'Britons tend to say it is more important to support Ukraine than to maintain good relations with the US
More important to support Ukraine: 48% More important to maintain good relations with the US: 20% Neither: 14%'
Tory voters by a 25% margin, Labour voters by a 47% margin and LD voters by a 53% margin say it is more important to maintain good relations with the Ukraine than the US.
Reform voters by a 19% margin say it is more important to retain good relations with Trump's US than Ukraine though
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I missed your fact check. I presume that this woman got a payoff from the police for not being arrested?
All those people who criticised the ending of No Time To Die should be eating their words today, the franchise is as dead as the character now. Good send off in the end. Amazon are going to ruin it.
I went off Daniel Craig.
He effectively became the franchise, got inside Barbara's head, and then blew it up from the inside.
So method acting, then ?
No, it became about Daniel Craig not James Bond.
But you just said he engaged in infiltration and sabotage...
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
No, she was (wrongly as was later admitted) arrested for entering a public spaces protection zone. She wasn’t prosecuted and was paid a significant amount of compensation from our pockets.
In any event, the statement that she was arrested for “praying” is as disingenuous as saying someone who was arrested for speeding was, in fact, arrested for “driving”.
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I missed your fact check. I presume that this woman got a payoff from the police for not being arrested?
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I missed your fact check. I presume that this woman got a payoff from the police for not being arrested?
It's true that Kemi has come out in support of Zelensky. But only a couple of days ago she made that bizarre speech (at ARC) which was full of praise for Trump and his 'action-packed' start to his presidency, and highly admiring of Musk's work at DoGE, along with various anti-woke memes. Chicken nuggets, ffs?
I think she's genuinely struggling to decide whether the righteous path is the Truss/Farage one, or whether there's another way, yet to be discovered.
Whilst I would obviously prefer not to have a fascist- and dictator-enabling narcissist in the White House, I do think one potential benefit is to concentrate minds in the UK.
If Badenoch is prepared to lift her gaze from the dull and inconsequential crap she has tried to focus on thus far and to join Starmer in unequivocal support for Zelenskyy and not playing politics on defence spending, that's to be applauded.
It would be nice if you lot were honest, if only with yourselves. This isn't about anyone 'lifting their gaze' above party politics, this is 100% about party politics - the party politics of the UK's poor excuse for a Prime Minister and getting him off the hook by wrapping him in the garb of 'a statesman' and attempting to shut down criticism of him by accusing those scrutinising him of crimes against patriotism. The expensively bespectacled charlatan tried it two weeks ago at PMQs - 'I could have given her a security briefing'. And clearly his desparate supporters will try it again. It's the only card they have left.
'Britons tend to say it is more important to support Ukraine than to maintain good relations with the US
More important to support Ukraine: 48% More important to maintain good relations with the US: 20% Neither: 14%'
Tory voters by a 25% margin, Labour voters by a 47% margin and LD voters by a 53% margin say it is more important to maintain good relations with the Ukraine than the US.
Reform voters by a 19% margin say it is more important to retain good relations with Trump's US than Ukraine though
If we are to disengage somewhat from our shared project of western liberalism with USA, one of the things I think we will need to give careful consideration to is propaganda.
These polling results are quite heartening. But we know how this story goes - if we let Musk and his disinformants spread their propaganda around the UK, then as the memory of the last few days fades more and more people will see and read stuff online that is anti-Zelenskyy and pro-Trump and before we know it we'll always have been at war with Eastasia.
Sadly I think we'll need to retreat somewhat from ideals of free speech in the process (yes, yes, I know I was defending Vance's comments a few days ago, but that was before Trump showed his true colours on Europe and Ukraine).
How we protect from propaganda is at least as important as defence spending, in my view.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is rallying fellow Arab leaders around a plan for postwar Gaza as an alternative to proposals put forward by Trump
If nobody in the World either respects him or fears him it's going to be a lonely 4 years...
This is where the fun begins. He's going to leave the US as a pariah state with few allies left that aren't Russia or other despots.
I hope the Lords of Silicon Valley are beginning to realise that hitching their wagons to someone intent on burning all bridges with Europe is not going to end up well for them.
When you hear Trump or Vance talk about Europe, the dislike just isn’t rational. It’s bizarre.
To be fair, the Pope lives in Europe, so you can understand Vance's feelings.
Vance is Roman Catholic, albeit more of the Benedict than Francis kind
Is his wife Roman Catholic?
She is practicing Hindu.
He is from a conservative evangelical family, and they met at Yale Law School - I would suggest whilst he was working out what he was going to believe in / adopt as values. She later clerked (compare to adjutant) for a Supreme Court Justice, so they are both connected.
Their marriage ceremony was essentially an interfaith smorgasboard, including Bible readings and a pandit.
He converted to Roman Catholicism under someone's influence I can't remember the name of in 2019, and clashes regularly with his nation's RC Bishops.
There's a bit of an interesting tension between his private life, and publicly expressed opinions. Trump supporters seem good at this.
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I missed your fact check. I presume that this woman got a payoff from the police for not being arrested?
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I missed your fact check. I presume that this woman got a payoff from the police for not being arrested?
Anti-abortionists with professional legal advisors behind them funded by US anti-abortion groups are very, very good at walking right up to the line of what is / isn’t legal & then spinning the outcome as hard as possible to make it seem as if they’re being oppressed by the evil atheist statists.
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I missed your fact check. I presume that this woman got a payoff from the police for not being arrested?
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I think Vance's attitude to Europe is more easily explained. It is that "cultural cringe" that Vance wrote about in his book. When he went to Yale he was a fish out of water, not knowing what to wear, how to eat in formal dining, etc. He has written of spitting out sparkling water when he first tasted it, and of thinking Cracker Barrell was an upmarket place to eat. He is a human chameleon in such places, but like the Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman knows that he is always tainted by his origins.
America has less social mobility than many European countries, but is rather more open about money equalling class, in a way that old money in Europe finds difficult. He hates the European elite as they seem so arrogant, so condescending and supercilious. In part this is because old money in the USA apes European styles.
Starmer is a more subtle version of the same, coming from a modest background, and never looking completely comfortable in a suit despite it being his uniform. That gives him a connection, though someone like Rayner would probably get on even better.
My mother once defined good manners as being able to make other people comfortable, and that is a very difficult line to follow with someone like Vance who has the unfortunate combination of a thin skin and being socially clumsy, unable to read a room. Starmer has his work cut out.
Perhaps the Blofeld character in SPECTRE was a similar figure, craving an acceptance that was never offered.
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I missed your fact check. I presume that this woman got a payoff from the police for not being arrested?
It's true that Kemi has come out in support of Zelensky. But only a couple of days ago she made that bizarre speech (at ARC) which was full of praise for Trump and his 'action-packed' start to his presidency, and highly admiring of Musk's work at DoGE, along with various anti-woke memes. Chicken nuggets, ffs?
I think she's genuinely struggling to decide whether the righteous path is the Truss/Farage one, or whether there's another way, yet to be discovered.
Kemi has the same problems as Farage with regard to Trump even if they like his direction of travel. First, MAGA is America First and inevitably that can be bad for Britain. Second, Trump is unpredictable, so writing a blank cheque is dangerous because they cannot foretell tomorrow's headlines.
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I missed your fact check. I presume that this woman got a payoff from the police for not being arrested?
Anti-abortionists with professional legal advisors behind them funded by US anti-abortion groups are very, very good at walking right up to the line of what is / isn’t legal & then spinning the outcome as hard as possible to make it seem as if they’re being oppressed by the evil atheist statists.
