“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
His mother's maiden name is Haldeman - apparently Swiss-German. His ancestors seem to have come from the US, Canada and South Africa and as far as I can tell you have to go some way back to find an English-born one. He hasn't lived or studied here. He's welcome to take an interest in this country but he's not one of us (as I think is evident from the absurd histrionic style with which he conducts himself - Wooster's response to Spode comes to mind).
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
You're in for a challenging few years, William, trying to defend this stuff.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
You accused several of us of favouring dictatorship, which is nonsense.
If that's the standard of debate on here then we're all going to stop listening to each other.
I didn’t say that directly, you should read the post again. Read it and understand it, in the immortal words of that parish council video that briefly went viral
Your point was very clear.
And I thought you'd aspire to something higher than the refereeing of parish councils.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
His mother's maiden name is Haldeman - apparently Swiss-German. His ancestors seem to have come from the US, Canada and South Africa and as far as I can tell you have to go some way back to find an English-born one. He hasn't lived or studied here. He's welcome to take an interest in this country but he's not one of us (as I think is evident from the absurd histrionic style with which he conducts himself - Wooster's response to Spode comes to mind).
I believe he identified as “British” South African, which would make sense. I agree that it’s strange though that he hasn’t seemed interested in the UK itself until very lately.
This is a good example of the incoherent position the EU has got itself into both on technology and on the idea of 'foreign' interference. Thierry Breton, the French ex-European Commissioner is intervening in the German election to lecture Alice Weidel about appearing in a podcast with Elon Musk.
But here's the problem: that would not just be a trait seen just in immigration from Muslim countries; and many immigrants from Muslim countries do have a loyalty to the British state and people.
I'm married to one.
So events like this are used by racists to say: "This is what all Muslims are like," and then: "This is what all immigrants are like."
I just wonder, if a load of British immigrants - we could call them expats, it has a nice ring - went to a foreign country, say Spain and settled in a random place, say the Costa del Sol and decided to import British fish and chips, speak no Spanish and generally create a mini-Britain, would we be calling them not loyal to Spain and generally destroying their culture, taking over the country?
I think Spain would have every right to deport the lot of them if they became a nuisance.
I've spoken to people from there. They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area.
Sound familiar?
If they don't belong in Spain, what should happen to them? I say deport them.
What do you mean "don't belong"?
I'm happy to accept your definition:
"They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area."
Then I wonder why all of those going after Muslims don't seem to spend any time calling for these people to be deported. If you want to start that train then I will support you.
The issue is multiculturalism has completely failed as a model. Immigrants need to integrate into the host country, not import their own culture and establish it as a separate stream
Multiculturalism isn't just about immigrants. A lot of it is homegrown. Look at the cultures of Reform people verus LibDem people.
The model for monoculturalism is China, as the Tibetans and Uyghurs well know.
The upside is that there isn't the tension of "others" or any affront to ones culture. It's one big happy family with common values, in theory.
The downside is the loss of diversity of outlooks, of innovation, and also of the basic freedom to not conform and behave as you want as long as you don't harm others. (Harm is not the same as offend).
The Chinese model is working well, but at a cost. There are pros and cons.
The Chinese model is not a melting point (well maybe literally…)
It’s the imposition of Han culture on others.
The melting point approach is the optimal - take the best and emerge stronger.
Britain today is far better as a result of the Huguenots, the various waves of Jewish immigrants, the Normans, etc.
Everyone except the Romans. After all, what have the Romans ever done for us?
The - Normans? The Normans were the biggest disaster to hit the people of the British Isles since the Romans!
Not if you were Norman…
Back then was the high point for Normans. Thereafter the long slow slide towards being common and rather ordinary, then after a brief burst of amusement faded away such that nowadays you hardly ever meet one.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
His mother's maiden name is Haldeman - apparently Swiss-German. His ancestors seem to have come from the US, Canada and South Africa and as far as I can tell you have to go some way back to find an English-born one. He hasn't lived or studied here. He's welcome to take an interest in this country but he's not one of us (as I think is evident from the absurd histrionic style with which he conducts himself - Wooster's response to Spode comes to mind).
Some South Africans and Some Canadians (especially) would have considered themselves pretty close to English at that time.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Are you OK with labelling Tommy Robinson as far right?
Because then what do you call someone who supports him?
This is a good example of the incoherent position the EU has got itself into both on technology and on the idea of 'foreign' interference. Thierry Breton, the French ex-European Commissioner is intervening in the German election to lecture Alice Weidel about appearing in a podcast with Elon Musk.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
His mother's maiden name is Haldeman - apparently Swiss-German. His ancestors seem to have come from the US, Canada and South Africa and as far as I can tell you have to go some way back to find an English-born one. He hasn't lived or studied here. He's welcome to take an interest in this country but he's not one of us (as I think is evident from the absurd histrionic style with which he conducts himself - Wooster's response to Spode comes to mind).
Joe Biden is a lot more English but seems to actively loathe Britain and identify purely as an Irish American. Hey Ho.
But here's the problem: that would not just be a trait seen just in immigration from Muslim countries; and many immigrants from Muslim countries do have a loyalty to the British state and people.
I'm married to one.
So events like this are used by racists to say: "This is what all Muslims are like," and then: "This is what all immigrants are like."
I just wonder, if a load of British immigrants - we could call them expats, it has a nice ring - went to a foreign country, say Spain and settled in a random place, say the Costa del Sol and decided to import British fish and chips, speak no Spanish and generally create a mini-Britain, would we be calling them not loyal to Spain and generally destroying their culture, taking over the country?
I think Spain would have every right to deport the lot of them if they became a nuisance.
I've spoken to people from there. They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area.
Sound familiar?
If they don't belong in Spain, what should happen to them? I say deport them.
What do you mean "don't belong"?
I'm happy to accept your definition:
"They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area."
Then I wonder why all of those going after Muslims don't seem to spend any time calling for these people to be deported. If you want to start that train then I will support you.
The issue is multiculturalism has completely failed as a model. Immigrants need to integrate into the host country, not import their own culture and establish it as a separate stream
Multiculturalism isn't just about immigrants. A lot of it is homegrown. Look at the cultures of Reform people verus LibDem people.
The model for monoculturalism is China, as the Tibetans and Uyghurs well know.
The upside is that there isn't the tension of "others" or any affront to ones culture. It's one big happy family with common values, in theory.
The downside is the loss of diversity of outlooks, of innovation, and also of the basic freedom to not conform and behave as you want as long as you don't harm others. (Harm is not the same as offend).
The Chinese model is working well, but at a cost. There are pros and cons.
The Chinese model is not a melting point (well maybe literally…)
It’s the imposition of Han culture on others.
The melting point approach is the optimal - take the best and emerge stronger.
Britain today is far better as a result of the Huguenots, the various waves of Jewish immigrants, the Normans, etc.
Everyone except the Romans. After all, what have the Romans ever done for us?
The - Normans? The Normans were the biggest disaster to hit the people of the British Isles since the Romans!
The Normans were Vikings in smart suits. (Norman is a variation of Northman).
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
His mother's maiden name is Haldeman - apparently Swiss-German. His ancestors seem to have come from the US, Canada and South Africa and as far as I can tell you have to go some way back to find an English-born one. He hasn't lived or studied here. He's welcome to take an interest in this country but he's not one of us (as I think is evident from the absurd histrionic style with which he conducts himself - Wooster's response to Spode comes to mind).
I believe he identified as “British” South African, which would make sense. I agree that it’s strange though that he hasn’t seemed interested in the UK itself until very lately.
Well, yes. He's shown very little interest in the UK< and hasn't invested in us much. My guess is that he wants to identify as 'English' as being an Afrikaner can be problematic.
But here's the problem: that would not just be a trait seen just in immigration from Muslim countries; and many immigrants from Muslim countries do have a loyalty to the British state and people.
I'm married to one.
