The reason the Rwanda policy was so wicked is that even if you were a legitimate refugee, you were not allowed in the UK.
How can anyone justify that?
I guess the argument is that a legitimate would then be in a safe place. Does it really matter where that safe place is?
But as has been discovered, there is no legal and safe way for anyone to get to the UK from any of these places. The routes don't exist.
So by that logic the UK can never have refugees from most of these places. Ukraine would be the exception because we created routes - but so back to my question, why is Ukraine different?
The UK accepts many refugees annually. There are many routes to claim refuge in the UK, not just boat in the Channel.
Ukraine is different because it is an ally that was invaded by an enemy. Afghanistan is a civil war.
There is no route for somebody from Afghanistan to claim asylum here that isn't by boat.
I think there should be, do you not?
This was Cameron's plan back in 2015. He suggest that EU representatives should go into the camps surrounding Syria (as that was the main source of refgees at the time) and collect those most in need of help - the elderly, children, the sick etc, and transport them directly to EU countries. Help those who needed helping the most. Sadly the plan got lost in Merkel's idiotic open door policy which encouraged people to risk dangerous journeys across the Med and was responsible for countless deaths.
The reason the Rwanda policy was so wicked is that even if you were a legitimate refugee, you were not allowed in the UK.
How can anyone justify that?
Because people fleeing France in dinghies leads to drownings in the Channel.
Stopping boat crossings saves lives.
We should be taking refugees from camps not whoever survives a boat crossing.
But it is whether they are a refugee or not, so why does it matter how they got here? If they are legitimate they should be allowed in, doesn't matter if they're from a camp.
It's the ones that aren't legitimate that need to be removed.
It matters because allowing in those who make the boat crossing encourages others to do the same which means inevitably more deaths in the Channel.
Why are those who risk their and other's lives in the Channel more deserving of being here than those who have gone to a camp and done the right thing?
I would support a 1:1 exchange policy. Absolutely nobody who crosses by the Channel is permitted to remain in the country whether they are a legitimate refugee or not instead they will be exchanged with a legitimate refugee who needs refuge who is flown here safely and without risking anyone's life or encouraging others to do so either.
In your scenario, where are the legitimate refugees supposed to go then?
As I said, if somebody crosses the channel and has a case for asylum, they are a legitimate refugee.
I'm not opposed to your idea in theory but I don't see how it's workable. It would only work for those that aren't legitimate. As I said, those people should be deported anyway.
There is an entire planet available. It takes a special kind of exceptionalism to think that Britain is uniquely hospitable and not allowing someone to live here is a cruel punishment.
The reason the Rwanda policy was so wicked is that even if you were a legitimate refugee, you were not allowed in the UK.
How can anyone justify that?
Because if you're fleeing persecution, you're glad of safety, a warm bed and the essentials of life.
I am someone who agrees with you that Rwanda should have been a processing centre not a final destination, but I don't think it's indefensible morally.
If they'd made it a processing centre, I would have no issue with that and so I expect would anyone else. Why they didn't do that is anyone's guess.
It’s barmy why Starmer didn’t just make that small tweak to the policy. Everything was in place with Rwanda to do it, but he just scrapped the whole thing.
Love the Cold War motif and Timothy Dalton's ultra Fleming portrayesque.
Licence To Kill is pretty good if you like a deadly serious Bond film with almost no jokes, which I sort of do. I also like the comedy in Roger Moore Bond films.
Trump’s transition team is bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs. https://x.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1857419312316707160
That’s because most of them wouldn’t pass FBI background checks.
Trump’s transition team is bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs. https://x.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1857419312316707160
So basically, alternative vetting being used for those who haven't got a chance in hell of passing an FBI check....
Those private companies are going to very profitable for doing not very much...
The reason the Rwanda policy was so wicked is that even if you were a legitimate refugee, you were not allowed in the UK.
How can anyone justify that?
Because if you're fleeing persecution, you're glad of safety, a warm bed and the essentials of life.
I am someone who agrees with you that Rwanda should have been a processing centre not a final destination, but I don't think it's indefensible morally.
If they'd made it a processing centre, I would have no issue with that and so I expect would anyone else. Why they didn't do that is anyone's guess.
It’s barmy why Starmer didn’t just make that small tweak to the policy. Everything was in place with Rwanda to do it, but he just scrapped the whole thing.
Love the Cold War motif and Timothy Dalton's ultra Fleming portrayesque.
Licence To Kill is pretty good if you like a deadly serious Bond film with almost no jokes, which I sort of do. I also like the comedy in Roger Moore Bond films.
Does anyone have more detail on the care worker given a nine month prison sentence for calling asylum seekers tramps? Seems rather excessive on its own.
typical of the state of the country, Heard today that people are phoning the police for people calling them names, WTF has happened to the country, full of crap.
The reason the Rwanda policy was so wicked is that even if you were a legitimate refugee, you were not allowed in the UK.
How can anyone justify that?
Because people fleeing France in dinghies leads to drownings in the Channel.
Stopping boat crossings saves lives.
We should be taking refugees from camps not whoever survives a boat crossing.
But it is whether they are a refugee or not, so why does it matter how they got here? If they are legitimate they should be allowed in, doesn't matter if they're from a camp.
It's the ones that aren't legitimate that need to be removed.
It matters because allowing in those who make the boat crossing encourages others to do the same which means inevitably more deaths in the Channel.
Why are those who risk their and other's lives in the Channel more deserving of being here than those who have gone to a camp and done the right thing?
I would support a 1:1 exchange policy. Absolutely nobody who crosses by the Channel is permitted to remain in the country whether they are a legitimate refugee or not instead they will be exchanged with a legitimate refugee who needs refuge who is flown here safely and without risking anyone's life or encouraging others to do so either.
Put ethics aside entirely and there is a good argument that those who make the trip to northern France then the boat crossing are probably some of the most enterprising, risk-taking, resilient people globally, and could therefore probably help Starmer's growth mission more than the rest of us layabouts.
Not an argument I'd make but I'm surprised others don't make it.
That's actually very interesting. It appears that people start off liking dinosaurs and then go off them as they get older. I'm at a loss to explain why that might be. Perhaps the novelty just wears off?
Alternatively old people never liked them in the first place. Potentially Jurassic Park etc might be a factor.
Dinosaurs were taught in school, though, so that can't be the answer. I think it's more that fascination comes with discovery, as you discover things they fascinate you, then as time goes by the fascination wanes and makes way for other stuff you are discovering. If this didn't happen you'd end up being fascinated by too many different things.
But there are always new dinosaurs and new dinosaur facts to be fascinated by! Way more dinosaur species have been discovered in the last decade than were discovered in the decade of my birth.
I don't think Ukraine is any different I am afraid.
These are human beings fleeing war and destruction, frankly it doesn't matter where they come from.
I wouldn't treat Ukraine any differently. If they came across in boats I suspect nobody would bat an eyelid.
The approach to Ukrainian refugees from 2022 onwards was completely irrational. It essentially helped fighting age men desert and flee conscription in opposition against the policy of our ally, the Ukrainian government; it also created vast opportunities for Russian espionage in Europe. I have never understood this policy, which basically seems to support Russia. Perhaps someone could explain how I am wrong in my assessment.
Most of the Ukrainian refugees were not men of conscription age. Many of those who were, saw their families safe, then went back to Ukraine.
“70% of adults who arrived under the two main Ukraine schemes were women. Around 27% of all arrivals were children under the age of 18.”
Are there any reliable statistics, at least in terms of migration within the EU?. Essentially there is free movement in the EU if you have a Ukraine passport. There are many Ukrainian males that appear to be of fighting age who are living and working in Finland. I have never understood why Finland refuses to take deserters from Russia, but happily takes in deserters in from Ukraine. So if you are Russian fleeing Putin your best option is to pretend to be deserting Ukraine, buy a fake passport, etc. The whole thing is totally irrational.
Trump’s transition team is bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs. https://x.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1857419312316707160
That’s because most of them wouldn’t pass FBI background checks.
Frankly the argument Labour should be making is that the backlog is so long that we can't deport people who are not legitimate refugees quickly enough.
But the solution is not to make genuine refugees suffer in response. Politically it might win some votes - long term though it is a disastrous policy.
The worm has turned against illegal immigration across the west. Labour would get absolutely hammered if they had any kind of amnesty policy.
I am not advocating an amnesty, that's not what I said at all.
If you are a legitimate refugee coming into this country, do you honestly think they shouldn't be allowed to be here?
As I said above, the issue is that the fake ones we can't process quickly enough because the backlog is so long. We need to cut the backlog and kick out the ones that shouldn't be here.
Nobody without a job and funds to keep themselves for at least 2 years till they contribute enough tax etc should be allowed anywhere near the place.