Liz Truss tells US MAGA conference CPAC that Britain is becoming a "failed state" - and says it is entering a "dark age."
Worldview. MAGA and Trump genuinely believe that Europe in general, and UK in particular, underspend on armed forces, freeload on American protection, and imprison/fine people for free speech. They are entirely correct in this. They wish to alter our behaviour by the power of the purse, funding things they like and tariffing or even taxing those they don't like. The only question is what do we do about it.
I went thru the three options yesterday (fight, run/hide, kneel). I hope that we will fight but fear we will kneel. And central to this submission will be Brits who have transferred their loyalty from the UK to things like CANZUK, the Anglosphere, the Republicans, or the endless tribes of Twitter. They will see nothing wrong with kneeling to the dictates of Trump and will simply blame those who it affects, provided it's not them. There are always capos.
Given what Trump has said about Canada and the tariffs that will also hit Australia and NZ I don't think CANZUK and the Anglosphere can be included in that last paragraph
I hope you're right
Canadians have even been booing the US anthem at ice hockey games and the players fighting each other
From talking to my friend over there, it seems there's been a big wave of patriotic behaviour in Canada over Trump's threats, and this isn't exactly a wildly nationalist sort of a place we are talking about here. Labels on all sorts of products encouraging people to buy Canadian made stuff, the consistent booing of the Americans at every opportunity. Even the Quebec separatist mob seem to be keeping a low profile.
And when you think about it, there are few things more emblematic of the mean, petty, weak, pathetic nature of Trump than making one of your first decisions in office an act of blackmail against your vastly less powerful, friendly and completely harmless neighbour. What a worm.
She’s wrong about almost everything, and wrong outside of normal parameters.
Problem is, Farage would probably try and send her back!
I think the Tories should persuade Johnson to join Reform. Let's face it, though he won one election against Mr Thicky, he managed to absolutely fuck up the Tory Party for a generation. When he has inadvertently destroyed Reform, his Tory handlers could then instruct him to join the Labour Party, and replace Rachel Reeves as a more honest option.
Reform won't have him because he was too liberal on immigration
Yeah, except on Brexit (and how much he actually believed in that is open to question) Boris is actually on the "one nation" side of the party.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I think Vance's attitude to Europe is more easily explained. It is that "cultural cringe" that Vance wrote about in his book. When he went to Yale he was a fish out of water, not knowing what to wear, how to eat in formal dining, etc. He has written of spitting out sparkling water when he first tasted it, and of thinking Cracker Barrell was an upmarket place to eat. He is a human chameleon in such places, but like the Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman knows that he is always tainted by his origins.
America has less social mobility than many European countries, but is rather more open about money equalling class, in a way that old money in Europe finds difficult. He hates the European elite as they seem so arrogant, so condescending and supercilious. In part this is because old money in the USA apes European styles.
Starmer is a more subtle version of the same, coming from a modest background, and never looking completely comfortable in a suit despite it being his uniform. That gives him a connection, though someone like Rayner would probably get on even better.
My mother once defined good manners as being able to make other people comfortable, and that is a very difficult line to follow with someone like Vance who has the unfortunate combination of a thin skin and being socially clumsy, unable to read a room. Starmer has his work cut out.
Perhaps the Blofeld character in SPECTRE was a similar figure, craving an acceptance that was never offered.
I've met Americans like Vance - from the "flyover states", really prickly and ready to take offense at any imagined slight - before, and that all rings true. Everything about him screams angry, afraid little boy.
Liz Truss tells US MAGA conference CPAC that Britain is becoming a "failed state" - and says it is entering a "dark age."
Worldview. MAGA and Trump genuinely believe that Europe in general, and UK in particular, underspend on armed forces, freeload on American protection, and imprison/fine people for free speech. They are entirely correct in this. They wish to alter our behaviour by the power of the purse, funding things they like and tariffing or even taxing those they don't like. The only question is what do we do about it.
I went thru the three options yesterday (fight, run/hide, kneel). I hope that we will fight but fear we will kneel. And central to this submission will be Brits who have transferred their loyalty from the UK to things like CANZUK, the Anglosphere, the Republicans, or the endless tribes of Twitter. They will see nothing wrong with kneeling to the dictates of Trump and will simply blame those who it affects, provided it's not them. There are always capos.
Given what Trump has said about Canada and the tariffs that will also hit Australia and NZ I don't think CANZUK and the Anglosphere can be included in that last paragraph
I hope you're right
Canadians have even been booing the US anthem at ice hockey games and the players fighting each other
From talking to my friend over there, it seems there's been a big wave of patriotic behaviour in Canada over Trump's threats, and this isn't exactly a wildly nationalist sort of a place we are talking about here. Labels on all sorts of products encouraging people to buy Canadian made stuff, the consistent booing of the Americans at every opportunity. Even the Quebec separatist mob seem to be keeping a low profile.
And when you think about it, there are few things more emblematic of the mean, petty, weak, pathetic nature of Trump than making one of your first decisions in office an act of blackmail against your vastly less powerful, friendly and completely harmless neighbour. What a worm.
She’s wrong about almost everything, and wrong outside of normal parameters.
Problem is, Farage would probably try and send her back!
I think the Tories should persuade Johnson to join Reform. Let's face it, though he won one election against Mr Thicky, he managed to absolutely fuck up the Tory Party for a generation. When he has inadvertently destroyed Reform, his Tory handlers could then instruct him to join the Labour Party, and replace Rachel Reeves as a more honest option.
Reform won't have him because he was too liberal on immigration
Yeah, except on Brexit (and how much he actually believed in that is open to question) Boris is actually on the "one nation" side of the party.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
He was also pretty poor at being Prime Minister. Given that I'm not arguing that Truss was a good one (her policies had potential but her political instincts were woeful), that means by my reckoning the Tories haven't had a good PM since Thatcher, or a half decent PM since Major. That's pretty awful.
She’s wrong about almost everything, and wrong outside of normal parameters.
Problem is, Farage would probably try and send her back!
I think the Tories should persuade Johnson to join Reform. Let's face it, though he won one election against Mr Thicky, he managed to absolutely fuck up the Tory Party for a generation. When he has inadvertently destroyed Reform, his Tory handlers could then instruct him to join the Labour Party, and replace Rachel Reeves as a more honest option.
Reform won't have him because he was too liberal on immigration
Yeah, except on Brexit (and how much he actually believed in that is open to question) Boris is actually on the "one nation" side of the party.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
By nature, yes, I should say he was.
Ambition led him him to adopt Brexit but I think he personally didn't give a shit either way.
It's time for the UK and Europe to stand on their own two feet.
The only thing Trump respects is strength. And we need to get strong, fast.
We, and other European countries, should never have allowed ourselves to become so dependent on a foreign power.
The transatlantic relationship has served us very well (and served the US well too, despite what the current administration thinks). There are strong historical reasons why Europe has behaved like it has over the past 2-3 decades. Yes there has been some complacency in that, but it’s very difficult to move away from a geopolitical system when it’s working.
I put less blame at the feet of European governments for what has happened in the past than the blame I will put on them if they do not rise to the challenge now. We know we need to do it. So we need to get on with it.
We also need to remember that, for most of the years since the end of WW2, many European, including British, bases, were home to US troops. I don’t know what would have happened if the host nations had told them to go home.
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I missed your fact check. I presume that this woman got a payoff from the police for not being arrested?
Anti-abortionists with professional legal advisors behind them funded by US anti-abortion groups are very, very good at walking right up to the line of what is / isn’t legal & then spinning the outcome as hard as possible to make it seem as if they’re being oppressed by the evil atheist statists.