So events like this are used by racists to say: "This is what all Muslims are like," and then: "This is what all immigrants are like."
I just wonder, if a load of British immigrants - we could call them expats, it has a nice ring - went to a foreign country, say Spain and settled in a random place, say the Costa del Sol and decided to import British fish and chips, speak no Spanish and generally create a mini-Britain, would we be calling them not loyal to Spain and generally destroying their culture, taking over the country?
I think Spain would have every right to deport the lot of them if they became a nuisance.
I've spoken to people from there. They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area.
Sound familiar?
If they don't belong in Spain, what should happen to them? I say deport them.
What do you mean "don't belong"?
I'm happy to accept your definition:
"They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area."
Then I wonder why all of those going after Muslims don't seem to spend any time calling for these people to be deported. If you want to start that train then I will support you.
The issue is multiculturalism has completely failed as a model. Immigrants need to integrate into the host country, not import their own culture and establish it as a separate stream
Multiculturalism isn't just about immigrants. A lot of it is homegrown. Look at the cultures of Reform people verus LibDem people.
The model for monoculturalism is China, as the Tibetans and Uyghurs well know.
The upside is that there isn't the tension of "others" or any affront to ones culture. It's one big happy family with common values, in theory.
The downside is the loss of diversity of outlooks, of innovation, and also of the basic freedom to not conform and behave as you want as long as you don't harm others. (Harm is not the same as offend).
The Chinese model is working well, but at a cost. There are pros and cons.
The Chinese model is not a melting point (well maybe literally…)
It’s the imposition of Han culture on others.
The melting point approach is the optimal - take the best and emerge stronger.
Britain today is far better as a result of the Huguenots, the various waves of Jewish immigrants, the Normans, etc.
Everyone except the Romans. After all, what have the Romans ever done for us?
The - Normans? The Normans were the biggest disaster to hit the people of the British Isles since the Romans!
The Normans were Vikings in smart suits. (Norman is a variation of Northman).
And lawyered up. Feudal law was one of their biggest weapons.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
His mother's maiden name is Haldeman - apparently Swiss-German. His ancestors seem to have come from the US, Canada and South Africa and as far as I can tell you have to go some way back to find an English-born one. He hasn't lived or studied here. He's welcome to take an interest in this country but he's not one of us (as I think is evident from the absurd histrionic style with which he conducts himself - Wooster's response to Spode comes to mind).
I believe he identified as “British” South African, which would make sense. I agree that it’s strange though that he hasn’t seemed interested in the UK itself until very lately.
He can come here and pay his taxes to the Crown and make himself eligible to fight for his Majesty's armed forces, or he can snipe from a foreign shore and we can pay as little attention to his histrionics as we would to any other wealthy foreigner who knows nothing of this country and has his own interests and agenda. He's not English, and he is a dick.
But here's the problem: that would not just be a trait seen just in immigration from Muslim countries; and many immigrants from Muslim countries do have a loyalty to the British state and people.
I'm married to one.
So events like this are used by racists to say: "This is what all Muslims are like," and then: "This is what all immigrants are like."
I just wonder, if a load of British immigrants - we could call them expats, it has a nice ring - went to a foreign country, say Spain and settled in a random place, say the Costa del Sol and decided to import British fish and chips, speak no Spanish and generally create a mini-Britain, would we be calling them not loyal to Spain and generally destroying their culture, taking over the country?
I think Spain would have every right to deport the lot of them if they became a nuisance.
I've spoken to people from there. They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area.
Sound familiar?
If they don't belong in Spain, what should happen to them? I say deport them.
What do you mean "don't belong"?
I'm happy to accept your definition:
"They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area."
Then I wonder why all of those going after Muslims don't seem to spend any time calling for these people to be deported. If you want to start that train then I will support you.
The issue is multiculturalism has completely failed as a model. Immigrants need to integrate into the host country, not import their own culture and establish it as a separate stream
Multiculturalism isn't just about immigrants. A lot of it is homegrown. Look at the cultures of Reform people verus LibDem people.
The model for monoculturalism is China, as the Tibetans and Uyghurs well know.
The upside is that there isn't the tension of "others" or any affront to ones culture. It's one big happy family with common values, in theory.
The downside is the loss of diversity of outlooks, of innovation, and also of the basic freedom to not conform and behave as you want as long as you don't harm others. (Harm is not the same as offend).
The Chinese model is working well, but at a cost. There are pros and cons.
The Chinese model is not a melting point (well maybe literally…)
It’s the imposition of Han culture on others.
The melting point approach is the optimal - take the best and emerge stronger.
Britain today is far better as a result of the Huguenots, the various waves of Jewish immigrants, the Normans, etc.
Everyone except the Romans. After all, what have the Romans ever done for us?
The - Normans? The Normans were the biggest disaster to hit the people of the British Isles since the Romans!
The Normans were Vikings in smart suits. (Norman is a variation of Northman).
And lawyered up. Feudal law was one of their biggest weapons.
They also abolished slavery in England. Give them some props for that.
But here's the problem: that would not just be a trait seen just in immigration from Muslim countries; and many immigrants from Muslim countries do have a loyalty to the British state and people.
I'm married to one.
So events like this are used by racists to say: "This is what all Muslims are like," and then: "This is what all immigrants are like."
I just wonder, if a load of British immigrants - we could call them expats, it has a nice ring - went to a foreign country, say Spain and settled in a random place, say the Costa del Sol and decided to import British fish and chips, speak no Spanish and generally create a mini-Britain, would we be calling them not loyal to Spain and generally destroying their culture, taking over the country?
I think Spain would have every right to deport the lot of them if they became a nuisance.
I've spoken to people from there. They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area.
Sound familiar?
If they don't belong in Spain, what should happen to them? I say deport them.
What do you mean "don't belong"?
I'm happy to accept your definition:
"They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area."
Then I wonder why all of those going after Muslims don't seem to spend any time calling for these people to be deported. If you want to start that train then I will support you.
The issue is multiculturalism has completely failed as a model. Immigrants need to integrate into the host country, not import their own culture and establish it as a separate stream
Multiculturalism isn't just about immigrants. A lot of it is homegrown. Look at the cultures of Reform people verus LibDem people.
The model for monoculturalism is China, as the Tibetans and Uyghurs well know.
The upside is that there isn't the tension of "others" or any affront to ones culture. It's one big happy family with common values, in theory.
The downside is the loss of diversity of outlooks, of innovation, and also of the basic freedom to not conform and behave as you want as long as you don't harm others. (Harm is not the same as offend).
The Chinese model is working well, but at a cost. There are pros and cons.
The Chinese model is not a melting point (well maybe literally…)
It’s the imposition of Han culture on others.
The melting point approach is the optimal - take the best and emerge stronger.
Britain today is far better as a result of the Huguenots, the various waves of Jewish immigrants, the Normans, etc.
Everyone except the Romans. After all, what have the Romans ever done for us?
It's one of this great 'what if's' isn't it! What if William the Bastard had lost at Hastings and been driven back into the sea. Secondly, of course, if he'd lived, would he have tried again?
But if the Norman Conquest hadn't happened, then England would have been more like the Scandinavian countries.
In the short term, perhaps, but economic geography would have tipped England towards Norman France in any event. David Mitchell was musing on this iirc. (The comedian's lockdown book being a history of mediaeval kings.)
This is a good example of the incoherent position the EU has got itself into both on technology and on the idea of 'foreign' interference. Thierry Breton, the French ex-European Commissioner is intervening in the German election to lecture Alice Weidel about appearing in a podcast with Elon Musk.
Musk is clearly interfering. And he has Russian investors and backers.
Seems a wise warning.
And Thierry Breton is interfering in German politics. Why should Germany accept that?
He isn't, though. He's giving a warning. Whereas Musky Baby is actively promoting a particular party.
That's a distinction even you should be able to see, surely?
Oh that's ok then. Perhaps Alice Weidel should give a warning of her own to deter any further interference from French politicians.