Does anyone have more detail on the care worker given a nine month prison sentence for calling asylum seekers tramps? Seems rather excessive on its own.
She was part of a gang of 20 people who had armed themselves and were heading towards a hotel to attack asylum seekers.
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Time to bomb them back to 2nd century
That's one solution, but don't them come crying when a Sudanese terrorist attacks your local Scottish hovel in return.
fat chance , they are too busy sponging down south.
Does anyone have more detail on the care worker given a nine month prison sentence for calling asylum seekers tramps? Seems rather excessive on its own.
She was part of a gang of 20 people who had armed themselves and were heading towards a hotel to attack asylum seekers.
Does anyone have more detail on the care worker given a nine month prison sentence for calling asylum seekers tramps? Seems rather excessive on its own.
A rather heretical view... but I predict this will end up being a 'windrush' or a 'post office' like disaster for the government, some low level civil servants will be blamed, they will end up being compensated.
Oh God, PB’s going to get spammed senseless again about Starmer having booze again isn’t it?
BigG. has finally found his "gotcha"!
Will you stop picking on Big G. He is entitled to post what he likes, just as you are 😠
I’ve got a genuine question for you Big G, as you seem to be slipping back into the Conservative fold. The next General Election is definitely being held on May 3rd 2029 - which seems a whole universe away. According to every forecast for world and UK growth, there will be no significant growth anywhere for at least 6 or 7 years. And according to head of Bank of England yesterday, UK will be additionally poorer thanks to Brexit. So nothing for Labour to work with to say voters are better off in five years, compared to July 2024, so a huge gift to the Tories, a great background for Badenoch and Stride to be campaigning in, in 2029 looks very likely - very similar to what helped Trump to power this year, the Conservatives will ask, are you better off than 5 years ago? And the voters answer will be: no!
However, the question is this, does your vote in such a situation depend on what the Conservative economic policies actually are? if the Conservative position is it’s nowt but Labour that has made voters poorer in the five years since 2024, because Labour has not embraced the wonderful freedoms of Brexit - the Conservative Manifesto in 2029 is to fully embrace those opportunities of Brexit, go full Singapore on Thames to make Britons rich again, would you vote Conservative? Would you vote for that economic policy agenda?
Thank you for your support and would concur the pile on from the usual suspects is nothing more than an attempt to close down anything that may be critical of Starmer and is consistent with the left attitude
I think it is becoming apparent every day that Labour were elected on a false manifesto and promises, and they have reverted to type being pro public sector and unions at the expense of the private sector that actually provides the tax receipts for this largesse
I will vote conservative at the next GE to return to pro business, small state politics but 5 years us a long time away for me and as has been seen before I have voted for a Blair government but that is not what Starmer and Reeves represent
What if the Conservative economic position put Labours economic failure and lack of growth down to not taking Brexit freedoms and opportunities, the Conservative economic plan and manifesto is around making Brexit work, full fat Singapore on Thames - you can still see yourself giving your vote to that sort of economic policy plan?
Such a scenario as this is very very likely where we are going to be, Spring 2029 - Labour government failed economically, no one feels better off. But Conservatives will still have to explain why - what Labour done wrong, what they will now do differently.
And if that plan is to make us all richer by properly exploiting opportunities from Brexit at last, you could vote for that?
Yes
I do have a problem with how you answered. It flashlights upon just how Brexit isn’t in the past, the real Brexit problem is in our future.
The Conservatives are going to come to argue, up to and during the next election, Brexit has not really hit investment or trade, the real economic issue that has left the country not feeling better off has been the Labour government, and exploiting the freedoms and opportunities of Brexit is what will make us rich again.
A lot a people won’t see any issue at all with that argument. So it’s a vote winner. Yes, it can even win the Conservatives the next General Election. But it’s also repackaging and reselling the same old snake oil as before - it’s pressing the Brexit button all over again.
if, as very likely, this is the actual politics before us in 2029, the Conservative Party message would be fundamentally wrong - five years of Labour hadn’t made us economically poorer and held UK growth back, if Brexit has. And policy pathway the Conservatives proposing to follow to put Britain back upon the right path, grasp the nettle and exploit those Brexit freedoms and Opportunities, would make UK a worse, not better place to live.
PS - thanks for taking the time to answer the question. 👍🏻
PPS you have correctly called Partygate and Diwaligate as being one and exactly the same thing btw. 👍🏻
Needles to say I disagree with just about everything you have written there.
You don’t actually disagree with everything.
The divide between us I am on the correct side of, that there are zero economic benefits for UK from Brexit, we will simply get poorer as a country now, year on year, decade on decade with less investment and trade than we would otherwise have had, AND where a vote only just got over the line in 2016 owing heavily upon lying, and exploiting decades of globalisation impacts upon UK Brexit can never assuage let alone put in reverse, those imagined and exaggerated benefits of Brexit being deliberate misinformation, like the £350M a week for the NHS Gross figure of EU payments - that is the bit I suspect you disagree.
However, the bit of what I posted where Brexit shortly becomes very much part of our daily lives and discussions again - Labour doesn’t get much growth in next five years, the Conservative Party coalesce around an economic argument Brexit has not really hit investment or trade, the real reason for UKs economic malaise has been the Labour governments failure to exploit our freedoms and opportunities of Brexit, doing so will make UK prosperous and Great again - making May 3rd 2029 another Brexit Election Day - you can agree with me, you can see that happening, can’t you?
Trump’s transition team is bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs. https://x.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1857419312316707160
That’s because most of them wouldn’t pass FBI background checks.
I can't understand how they are allowed to this?
Because most of the outrageous things they’re doing are so outrageous that no-one thought to make a rule saying you couldn’t do them and/or the levers of government who should stop them, like the Senate, are too frit.
Further reflection: what sort of maniac favours the Tyrannosaurus? It's like the Harry Potter superfans who favour Slytherin Pleased to see brontosaurus still retains a fair bit of popularity, despite having been declared non-existent. I suppose the gap between a dinosaur which lived and died millions of years ago and one which never lived at all is only slight.
Fun fact: the gap in time between Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus is significantly larger than the gap in time between Tyrannosaurus and humans.
The tyrannosaurs popularity may have risen now we know they were mostly fluffy.
White dudes for Harris was a real phenomenon it seems.
"In 2024, Kamala Harris did worse among Black voters than Joe Biden did in 2020. She did worse among female voters. She did much worse among Latino voters. She did much worse among young voters.
She did manage to outperform Biden among two groups: affluent people and white voters, especially white men. If there is one sentence that captures the surprising results of this election, it is this one from the sociologist Musa al-Gharbi: “Democrats lost because everyone except for whites moved in the direction of Donald Trump this cycle.” Going into this campaign, I did not have that one on my bingo card."
But let’s not confuse the change with the raw scores. More white men voted Trump, more black men voted Harris, more women voted Harris, more Latinos voted Harris.
We are all, pace @kjh , overlooking the important question:
Were they animals or do they count as birds?
Birds are in fact dinosaurs.
Maybe the ones you’re dating at your age. 😘
Reptiles as a group includes the birds, because the latter are descended from dinosaurs (which were reptiles). The closest living relatives of the birds are in fact the crocodiles.
I was only joking.
You are still my favourite PBer. ❤️
After Robert, OGH and TSE, obviously. 🙂
And Viewcode, Ydoethur. Nigel, Malmesbury, Nicky, Barty, Lucky, Malc. Decrepit, Stodge, Stu, BigG, Oldy, Ben, Kin, Rotten, Jos. Leon. Cyclefree. Yokes. Mr Bristols. The Balrog. And Horse.
We are all, pace @kjh , overlooking the important question:
Were they animals or do they count as birds?
Birds are in fact dinosaurs.
Everyone is ruining my attempt to troll KJH.
Not rising to it.
But just in case anyone thinks otherwise it wasn't me who said birds weren't animals. It was me saying they were. Don't want to be put in the idiot camp.
Does anyone have more detail on the care worker given a nine month prison sentence for calling asylum seekers tramps? Seems rather excessive on its own.
She was part of a gang of 20 people who had armed themselves and were heading towards a hotel to attack asylum seekers.
So slightly more than calling asylum seekers tramps?
Oh God, PB’s going to get spammed senseless again about Starmer having booze again isn’t it?
BigG. has finally found his "gotcha"!
Will you stop picking on Big G. He is entitled to post what he likes, just as you are 😠
I’ve got a genuine question for you Big G, as you seem to be slipping back into the Conservative fold. The next General Election is definitely being held on May 3rd 2029 - which seems a whole universe away. According to every forecast for world and UK growth, there will be no significant growth anywhere for at least 6 or 7 years. And according to head of Bank of England yesterday, UK will be additionally poorer thanks to Brexit. So nothing for Labour to work with to say voters are better off in five years, compared to July 2024, so a huge gift to the Tories, a great background for Badenoch and Stride to be campaigning in, in 2029 looks very likely - very similar to what helped Trump to power this year, the Conservatives will ask, are you better off than 5 years ago? And the voters answer will be: no!