It is pretty standard procedure for well organised protest groups. I once did an excellent "know your rights" training from some arms protesters, on exactly how long to obstruct roads, how to be difficult without being arrested, how to take as many police off the line when being arrested etc. It was quite useful, though I have never used all my training. I might get arrested more after I have fully retired.
Liz Truss tells US MAGA conference CPAC that Britain is becoming a "failed state" - and says it is entering a "dark age."
Worldview. MAGA and Trump genuinely believe that Europe in general, and UK in particular, underspend on armed forces, freeload on American protection, and imprison/fine people for free speech. They are entirely correct in this. They wish to alter our behaviour by the power of the purse, funding things they like and tariffing or even taxing those they don't like. The only question is what do we do about it.
I went thru the three options yesterday (fight, run/hide, kneel). I hope that we will fight but fear we will kneel. And central to this submission will be Brits who have transferred their loyalty from the UK to things like CANZUK, the Anglosphere, the Republicans, or the endless tribes of Twitter. They will see nothing wrong with kneeling to the dictates of Trump and will simply blame those who it affects, provided it's not them. There are always capos.
Given what Trump has said about Canada and the tariffs that will also hit Australia and NZ I don't think CANZUK and the Anglosphere can be included in that last paragraph
I hope you're right
Canadians have even been booing the US anthem at ice hockey games and the players fighting each other
From talking to my friend over there, it seems there's been a big wave of patriotic behaviour in Canada over Trump's threats, and this isn't exactly a wildly nationalist sort of a place we are talking about here. Labels on all sorts of products encouraging people to buy Canadian made stuff, the consistent booing of the Americans at every opportunity. Even the Quebec separatist mob seem to be keeping a low profile.
And when you think about it, there are few things more emblematic of the mean, petty, weak, pathetic nature of Trump than making one of your first decisions in office an act of blackmail against your vastly less powerful, friendly and completely harmless neighbour. What a worm.
Maybe we should send British troops to Canada?
Canada is not under military threat from the United States. Yet.
Seriously, I don't think it'll come to that, but this president and his followers are so unhinged that one can definitively rule out almost nothing.
She’s wrong about almost everything, and wrong outside of normal parameters.
Problem is, Farage would probably try and send her back!
I think the Tories should persuade Johnson to join Reform. Let's face it, though he won one election against Mr Thicky, he managed to absolutely fuck up the Tory Party for a generation. When he has inadvertently destroyed Reform, his Tory handlers could then instruct him to join the Labour Party, and replace Rachel Reeves as a more honest option.
Reform won't have him because he was too liberal on immigration
Yeah, except on Brexit (and how much he actually believed in that is open to question) Boris is actually on the "one nation" side of the party.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
He was also pretty poor at being Prime Minister. Given that I'm not arguing that Truss was a good one (her policies had potential but her political instincts were woeful), that means by my reckoning the Tories haven't had a good PM since Thatcher, or a half decent PM since Major. That's pretty awful.
Cameron was a decent LOTO and coalition leader, IMO. But yes, the last really good leader Con had is Thatcher (at least the Thatcher from 75-87)
There's an argument to say that the regicide against her 1990 has ultimately destroyed the party, despite their recent 14 years in office (but not necessarily in power) ?
I think the pbers who stand with Zelensky and Ukraine should get on a plane and go help on the front line, like Blanche said he would, particularly as Ukraine is now almost out of troops. Soon they will have insufficient weapons too, but like the black knight pbers could still make a difference
I want the war to end, the bloodshed to end.
That doesn't mean I like Putin, it means we do not need to continue funding a war where the outcome is already set in motion and Trump will not back down..
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is rallying fellow Arab leaders around a plan for postwar Gaza as an alternative to proposals put forward by Trump
If nobody in the World either respects him or fears him it's going to be a lonely 4 years...
This is where the fun begins. He's going to leave the US as a pariah state with few allies left that aren't Russia or other despots.
I hope the Lords of Silicon Valley are beginning to realise that hitching their wagons to someone intent on burning all bridges with Europe is not going to end up well for them.
When you hear Trump or Vance talk about Europe, the dislike just isn’t rational. It’s bizarre.
Trump and Vance love bits of Europe ie bits led by rightwing white nationalists like Putin and Orban, it is just the woke liberal majority of it they hate.
Trump also loves Eastern European women, his first wife was Czech and his current wife is Slovenian (though Vance has an ethnic Indian wife)
Ivana Trump was not Trump's first wife. I believe she was called Marla Maples or something.
'Britons tend to say it is more important to support Ukraine than to maintain good relations with the US
More important to support Ukraine: 48% More important to maintain good relations with the US: 20% Neither: 14%'
Tory voters by a 25% margin, Labour voters by a 47% margin and LD voters by a 53% margin say it is more important to maintain good relations with the Ukraine than the US.
Reform voters by a 19% margin say it is more important to retain good relations with Trump's US than Ukraine though
Those are astonishing numbers. Unimaginable for what, over 100 years?
The Love Actually moment beckons. Everything is in alignment. Starmer has to resist the temptation for now, but I hope we are on the phone non-stop with the French, Scandinavians, Poland, Commonwealth getting ready for that moment.
Bill Browder was talking to James O’ Brien about that Russian money .
The legal issue is a bit complicated . The money is supposed to have sovereign immunity but with a caveat . Apparently it can be used as reparations in certain circumstances.
She’s wrong about almost everything, and wrong outside of normal parameters.
Problem is, Farage would probably try and send her back!
I think the Tories should persuade Johnson to join Reform. Let's face it, though he won one election against Mr Thicky, he managed to absolutely fuck up the Tory Party for a generation. When he has inadvertently destroyed Reform, his Tory handlers could then instruct him to join the Labour Party, and replace Rachel Reeves as a more honest option.
Reform won't have him because he was too liberal on immigration
Yeah, except on Brexit (and how much he actually believed in that is open to question) Boris is actually on the "one nation" side of the party.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
He was also pretty poor at being Prime Minister. Given that I'm not arguing that Truss was a good one (her policies had potential but her political instincts were woeful), that means by my reckoning the Tories haven't had a good PM since Thatcher, or a half decent PM since Major. That's pretty awful.
Cameron was a decent LOTO and coalition leader, IMO. But yes, the last really good leader Con had is Thatcher (at least the Thatcher from 75-87)
There's an argument to say that the regicide against her 1990 has ultimately destroyed the party, despite their recent 14 years in office (but not necessarily in power) ?
Not really, Thatcher sealed her fate when she backed the poll tax and refused to back down.
Had Major not replaced her Kinnock would likely have won the 1992 GE despite her many prior successes
Liz Truss tells US MAGA conference CPAC that Britain is becoming a "failed state" - and says it is entering a "dark age."
Worldview. MAGA and Trump genuinely believe that Europe in general, and UK in particular, underspend on armed forces, freeload on American protection, and imprison/fine people for free speech. They are entirely correct in this. They wish to alter our behaviour by the power of the purse, funding things they like and tariffing or even taxing those they don't like. The only question is what do we do about it.
I went thru the three options yesterday (fight, run/hide, kneel). I hope that we will fight but fear we will kneel. And central to this submission will be Brits who have transferred their loyalty from the UK to things like CANZUK, the Anglosphere, the Republicans, or the endless tribes of Twitter. They will see nothing wrong with kneeling to the dictates of Trump and will simply blame those who it affects, provided it's not them. There are always capos.