So you don't see the distinction. Your defences of Musk are getting increasingly absurd and illogical.
"Must be the booze!"
Heh. I'm trying for a dry year.
I did five dry months last year, and felt much better during most of them. I potentially have a rather stretch exercise goal this year, and am carefully looking after my diet.
So I'm starting off with dry January, and seeing how long I get without drinking. I'm also trying to cut out crisps, biscuits, and Red Bull.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
But here's the problem: that would not just be a trait seen just in immigration from Muslim countries; and many immigrants from Muslim countries do have a loyalty to the British state and people.
I'm married to one.
So events like this are used by racists to say: "This is what all Muslims are like," and then: "This is what all immigrants are like."
I just wonder, if a load of British immigrants - we could call them expats, it has a nice ring - went to a foreign country, say Spain and settled in a random place, say the Costa del Sol and decided to import British fish and chips, speak no Spanish and generally create a mini-Britain, would we be calling them not loyal to Spain and generally destroying their culture, taking over the country?
I think Spain would have every right to deport the lot of them if they became a nuisance.
I've spoken to people from there. They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area.
Sound familiar?
If they don't belong in Spain, what should happen to them? I say deport them.
What do you mean "don't belong"?
I'm happy to accept your definition:
"They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area."
Then I wonder why all of those going after Muslims don't seem to spend any time calling for these people to be deported. If you want to start that train then I will support you.
The issue is multiculturalism has completely failed as a model. Immigrants need to integrate into the host country, not import their own culture and establish it as a separate stream
Multiculturalism isn't just about immigrants. A lot of it is homegrown. Look at the cultures of Reform people verus LibDem people.
The model for monoculturalism is China, as the Tibetans and Uyghurs well know.
The upside is that there isn't the tension of "others" or any affront to ones culture. It's one big happy family with common values, in theory.
The downside is the loss of diversity of outlooks, of innovation, and also of the basic freedom to not conform and behave as you want as long as you don't harm others. (Harm is not the same as offend).
The Chinese model is working well, but at a cost. There are pros and cons.
The Chinese model is not a melting point (well maybe literally…)
It’s the imposition of Han culture on others.
The melting point approach is the optimal - take the best and emerge stronger.
Britain today is far better as a result of the Huguenots, the various waves of Jewish immigrants, the Normans, etc.
Everyone except the Romans. After all, what have the Romans ever done for us?
The - Normans? The Normans were the biggest disaster to hit the people of the British Isles since the Romans!
The Normans were Vikings in smart suits. (Norman is a variation of Northman).
And lawyered up. Feudal law was one of their biggest weapons.
They also abolished slavery in England. Give them some props for that.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Let's leave aside Europe for a moment.
The US is a massively more regulated business environment than the UK. And I don't mean slightly, I mean massively.
Let me give you an example of a very small business, where I have a very small economic interest. It's a nail salon in San Antonio, which does some other beauty treatments (not including botox).
It required multiple permits including a state cosmetology license through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR), a general business permit, and a county-specific health department certifications.
This was before it was even able to open. And that was just licenses.
By contrast, in the UK, you open a shop.
And everyone who works at the salon requires individual licensing to work as a nail technician. You can't simply have someone fill in.
Finally, the IRS add another massive layer of complexity compared to the UK, with mandatory quarterly employment tax filings (Form 941), annual returns, and detailed documentation for worker classification. And did I mention compliance with OSHA and state standards requires extensive documentation regarding chemical storage, ventilation systems, and safety protocols.
Oh yes, did I forget that the whole process of creating a corporate entity, and legal minimum insurance requirements (which are another scam, by the way), add another layer of complexity compared to the UK.
If we've decided that the US works relative to the UK, and regulation is the reason, then holy shit, we need a lot more regulation.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
This is a good example of the incoherent position the EU has got itself into both on technology and on the idea of 'foreign' interference. Thierry Breton, the French ex-European Commissioner is intervening in the German election to lecture Alice Weidel about appearing in a podcast with Elon Musk.
Musk is clearly interfering. And he has Russian investors and backers.
Seems a wise warning.
And Thierry Breton is interfering in German politics. Why should Germany accept that?
He isn't, though. He's giving a warning. Whereas Musky Baby is actively promoting a particular party.
That's a distinction even you should be able to see, surely?
Oh that's ok then. Perhaps Alice Weidel should give a warning of her own to deter any further interference from French politicians.
So you don't see the distinction. Your defences of Musk are getting increasingly absurd and illogical.
"Must be the booze!"
Heh. I'm trying for a dry year.
I did five dry months last year, and felt much better during most of them. I potentially have a rather stretch exercise goal this year, and am carefully looking after my diet.
So I'm starting off with dry January, and seeing how long I get without drinking. I'm also trying to cut out crisps, biscuits, and Red Bull.
But here's the problem: that would not just be a trait seen just in immigration from Muslim countries; and many immigrants from Muslim countries do have a loyalty to the British state and people.
I'm married to one.
So events like this are used by racists to say: "This is what all Muslims are like," and then: "This is what all immigrants are like."
I just wonder, if a load of British immigrants - we could call them expats, it has a nice ring - went to a foreign country, say Spain and settled in a random place, say the Costa del Sol and decided to import British fish and chips, speak no Spanish and generally create a mini-Britain, would we be calling them not loyal to Spain and generally destroying their culture, taking over the country?
I think Spain would have every right to deport the lot of them if they became a nuisance.
I've spoken to people from there. They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area.
Sound familiar?
If they don't belong in Spain, what should happen to them? I say deport them.
What do you mean "don't belong"?
I'm happy to accept your definition:
"They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area."
Then I wonder why all of those going after Muslims don't seem to spend any time calling for these people to be deported. If you want to start that train then I will support you.
The issue is multiculturalism has completely failed as a model. Immigrants need to integrate into the host country, not import their own culture and establish it as a separate stream
Multiculturalism isn't just about immigrants. A lot of it is homegrown. Look at the cultures of Reform people verus LibDem people.
The model for monoculturalism is China, as the Tibetans and Uyghurs well know.
The upside is that there isn't the tension of "others" or any affront to ones culture. It's one big happy family with common values, in theory.
The downside is the loss of diversity of outlooks, of innovation, and also of the basic freedom to not conform and behave as you want as long as you don't harm others. (Harm is not the same as offend).
The Chinese model is working well, but at a cost. There are pros and cons.
The Chinese model is not a melting point (well maybe literally…)
It’s the imposition of Han culture on others.
The melting point approach is the optimal - take the best and emerge stronger.
Britain today is far better as a result of the Huguenots, the various waves of Jewish immigrants, the Normans, etc.
Everyone except the Romans. After all, what have the Romans ever done for us?
The - Normans? The Normans were the biggest disaster to hit the people of the British Isles since the Romans!
The Normans were Vikings in smart suits. (Norman is a variation of Northman).
And lawyered up. Feudal law was one of their biggest weapons.
They also abolished slavery in England. Give them some props for that.
But made everyone pretty much the serf ...
Reduced inequality is I think what you meant to say.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
His mother's maiden name is Haldeman - apparently Swiss-German. His ancestors seem to have come from the US, Canada and South Africa and as far as I can tell you have to go some way back to find an English-born one. He hasn't lived or studied here. He's welcome to take an interest in this country but he's not one of us (as I think is evident from the absurd histrionic style with which he conducts himself - Wooster's response to Spode comes to mind).
Joe Biden is a lot more English but seems to actively loathe Britain and identify purely as an Irish American. Hey Ho.
True. And in that light Musk is actually doing no worse than the US Irish-Americans have done for decades.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
Navalny recorded two videos to introduce their new movement; they were his début on YouTube. One was a forty-second argument for gun rights. The other, a minute long, featured Navalny dressed as a dentist, presenting a slightly confusing parable that likened interethnic conflict in Russia to cavities and argued that fascism can be prevented only by deporting migrants from Russia. Navalny closed his monologue with “We have a right to be [ethnic] Russians in Russia. And we will defend this right.”
