so all was right in the world.
But both Everton fans hate Liverpool so much they'd gladly lose a game if it meant Liverpool didn't win something, and the same is true of Liverpool fans and Manchester United.
From a purely mercenary UK point of view, is there some sort of similar path we might follow in a Trump 2 world?
Breaking from the US / EU and aligning ourselves with China might do the trick... do we have a Chamberlain waiting in the wings to propose it?
Imagine the trajectory of the 2 year continuation of Liz Truss, PM
He is a centimetre shorter so this is good news for Rishi!!
Labour 41%
Tories 21%
Reform 16%
LDs 11%
https://x.com/JLPartnersPolls/status/1790098893834686651
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRxpZ142lkI&t=7s
There was an enjoyable BBC radio adaption of 'The Drowned World' a few years ago too :
https://archive.org/details/DangerousVisionsS1/1-02-TheDrownedWorld.mp3
I do wonder how much A&E gets filled up with non-A&E cases.
(In the case I mentioned, a man said he'd previously ripped open his sternum moving a fish tank. He gave a painful laugh and said that perhaps he should have emptied it first...)
Brexit has been a failure, and the polling shows that people want it reversed
I can't lay my hands on it but from memory it finished, "You finish the book slightly baffled and confused. But that is only half the story. You wait for it to haunt you. And it does."
Conservative MPs nervous about another potential defection tomorrow at PMQs, rightly or wrongly
A&E is taking the heat for GPS not being accessible. Many who are there would be more appropriate at the GP but they cannot get seen. A&E is open, so they go there, and get sent there by NHS111.
I believe we need more walk in GPs. Every town should have one. No booking, turn up and wait.
Of course we are steering pharmacies in that direction too, with Pharmacy First. Starting to wonder what GPs actually do…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_World
Today the ‘druggists’ are the supermarkets!
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/12/england-locum-gps-doctors-work-surgeries-british-medical-association
Worth noting that each ED attendance costs as much as a GP gets per capita per year. So we have an expensive way to deliver a poorer service.
Having said that, our recent experience with our GP was absolutely top-notch, both in the immediate need and the follow-up.
He wanted - and still wants - to hinder US production of EVs, in sharp contrast to Biden's determination to help build resilient US manufacturing.
We've discussed this us some detail today, so you ought to have taken that in.
https://archive.org/details/TheStoriesOfJ.g.Ballard/
Conservative MPs nervous about another potential defection tomorrow at PMQs, rightly or wrongly
@JAHeale
Tory MP texts: “We’re worried Natalie is going to come back”
Farage doesn't seem to be the "game changer" some think he is.
Perhaps it's because the thinking on Reform is one-dimensional - yes, some Reform voters would vote Conservative absent a Reform candidate but the voters aren't the leadership and those who came to Reform following the ousting of Boris Johnson aren't going to run back to a party led by someone complicit in Johnson's downfall.
Speaking on @GBNEWS tonight@Jacob_Rees_Mogg has called for senior members of Reform UK to be Conservative Party candidates at the next election, with Nigel Farage being made Home Secretary should the Conservatives win at the next election.
Rumour has it that Nokes is on defection watch.
https://twitter.com/robertlargan/status/1785961022907449771?t=3R-ZkMJZDBfITnok2PpFOw&s=19
The problem is Reform isn't Tice or Farage - the voters are different to the leadership.
Certainly the old US auto industry needs a breathing space, or it will simply disappear.
Similarly with semiconductors - multiple new plants are used construction thanks to Biden's incentives, and thus will help jump start them.
Let's see what happens next before calling it stupid.
Happy Patch Tuesday