Given what Trump has said about Canada and the tariffs that will also hit Australia and NZ I don't think CANZUK and the Anglosphere can be included in that last paragraph
I hope you're right
Canadians have even been booing the US anthem at ice hockey games and the players fighting each other
From talking to my friend over there, it seems there's been a big wave of patriotic behaviour in Canada over Trump's threats, and this isn't exactly a wildly nationalist sort of a place we are talking about here. Labels on all sorts of products encouraging people to buy Canadian made stuff, the consistent booing of the Americans at every opportunity. Even the Quebec separatist mob seem to be keeping a low profile.
And when you think about it, there are few things more emblematic of the mean, petty, weak, pathetic nature of Trump than making one of your first decisions in office an act of blackmail against your vastly less powerful, friendly and completely harmless neighbour. What a worm.
You could probably put a dollar value on the goodwill that America has thrown away in just a couple of weeks, purely to feed the ego of the lying sociopath in the White House.
She’s wrong about almost everything, and wrong outside of normal parameters.
Problem is, Farage would probably try and send her back!
I think the Tories should persuade Johnson to join Reform. Let's face it, though he won one election against Mr Thicky, he managed to absolutely fuck up the Tory Party for a generation. When he has inadvertently destroyed Reform, his Tory handlers could then instruct him to join the Labour Party, and replace Rachel Reeves as a more honest option.
Reform won't have him because he was too liberal on immigration
Yeah, except on Brexit (and how much he actually believed in that is open to question) Boris is actually on the "one nation" side of the party.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
He was also pretty poor at being Prime Minister. Given that I'm not arguing that Truss was a good one (her policies had potential but her political instincts were woeful), that means by my reckoning the Tories haven't had a good PM since Thatcher, or a half decent PM since Major. That's pretty awful.
Cameron was a decent LOTO and coalition leader, IMO. But yes, the last really good leader Con had is Thatcher (at least the Thatcher from 75-87)
There's an argument to say that the regicide against her 1990 has ultimately destroyed the party, despite their recent 14 years in office (but not necessarily in power) ?
How long was realistic though? I think she'd have beaten Kinnock again, but Blair in 1997?
She’s wrong about almost everything, and wrong outside of normal parameters.
Problem is, Farage would probably try and send her back!
I think the Tories should persuade Johnson to join Reform. Let's face it, though he won one election against Mr Thicky, he managed to absolutely fuck up the Tory Party for a generation. When he has inadvertently destroyed Reform, his Tory handlers could then instruct him to join the Labour Party, and replace Rachel Reeves as a more honest option.
Reform won't have him because he was too liberal on immigration
Yeah, except on Brexit (and how much he actually believed in that is open to question) Boris is actually on the "one nation" side of the party.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
He was also pretty poor at being Prime Minister. Given that I'm not arguing that Truss was a good one (her policies had potential but her political instincts were woeful), that means by my reckoning the Tories haven't had a good PM since Thatcher, or a half decent PM since Major. That's pretty awful.
And Labour haven't had a half decent PM since Blair.
Truly good PMs are rare, in the last 100 years only Churchill, Macmillan, Thatcher and at a push Blair have been very good PMs
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
She’s wrong about almost everything, and wrong outside of normal parameters.
Problem is, Farage would probably try and send her back!
I think the Tories should persuade Johnson to join Reform. Let's face it, though he won one election against Mr Thicky, he managed to absolutely fuck up the Tory Party for a generation. When he has inadvertently destroyed Reform, his Tory handlers could then instruct him to join the Labour Party, and replace Rachel Reeves as a more honest option.
Reform won't have him because he was too liberal on immigration
Yeah, except on Brexit (and how much he actually believed in that is open to question) Boris is actually on the "one nation" side of the party.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
A close call with Cameron and Major but probably overall excluding Brexit
Finnish EPPGroup MEP, european parliament Foreign Affairs committee member and EPP EUDS coordinator Mika Aaltola:
"The United States has given us three weeks to agree on terms for Ukraine's surrender. If we don't, the United States will withdraw from Europe."
Trump's United States is a hostile power and we need to start treating it as such, painful as that may be.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall it was the policy of both the UK and US to help keep the USSR together.
You can condemn Putin's invasion on moral grounds without treating the location of the border between Russia and Ukraine as a core national interest of ours.
A psychotic gangster rampaging across the continent at will is a very serious concern for us though.
If Putin gets to claim a victory then it won't be long before he's back to finish Ukraine off, and then he'll come after the Eastern flank of the EU.
Russians are basically animals. We need to figure out how to cage them.
#hitlerwasright
I mean seriously. We need to come together as European friends and allies and are doing so.
Time for Europe to take the Russian money held in banks and use that to help Ukraine .
Enough messing around .
5 Pbers and counting support illegal seizure of sovereign funds.
Totally lost it
I agree that the funds should not be seized without appropriate laws being passed.
But surely even you would agree that seizing the assets of countries which invade other countries might actually do what you claim is most important to you: i.e. prevent war.
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I think Vance's attitude to Europe is more easily explained. It is that "cultural cringe" that Vance wrote about in his book. When he went to Yale he was a fish out of water, not knowing what to wear, how to eat in formal dining, etc. He has written of spitting out sparkling water when he first tasted it, and of thinking Cracker Barrell was an upmarket place to eat. He is a human chameleon in such places, but like the Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman knows that he is always tainted by his origins.
America has less social mobility than many European countries, but is rather more open about money equalling class, in a way that old money in Europe finds difficult. He hates the European elite as they seem so arrogant, so condescending and supercilious. In part this is because old money in the USA apes European styles.
Starmer is a more subtle version of the same, coming from a modest background, and never looking completely comfortable in a suit despite it being his uniform. That gives him a connection, though someone like Rayner would probably get on even better.
My mother once defined good manners as being able to make other people comfortable, and that is a very difficult line to follow with someone like Vance who has the unfortunate combination of a thin skin and being socially clumsy, unable to read a room. Starmer has his work cut out.
Perhaps the Blofeld character in SPECTRE was a similar figure, craving an acceptance that was never offered.
America doesn't really have truly old money as it doesn't have any royal families and aristocrats like Europe, Arab nations, India and Japan and Thailand do. American wealthy families are really just different degrees of new money, with the old Mayflower and Founding Father families and the 19th century oil and railroad and banking and finance and tea barons at the top of the tree of their 'old money'
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I missed your fact check. I presume that this woman got a payoff from the police for not being arrested?
Anti-abortionists with professional legal advisors behind them funded by US anti-abortion groups are very, very good at walking right up to the line of what is / isn’t legal & then spinning the outcome as hard as possible to make it seem as if they’re being oppressed by the evil atheist statists.
It is pretty standard procedure for well organised protest groups. I once did an excellent "know your rights" training from some arms protesters, on exactly how long to obstruct roads, how to be difficult without being arrested, how to take as many police off the line when being arrested etc. It was quite useful, though I have never used all my training. I might get arrested more after I have fully retired.
Time for Europe to take the Russian money held in banks and use that to help Ukraine .
Enough messing around .
5 Pbers and counting support illegal seizure of sovereign funds.
Totally lost it
I agree that the funds should not be seized without appropriate laws being passed.
But surely even you would agree that seizing the assets of countries which invade other countries might actually do what you claim is most important to you: i.e. prevent war.
Yep - it shouldn't take long for the laws to be voted through most parliaments. Hungary may be a problem but I suspect the rest of Europe will think it's fine.
I know there's a lot of really terrible stuff happening in the World right now but Eon productions have just ceded artistic control of the Bond franchise to the same people that brought us Rings of Power...