On Musk - I think Paul Krugman hits the nail on the head. "In the academic world there’s a familiar phenomenon sometimes called “great man’s disease,” in which a successful researcher in one field assumes that he (it’s usually a “he”) is so much smarter than experts in other fields that he doesn’t need to pay attention to their research. Physicists make confident, deeply ignorant pronouncements about economics; economists make confident, deeply ignorant pronouncements about sociology"
He's cleaely a phenomenally successful businessman. But sadly very ignorant about many other things.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
Navalny recorded two videos to introduce their new movement; they were his début on YouTube. One was a forty-second argument for gun rights. The other, a minute long, featured Navalny dressed as a dentist, presenting a slightly confusing parable that likened interethnic conflict in Russia to cavities and argued that fascism can be prevented only by deporting migrants from Russia. Navalny closed his monologue with “We have a right to be [ethnic] Russians in Russia. And we will defend this right.”
My new year’s resolution is to ignore williamglenn’s pointless whataboutery questions.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
I never saw that post nor made that comment so cannot say.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
His mother's maiden name is Haldeman - apparently Swiss-German. His ancestors seem to have come from the US, Canada and South Africa and as far as I can tell you have to go some way back to find an English-born one. He hasn't lived or studied here. He's welcome to take an interest in this country but he's not one of us (as I think is evident from the absurd histrionic style with which he conducts himself - Wooster's response to Spode comes to mind).
I believe he identified as “British” South African, which would make sense. I agree that it’s strange though that he hasn’t seemed interested in the UK itself until very lately.
Well, yes. He's shown very little interest in the UK< and hasn't invested in us much. My guess is that he wants to identify as 'English' as being an Afrikaner can be problematic.
The Musk family identified as “English” South African, rather than “Afrikaner”.
They are fairly culturally distinct, in South Africa.
Though, as is usual, there was heritage from all over the place in the family tree.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
"Nobody likes you"
Here at St PB primary school 🙂
You get an 'I like you' from me @kinabalu. Don't let it go to your head.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
They want us to be a client state of the US.
Donald Trump would no doubt like that too.
A rather sad prospect for this flawed but fabulous old country of ours imo.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
He restored, or to be precise Twitter restored, accounts as he’s a free speech absolutist. It is hardly a personal endorsement of them.
He supports Robinson only in the sense he believes he is unjustly incarcerated. That is the misunderstanding?
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
Navalny recorded two videos to introduce their new movement; they were his début on YouTube. One was a forty-second argument for gun rights. The other, a minute long, featured Navalny dressed as a dentist, presenting a slightly confusing parable that likened interethnic conflict in Russia to cavities and argued that fascism can be prevented only by deporting migrants from Russia. Navalny closed his monologue with “We have a right to be [ethnic] Russians in Russia. And we will defend this right.”
My new year’s resolution is to ignore williamglenn’s pointless whataboutery questions.
My point is that viewed from the US perspective, the details don't matter that much and they will happily promote political dissidents in ideologically hostile states regardless of their background.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
"Nobody likes you"
Here at St PB primary school 🙂
You get an 'I like you' from me @kinabalu. Don't let it go to your head.
Kinabulu, someone might even give you a Love Heart sweetie.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
He restored, or to be precise Twitter restored, accounts as he’s a free speech absolutist. It is hardly a personal endorsement of them.
He supports Robinson only in the sense he believes he is unjustly incarcerated. That is the misunderstanding?
He isn't a free speech absolutist. He closes off accounts he doesn't like.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Are you OK with labelling Tommy Robinson as far right?
Because then what do you call someone who supports him?
He’s supporting a man he believes is unjustly incarcerated.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
"Nobody likes you"
Here at St PB primary school 🙂
You get an 'I like you' from me @kinabalu. Don't let it go to your head.
Kinabulu, someone might even give you a Love Heart sweetie.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
His mother's maiden name is Haldeman - apparently Swiss-German. His ancestors seem to have come from the US, Canada and South Africa and as far as I can tell you have to go some way back to find an English-born one. He hasn't lived or studied here. He's welcome to take an interest in this country but he's not one of us (as I think is evident from the absurd histrionic style with which he conducts himself - Wooster's response to Spode comes to mind).
Joe Biden is a lot more English but seems to actively loathe Britain and identify purely as an Irish American. Hey Ho.
Yes it's almost as if blood and soil nationalism is nonsense. At the end of the day, who your grandparents were is pretty much irrelevant, especially as in many cases we may not even have an accurate understanding of that in any case. Who you are is determined by where you grow up, who you live beside, the books you read, the community you belong to. Musk has no meaningful connection to this country, beyond one he imagines on the basis of a subset of his assumed ancestry.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Let's leave aside Europe for a moment.
The US is a massively more regulated business environment than the UK. And I don't mean slightly, I mean massively.
Let me give you an example of a very small business, where I have a very small economic interest. It's a nail salon in San Antonio, which does some other beauty treatments (not including botox).
It required multiple permits including a state cosmetology license through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR), a general business permit, and a county-specific health department certifications.
This was before it was even able to open. And that was just licenses.
By contrast, in the UK, you open a shop.
And everyone who works at the salon requires individual licensing to work as a nail technician. You can't simply have someone fill in.
Finally, the IRS add another massive layer of complexity compared to the UK, with mandatory quarterly employment tax filings (Form 941), annual returns, and detailed documentation for worker classification. And did I mention compliance with OSHA and state standards requires extensive documentation regarding chemical storage, ventilation systems, and safety protocols.
Oh yes, did I forget that the whole process of creating a corporate entity, and legal minimum insurance requirements (which are another scam, by the way), add another layer of complexity compared to the UK.
If we've decided that the US works relative to the UK, and regulation is the reason, then holy shit, we need a lot more regulation.
In the UK, you open a shop.
Is the US reputation on white collar crime a perception, or based on reality? That's another thing I've always assumed about the UK - we don't have the resources to investigate in the same way the feds do.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
His mother's maiden name is Haldeman - apparently Swiss-German. His ancestors seem to have come from the US, Canada and South Africa and as far as I can tell you have to go some way back to find an English-born one. He hasn't lived or studied here. He's welcome to take an interest in this country but he's not one of us (as I think is evident from the absurd histrionic style with which he conducts himself - Wooster's response to Spode comes to mind).
Joe Biden is a lot more English but seems to actively loathe Britain and identify purely as an Irish American. Hey Ho.
True. And in that light Musk is actually doing no worse than the US Irish-Americans have done for decades.
Musk and Trump's 'interference' is no more than US politicians have done for many decades. Usually their influence has been behind the scenes, occasionally it becomes public, such as Obama's 'back of the queue' and Biden's public snarling about Truss's budget. It hasn't needed to be more public than that, because mostly Presidents can just get on the phone and get things changed.
I have condemned such casual American interference (well, more our supplication than their interference) for years, to a chorus of precisely zero support from PB's centrist commentariat. Yet suddenly with Trump and Musk doing some Tweets this has become an issue of overriding importance.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
His mother's maiden name is Haldeman - apparently Swiss-German. His ancestors seem to have come from the US, Canada and South Africa and as far as I can tell you have to go some way back to find an English-born one. He hasn't lived or studied here. He's welcome to take an interest in this country but he's not one of us (as I think is evident from the absurd histrionic style with which he conducts himself - Wooster's response to Spode comes to mind).
Joe Biden is a lot more English but seems to actively loathe Britain and identify purely as an Irish American. Hey Ho.
True. And in that light Musk is actually doing no worse than the US Irish-Americans have done for decades.
Well his shitposting is not as bad as actually funding the IRA as some in the US did. The same organisation which bombed on the mainland and killed MPs.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
He restored, or to be precise Twitter restored, accounts as he’s a free speech absolutist. It is hardly a personal endorsement of them.