However, the question is this, does your vote in such a situation depend on what the Conservative economic policies actually are? if the Conservative position is it’s nowt but Labour that has made voters poorer in the five years since 2024, because Labour has not embraced the wonderful freedoms of Brexit - the Conservative Manifesto in 2029 is to fully embrace those opportunities of Brexit, go full Singapore on Thames to make Britons rich again, would you vote Conservative? Would you vote for that economic policy agenda?
Thank you for your support and would concur the pile on from the usual suspects is nothing more than an attempt to close down anything that may be critical of Starmer and is consistent with the left attitude
I think it is becoming apparent every day that Labour were elected on a false manifesto and promises, and they have reverted to type being pro public sector and unions at the expense of the private sector that actually provides the tax receipts for this largesse
I will vote conservative at the next GE to return to pro business, small state politics but 5 years us a long time away for me and as has been seen before I have voted for a Blair government but that is not what Starmer and Reeves represent
What if the Conservative economic position put Labours economic failure and lack of growth down to not taking Brexit freedoms and opportunities, the Conservative economic plan and manifesto is around making Brexit work, full fat Singapore on Thames - you can still see yourself giving your vote to that sort of economic policy plan?
Such a scenario as this is very very likely where we are going to be, Spring 2029 - Labour government failed economically, no one feels better off. But Conservatives will still have to explain why - what Labour done wrong, what they will now do differently.
And if that plan is to make us all richer by properly exploiting opportunities from Brexit at last, you could vote for that?
Yes
I do have a problem with how you answered. It flashlights upon just how Brexit isn’t in the past, the real Brexit problem is in our future.
The Conservatives are going to come to argue, up to and during the next election, Brexit has not really hit investment or trade, the real economic issue that has left the country not feeling better off has been the Labour government, and exploiting the freedoms and opportunities of Brexit is what will make us rich again.
A lot a people won’t see any issue at all with that argument. So it’s a vote winner. Yes, it can even win the Conservatives the next General Election. But it’s also repackaging and reselling the same old snake oil as before - it’s pressing the Brexit button all over again.
if, as very likely, this is the actual politics before us in 2029, the Conservative Party message would be fundamentally wrong - five years of Labour hadn’t made us economically poorer and held UK growth back, if Brexit has. And policy pathway the Conservatives proposing to follow to put Britain back upon the right path, grasp the nettle and exploit those Brexit freedoms and Opportunities, would make UK a worse, not better place to live.
PS - thanks for taking the time to answer the question. 👍🏻
PPS you have correctly called Partygate and Diwaligate as being one and exactly the same thing btw. 👍🏻
Actually I have been consistent in arguing for a closer relationship with the EU, and Brexit has had its failures, but whilst I would agree to joining the single market, I am very opposed to rejoining the EU even though I voted remain, as that ship has sailed
I know what you are saying. But back to what I’m saying in this model, cordial discussion is, the Conservatives will argue, up to and during the next election 2029, Brexit has not really hit investment or trade, the real reason for UKs economic malaise has been the Labour governments failure to exploit the freedoms and opportunities of Brexit, doing so will make UK prosperous and Great again.
Brexit was only just got over the line in 2016 owing heavily upon a lot of snake oil lubrication, imagined and exaggerated Brexit benefits, and deliberate misinformation like the £350M a week for the NHS Gross figure of EU payments.
The Brexit Vote coming on 3rd May 2029 is a de-facto 2nd Brexit Referendum. Your vote for the Conservative Party in it will support Brexit, and endorse even more changing UK way of life chasing that Brexit dream.
Do you expect Labour to have adopted a rejoin policy by then?
No. Far from it.
UK Brexited January 2020. July 2024 to May 2029 I expect Labour to do pretty much same regards Brexit as the Tories done up to July 2024 - not very much at all.
3rd May 2029 becomes a Brexit Election because it is the Conservatives now in opposition, who will talk up pushing on exploiting the freedoms and opportunities Brexit has bequeathed us, as defining very clear blue economic water, a very real contrast, to the stagnant, over taxed, over regulated economy under these 5 years of Labour that is not attracting investment, trade, or growing.
Much like we say Trump 2.0 we need to appreciate Brexit 2.0 is coming, and will become central to UK politics.
We are all, pace @kjh , overlooking the important question:
Were they animals or do they count as birds?
Birds are in fact dinosaurs.
Maybe the ones you’re dating at your age. 😘
Reptiles as a group includes the birds, because the latter are descended from dinosaurs (which were reptiles). The closest living relatives of the birds are in fact the crocodiles.
I was only joking.
You are still my favourite PBer. ❤️
After Robert, OGH and TSE, obviously. 🙂
And Viewcode, Ydoethur. Nigel, Malmesbury, Nicky, Barty, Lucky, Malc. Decrepit, Stodge, Stu, BigG, Oldy, Ben, Kin, Rotten, Jos. Leon. Cyclefree. Yokes. Mr Bristols. The Balrog. And Horse.
So. See? You’re high on the speed dial.
Oh. And Dumbosaurus. Which is also my favourite Dinosaur.
Does anyone have more detail on the care worker given a nine month prison sentence for calling asylum seekers tramps? Seems rather excessive on its own.
A rather heretical view... but I predict this will end up being a 'windrush' or a 'post office' like disaster for the government, some low level civil servants will be blamed, they will end up being compensated.
Won’t happen.
The sentences aren’t made up out of thin air. They come out if the matrices in the sentencing guidelines. You can go look at them online.
Judges remarks on sentencing are, in part, about their reasoning as to where on the sentencing matrix the convicted person ended up.
There are some escape clauses, in some crimes for leniency or severity - but that requires further detailed justification. And hasn’t been used in the riot sentencing, that I am aware.
Any deviation from the guidelines would be instant grounds for an appeal.
So how come the custodial sentences etc? Well, very often, in normal times, crimes are undercharged. That is, the defendant is charged with a much lesser crime than the facts warrant.
An extreme example of this was a number years back - the Oxford street stabbing. Two juveniles, in a gang, held a murder victim down, while he was stabbed by another. They could have been charged with murder. But weren’t. They got 12 months under an assault charge…
In the case of the riots, the CPS started charging people with what they had done. Rather than charging lesser offences.
So the people sentenced for taking part in the riots were sentenced correctly, according to crimes they have been convicted for, with adequate evidence to sustain the conviction.
Bit hard to argue “My client committed ABH. The Evil State then charged him with ABH. The bastards.”
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Sir Keir Starmer has become the first prime minister to reject honorary membership of a golf club linked to the Chequers Estate, breaking with a 100-year tradition https://x.com/Telegraph/status/1857504670752596052
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Sir Keir Starmer has become the first prime minister to reject honorary membership of a golf club linked to the Chequers Estate, breaking with a 100-year tradition https://x.com/Telegraph/status/1857504670752596052
Golf, the only "sport" even more boring than cricket!
Further reflection: what sort of maniac favours the Tyrannosaurus? It's like the Harry Potter superfans who favour Slytherin Pleased to see brontosaurus still retains a fair bit of popularity, despite having been declared non-existent. I suppose the gap between a dinosaur which lived and died millions of years ago and one which never lived at all is only slight.
Fun fact: the gap in time between Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus is significantly larger than the gap in time between Tyrannosaurus and humans.
What? The brontosaurus never existed?!
But its neck was my favourite slide as a kid!
Pause
How old are you???
I’ve been around the houses.
@JackW and I knew each other when he was growing up
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Sir Keir Starmer has become the first prime minister to reject honorary membership of a golf club linked to the Chequers Estate, breaking with a 100-year tradition https://x.com/Telegraph/status/1857504670752596052
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Sir Keir Starmer has become the first prime minister to reject honorary membership of a golf club linked to the Chequers Estate, breaking with a 100-year tradition https://x.com/Telegraph/status/1857504670752596052
If he doesn’t want to hang around a golf club saloon bar then, for me, that’s a GOOD THING. Although, to be fair, three of my family enjoy the game, but AFAIK they don’t socialise there.
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
The reason the Rwanda policy was so wicked is that even if you were a legitimate refugee, you were not allowed in the UK.
How can anyone justify that?
I guess the argument is that a legitimate would then be in a safe place. Does it really matter where that safe place is?
But as has been discovered, there is no legal and safe way for anyone to get to the UK from any of these places. The routes don't exist.
So by that logic the UK can never have refugees from most of these places. Ukraine would be the exception because we created routes - but so back to my question, why is Ukraine different?
The UK accepts many refugees annually. There are many routes to claim refuge in the UK, not just boat in the Channel.