Star Wars - fucked
Bond - fucked
Dr Who - apparently put in deep freeze for a decade....
I couldn't see a way forward for Bond without it being ruined. And I think Wilson/Broccoli had had enough.
It had become a prime battleground for identity politics.
The worst aspect of the last 2 Bonds was the bizarre sibling rivalry explanation for Blofeld and SPECTRE. It is a bit ironic that just at a time where malevolent billionaire oligarchs with ambitions really are a threat to the world that such a pathetic bit of plot was used.
If Bond is to revive then they need to get back to decent writing. Bond was a bit of a throwback even in his Fifties and Sixties heyday with his snobbery and chauvinism. That's just part of the character. Taking that out of him would be like making Arthur Daley a straight dealer.
Nail on head Foxy, nail on head. Even back then most people didn’t get to behave like Bond did. Every city he turned up in he stayed in the best hotels, dressed immaculately on expenses, ate well and seemingly picked up gorgeous women for one night stands at will. Most men dream of such a life, at least until they wake up, marry the right woman and get to experience the joy of a life shared.
Casino Royale is the greatest ever bond movie, and it isn't even close.
Leaving aside my Moonraker twitch, they are very much of their time, so you end up with Goldfinger for Connery, OHMSS for Lazenby, TSWLM for Moore, whatever for Dalton, Goldeneye for Brosnan and Casino Royale for Craig. But yes, Casino Royale is the best of the best. Or Spyfall.
She’s wrong about almost everything, and wrong outside of normal parameters.
Problem is, Farage would probably try and send her back!
I think the Tories should persuade Johnson to join Reform. Let's face it, though he won one election against Mr Thicky, he managed to absolutely fuck up the Tory Party for a generation. When he has inadvertently destroyed Reform, his Tory handlers could then instruct him to join the Labour Party, and replace Rachel Reeves as a more honest option.
Reform won't have him because he was too liberal on immigration
Yeah, except on Brexit (and how much he actually believed in that is open to question) Boris is actually on the "one nation" side of the party.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
He was also pretty poor at being Prime Minister. Given that I'm not arguing that Truss was a good one (her policies had potential but her political instincts were woeful), that means by my reckoning the Tories haven't had a good PM since Thatcher, or a half decent PM since Major. That's pretty awful.
Cameron was a decent LOTO and coalition leader, IMO. But yes, the last really good leader Con had is Thatcher (at least the Thatcher from 75-87)
There's an argument to say that the regicide against her 1990 has ultimately destroyed the party, despite their recent 14 years in office (but not necessarily in power) ?
Not really, Thatcher sealed her fate when she backed the poll tax and refused to back down.
Had Major not replaced her Kinnock would likely have won the 1992 GE despite her many prior successes
Well yeah, but that's probably the way it should have gone down.
Thatcher goes down to a "respectable" defeat to Kinnock in 1992. Con rebuild quickly in Opposition, Kinnock kicked out in 1997.
No Blair. No 1997 Con meltdown. No Cameron to bring them back from the wilderness. No Cameron means no referendum and no Brexit. No Brexit, no Boris and no 2024 near-extinction event....
Lots of if's, but's and maybe's there but it's always fun to ponder how history might have been different if this path or that path had been followed...
Liz Truss tells US MAGA conference CPAC that Britain is becoming a "failed state" - and says it is entering a "dark age."
Worldview. MAGA and Trump genuinely believe that Europe in general, and UK in particular, underspend on armed forces, freeload on American protection, and imprison/fine people for free speech. They are entirely correct in this. They wish to alter our behaviour by the power of the purse, funding things they like and tariffing or even taxing those they don't like. The only question is what do we do about it.
I went thru the three options yesterday (fight, run/hide, kneel). I hope that we will fight but fear we will kneel. And central to this submission will be Brits who have transferred their loyalty from the UK to things like CANZUK, the Anglosphere, the Republicans, or the endless tribes of Twitter. They will see nothing wrong with kneeling to the dictates of Trump and will simply blame those who it affects, provided it's not them. There are always capos.
Given what Trump has said about Canada and the tariffs that will also hit Australia and NZ I don't think CANZUK and the Anglosphere can be included in that last paragraph
I hope you're right
Canadians have even been booing the US anthem at ice hockey games and the players fighting each other
From talking to my friend over there, it seems there's been a big wave of patriotic behaviour in Canada over Trump's threats, and this isn't exactly a wildly nationalist sort of a place we are talking about here. Labels on all sorts of products encouraging people to buy Canadian made stuff, the consistent booing of the Americans at every opportunity. Even the Quebec separatist mob seem to be keeping a low profile.
And when you think about it, there are few things more emblematic of the mean, petty, weak, pathetic nature of Trump than making one of your first decisions in office an act of blackmail against your vastly less powerful, friendly and completely harmless neighbour. What a worm.
You could probably put a dollar value on the goodwill that America has thrown away in just a couple of weeks, purely to feed the ego of the lying sociopath in the White House.
I suspect trillions.
Even after Trump goes, it will be decades before Europe, including us, will trust the USA again. It will have a long term adverse effect on their trade.
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I missed your fact check. I presume that this woman got a payoff from the police for not being arrested?
Anti-abortionists with professional legal advisors behind them funded by US anti-abortion groups are very, very good at walking right up to the line of what is / isn’t legal & then spinning the outcome as hard as possible to make it seem as if they’re being oppressed by the evil atheist statists.
It is pretty standard procedure for well organised protest groups. I once did an excellent "know your rights" training from some arms protesters, on exactly how long to obstruct roads, how to be difficult without being arrested, how to take as many police off the line when being arrested etc. It was quite useful, though I have never used all my training. I might get arrested more after I have fully retired.
Or you could take up gardening?
He will just spend more time here - someone will need to punish their keyboard about the awfulness of Prime Minister Farage.
Trump is doing to America what the Americans did to Iraq: dismantling all the power structures.
And the rest of the political class is just letting him do it.
GOP have just totally rolled over.
History will record the names of everyone of these scoundrels and cowards who for fear of the primary in two or four years time signed off day after day on this coup.
The GOP ‘insider’ just interviewed on R4 reckons many of their senators are extremely angry about the Trump position on Ukraine and will be waiting for the right moment to make their discontent known.
Is the right moment in their memoirs, published after Trump's death?
Like all those German generals blaming Hitler for all the mistakes and claiming credit for themselves for the victories…
Finnish EPPGroup MEP, european parliament Foreign Affairs committee member and EPP EUDS coordinator Mika Aaltola:
"The United States has given us three weeks to agree on terms for Ukraine's surrender. If we don't, the United States will withdraw from Europe."
Trump's United States is a hostile power and we need to start treating it as such, painful as that may be.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall it was the policy of both the UK and US to help keep the USSR together.
You can condemn Putin's invasion on moral grounds without treating the location of the border between Russia and Ukraine as a core national interest of ours.
A psychotic gangster rampaging across the continent at will is a very serious concern for us though.
If Putin gets to claim a victory then it won't be long before he's back to finish Ukraine off, and then he'll come after the Eastern flank of the EU.
Russians are basically animals. We need to figure out how to cage them.
#hitlerwasright
I mean seriously. We need to come together as European friends and allies and are doing so.
Now now. I don't want all the fuckers dead and I don't want their land either. As distinct from them, who would gladly butcher the whole lot of us and steal all our stuff if offered the opportunity.
A great big wall right the way along the border with no gates in it would suffice.