He supports Robinson only in the sense he believes he is unjustly incarcerated. That is the misunderstanding?
And suspended the Sandford Police account when they threatened to arrest him.
The site is no nastier or nicer than it’s been since forever. It has a tendency to get quite brutal and angry when very sensitive subjects are being discussed
Two examples from either side: the Muslim rape gangs scandal gets a large chunk of the forum highly animated - for obvious reasons, 100,000s of victims, no justice served
In contrast Gaza gets a different section of PB seriously agitated - for obvious reasons, 10,000s of dead Gazans, still Israel pounds away
You can’t expect these charged emotional debates to leave PB calmly untouched
We can either have a lively debating forum and accept that at times things will get heated, or we can have a super-moderated old people’s tea-shop in Newent which will be so boring everyone will drift away, anyway
Quite. Indyref used to have some seriously mental threads.
Possibly the most incendiary time on PB was just before and maybe a year after Brexit, when a significant minority of Remainers on PB went literally mad (a couple still linger, bless). They couldn’t accept a democratic decision, they believed they were democrats, the cognitive dissonance left them one choice: lunacy
The worst example was Alistair Meeks. When I say worse I mean saddest, as he was one of the very best and smartest of commenters, judicious, wry, often witty
Then Brexit turned him into a smouldering pit of anger and sometimes he would spend a day issuing threats of actual violence. In the end he made the wise but saddening choice to leave
I still live in hope that now he’s calm again - or so it seems on other forums - he might return
ISTR he was somewhat baited by some of our more (ahem) vociferous posters.
It's a shame when people force other posters off this site. You would *never* do such a thing, would you?
Actually no I didn’t bait him. I do like to wind people up but I have a personal rule that if I think someone is in genuine mental distress - having a breakdown, unstable, suicidal, very depressed - then I leave them alone. I do this because 1. I’m not evil and 2. I’m prone to depressions myself and I know how horrible they are
The meltdown of the Meeks at its worst was painful to see - making threats of violence hourly - I left him to it and quietly hoped he’d improve, or leave. He made the correct decision to leave
I’ve since communicated with him personally and it’s been civil and pleasant. The Meeks of old
Have you considered that the abuse you routinely give out might actually lead someone into mental distress?
I simply don’t believe my invective is that powerful and even if it is then they have the option to simply not come to the site. It’s not like I’m visiting their homes and shouting in their tiny redbrick windows. For a start I hate the provinces
Didn’t DougSeal, a man not averse to dishing it out and I remember him being most rude to me when I commented on an equal pay ruling - what a prick, have a hissy fit at you over something you said which seemed a little innocuous.
One of those things that escalated quickly. Sometimes these do over a simple misunderstanding by one party.
He seemed to get really upset. Really upset.
DougSeal was a specialist employment lawyer iirc so probably knew what he was talking about re equal pay rulings.
I’m well aware of that and I don’t doubt his knowledge.
However there is no need to be such a condescending asshole when making that point, is there ?
Berating me for not seeing posts on PB previously about it. 🤷♂️
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
He restored, or to be precise Twitter restored, accounts as he’s a free speech absolutist. It is hardly a personal endorsement of them.
He supports Robinson only in the sense he believes he is unjustly incarcerated. That is the misunderstanding?
Restoring far right accounts can perhaps be explained by his supposed free speech absolutism, but he also likes them, retweets them, agrees with them and amplifies their content. It’s one thing to allow a Holocaust denier to have an account, it’s another to praise him.
Also, the whole free speech absolutism thing is barely defensible given how he’s recently demonetised and blocked accounts that disagreed with him. Those are not the actions of a free speech absolutist.
He supports the AfD, as well.
I don’t think his support for Tommy Robinson is just because he thinks him unjustly imprisoned. I think he supports Tommy Robinson because he agrees with Tommy Robinson more broadly.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
He restored, or to be precise Twitter restored, accounts as he’s a free speech absolutist. It is hardly a personal endorsement of them.
He supports Robinson only in the sense he believes he is unjustly incarcerated. That is the misunderstanding?
He isn't a free speech absolutist. He closes off accounts he doesn't like.
He certainly did a ton of censorship during the US election campaign.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Let's leave aside Europe for a moment.
The US is a massively more regulated business environment than the UK. And I don't mean slightly, I mean massively.
Let me give you an example of a very small business, where I have a very small economic interest. It's a nail salon in San Antonio, which does some other beauty treatments (not including botox).
It required multiple permits including a state cosmetology license through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR), a general business permit, and a county-specific health department certifications.
This was before it was even able to open. And that was just licenses.
By contrast, in the UK, you open a shop.
And everyone who works at the salon requires individual licensing to work as a nail technician. You can't simply have someone fill in.
Finally, the IRS add another massive layer of complexity compared to the UK, with mandatory quarterly employment tax filings (Form 941), annual returns, and detailed documentation for worker classification. And did I mention compliance with OSHA and state standards requires extensive documentation regarding chemical storage, ventilation systems, and safety protocols.
Oh yes, did I forget that the whole process of creating a corporate entity, and legal minimum insurance requirements (which are another scam, by the way), add another layer of complexity compared to the UK.
If we've decided that the US works relative to the UK, and regulation is the reason, then holy shit, we need a lot more regulation.
In the UK, you open a shop.
Is the US reputation on white collar crime a perception, or based on reality? That's another thing I've always assumed about the UK - we don't have the resources to investigate in the same way the feds do.
For the US, it depends on which bit of the US you are in and what you are doing. For example, if you’re are in Louisiana and doing real estate development, you are nearly certainly working with organised crime. These days, in New York, you aren’t.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
"Only the AfD can save Germany"
Have a bash at that one?
I know little of the AFD aside from them being a major party in Germany and on the right. I don’t know their policy positions so would have to invest time on that. what was the context ?
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
He restored, or to be precise Twitter restored, accounts as he’s a free speech absolutist. It is hardly a personal endorsement of them.
He supports Robinson only in the sense he believes he is unjustly incarcerated. That is the misunderstanding?
And suspended the Sandford Police account when they threatened to arrest him.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
He restored, or to be precise Twitter restored, accounts as he’s a free speech absolutist. It is hardly a personal endorsement of them.
He supports Robinson only in the sense he believes he is unjustly incarcerated. That is the misunderstanding?
And suspended the Sandford Police account when they threatened to arrest him.
The Greater Good
As a so-called English person, he clearly has no idea about our culture.
@JosiasJessop my post seemed to get lost, I wasn't suggesting you were supporting Musk interfering in our democracy, just that some Tories would pipe up if Musk were supporting Labour.
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
The only way it doesn’t happen is through punitive tariffs
Your post is what would concern me about Musk shitposting. The impact on his business. As I said earlier. Concentrate on running your business. Not winding up people.
On Musk - I think Paul Krugman hits the nail on the head. "In the academic world there’s a familiar phenomenon sometimes called “great man’s disease,” in which a successful researcher in one field assumes that he (it’s usually a “he”) is so much smarter than experts in other fields that he doesn’t need to pay attention to their research. Physicists make confident, deeply ignorant pronouncements about economics; economists make confident, deeply ignorant pronouncements about sociology"
He's cleaely a phenomenally successful businessman. But sadly very ignorant about many other things.
There's a youtube video of David Starkey on where the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going wrong apparently.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
He restored, or to be precise Twitter restored, accounts as he’s a free speech absolutist. It is hardly a personal endorsement of them.
He supports Robinson only in the sense he believes he is unjustly incarcerated. That is the misunderstanding?
And suspended the Sandford Police account when they threatened to arrest him.
We got restricted overnight and had to change the name. Currently awaiting review to get the tick back
I would love to say Musk isn't personally up late restricting accounts but he seems to Tweet to hundreds of random accounts a day so he clearly has a lot of free time on his hands.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
"Only the AfD can save Germany"
Have a bash at that one?