Ukraine is different because it is an ally that was invaded by an enemy. Afghanistan is a civil war.
There is no route for somebody from Afghanistan to claim asylum here.
I think there should be, do you not?
There are routes.
Tens of thousands of Afghans have had legal asylum claims to the UK and got here legally without jeopardising anyone's life on a dinghy in the Channel.
There aren't any safe and legal routes for Afghanistan, this was talked about at length. If you wanted to claim asylum in the UK from Afghanistan, there is no way to do it.
The dinghies aren't coming from Afghanistan, they're coming from France.
There are safe and legal routes for Afghanis to get to the UK with a valid asylum claim. Tens of thousands have.
You are acting as if the number that have is zero.
There is no legal way to claim asylum in the UK from Afghanistan. You are deluding yourself.
Completely and utterly irrelevant.
The boats aren't coming from Afghanistan, they're coming from France.
There are legal ways for Afghanis to get asylum in the UK, as tens of thousands have.
The reason the Rwanda policy was so wicked is that even if you were a legitimate refugee, you were not allowed in the UK.
How can anyone justify that?
I guess the argument is that a legitimate would then be in a safe place. Does it really matter where that safe place is?
But as has been discovered, there is no legal and safe way for anyone to get to the UK from any of these places. The routes don't exist.
So by that logic the UK can never have refugees from most of these places. Ukraine would be the exception because we created routes - but so back to my question, why is Ukraine different?
The UK accepts many refugees annually. There are many routes to claim refuge in the UK, not just boat in the Channel.
Ukraine is different because it is an ally that was invaded by an enemy. Afghanistan is a civil war.
There is no route for somebody from Afghanistan to claim asylum here.
I think there should be, do you not?
There are routes.
Tens of thousands of Afghans have had legal asylum claims to the UK and got here legally without jeopardising anyone's life on a dinghy in the Channel.
There aren't any safe and legal routes for Afghanistan, this was talked about at length. If you wanted to claim asylum in the UK from Afghanistan, there is no way to do it.
The dinghies aren't coming from Afghanistan, they're coming from France.
There are safe and legal routes for Afghanis to get to the UK with a valid asylum claim. Tens of thousands have.
You are acting as if the number that have is zero.
There is no legal way to claim asylum in the UK from Afghanistan. You are deluding yourself.
Completely and utterly irrelevant.
The boats aren't coming from Afghanistan, they're coming from France.
There are legal ways for Afghanis to get asylum in the UK, as tens of thousands have.
Care to tell me what they are - because my googlefu has completely failed me (and I suspect I know why)..
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Sir Keir Starmer has become the first prime minister to reject honorary membership of a golf club linked to the Chequers Estate, breaking with a 100-year tradition https://x.com/Telegraph/status/1857504670752596052
The reason the Rwanda policy was so wicked is that even if you were a legitimate refugee, you were not allowed in the UK.
How can anyone justify that?
I guess the argument is that a legitimate would then be in a safe place. Does it really matter where that safe place is?
But as has been discovered, there is no legal and safe way for anyone to get to the UK from any of these places. The routes don't exist.
So by that logic the UK can never have refugees from most of these places. Ukraine would be the exception because we created routes - but so back to my question, why is Ukraine different?
The UK accepts many refugees annually. There are many routes to claim refuge in the UK, not just boat in the Channel.
Ukraine is different because it is an ally that was invaded by an enemy. Afghanistan is a civil war.
There is no route for somebody from Afghanistan to claim asylum here.
I think there should be, do you not?
There are routes.
Tens of thousands of Afghans have had legal asylum claims to the UK and got here legally without jeopardising anyone's life on a dinghy in the Channel.
There aren't any safe and legal routes for Afghanistan, this was talked about at length. If you wanted to claim asylum in the UK from Afghanistan, there is no way to do it.
The dinghies aren't coming from Afghanistan, they're coming from France.
There are safe and legal routes for Afghanis to get to the UK with a valid asylum claim. Tens of thousands have.
You are acting as if the number that have is zero.
There is no legal way to claim asylum in the UK from Afghanistan. You are deluding yourself.
Completely and utterly irrelevant.
The boats aren't coming from Afghanistan, they're coming from France.
There are legal ways for Afghanis to get asylum in the UK, as tens of thousands have.
Care to tell me what they are - because my googlefu has completely failed me (and I suspect I know why)..
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
Has anyone else read the history of Manila as the Japanese were pushed out by the Americans in 1945?
I confess I has no idea. It’s as bad - perhaps worse in its wanton pointless intensity - as the Rape of Nanking
For a start the Japanese made sure to destroy “the most beautiful city in the orient” - Manila was a Spanish colonial pearl
Worse; the Japanese decided to exterminate - there is no other word - pretty much the entire civilian population. Every living non Japanese person. Men women children babies. Herded into buildings that were then exploded or burned. Thousands of rapes - the girls then killed. Mass beheadings
Perhaps 100,000 died in a matter of days
Great book on this subject. But a tough tough read
We are all, pace @kjh , overlooking the important question:
Were they animals or do they count as birds?
Birds are in fact dinosaurs.
Maybe the ones you’re dating at your age. 😘
Reptiles as a group includes the birds, because the latter are descended from dinosaurs (which were reptiles). The closest living relatives of the birds are in fact the crocodiles.
I was only joking.
You are still my favourite PBer. ❤️
After Robert, OGH and TSE, obviously. 🙂
And Viewcode, Ydoethur. Nigel, Malmesbury, Nicky, Barty, Lucky, Malc. Decrepit, Stodge, Stu, BigG, Oldy, Ben, Kin, Rotten, Jos. Leon. Cyclefree. Yokes. Mr Bristols. The Balrog. And Horse.
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
I bet you ruined a few evenings! Naughty!
You'd have thought the bit where we were discussing using the Operation Angel - the plan to mobilise the TA in an emergency, run by a one armed colonel in Defence Ministry - would have blown the joke. Obviously, not enough Tom Cruise fans at the table.
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
So he wasn’t a knife and fork then?
I have a lot of time for the HAC. My father was a lance bombardier back in the day but progressed to become Deputy Lieutenant of Hampshire which meant he was an honorary colonel. Except in the HAC which doesn’t recognise ranks from other units…
At Drumheller a few hours north of Calgary in the Canadian badlands. It has two additional great attractions:
1. It hosts the main collection of the Burgess Shale fossils - perhaps the most important and influential assemblage ever found. 2. It has the name Tyrrell - which all Bladerunner fans will of course recognise.
Dinos, Hallucigenia and Replicants. What more could you ask for.
If it doesn't have to be a dinosaur sensu stricto, there is a very nice new museum at Kimmeridge full of local Jurassic beasties (and they might even have a few dinosaur scraps). Great pub opposite for lunch.
Had a very pleasant visit there earlier this year and a schlep over to Worth Matravers for the pub (more fossils in it, and not talking about us) and the dinosaur footprints in the NT-preserved quarry near by.
Can confirm this. Steve Etches (a friend of a friend of mine) has spent decades collecting, prepping fossils from Kimmeridge. It’s a monument to one man’s obsession and skill.
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
I think, and I don't know how to phrase this, that the rich and the poor are structurally different. Poor people have friends, but rich people have allies. Poor people like the people they like, but rich people like people only as long as they are useful. I assume this is a British thing but happy to be contradicted.
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
When one of the very best players - like Zammit - goes off to be a reserve player in the NFL because the money is better then the sport is in deep shit
"Calling Trump an authoritarian fascist is all hyperbole."
Lord Peter Mandelson dismisses claims that Trump fuels 'fear and division,' noting that most Americans care more about living costs.
Terrible conflation of arguments there.
It is entirely possible to argue - as I have done previusly - that most Trump supporters are voting for him out of a combination of economic malaise and desperation. This is more acute in the US than the UK due to the lack of any form of safety net.
But it is also entirely possible to argue - as again I have done - that Trump himself is a self serving authoritarian fuckwit (I won't use the overblown fascist claim) who actually cares not one jot for the electorate and is simply clever enough to use their economic difficulties as a means of gaining power.
A clever authoritarian uses the desperation of the electorate to get himself power. This is exactly what Trump has doen.
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
I think, and I don't know how to phrase this, that the rich and the poor are structurally different. Poor people have friends, but rich people have allies. Poor people like the people they like, but rich people like people only as long as they are useful. I assume this is a British thing but happy to be contradicted.
Elon Musk might be in charge of the business of Grok, but the artificial intelligence has seemingly gone into business for itself, labeling Musk as one of the worst offenders when it comes to spreading misinformation online.
User Gary Koepnick asked the AI which person spreads the most information on Twitter/X—and the service did not hesitate in pointing a finger at its creator.