I know there's a lot of really terrible stuff happening in the World right now but Eon productions have just ceded artistic control of the Bond franchise to the same people that brought us Rings of Power...
Star Wars - fucked
Bond - fucked
Dr Who - apparently put in deep freeze for a decade....
I couldn't see a way forward for Bond without it being ruined. And I think Wilson/Broccoli had had enough.
It had become a prime battleground for identity politics.
The worst aspect of the last 2 Bonds was the bizarre sibling rivalry explanation for Blofeld and SPECTRE. It is a bit ironic that just at a time where malevolent billionaire oligarchs with ambitions really are a threat to the world that such a pathetic bit of plot was used.
If Bond is to revive then they need to get back to decent writing. Bond was a bit of a throwback even in his Fifties and Sixties heyday with his snobbery and chauvinism. That's just part of the character. Taking that out of him would be like making Arthur Daley a straight dealer.
Nail on head Foxy, nail on head. Even back then most people didn’t get to behave like Bond did. Every city he turned up in he stayed in the best hotels, dressed immaculately on expenses, ate well and seemingly picked up gorgeous women for one night stands at will. Most men dream of such a life, at least until they wake up, marry the right woman and get to experience the joy of a life shared.
Casino Royale is the greatest ever bond movie, and it isn't even close.
Leaving aside my Moonraker twitch, they are very much of their time, so you end up with Goldfinger for Connery, OHMSS for Lazenby, TSWLM for Moore, whatever for Dalton, Goldeneye for Brosnan and Casino Royale for Craig. But yes, Casino Royale is the best of the best. Or Spyfall.
You mean Skyfall?
I'm afraid that while there are some excellent action sequences (love the Turkey bit), as a whole it just doesn't work for me. The whole deliberately get captured so you'd get held in an underground prison by Smithfields market and the computer guy would plug in the hard drive at exactly the right moment for you to derail trains and attack a hearing at Parliament didn't just strain the bounds of credibility, it completely obliterated them.
And then the Home Alone section at the end.
I mean uggghhh.
5/10, and I'm being generous. Definitely the most overrated Bond movie.
She’s wrong about almost everything, and wrong outside of normal parameters.
Problem is, Farage would probably try and send her back!
I think the Tories should persuade Johnson to join Reform. Let's face it, though he won one election against Mr Thicky, he managed to absolutely fuck up the Tory Party for a generation. When he has inadvertently destroyed Reform, his Tory handlers could then instruct him to join the Labour Party, and replace Rachel Reeves as a more honest option.
Reform won't have him because he was too liberal on immigration
Yeah, except on Brexit (and how much he actually believed in that is open to question) Boris is actually on the "one nation" side of the party.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
He was also pretty poor at being Prime Minister. Given that I'm not arguing that Truss was a good one (her policies had potential but her political instincts were woeful), that means by my reckoning the Tories haven't had a good PM since Thatcher, or a half decent PM since Major. That's pretty awful.
And Labour haven't had a half decent PM since Blair.
Truly good PMs are rare, in the last 100 years only Churchill, Macmillan, Thatcher and at a push Blair have been very good PMs
Of the also rans for Tory leader/PM, David Davis seems nice but I don't think he'd have been great. John Redwood could have been amazing or a disaster - excellent ideas-wise, but a poor communicator by the standards of the time. Kenneth Clark was a clever administrator who imo would have taken us in completely the wrong direction. I think we missed out on Portillo, and (I know I'm in a minority of one here) Leadsom. Both had the potential to have been very good.
This is a great article that explains more about using that Russian money for Ukraine . And when you see what’s happening with the USA it’s even more relevant.
Genius idea to end the war and stop the killing. How about all the Russians go home to Russia tonight? Job done. I mean it’s a bit out there, but it might just work.
"You do not have shared values if you're jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result. And that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you're so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up."
A perfect illustration.
This is exactly the same problem as Vance had in Munich declaring that we were arresting people for silent prayer or banning prayer in private homes (the ones I fact-checked about the UK), and the other things.
We aren't and he's lying to himself - just like Trump when he claims the USA put in 6x as much support into Ukraine as Europe.
They are a pair of fantaloons, treating stuff they have made up or falsehoods they have swallowed as fact and acting on that basis.
I missed your fact check. I presume that this woman got a payoff from the police for not being arrested?
Anti-abortionists with professional legal advisors behind them funded by US anti-abortion groups are very, very good at walking right up to the line of what is / isn’t legal & then spinning the outcome as hard as possible to make it seem as if they’re being oppressed by the evil atheist statists.
It is pretty standard procedure for well organised protest groups. I once did an excellent "know your rights" training from some arms protesters, on exactly how long to obstruct roads, how to be difficult without being arrested, how to take as many police off the line when being arrested etc. It was quite useful, though I have never used all my training. I might get arrested more after I have fully retired.
Or you could take up gardening?
I need something to do in the fallow season other than read seed catalogues.
She’s wrong about almost everything, and wrong outside of normal parameters.
Problem is, Farage would probably try and send her back!
I think the Tories should persuade Johnson to join Reform. Let's face it, though he won one election against Mr Thicky, he managed to absolutely fuck up the Tory Party for a generation. When he has inadvertently destroyed Reform, his Tory handlers could then instruct him to join the Labour Party, and replace Rachel Reeves as a more honest option.
Reform won't have him because he was too liberal on immigration
Yeah, except on Brexit (and how much he actually believed in that is open to question) Boris is actually on the "one nation" side of the party.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
He was also pretty poor at being Prime Minister. Given that I'm not arguing that Truss was a good one (her policies had potential but her political instincts were woeful), that means by my reckoning the Tories haven't had a good PM since Thatcher, or a half decent PM since Major. That's pretty awful.
Cameron was a decent LOTO and coalition leader, IMO. But yes, the last really good leader Con had is Thatcher (at least the Thatcher from 75-87)
There's an argument to say that the regicide against her 1990 has ultimately destroyed the party, despite their recent 14 years in office (but not necessarily in power) ?
Not really, Thatcher sealed her fate when she backed the poll tax and refused to back down.
Had Major not replaced her Kinnock would likely have won the 1992 GE despite her many prior successes
Well yeah, but that's probably the way it should have gone down.
Thatcher goes down to a "respectable" defeat to Kinnock in 1992. Con rebuild quickly in Opposition, Kinnock kicked out in 1997.
No Blair. No 1997 Con meltdown. No Cameron to bring them back from the wilderness. No Cameron means no referendum and no Brexit. No Brexit, no Boris and no 2024 near-extinction event....
Lots of if's, but's and maybe's there but it's always fun to ponder how history might have been different if this path or that path had been followed...
Also- the success of the Thatcher to Major switcheroo taught the Conservative Party two really unhelpful lessons. First- that the way to pull out of a polling slump is to change the leader. Second (following on from the first)- that you can be a bit casual with your leadership selection because you can always change the figurehead if you screw up.
The other thing that has followed is that Conservative leaders have to be continually looking over their shoulders to check the size of Graham Brady's Enormous Mailbag (who is it now?). It's not the only reason for the dismal short-termism of government, but it doesn't help.
I know there's a lot of really terrible stuff happening in the World right now but Eon productions have just ceded artistic control of the Bond franchise to the same people that brought us Rings of Power...
Star Wars - fucked
Bond - fucked
Dr Who - apparently put in deep freeze for a decade....
I couldn't see a way forward for Bond without it being ruined. And I think Wilson/Broccoli had had enough.
It had become a prime battleground for identity politics.