I know little of the AFD aside from them being a major party in Germany and on the right. I don’t know their policy positions so would have to invest time on that. what was the context ?
Musk tweeted those words and followed up by writing a newspaper editorial praising the AfD.
Here’s Wikipedia on how the AfD has been ruled to be a far right extremist party in Germany:
“In March 2020, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (German: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) classified AfD's far-right nationalistic faction known as Der Flügel as "a right-wing extremist endeavor against the free democratic basic order" and as "not compatible with the Basic Law", placing it under government surveillance.[184][185][186] In early March 2021, most of Germany's major media outlets reported that the Bundesverfassungsschutz had placed the whole AfD under surveillance as a "suspected extremist group".[187][188] In response to claims from AfD members that the move was intended to damage the party's chances in the 2021 German federal election, the agency stated it would not make public announcements regarding investigations into the AfD or its candidates for the foreseeable future.[187][188] After the revelations, the surveillance was blocked by the courts to give equal opportunities among political parties in a key election year.[189][190][191] In 2022, it was ruled that the BfV may classify and monitor the entire party as a suspected right-wing extremist group. A corresponding lawsuit by the AfD was dismissed because "there were sufficient factual indications of anti-constitutional efforts within the AfD".[42] The dismissal was upheld in May 2024.[192] On 26 April 2023, the BfV, after four years of investigations into the Young Alternative for Germany, categorized that group as a confirmed extremist organisation. This allowed the chief of the BfV Thomas Haldenwang to place the youth wing under even more intensive surveillance than the tapping of phone and the use of undercover agents that had been the case until then.[193][194]”
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
Navalny recorded two videos to introduce their new movement; they were his début on YouTube. One was a forty-second argument for gun rights. The other, a minute long, featured Navalny dressed as a dentist, presenting a slightly confusing parable that likened interethnic conflict in Russia to cavities and argued that fascism can be prevented only by deporting migrants from Russia. Navalny closed his monologue with “We have a right to be [ethnic] Russians in Russia. And we will defend this right.”
My new year’s resolution is to ignore williamglenn’s pointless whataboutery questions.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
"Nobody likes you"
Here at St PB primary school 🙂
"St PB" sounds more like a very low rent prep school to me.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
You regularly launch unprovoked attacks, and act in incredulous disbelief when people respond in kind.
@JosiasJessop my post seemed to get lost, I wasn't suggesting you were supporting Musk interfering in our democracy, just that some Tories would pipe up if Musk were supporting Labour.
I don't have much in common with Jessop, however on here he is laudably very anti-Trump and very anti -Musk. For this I salute him.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
"Nobody likes you"
Here at St PB primary school 🙂
"St PB" sounds more like low rent prep school to me.
I wasn't against making Twitter more balanced but the problem is that it was clearly obvious that Elon's idea of "balance" was to turn a left-leaning echo chamber into a right-leaning one instead.
As I have said many times, I've told it I don't want to see politics and yet I get served politics under every Tweet, including often Tweets from himself.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
Unless you're very young, I'd question whether Starmer was to the left of Gordon Brown.
Does Musk issue dozens of tweets every day, and just occasionally takes a potshot at Starmer that we notice? Or is he for some reason really interested in the UK?
Would you question why Biden was interested in Ireland? It seems natural for people of British descent to question what is becoming of the mother country.
This is not Musk's 'mother country'. He has shown very little interest in the UK in the past, and has not invested heavily in this country.
You cannot say the same about Trump, for instance.
His mother's maiden name is Haldeman - apparently Swiss-German. His ancestors seem to have come from the US, Canada and South Africa and as far as I can tell you have to go some way back to find an English-born one. He hasn't lived or studied here. He's welcome to take an interest in this country but he's not one of us (as I think is evident from the absurd histrionic style with which he conducts himself - Wooster's response to Spode comes to mind).
Joe Biden is a lot more English but seems to actively loathe Britain and identify purely as an Irish American. Hey Ho.
True. And in that light Musk is actually doing no worse than the US Irish-Americans have done for decades.
Well his shitposting is not as bad as actually funding the IRA as some in the US did. The same organisation which bombed on the mainland and killed MPs.
Biden's special envoy to Northern Ireland boasted of his good relations with the IRA.
That's why a lot of this Musk stuff leaves me cold.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
"Only the AfD can save Germany"
Have a bash at that one?
I know little of the AFD aside from them being a major party in Germany and on the right. I don’t know their policy positions so would have to invest time on that. what was the context ?
Ah OK. Strong neo nazi associations. They're fa ... no let's put it another way ... if the AfD are not far right we probably need to retire the term.
@JosiasJessop my post seemed to get lost, I wasn't suggesting you were supporting Musk interfering in our democracy, just that some Tories would pipe up if Musk were supporting Labour.
I don't have much in common with Jessop, however on here he is laudably very anti-Trump and very anti -Musk. For this I salute him.
I am sure we disagree politically on much but they're one of the few here who's been consistently anti Musk from the start. And that gives me hope that there are people with different politics to mine, that are prepared to put it aside to protect our democracy.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
"Only the AfD can save Germany"
Have a bash at that one?
I know little of the AFD aside from them being a major party in Germany and on the right. I don’t know their policy positions so would have to invest time on that. what was the context ?
Musk tweeted those words and followed up by writing a newspaper editorial praising the AfD.
Here’s Wikipedia on how the AfD has been ruled to be a far right extremist party in Germany:
“In March 2020, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (German: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) classified AfD's far-right nationalistic faction known as Der Flügel as "a right-wing extremist endeavor against the free democratic basic order" and as "not compatible with the Basic Law", placing it under government surveillance.[184][185][186] In early March 2021, most of Germany's major media outlets reported that the Bundesverfassungsschutz had placed the whole AfD under surveillance as a "suspected extremist group".[187][188] In response to claims from AfD members that the move was intended to damage the party's chances in the 2021 German federal election, the agency stated it would not make public announcements regarding investigations into the AfD or its candidates for the foreseeable future.[187][188] After the revelations, the surveillance was blocked by the courts to give equal opportunities among political parties in a key election year.[189][190][191] In 2022, it was ruled that the BfV may classify and monitor the entire party as a suspected right-wing extremist group. A corresponding lawsuit by the AfD was dismissed because "there were sufficient factual indications of anti-constitutional efforts within the AfD".[42] The dismissal was upheld in May 2024.[192] On 26 April 2023, the BfV, after four years of investigations into the Young Alternative for Germany, categorized that group as a confirmed extremist organisation. This allowed the chief of the BfV Thomas Haldenwang to place the youth wing under even more intensive surveillance than the tapping of phone and the use of undercover agents that had been the case until then.[193][194]”
It sounds like the German authorities are on top of it. With that kind of ideological surveillance, what could go wrong?
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
You regularly launch unprovoked attacks, and act in incredulous disbelief when people respond in kind.
Do you have any self-awareness at all?
I am glad you agree that the comments MaxPB made were unprovoked and not a “gotcha” moment. Thank you for that rare moment of empathy from you.
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
The fact that Musk appears to believe, and act on the belief, that there can and will be viable long term human communities living on Mars in not all that long suggests that he may well be less good at thinking through some things than others.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
I'm very happy to trade with Europe, and even China, but I don't think that should come at the expense of our political independence.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
The fact that Musk appears to believe, and act on the belief, that there can and will be viable long term human communities living on Mars in not all that long suggests that he may well be less good at thinking through some things than others.
I'm one of those that believes he got very lucky in his career but he was at least good and picking winning horses/causes. Well, until Twitter.
The folks at PayPal clearly saw what he was, it's why they chucked him out - and he's been holding a grudge ever since.