“Based on various analyses, social media sentiment, and reports, Elon Musk has been identified as one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X since he acquired the platform,” it wrote, later adding “Musk has made numerous posts that have been criticized for promoting or endorsing misinformation, especially related to political events, elections, health issues like COVID-19, and conspiracy theories. His endorsements or interactions with content from controversial figures or accounts with a history of spreading misinformation have also contributed to this perception.”
The AI also pointed out that because of Musk’s large number of followers and high visibility, any misinformation he posts is immediately amplified and gains legitimacy among his followers.
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Sir Keir Starmer has become the first prime minister to reject honorary membership of a golf club linked to the Chequers Estate, breaking with a 100-year tradition https://x.com/Telegraph/status/1857504670752596052
"Calling Trump an authoritarian fascist is all hyperbole."
Lord Peter Mandelson dismisses claims that Trump fuels 'fear and division,' noting that most Americans care more about living costs.
Terrible conflation of arguments there.
It is entirely possible to argue - as I have done previusly - that most Trump supporters are voting for him out of a combination of economic malaise and desperation. This is more acute in the US than the UK due to the lack of any form of safety net.
But it is also entirely possible to argue - as again I have done - that Trump himself is a self serving authoritarian fuckwit (I won't use the overblown fascist claim) who actually cares not one jot for the electorate and is simply clever enough to use their economic difficulties as a means of gaining power.
A clever authoritarian uses the desperation of the electorate to get himself power. This is exactly what Trump has doen.
Does anyone have more detail on the care worker given a nine month prison sentence for calling asylum seekers tramps? Seems rather excessive on its own.
A rather heretical view... but I predict this will end up being a 'windrush' or a 'post office' like disaster for the government, some low level civil servants will be blamed, they will end up being compensated.
Won’t happen.
The sentences aren’t made up out of thin air. They come out if the matrices in the sentencing guidelines. You can go look at them online.
Judges remarks on sentencing are, in part, about their reasoning as to where on the sentencing matrix the convicted person ended up.
There are some escape clauses, in some crimes for leniency or severity - but that requires further detailed justification. And hasn’t been used in the riot sentencing, that I am aware.
Any deviation from the guidelines would be instant grounds for an appeal.
So how come the custodial sentences etc? Well, very often, in normal times, crimes are undercharged. That is, the defendant is charged with a much lesser crime than the facts warrant.
An extreme example of this was a number years back - the Oxford street stabbing. Two juveniles, in a gang, held a murder victim down, while he was stabbed by another. They could have been charged with murder. But weren’t. They got 12 months under an assault charge…
In the case of the riots, the CPS started charging people with what they had done. Rather than charging lesser offences.
So the people sentenced for taking part in the riots were sentenced correctly, according to crimes they have been convicted for, with adequate evidence to sustain the conviction.
Bit hard to argue “My client committed ABH. The Evil State then charged him with ABH. The bastards.”
Like @MattW you are not looking at the big picture. If you go and look at the definition of the crime (ie: public order offenses) it is wide open to interpretation, giving enormous powers of discretion to the police. Then if you look at the sentencing guidelines, the judge has enormous discretion in relation to the importance of the 'aggravating factor' - in this case the context of the 'rioting' which then impacts on the end sentence.
The system was carefully constructed to account for situations like this, when you have a threat to public order and the authority of the state is being challenged. And the state has to decide how to respond and that is fundamentally a political decision. In this case I am saying that they made the wrong decision and the wind is now blowing heavily against them.
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
I bet you ruined a few evenings! Naughty!
You'd have thought the bit where we were discussing using the Operation Angel - the plan to mobilise the TA in an emergency, run by a one armed colonel in Defence Ministry - would have blown the joke. Obviously, not enough Tom Cruise fans at the table.
Some of these technicalities are quite fun though.
As ranking DL my Dad would have command of all military units in Hampshire during martial law. My mother, as Sheriff, had control of the police and as the senior magistrate in England had authority over the courts…
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
I bet you ruined a few evenings! Naughty!
You'd have thought the bit where we were discussing using the Operation Angel - the plan to mobilise the TA in an emergency, run by a one armed colonel in Defence Ministry - would have blown the joke. Obviously, not enough Tom Cruise fans at the table.
Some of these technicalities are quite fun though.
As ranking DL my Dad would have command of all military units in Hampshire during martial law. My mother, as Sheriff, had control of the police and as the senior magistrate in England had authority over the courts…
SLRs in wooden furniture for the Traffic Wardens, of course?
Does anyone have more detail on the care worker given a nine month prison sentence for calling asylum seekers tramps? Seems rather excessive on its own.
A rather heretical view... but I predict this will end up being a 'windrush' or a 'post office' like disaster for the government, some low level civil servants will be blamed, they will end up being compensated.
Won’t happen.
The sentences aren’t made up out of thin air. They come out if the matrices in the sentencing guidelines. You can go look at them online.
Judges remarks on sentencing are, in part, about their reasoning as to where on the sentencing matrix the convicted person ended up.
There are some escape clauses, in some crimes for leniency or severity - but that requires further detailed justification. And hasn’t been used in the riot sentencing, that I am aware.
Any deviation from the guidelines would be instant grounds for an appeal.
So how come the custodial sentences etc? Well, very often, in normal times, crimes are undercharged. That is, the defendant is charged with a much lesser crime than the facts warrant.
An extreme example of this was a number years back - the Oxford street stabbing. Two juveniles, in a gang, held a murder victim down, while he was stabbed by another. They could have been charged with murder. But weren’t. They got 12 months under an assault charge…
In the case of the riots, the CPS started charging people with what they had done. Rather than charging lesser offences.
So the people sentenced for taking part in the riots were sentenced correctly, according to crimes they have been convicted for, with adequate evidence to sustain the conviction.
Bit hard to argue “My client committed ABH. The Evil State then charged him with ABH. The bastards.”
Like @MattW you are not looking at the big picture. If you go and look at the definition of the crime (ie: public order offenses) it is wide open to interpretation, giving enormous powers of discretion to the police. Then if you look at the sentencing guidelines, the judge has enormous discretion in relation to the importance of the 'aggravating factor' - in this case the context of the 'rioting' which then impacts on the end sentence.
The system was carefully constructed to account for situations like this, when you have a threat to public order and the authority of the state is being challenged. And the state has to decide how to respond and that is fundamentally a political decision. In this case I am saying that they made the wrong decision and the wind is now blowing heavily against them.
Why is it wrong for violent criminals to be charged for being violent criminals?
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
I think, and I don't know how to phrase this, that the rich and the poor are structurally different. Poor people have friends, but rich people have allies. Poor people like the people they like, but rich people like people only as long as they are useful. I assume this is a British thing but happy to be contradicted.
These weren't the rich. Well off. More NU10K.
The HAC guy was Old Money, IIRC.
You’d expect an HAC chap (not a guy) to be Old Money.
Has anyone else read the history of Manila as the Japanese were pushed out by the Americans in 1945?
I confess I has no idea. It’s as bad - perhaps worse in its wanton pointless intensity - as the Rape of Nanking
For a start the Japanese made sure to destroy “the most beautiful city in the orient” - Manila was a Spanish colonial pearl
Worse; the Japanese decided to exterminate - there is no other word - pretty much the entire civilian population. Every living non Japanese person. Men women children babies. Herded into buildings that were then exploded or burned. Thousands of rapes - the girls then killed. Mass beheadings
Perhaps 100,000 died in a matter of days
Great book on this subject. But a tough tough read
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
I think, and I don't know how to phrase this, that the rich and the poor are structurally different. Poor people have friends, but rich people have allies. Poor people like the people they like, but rich people like people only as long as they are useful. I assume this is a British thing but happy to be contradicted.
These weren't the rich. Well off. More NU10K.
The HAC guy was Old Money, IIRC.
You’d expect an HAC chap (not a guy) to be Old Money.
Some of them are. There are some right barrow boys in there as well.
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations arounddetachment/
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
I think, and I don't know how to phrase this, that the rich and the poor are structurally different. Poor people have friends, but rich people have allies. Poor people like the people they like, but rich people like people only as long as they are useful. I assume this is a British thing but happy to be contradicted.
These weren't the rich. Well off. More NU10K.
The HAC guy was Old Money, IIRC.
Yes that makes sense. Your Proper Old Money have no reason to be frightened of other people and view the world with amused detachment/effortless contempt as per their gifts. It's the Nu10K that always have the calculating eye.
The reason the Rwanda policy was so wicked is that even if you were a legitimate refugee, you were not allowed in the UK.
How can anyone justify that?
I guess the argument is that a legitimate would then be in a safe place. Does it really matter where that safe place is?
But as has been discovered, there is no legal and safe way for anyone to get to the UK from any of these places. The routes don't exist.