The worst aspect of the last 2 Bonds was the bizarre sibling rivalry explanation for Blofeld and SPECTRE. It is a bit ironic that just at a time where malevolent billionaire oligarchs with ambitions really are a threat to the world that such a pathetic bit of plot was used.
If Bond is to revive then they need to get back to decent writing. Bond was a bit of a throwback even in his Fifties and Sixties heyday with his snobbery and chauvinism. That's just part of the character. Taking that out of him would be like making Arthur Daley a straight dealer.
Nail on head Foxy, nail on head. Even back then most people didn’t get to behave like Bond did. Every city he turned up in he stayed in the best hotels, dressed immaculately on expenses, ate well and seemingly picked up gorgeous women for one night stands at will. Most men dream of such a life, at least until they wake up, marry the right woman and get to experience the joy of a life shared.
Liz Truss tells US MAGA conference CPAC that Britain is becoming a "failed state" - and says it is entering a "dark age."
Worldview. MAGA and Trump genuinely believe that Europe in general, and UK in particular, underspend on armed forces, freeload on American protection, and imprison/fine people for free speech. They are entirely correct in this. They wish to alter our behaviour by the power of the purse, funding things they like and tariffing or even taxing those they don't like. The only question is what do we do about it.
I went thru the three options yesterday (fight, run/hide, kneel). I hope that we will fight but fear we will kneel. And central to this submission will be Brits who have transferred their loyalty from the UK to things like CANZUK, the Anglosphere, the Republicans, or the endless tribes of Twitter. They will see nothing wrong with kneeling to the dictates of Trump and will simply blame those who it affects, provided it's not them. There are always capos.
Given what Trump has said about Canada and the tariffs that will also hit Australia and NZ I don't think CANZUK and the Anglosphere can be included in that last paragraph
I hope you're right
Canadians have even been booing the US anthem at ice hockey games and the players fighting each other
From talking to my friend over there, it seems there's been a big wave of patriotic behaviour in Canada over Trump's threats, and this isn't exactly a wildly nationalist sort of a place we are talking about here. Labels on all sorts of products encouraging people to buy Canadian made stuff, the consistent booing of the Americans at every opportunity. Even the Quebec separatist mob seem to be keeping a low profile.
And when you think about it, there are few things more emblematic of the mean, petty, weak, pathetic nature of Trump than making one of your first decisions in office an act of blackmail against your vastly less powerful, friendly and completely harmless neighbour. What a worm.
You could probably put a dollar value on the goodwill that America has thrown away in just a couple of weeks, purely to feed the ego of the lying sociopath in the White House.
I suspect trillions.
The unit I'm thinking of is the US defence budget, which comes in at a bit less than $1 trillion a year, which buys status and outcomes desirable to the USA. The USA has now alienated Canada and Western Europe and seriously alarmed other allies such as Japan and Korea. It has effectively destroyed NATO. What is the opportunity cost of all of that relative to one year's defence budget? A fraction or multiples?
The film, rather than Putin's template crime organisation.
While Skyfall was hideously overrated, there is actually a good movie hidden inside the bloated and overlong Spectre. If you cut out the whole "Five Eyes" subplot you could have a good, well paced movie.
She’s wrong about almost everything, and wrong outside of normal parameters.
Problem is, Farage would probably try and send her back!
I think the Tories should persuade Johnson to join Reform. Let's face it, though he won one election against Mr Thicky, he managed to absolutely fuck up the Tory Party for a generation. When he has inadvertently destroyed Reform, his Tory handlers could then instruct him to join the Labour Party, and replace Rachel Reeves as a more honest option.
Reform won't have him because he was too liberal on immigration
Yeah, except on Brexit (and how much he actually believed in that is open to question) Boris is actually on the "one nation" side of the party.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
He was also pretty poor at being Prime Minister. Given that I'm not arguing that Truss was a good one (her policies had potential but her political instincts were woeful), that means by my reckoning the Tories haven't had a good PM since Thatcher, or a half decent PM since Major. That's pretty awful.
Cameron was a decent LOTO and coalition leader, IMO. But yes, the last really good leader Con had is Thatcher (at least the Thatcher from 75-87)
There's an argument to say that the regicide against her 1990 has ultimately destroyed the party, despite their recent 14 years in office (but not necessarily in power) ?
Not really, Thatcher sealed her fate when she backed the poll tax and refused to back down.
Had Major not replaced her Kinnock would likely have won the 1992 GE despite her many prior successes
Well yeah, but that's probably the way it should have gone down.
Thatcher goes down to a "respectable" defeat to Kinnock in 1992. Con rebuild quickly in Opposition, Kinnock kicked out in 1997.
No Blair. No 1997 Con meltdown. No Cameron to bring them back from the wilderness. No Cameron means no referendum and no Brexit. No Brexit, no Boris and no 2024 near-extinction event....
Lots of if's, but's and maybe's there but it's always fun to ponder how history might have been different if this path or that path had been followed...
Also- the success of the Thatcher to Major switcheroo taught the Conservative Party two really unhelpful lessons. First- that the way to pull out of a polling slump is to change the leader. Second (following on from the first)- that you can be a bit casual with your leadership selection because you can always change the figurehead if you screw up.
The other thing that has followed is that Conservative leaders have to be continually looking over their shoulders to check the size of Graham Brady's Enormous Mailbag (who is it now?). It's not the only reason for the dismal short-termism of government, but it doesn't help.
Thatcher herself won a leadership election to remove Heath
I know there's a lot of really terrible stuff happening in the World right now but Eon productions have just ceded artistic control of the Bond franchise to the same people that brought us Rings of Power...
Star Wars - fucked
Bond - fucked
Dr Who - apparently put in deep freeze for a decade....
I couldn't see a way forward for Bond without it being ruined. And I think Wilson/Broccoli had had enough.
It had become a prime battleground for identity politics.
The worst aspect of the last 2 Bonds was the bizarre sibling rivalry explanation for Blofeld and SPECTRE. It is a bit ironic that just at a time where malevolent billionaire oligarchs with ambitions really are a threat to the world that such a pathetic bit of plot was used.
If Bond is to revive then they need to get back to decent writing. Bond was a bit of a throwback even in his Fifties and Sixties heyday with his snobbery and chauvinism. That's just part of the character. Taking that out of him would be like making Arthur Daley a straight dealer.
Nail on head Foxy, nail on head. Even back then most people didn’t get to behave like Bond did. Every city he turned up in he stayed in the best hotels, dressed immaculately on expenses, ate well and seemingly picked up gorgeous women for one night stands at will. Most men dream of such a life, at least until they wake up, marry the right woman and get to experience the joy of a life shared.
I think it was Charlie Stross that pointed out that Bond was aspirational fantasy for the “company man” of the 1960s. He gets the upmarket, exciting & exotic versions of everything that organisation man got - you have a company car? Well bond gets one with missiles; you have an expense account for foreign travel to a godawful hotel in the middle of nowhere? Bond gets to stay in 5* Hotels in city centre locations & spend with the elites at the casino on the UK’s expense account. You have to do deals with the corporate agents of other companies? Bond gets to shoot them in the head.
She’s wrong about almost everything, and wrong outside of normal parameters.
Problem is, Farage would probably try and send her back!
I think the Tories should persuade Johnson to join Reform. Let's face it, though he won one election against Mr Thicky, he managed to absolutely fuck up the Tory Party for a generation. When he has inadvertently destroyed Reform, his Tory handlers could then instruct him to join the Labour Party, and replace Rachel Reeves as a more honest option.