1 Highest share of the vote in 2025 with a BPC registered pollster in a GB wide poll for each of Lab, Con, LD, Reform. L 30 C 28 LD 14 R 25
2 Lowest share of the vote in 2025 with a BPC registered pollster in a GB wide poll for each of Lab, Con, LD, Reform. L 20 C 19 LD 10 R 15
3 Number of Reform MPs on 31/12/2025. 5
4 Number of Tory MP defectors to Reform in 2025. 0
5 Number of Westminster by-elections held in 2025. 1
6 Number of ministers to leave the Westminster cabinet during 2025. 1
7 Number of seats won by the AfD in the 2025 German Federal Election. 132
8 UK CPI figure for November 2025 (Nov 2024 = 2.6%). 3.5%
9 UK borrowing in the financial year-to-November 2025 (Year to Nov 2024 = £113.2bn). £150bn
10 UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2025 (Oct 23 to Oct 24 = 1.3%). 0.5%
11 US growth annualised rate in Q3 2025 (Q3 2024 = 3.1%). 3%
12 EU growth Q3 2024 to Q3 2025 (2024 = 1.0%). 2%
13 USD/Ruble exchange rate at London FOREX close on 31/12/2025 (31/12/2024 = 114 USD/RUB). 130
14 The result of the 2025-2026 Ashes series (2023 series: Drawn 2–2). Aus 3-2
I'm very interested that you don't think Braverman will go. She's obviously between a stupid rock and a stupid hard place, but I had pencilled in that she'd be a definite.
No she still wants to be Conservative leader some day but she has covered both bases and sent her husband to join Reform instead
That ship has surely sailed. She couldn't even get the nominations to join the six who got to the starting line last year, and there are other much more serious alternatives on the right if Badenoch fails and the party is minded to stay firmly in the right lane.
Her hesitancy is, I'd have thought, more to do with the question of whether she will win with RefUK. She has a plum Tory seat with a healthy majority of 6k even in a terrible election for her party. It should be a seat for life unless RefUK replace the Tories - which is possible but not probable at this stage. If she misjudged it, she'd be out on her ear at the next election, still aged under 50. I'm sure she'll continue to consider it, and may well jump, but it's obviously a big gamble.
As of our most recent figures (Nov), Elon Musk was unpopular with 64% of the British public - and 61% of those who said they used Twitter/X on a daily basis
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
"Nobody likes you"
Here at St PB primary school 🙂
"St PB" sounds more like a very low rent prep school to me.
“We class schools, you see, into four grades: Leading School, First-rate School, Good School, and School. Frankly," said Mr Levy, "School is pretty bad...”
But here's the problem: that would not just be a trait seen just in immigration from Muslim countries; and many immigrants from Muslim countries do have a loyalty to the British state and people.
I'm married to one.
So events like this are used by racists to say: "This is what all Muslims are like," and then: "This is what all immigrants are like."
I just wonder, if a load of British immigrants - we could call them expats, it has a nice ring - went to a foreign country, say Spain and settled in a random place, say the Costa del Sol and decided to import British fish and chips, speak no Spanish and generally create a mini-Britain, would we be calling them not loyal to Spain and generally destroying their culture, taking over the country?
I think Spain would have every right to deport the lot of them if they became a nuisance.
I've spoken to people from there. They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area.
Sound familiar?
If they don't belong in Spain, what should happen to them? I say deport them.
What do you mean "don't belong"?
I'm happy to accept your definition:
"They do cause a nuisance, the locals hate them, they have basically destroyed the culture and the Spanish basically see it as a "no go" area."
Then I wonder why all of those going after Muslims don't seem to spend any time calling for these people to be deported. If you want to start that train then I will support you.
The issue is multiculturalism has completely failed as a model. Immigrants need to integrate into the host country, not import their own culture and establish it as a separate stream
Multiculturalism isn't just about immigrants. A lot of it is homegrown. Look at the cultures of Reform people verus LibDem people.
The model for monoculturalism is China, as the Tibetans and Uyghurs well know.
The upside is that there isn't the tension of "others" or any affront to ones culture. It's one big happy family with common values, in theory.
The downside is the loss of diversity of outlooks, of innovation, and also of the basic freedom to not conform and behave as you want as long as you don't harm others. (Harm is not the same as offend).
The Chinese model is working well, but at a cost. There are pros and cons.
The Chinese model is not a melting point (well maybe literally…)
It’s the imposition of Han culture on others.
The melting point approach is the optimal - take the best and emerge stronger.
Britain today is far better as a result of the Huguenots, the various waves of Jewish immigrants, the Normans, etc.
Everyone except the Romans. After all, what have the Romans ever done for us?
It's one of this great 'what if's' isn't it! What if William the Bastard had lost at Hastings and been driven back into the sea. Secondly, of course, if he'd lived, would he have tried again?
But if the Norman Conquest hadn't happened, then England would have been more like the Scandinavian countries.
Being conquered by Scandinavians made us less Scandinavian?
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
"Nobody likes you"
Here at St PB primary school 🙂
"St PB" sounds more like a very low rent prep school to me.
“We class schools, you see, into four grades: Leading School, First-rate School, Good School, and School. Frankly," said Mr Levy, "School is pretty bad...”
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
I'm very happy to trade with Europe, and even China, but I don't think that should come at the expense of our political independence.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
You seem to believe what you want to believe.
I’d be tempted to put the strangulation of the British economy in the hands of austerity. See below.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
The original poster said nothing of the sort. Get a grip.
I didn’t say we were there yet.
However labelling mainstream politics/politicians as Far Right or Fascist I find absurd and it is a step away from that.
Do you and Moonshine not sniff a little bit of the far right about Musk then?
(for it is He I was referring to)
His support of Tommy Robinson is, I suspect, due to lack of knowledge of the man and his incarceration cause rather than support of him. He possibly takes things at face value.
I think he is a free speech absolutist, small govt, conservative. To an outsider to the U.K. the grooming gangs story would seem crazy. The story, to me, is more the establishment cover ups/reluctance to act as many of the perpetrators were punished.
I think there’s an element of playing to his base, he’s also a bit of a troll. If I was a major shareholder in Tesla or one of his other companies I’d be into him saying ‘what the fuck are you playing at ?, focus on the business’ his comments cannot help his businesses in mature and still relatively prosperous markets like Germany and the U.K.
In U.K. terms I see him on the right of the Tory Party.
His pro migration stance is certainly not far right, for example.
He supports Tommy Robinson, but you dismiss that as a misunderstanding.
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
He restored, or to be precise Twitter restored, accounts as he’s a free speech absolutist. It is hardly a personal endorsement of them.
He supports Robinson only in the sense he believes he is unjustly incarcerated. That is the misunderstanding?
And suspended the Sandford Police account when they threatened to arrest him.
We got restricted overnight and had to change the name. Currently awaiting review to get the tick back
I would love to say Musk isn't personally up late restricting accounts but he seems to Tweet to hundreds of random accounts a day so he clearly has a lot of free time on his hands.
I doubt it’s him personally, he is not omnipresent on Twitter after all but for accounts to claim it is the case it feeds into their sense of grievance. Not saying that’s the case here.
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
The fact that Musk appears to believe, and act on the belief, that there can and will be viable long term human communities living on Mars in not all that long suggests that he may well be less good at thinking through some things than others.
Does he believe that, though, or does he need to persuasively make a case to investors that there are returns within a reasonable timescale?
I'm appalled by a lot of what Musk says, and think he's a thoroughly destructive character in politics. I also question the fundamentals of his businesses (although not from a position of deep knowledge). But he clearly has a proven record of getting investors to buy into his vision, and he can't do that by training down expectations in the markets he's active in, where everything depends on a highly uncertain projection of where we'll be in 20 years.
I doubt it’s him personally, he is not omnipresent on Twitter after all but for accounts to claim it is the case it feeds into their sense of grievance. Not saying that’s the case here.
Go on Elon's account, see how many times he's Tweeted over the last few days. He's clearly on it 24/7.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
I'm very happy to trade with Europe, and even China, but I don't think that should come at the expense of our political independence.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
You seem to believe what you want to believe.