So by that logic the UK can never have refugees from most of these places. Ukraine would be the exception because we created routes - but so back to my question, why is Ukraine different?
The UK accepts many refugees annually. There are many routes to claim refuge in the UK, not just boat in the Channel.
Ukraine is different because it is an ally that was invaded by an enemy. Afghanistan is a civil war.
I suspect those fighting alongside UK forces now facing execution from the Taliban used to consider us their allies too.
Indeed and thousands of those have (rightly) been given asylum. Through safe and legal routes that do exist.
We are all, pace @kjh , overlooking the important question:
Were they animals or do they count as birds?
Birds are in fact dinosaurs.
Maybe the ones you’re dating at your age. 😘
Reptiles as a group includes the birds, because the latter are descended from dinosaurs (which were reptiles). The closest living relatives of the birds are in fact the crocodiles.
I was only joking.
You are still my favourite PBer. ❤️
After Robert, OGH and TSE, obviously. 🙂
And Viewcode, Ydoethur. Nigel, Malmesbury, Nicky, Barty, Lucky, Malc. Decrepit, Stodge, Stu, BigG, Oldy, Ben, Kin, Rotten, Jos. Leon. Cyclefree. Yokes. Mr Bristols. The Balrog. And Horse.
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
I recognise your argument and would counter it to say that the legitimacy of a nation state to enforce relative inequality between those inside and those outside exists to a degree rather than on an absolute basis, and the extremes we currently see erode the legitimacy of the wealthier nation states.
But I was actually making a different point about ethics. Even if you accept the legitimacy you're arguing for, I think nation states will eventually be forced to take such extreme measures (cf the film Children of Men) that their own citizens will view them as evil, and themselves complicit in that evil.
Does anyone have more detail on the care worker given a nine month prison sentence for calling asylum seekers tramps? Seems rather excessive on its own.
A rather heretical view... but I predict this will end up being a 'windrush' or a 'post office' like disaster for the government, some low level civil servants will be blamed, they will end up being compensated.
Won’t happen.
The sentences aren’t made up out of thin air. They come out if the matrices in the sentencing guidelines. You can go look at them online.
Judges remarks on sentencing are, in part, about their reasoning as to where on the sentencing matrix the convicted person ended up.
There are some escape clauses, in some crimes for leniency or severity - but that requires further detailed justification. And hasn’t been used in the riot sentencing, that I am aware.
Any deviation from the guidelines would be instant grounds for an appeal.
So how come the custodial sentences etc? Well, very often, in normal times, crimes are undercharged. That is, the defendant is charged with a much lesser crime than the facts warrant.
An extreme example of this was a number years back - the Oxford street stabbing. Two juveniles, in a gang, held a murder victim down, while he was stabbed by another. They could have been charged with murder. But weren’t. They got 12 months under an assault charge…
In the case of the riots, the CPS started charging people with what they had done. Rather than charging lesser offences.
So the people sentenced for taking part in the riots were sentenced correctly, according to crimes they have been convicted for, with adequate evidence to sustain the conviction.
Bit hard to argue “My client committed ABH. The Evil State then charged him with ABH. The bastards.”
Like @MattW you are not looking at the big picture. If you go and look at the definition of the crime (ie: public order offenses) it is wide open to interpretation, giving enormous powers of discretion to the police. Then if you look at the sentencing guidelines, the judge has enormous discretion in relation to the importance of the 'aggravating factor' - in this case the context of the 'rioting' which then impacts on the end sentence.
The system was carefully constructed to account for situations like this, when you have a threat to public order and the authority of the state is being challenged. And the state has to decide how to respond and that is fundamentally a political decision. In this case I am saying that they made the wrong decision and the wind is now blowing heavily against them.
Why is it wrong for violent criminals to be charged for being violent criminals?
With some exceptions, the people in jail because of this aren't 'violent criminals', in any commonly understood sense. They are essentially political prisoners.
Has anyone else read the history of Manila as the Japanese were pushed out by the Americans in 1945?
I confess I has no idea. It’s as bad - perhaps worse in its wanton pointless intensity - as the Rape of Nanking
For a start the Japanese made sure to destroy “the most beautiful city in the orient” - Manila was a Spanish colonial pearl
Worse; the Japanese decided to exterminate - there is no other word - pretty much the entire civilian population. Every living non Japanese person. Men women children babies. Herded into buildings that were then exploded or burned. Thousands of rapes - the girls then killed. Mass beheadings
Perhaps 100,000 died in a matter of days
Great book on this subject. But a tough tough read
Does anyone have more detail on the care worker given a nine month prison sentence for calling asylum seekers tramps? Seems rather excessive on its own.
A rather heretical view... but I predict this will end up being a 'windrush' or a 'post office' like disaster for the government, some low level civil servants will be blamed, they will end up being compensated.
Won’t happen.
The sentences aren’t made up out of thin air. They come out if the matrices in the sentencing guidelines. You can go look at them online.
Judges remarks on sentencing are, in part, about their reasoning as to where on the sentencing matrix the convicted person ended up.
There are some escape clauses, in some crimes for leniency or severity - but that requires further detailed justification. And hasn’t been used in the riot sentencing, that I am aware.
Any deviation from the guidelines would be instant grounds for an appeal.
So how come the custodial sentences etc? Well, very often, in normal times, crimes are undercharged. That is, the defendant is charged with a much lesser crime than the facts warrant.
An extreme example of this was a number years back - the Oxford street stabbing. Two juveniles, in a gang, held a murder victim down, while he was stabbed by another. They could have been charged with murder. But weren’t. They got 12 months under an assault charge…
In the case of the riots, the CPS started charging people with what they had done. Rather than charging lesser offences.
So the people sentenced for taking part in the riots were sentenced correctly, according to crimes they have been convicted for, with adequate evidence to sustain the conviction.
Bit hard to argue “My client committed ABH. The Evil State then charged him with ABH. The bastards.”
Like @MattW you are not looking at the big picture. If you go and look at the definition of the crime (ie: public order offenses) it is wide open to interpretation, giving enormous powers of discretion to the police. Then if you look at the sentencing guidelines, the judge has enormous discretion in relation to the importance of the 'aggravating factor' - in this case the context of the 'rioting' which then impacts on the end sentence.
The system was carefully constructed to account for situations like this, when you have a threat to public order and the authority of the state is being challenged. And the state has to decide how to respond and that is fundamentally a political decision. In this case I am saying that they made the wrong decision and the wind is now blowing heavily against them.
Why is it wrong for violent criminals to be charged for being violent criminals?
With some exceptions, the people in jail because of this aren't 'violent criminals', in any commonly understood sense. They are essentially political prisoners.
No, without exception that I have seen, everyone imprisoned has committed some sort of violent offence.
These things keep getting misreported as "completely irrelevant minor thing has been imprisoned" then when you see the sentencing report that is not remotely what they were imprisoned for and the imprisonment was because of serious criminal activity.
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
I bet you ruined a few evenings! Naughty!
You'd have thought the bit where we were discussing using the Operation Angel - the plan to mobilise the TA in an emergency, run by a one armed colonel in Defence Ministry - would have blown the joke. Obviously, not enough Tom Cruise fans at the table.
Be fair it took me a minute. Although "Long live sacred England" does have quite the ring to it... 😃
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
I think, and I don't know how to phrase this, that the rich and the poor are structurally different. Poor people have friends, but rich people have allies. Poor people like the people they like, but rich people like people only as long as they are useful. I assume this is a British thing but happy to be contradicted.
These weren't the rich. Well off. More NU10K.
The HAC guy was Old Money, IIRC.
You’d expect an HAC chap (not a guy) to be Old Money.
Some of them are. There are some right barrow boys in there as well.
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
I think, and I don't know how to phrase this, that the rich and the poor are structurally different. Poor people have friends, but rich people have allies. Poor people like the people they like, but rich people like people only as long as they are useful. I assume this is a British thing but happy to be contradicted.
These weren't the rich. Well off. More NU10K.
The HAC guy was Old Money, IIRC.
You’d expect an HAC chap (not a guy) to be Old Money.
Some of them are. There are some right barrow boys in there as well.
A (distant) relation of mine is a Guards officer. His branch of the family regard me with amused suspicion.
It’s amazing the Japanese are not hated even more than they are already hated across Asia
If I was Filipino I would find it very hard to forgive them. Likewise if I was Chinese
And they were damn lucky they got away with just two nukes
Tulsi Gabbard might be right to caution against Japanese rearmament.
“It’s hard to imagine that a major monthlong battle from World War II — one that devastated a large city, caused more than 100,000 civilian deaths and led to both a historic war crimes trial and a Supreme Court decision — should have escaped scrutiny until now.
But history has somehow overlooked the catastrophic battle for Manila, capital of the Philippines, in the waning months of the war. Like the Rape of Nanking, or the siege of Stalingrad, the tragedy of Manila deserves far greater understanding and reflection today.”
"I don’t think he can mansplain anything to me... He is also quite cowardly, because he relies on his back benches to attack me when I can’t respond, because I can only speak when I am questioning him."
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
I think, and I don't know how to phrase this, that the rich and the poor are structurally different. Poor people have friends, but rich people have allies. Poor people like the people they like, but rich people like people only as long as they are useful. I assume this is a British thing but happy to be contradicted.
These weren't the rich. Well off. More NU10K.
The HAC guy was Old Money, IIRC.
You’d expect an HAC chap (not a guy) to be Old Money.
Some of them are. There are some right barrow boys in there as well.
Off topic, but relevant given discussion on immigration earlier today. I can understand a fear of net migration figures in the hundreds of thousands, but what I find worthy of contempt is when this discussion is divorced from any real understanding of why people are migrating. Today's 'The Take's from Al Jazeera discusses the experiences of women in Sudan: https://pca.st/episode/7874d751-b1e2-4a45-888b-7d8f3f60f9fb.
To summarise, with apologies for the language: women are being raped at such scale by the RSF that suicide statistics are on the rise as women choose to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of RSF fighters. Is it any surprise that people want to migrate away from this?
Of course a reasonable response is that sexual violence is such an incredibly common historical fact that it is the modern western world that is unusual for its relative safety for women. That may be true, but I find it grossly unjustifiable to argue that this relative safety should be open only to those who happen to be born in the right part of the world.
This isn't really an argument for migration - I think it is a really poor solution for everyone concerned - but those who simultaneously argue against migration and against development support for places like Sudan are criminals, in my view.
Regrettably, however, the experience of Sweden suggests that as well as importing those sheltering from rape they have also been importing a not inconsiderable number of rapists.
As I said I'm not making a pro-immigration argument. I'm making the argument that we will never reduce the pull of international migration whilst there are parts of the world in the situation Sudan is currently in. Trying to stop migration in this context will destroy the ethical basis of our nation states as we take more and more extreme measures to try to stop people arriving here, having escaped from there.
I disagree
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
A long while back I was at a city diner. At a table with the great and good.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
I think, and I don't know how to phrase this, that the rich and the poor are structurally different. Poor people have friends, but rich people have allies. Poor people like the people they like, but rich people like people only as long as they are useful. I assume this is a British thing but happy to be contradicted.
These weren't the rich. Well off. More NU10K.
The HAC guy was Old Money, IIRC.
You’d expect an HAC chap (not a guy) to be Old Money.
Some of them are. There are some right barrow boys in there as well.
A (distant) relation of mine is a Guards officer. His branch of the family regard me with amused suspicion.
"I don’t think he can mansplain anything to me... He is also quite cowardly, because he relies on his back benches to attack me when I can’t respond, because I can only speak when I am questioning him."
Starmer is a feeble communicator with no charm and a narrow mind. And he is defending an already dire government. She should be able to beat the crap out of him
Has anyone else read the history of Manila as the Japanese were pushed out by the Americans in 1945?
I confess I has no idea. It’s as bad - perhaps worse in its wanton pointless intensity - as the Rape of Nanking
For a start the Japanese made sure to destroy “the most beautiful city in the orient” - Manila was a Spanish colonial pearl
Worse; the Japanese decided to exterminate - there is no other word - pretty much the entire civilian population. Every living non Japanese person. Men women children babies. Herded into buildings that were then exploded or burned. Thousands of rapes - the girls then killed. Mass beheadings
Perhaps 100,000 died in a matter of days
Great book on this subject. But a tough tough read
Does anyone have more detail on the care worker given a nine month prison sentence for calling asylum seekers tramps? Seems rather excessive on its own.
A rather heretical view... but I predict this will end up being a 'windrush' or a 'post office' like disaster for the government, some low level civil servants will be blamed, they will end up being compensated.
Won’t happen.
The sentences aren’t made up out of thin air. They come out if the matrices in the sentencing guidelines. You can go look at them online.
Judges remarks on sentencing are, in part, about their reasoning as to where on the sentencing matrix the convicted person ended up.
There are some escape clauses, in some crimes for leniency or severity - but that requires further detailed justification. And hasn’t been used in the riot sentencing, that I am aware.
Any deviation from the guidelines would be instant grounds for an appeal.
So how come the custodial sentences etc? Well, very often, in normal times, crimes are undercharged. That is, the defendant is charged with a much lesser crime than the facts warrant.
An extreme example of this was a number years back - the Oxford street stabbing. Two juveniles, in a gang, held a murder victim down, while he was stabbed by another. They could have been charged with murder. But weren’t. They got 12 months under an assault charge…
In the case of the riots, the CPS started charging people with what they had done. Rather than charging lesser offences.
So the people sentenced for taking part in the riots were sentenced correctly, according to crimes they have been convicted for, with adequate evidence to sustain the conviction.
Bit hard to argue “My client committed ABH. The Evil State then charged him with ABH. The bastards.”
Like @MattW you are not looking at the big picture. If you go and look at the definition of the crime (ie: public order offenses) it is wide open to interpretation, giving enormous powers of discretion to the police. Then if you look at the sentencing guidelines, the judge has enormous discretion in relation to the importance of the 'aggravating factor' - in this case the context of the 'rioting' which then impacts on the end sentence.
The system was carefully constructed to account for situations like this, when you have a threat to public order and the authority of the state is being challenged. And the state has to decide how to respond and that is fundamentally a political decision. In this case I am saying that they made the wrong decision and the wind is now blowing heavily against them.
Why is it wrong for violent criminals to be charged for being violent criminals?
With some exceptions, the people in jail because of this aren't 'violent criminals', in any commonly understood sense. They are essentially political prisoners.
No, without exception that I have seen, everyone imprisoned has committed some sort of violent offence.
These things keep getting misreported as "completely irrelevant minor thing has been imprisoned" then when you see the sentencing report that is not remotely what they were imprisoned for and the imprisonment was because of serious criminal activity.
Like 'gesticulating at the police' and chanting something blasphemous?
"I don’t think he can mansplain anything to me... He is also quite cowardly, because he relies on his back benches to attack me when I can’t respond, because I can only speak when I am questioning him."
Starmer is a feeble communicator with no charm and a narrow mind. And he is defending an already dire government. She should be able to beat the crap out of him
Shape up, Kemi
If she's whining about backbenchers attacking her just what the heck was she expecting?
Not a good look as you say, a leader needs a thick skin.
"I don’t think he can mansplain anything to me... He is also quite cowardly, because he relies on his back benches to attack me when I can’t respond, because I can only speak when I am questioning him."
Apparently the Dutch government is in danger of collapsing at the moment, similar to the situation in Germany.
Isn't the story of a Dutch government in danger of collapsing one that happens every day ending in Y?
No. This is new and very important
This is one battle in the ongoing world culture wars of woke
The Dutch government is dying precisely because half of it is hard right and is saying Holland is infested with anti Semites and the other half is claiming Islamophobia and collapsing the coalition
This is not some obscure bit of politicking, it’s a taste of the future
Comments
My favourite dinosaur is Yi qi.
Those private companies are going to very profitable for doing not very much...
Dalton is seriously underrated.
Not an argument I'd make but I'm surprised others don't make it.
The divide between us I am on the correct side of, that there are zero economic benefits for UK from Brexit, we will simply get poorer as a country now, year on year, decade on decade with less investment and trade than we would otherwise have had, AND where a vote only just got over the line in 2016 owing heavily upon lying, and exploiting decades of globalisation impacts upon UK Brexit can never assuage let alone put in reverse, those imagined and exaggerated benefits of Brexit being deliberate misinformation, like the £350M a week for the NHS Gross figure of EU payments - that is the bit I suspect you disagree.
However, the bit of what I posted where Brexit shortly becomes very much part of our daily lives and discussions again - Labour doesn’t get much growth in next five years, the Conservative Party coalesce around an economic argument Brexit has not really hit investment or trade, the real reason for UKs economic malaise has been the Labour governments failure to exploit our freedoms and opportunities of Brexit, doing so will make UK prosperous and Great again - making May 3rd 2029 another Brexit Election Day - you can agree with me, you can see that happening, can’t you?
It's an excellent film and hugely entertaining.
You are still my favourite PBer. ❤️
After Robert, OGH and TSE, obviously. 🙂
And Viewcode, Ydoethur. Nigel, Malmesbury, Nicky, Barty, Lucky, Malc.
Decrepit, Stodge, Stu, BigG, Oldy, Ben, Kin, Rotten, Jos. Leon.
Cyclefree. Yokes. Mr Bristols. The Balrog. And Horse.
So. See? You’re high on the speed dial.