I’d be tempted to put the strangulation of the British economy in the hands of austerity. See below.
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
The fact that Musk appears to believe, and act on the belief, that there can and will be viable long term human communities living on Mars in not all that long suggests that he may well be less good at thinking through some things than others.
I'm one of those that believes he got very lucky in his career but he was at least good and picking winning horses/causes. Well, until Twitter.
The folks at PayPal clearly saw what he was, it's why they chucked him out - and he's been holding a grudge ever since.
That must be an amazing amount of luck to become the richest person in the world, with a value of over £400bn.
Always surprises me just how lucky some people continually are, year after year. Just like that Ronaldo bloke, or Djokovic, Wiliams sisters, Michael Johnson, Chris Hoy etc.....so so so so so so lucky.
Comments
I wonder when you'll snap.
And I thought you'd aspire to something higher than the refereeing of parish councils.
Because then what do you call someone who supports him?
Have a bash at that one?
OK, but he also supports the AfD.
And he’s liked/retweeted/praised multiple antisemitic tweets, and restored Twitter accounts for lots of far right accounts.
At what point do we have enough evidence that he’s far right himself?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
I did five dry months last year, and felt much better during most of them. I potentially have a rather stretch exercise goal this year, and am carefully looking after my diet.
So I'm starting off with dry January, and seeing how long I get without drinking. I'm also trying to cut out crisps, biscuits, and Red Bull.
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/inside-carlton-club-bash-where-guests-laugh-at-hitler-jokes-and-sing-were-all-racist-now-387819/
With video!
The US is a massively more regulated business environment than the UK. And I don't mean slightly, I mean massively.
Let me give you an example of a very small business, where I have a very small economic interest. It's a nail salon in San Antonio, which does some other beauty treatments (not including botox).
It required multiple permits including a state cosmetology license through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR), a general business permit, and a county-specific health department certifications.
This was before it was even able to open. And that was just licenses.
By contrast, in the UK, you open a shop.
And everyone who works at the salon requires individual licensing to work as a nail technician. You can't simply have someone fill in.
Finally, the IRS add another massive layer of complexity compared to the UK, with mandatory quarterly employment tax filings (Form 941), annual returns, and detailed documentation for worker classification. And did I mention compliance with OSHA and state standards requires extensive documentation regarding chemical storage, ventilation systems, and safety protocols.
Oh yes, did I forget that the whole process of creating a corporate entity, and legal minimum insurance requirements (which are another scam, by the way), add another layer of complexity compared to the UK.
If we've decided that the US works relative to the UK, and regulation is the reason, then holy shit, we need a lot more regulation.
In the UK, you open a shop.
Here at St PB primary school 🙂
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-evolution-of-alexey-navalnys-nationalism
Navalny recorded two videos to introduce their new movement; they were his début on YouTube. One was a forty-second argument for gun rights. The other, a minute long, featured Navalny dressed as a dentist, presenting a slightly confusing parable that likened interethnic conflict in Russia to cavities and argued that fascism can be prevented only by deporting migrants from Russia. Navalny closed his monologue with “We have a right to be [ethnic] Russians in Russia. And we will defend this right.”
"In the academic world there’s a familiar phenomenon sometimes called “great man’s disease,” in which a successful researcher in one field assumes that he (it’s usually a “he”) is so much smarter than experts in other fields that he doesn’t need to pay attention to their research. Physicists make confident, deeply ignorant pronouncements about economics; economists make confident, deeply ignorant pronouncements about sociology"
He's cleaely a phenomenally successful businessman. But sadly very ignorant about many other things.
They are fairly culturally distinct, in South Africa.
Though, as is usual, there was heritage from all over the place in the family tree.
A rather sad prospect for this flawed but fabulous old country of ours imo.
He supports Robinson only in the sense he believes he is unjustly incarcerated. That is the misunderstanding?
Musk has no meaningful connection to this country, beyond one he imagines on the basis of a subset of his assumed ancestry.
Although thinking about it, that's not fair. You're not knowledgeable enough to be a nerd.
I have condemned such casual American interference (well, more our supplication than their interference) for years, to a chorus of precisely zero support from PB's centrist commentariat. Yet suddenly with Trump and Musk doing some Tweets this has become an issue of overriding importance.
The Greater Good
Also, the whole free speech absolutism thing is barely defensible given how he’s recently demonetised and blocked accounts that disagreed with him. Those are not the actions of a free speech absolutist.
He supports the AfD, as well.
I don’t think his support for Tommy Robinson is just because he thinks him unjustly imprisoned. I think he supports Tommy Robinson because he agrees with Tommy Robinson more broadly.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
And you are my favourite horse in the whole world.
https://x.com/sandford_police/status/1875584887866192096?s=61
How do you know he did it personally, if indeed it actually happened, and if it did it was anything other than a joke ?
No luck catching them parody accounts then?
Your post is what would concern me about Musk shitposting. The impact on his business. As I said earlier. Concentrate on running your business. Not winding up people.
We got restricted overnight and had to change the name. Currently awaiting review to get the tick back
I would love to say Musk isn't personally up late restricting accounts but he seems to Tweet to hundreds of random accounts a day so he clearly has a lot of free time on his hands.
Here’s Wikipedia on how the AfD has been ruled to be a far right extremist party in Germany:
“In March 2020, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (German: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) classified AfD's far-right nationalistic faction known as Der Flügel as "a right-wing extremist endeavor against the free democratic basic order" and as "not compatible with the Basic Law", placing it under government surveillance.[184][185][186] In early March 2021, most of Germany's major media outlets reported that the Bundesverfassungsschutz had placed the whole AfD under surveillance as a "suspected extremist group".[187][188] In response to claims from AfD members that the move was intended to damage the party's chances in the 2021 German federal election, the agency stated it would not make public announcements regarding investigations into the AfD or its candidates for the foreseeable future.[187][188] After the revelations, the surveillance was blocked by the courts to give equal opportunities among political parties in a key election year.[189][190][191] In 2022, it was ruled that the BfV may classify and monitor the entire party as a suspected right-wing extremist group. A corresponding lawsuit by the AfD was dismissed because "there were sufficient factual indications of anti-constitutional efforts within the AfD".[42] The dismissal was upheld in May 2024.[192] On 26 April 2023, the BfV, after four years of investigations into the Young Alternative for Germany, categorized that group as a confirmed extremist organisation. This allowed the chief of the BfV Thomas Haldenwang to place the youth wing under even more intensive surveillance than the tapping of phone and the use of undercover agents that had been the case until then.[193][194]”
Do you have any self-awareness at all?
As I have said many times, I've told it I don't want to see politics and yet I get served politics under every Tweet, including often Tweets from himself.
That's why a lot of this Musk stuff leaves me cold.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
The folks at PayPal clearly saw what he was, it's why they chucked him out - and he's been holding a grudge ever since.
Her hesitancy is, I'd have thought, more to do with the question of whether she will win with RefUK. She has a plum Tory seat with a healthy majority of 6k even in a terrible election for her party. It should be a seat for life unless RefUK replace the Tories - which is possible but not probable at this stage. If she misjudged it, she'd be out on her ear at the next election, still aged under 50. I'm sure she'll continue to consider it, and may well jump, but it's obviously a big gamble.
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1875216884309873038
I’d be tempted to put the strangulation of the British economy in the hands of austerity. See below.
http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/GDPpercapita.jpg
I'm appalled by a lot of what Musk says, and think he's a thoroughly destructive character in politics. I also question the fundamentals of his businesses (although not from a position of deep knowledge). But he clearly has a proven record of getting investors to buy into his vision, and he can't do that by training down expectations in the markets he's active in, where everything depends on a highly uncertain projection of where we'll be in 20 years.
Always surprises me just how lucky some people continually are, year after year. Just like that Ronaldo bloke, or Djokovic, Wiliams sisters, Michael Johnson, Chris Hoy etc.....so so so so so so lucky.