David Niven as Bond didn't work for me, although the Herb Alpert soundtrack is awesome 😂
But just in case anyone thinks otherwise it wasn't me who said birds weren't animals. It was me saying they were. Don't want to be put in the idiot camp.
The outrage bus stalls here...
UK Brexited January 2020. July 2024 to May 2029 I expect Labour to do pretty much same regards Brexit as the Tories done up to July 2024 - not very much at all.
3rd May 2029 becomes a Brexit Election because it is the Conservatives now in opposition, who will talk up pushing on exploiting the freedoms and opportunities Brexit has bequeathed us, as defining very clear blue economic water, a very real contrast, to the stagnant, over taxed, over regulated economy under these 5 years of Labour that is not attracting investment, trade, or growing.
Much like we say Trump 2.0 we need to appreciate Brexit 2.0 is coming, and will become central to UK politics.
It makes me despair for the British public.
It's like ingesting Heaven. So sweet. So pure. So sparkly.
So Bond.
"Calling Trump an authoritarian fascist is all hyperbole."
Lord Peter Mandelson dismisses claims that Trump fuels 'fear and division,' noting that most Americans care more about living costs.
The sentences aren’t made up out of thin air. They come out if the matrices in the sentencing guidelines. You can go look at them online.
Judges remarks on sentencing are, in part, about their reasoning as to where on the sentencing matrix the convicted person ended up.
There are some escape clauses, in some crimes for leniency or severity - but that requires further detailed justification. And hasn’t been used in the riot sentencing, that I am aware.
Any deviation from the guidelines would be instant grounds for an appeal.
So how come the custodial sentences etc? Well, very often, in normal times, crimes are undercharged. That is, the defendant is charged with a much lesser crime than the facts warrant.
An extreme example of this was a number years back - the Oxford street stabbing. Two juveniles, in a gang, held a murder victim down, while he was stabbed by another. They could have been charged with murder. But weren’t. They got 12 months under an assault charge…
In the case of the riots, the CPS started charging people with what they had done. Rather than charging lesser offences.
So the people sentenced for taking part in the riots were sentenced correctly, according to crimes they have been convicted for, with adequate evidence to sustain the conviction.
Bit hard to argue “My client committed ABH. The Evil State then charged him with ABH. The bastards.”
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Sir Keir Starmer has become the first prime minister to reject honorary membership of a golf club linked to the Chequers Estate, breaking with a 100-year tradition
https://x.com/Telegraph/status/1857504670752596052
Never go full @SeanT
Nation states are an artificial construct to support the residents of a given patch of land. While the residents might wish to expand the population for economic or ethical reasons they do not have an obligation to do so.
Your model implies an ethical obligation to pursue equality of outcomes on a global basis, which I suspect few would sign up to
@JackW and I knew each other when he was growing up
Although, to be fair, three of my family enjoy the game, but AFAIK they don’t socialise there.
Brexit was surfacing as a discussion - it was the period when we had something like no government…. I diverted the conversation. I bought up the subject of one of Cameron’s spads who had argued the above - he didn’t see why the inhabitants of the U.K. should come first over people in worse situations around the world.
Most of the great and good at the table endorsed this view. An exception was an HAC officer, who like me, was half in the can and had a sense of humour.
He suggested that this variable allegiance thing sounded great. And due to an exercise that weekend, he would shortly be in charge the one of the largest body of armed men and women in London. So what should he do?
The jokes between him and myself accelerated with the horror on the faces around us. We stopped when we realised that some were taking us seriously*.
They seriously thought that the allegiance of those below was an iron law. And that of the rulers to the ruled wasn’t.
The boats aren't coming from Afghanistan, they're coming from France.
There are legal ways for Afghanis to get asylum in the UK, as tens of thousands have.
Has anyone else read the history of Manila as the Japanese were pushed out by the Americans in 1945?
I confess I has no idea. It’s as bad - perhaps worse in its wanton pointless intensity - as the Rape of Nanking
For a start the Japanese made sure to destroy “the most beautiful city in the orient” - Manila was a Spanish colonial pearl
Worse; the Japanese decided to exterminate - there is no other word - pretty much the entire civilian population. Every living non Japanese person. Men women children babies. Herded into buildings that were then exploded or burned. Thousands of rapes - the girls then killed. Mass beheadings
Perhaps 100,000 died in a matter of days
Great book on this subject. But a tough tough read
https://www.amazon.com/Rampage-MacArthur-Yamashita-Battle-Manila/dp/0393357562?dplnkId=1a989ca7-7353-4b59-8880-eb9fd3ae7e00&nodl=1
If I was Filipino I would find it very hard to forgive them. Likewise if I was Chinese
And they were damn lucky they got away with just two nukes
I have a lot of time for the HAC. My father was a lance bombardier back in the day but progressed to become Deputy Lieutenant of Hampshire which meant he was an honorary colonel. Except in the HAC which doesn’t recognise ranks from other units…
When one of the very best players - like Zammit - goes off to be a reserve player in the NFL because the money is better then the sport is in deep shit
It is entirely possible to argue - as I have done previusly - that most Trump supporters are voting for him out of a combination of economic malaise and desperation. This is more acute in the US than the UK due to the lack of any form of safety net.
But it is also entirely possible to argue - as again I have done - that Trump himself is a self serving authoritarian fuckwit (I won't use the overblown fascist claim) who actually cares not one jot for the electorate and is simply clever enough to use their economic difficulties as a means of gaining power.
A clever authoritarian uses the desperation of the electorate to get himself power. This is exactly what Trump has doen.
The HAC guy was Old Money, IIRC.
https://fortune.com/2024/11/14/grok-musk-misinformation-spreader/
Elon Musk might be in charge of the business of Grok, but the artificial intelligence has seemingly gone into business for itself, labeling Musk as one of the worst offenders when it comes to spreading misinformation online.
User Gary Koepnick asked the AI which person spreads the most information on Twitter/X—and the service did not hesitate in pointing a finger at its creator.
“Based on various analyses, social media sentiment, and reports, Elon Musk has been identified as one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X since he acquired the platform,” it wrote, later adding “Musk has made numerous posts that have been criticized for promoting or endorsing misinformation, especially related to political events, elections, health issues like COVID-19, and conspiracy theories. His endorsements or interactions with content from controversial figures or accounts with a history of spreading misinformation have also contributed to this perception.”
The AI also pointed out that because of Musk’s large number of followers and high visibility, any misinformation he posts is immediately amplified and gains legitimacy among his followers.
The system was carefully constructed to account for situations like this, when you have a threat to public order and the authority of the state is being challenged. And the state has to decide how to respond and that is fundamentally a political decision. In this case I am saying that they made the wrong decision and the wind is now blowing heavily against them.
As ranking DL my Dad would have command of all military units in Hampshire during martial law. My mother, as Sheriff, had control of the police and as the senior magistrate in England had authority over the courts…
https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-62-supernova-in-the-east-i/
Quite a lot of the first-hand reports he reads are... not easy going.
Japan, like Germany, has moved on from its past.
Russia has not.
But I was actually making a different point about ethics. Even if you accept the legitimacy you're arguing for, I think nation states will eventually be forced to take such extreme measures (cf the film Children of Men) that their own citizens will view them as evil, and themselves complicit in that evil.
Honestly the Extermination of Manila is right up there with the greatest atrocities of all World War 2. It’s…. Stupefying
And I had no idea at all. It only emerged (for me) I was asking a… machine.., for interesting books to read about the Philippines
Wow. I’m genuinely stunned. I regard myself as a pretty good student of history - and this one is entirely new to me
These things keep getting misreported as "completely irrelevant minor thing has been imprisoned" then when you see the sentencing report that is not remotely what they were imprisoned for and the imprisonment was because of serious criminal activity.
But history has somehow overlooked the catastrophic battle for Manila, capital of the Philippines, in the waning months of the war. Like the Rape of Nanking, or the siege of Stalingrad, the tragedy of Manila deserves far greater understanding and reflection today.”
https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-book-review-rampage-20181102-story.html
It is like Stalingrad happened in the Pacific but everyone forgot
"I don’t think he can mansplain anything to me... He is also quite cowardly, because he relies on his back benches to attack me when I can’t respond, because I can only speak when I am questioning him."
https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1857527253518659774
Starmer is a feeble communicator with no charm and a narrow mind. And he is defending an already dire government. She should be able to beat the crap out of him
Shape up, Kemi
Why are you trying to whitewash her? She is far worse than that.
Not a good look as you say, a leader needs a thick skin.
This is one battle in the ongoing world culture wars of woke
The Dutch government is dying precisely because half of it is hard right and is saying Holland is infested with anti Semites and the other half is claiming Islamophobia and collapsing the coalition
This is not some obscure bit of politicking, it’s a taste of the future