Reform won't have him because he was too liberal on immigration
Yeah, except on Brexit (and how much he actually believed in that is open to question) Boris is actually on the "one nation" side of the party.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
He was also pretty poor at being Prime Minister. Given that I'm not arguing that Truss was a good one (her policies had potential but her political instincts were woeful), that means by my reckoning the Tories haven't had a good PM since Thatcher, or a half decent PM since Major. That's pretty awful.
And Labour haven't had a half decent PM since Blair.
Truly good PMs are rare, in the last 100 years only Churchill, Macmillan, Thatcher and at a push Blair have been very good PMs
Of the also rans for Tory leader/PM, David Davis seems nice but I don't think he'd have been great. John Redwood could have been amazing or a disaster - excellent ideas-wise, but a poor communicator by the standards of the time. Kenneth Clark was a clever administrator who imo would have taken us in completely the wrong direction. I think we missed out on Portillo, and (I know I'm in a minority of one here) Leadsom. Both had the potential to have been very good.
The film, rather than Putin's template crime organisation.
While Skyfall was hideously overrated, there is actually a good movie hidden inside the bloated and overlong Spectre. If you cut out the whole "Five Eyes" subplot you could have a good, well paced movie.
The.lost me with the Blofeld and Bond are brothers stuff, I mean really. Apparently in the next film OddJob was going to be revealed as Moneypennys second cousin.
Comments
More important to support Ukraine: 48%
More important to maintain good relations with the US: 20%
Neither: 14%'
Tory voters by a 25% margin, Labour voters by a 47% margin and LD voters by a 53% margin say it is more important to maintain good relations with the Ukraine than the US.
Reform voters by a 19% margin say it is more important to retain good relations with Trump's US than Ukraine though
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1892607154097398100
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gze361j7xo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gze361j7xo
In any event, the statement that she was arrested for “praying” is as disingenuous as saying someone who was arrested for speeding was, in fact, arrested for “driving”.
The laser fight in Moonraker. Lovely, lovely old British special effects. We should have knighted Derek Meddings.
"Desolated, Mr Bond."
"Heartbroken, Mr Drax"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YmMMp__O0s
This was done in 1978. The Shuttle hadn't even flown at that point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi2QVirXBVQ
These polling results are quite heartening. But we know how this story goes - if we let Musk and his disinformants spread their propaganda around the UK, then as the memory of the last few days
fades more and more people will see and read stuff online that is anti-Zelenskyy and pro-Trump and before we know it we'll always have been at war with Eastasia.
Sadly I think we'll need to retreat somewhat from ideals of free speech in the process (yes, yes, I know I was defending Vance's comments a few days ago, but that was before Trump showed his true colours on Europe and Ukraine).
How we protect from propaganda is at least as important as defence spending, in my view.
He is from a conservative evangelical family, and they met at Yale Law School - I would suggest whilst he was working out what he was going to believe in / adopt as values. She later clerked (compare to adjutant) for a Supreme Court Justice, so they are both connected.
Their marriage ceremony was essentially an interfaith smorgasboard, including Bible readings and a pandit.
He converted to Roman Catholicism under someone's influence I can't remember the name of in 2019, and clashes regularly with his nation's RC Bishops.
There's a bit of an interesting tension between his private life, and publicly expressed opinions. Trump supporters seem good at this.
"BREAKING: President Trump has halted all US weapons shipments to Ukraine.
No more".
If the Coke Head of Kiev makes any further critical remarks i reckon he will divert them to Moscow!!
Massive WWII B-29 Bomber Base Fully Reclaimed For Future Pacific Fight
Satellite imagery shows the dramatic restoration of Tinian Island's historic North Field, a site that also presents targeting challenges for China.
https://www.twz.com/air/massive-wwii-b-29-bomber-base-fully-reclaimed-for-future-pacific-fight
America has less social mobility than many European countries, but is rather more open about money equalling class, in a way that old money in Europe finds difficult. He hates the European elite as they seem so arrogant, so condescending and supercilious. In part this is because old money in the USA apes European styles.
Starmer is a more subtle version of the same, coming from a modest background, and never looking completely comfortable in a suit despite it being his uniform. That gives him a connection, though someone like Rayner would probably get on even better.
My mother once defined good manners as being able to make other people comfortable, and that is a very difficult line to follow with someone like Vance who has the unfortunate combination of a thin skin and being socially clumsy, unable to read a room. Starmer has his work cut out.
Perhaps the Blofeld character in SPECTRE was a similar figure, craving an acceptance that was never offered.
And when you think about it, there are few things more emblematic of the mean, petty, weak, pathetic nature of Trump than making one of your first decisions in office an act of blackmail against your vastly less powerful, friendly and completely harmless neighbour. What a worm.
He's probably the most liberal leader the Tories have had since Heath?
Ambition led him him to adopt Brexit but I think he personally didn't give a shit either way.
Enough messing around .
Seriously, I don't think it'll come to that, but this president and his followers are so unhinged that one can definitively rule out almost nothing.
There's an argument to say that the regicide against her 1990 has ultimately destroyed the party, despite their recent 14 years in office (but not necessarily in power) ?
I want the war to end, the bloodshed to end.
That doesn't mean I like Putin, it means we do not need to continue funding a war where the outcome is already set in motion and Trump will not back down..
Runs for cover
Truss: We want a Trump revolution in Britain. We want to flood the zone.
We want Elon and his nerd army of muskrats examining the British deep state.
The Love Actually moment beckons. Everything is in alignment. Starmer has to resist the temptation for now, but I hope we are on the phone non-stop with the French, Scandinavians, Poland, Commonwealth getting ready for that moment.
The legal issue is a bit complicated . The money is supposed to have sovereign immunity but with a caveat . Apparently it can be used as reparations in certain circumstances.
Had Major not replaced her Kinnock would likely have won the 1992 GE despite her many prior successes
I suspect trillions.
We were painfully naive about these kind of rules when we were in the EU. Its really sad we still are.
Truly good PMs are rare, in the last 100 years only Churchill, Macmillan, Thatcher and at a push Blair have been very good PMs
It's what happens when you have laws, and the police enforce them.
I'm struggling to see the issue.
Totally lost it
I mean seriously. We need to come together as European friends and allies and are doing so.
But surely even you would agree that seizing the assets of countries which invade other countries might actually do what you claim is most important to you: i.e. prevent war.
A violin small enough has yet to be made.
I don't even think it was the best Bond debut - the crown for that goes to Goldeneye imo.
Thatcher goes down to a "respectable" defeat to Kinnock in 1992. Con rebuild quickly in Opposition, Kinnock kicked out in 1997.
No Blair. No 1997 Con meltdown. No Cameron to bring them back from the wilderness. No Cameron means no referendum and no Brexit. No Brexit, no Boris and no 2024 near-extinction event....
Lots of if's, but's and maybe's there but it's always fun to ponder how history might have been different if this path or that path had been followed...
(Craig's Casino Royale is 2nd though)
A great big wall right the way along the border with no gates in it would suffice.
Funny if Trump backed the wrong donkey.
I'm afraid that while there are some excellent action sequences (love the Turkey bit), as a whole it just doesn't work for me. The whole deliberately get captured so you'd get held in an underground prison by Smithfields market and the computer guy would plug in the hard drive at exactly the right moment for you to derail trains and attack a hearing at Parliament didn't just strain the bounds of credibility, it completely obliterated them.
And then the Home Alone section at the end.
I mean uggghhh.
5/10, and I'm being generous. Definitely the most overrated Bond movie.
The film, rather than Putin's template crime organisation.
This is a great article that explains more about using that Russian money for Ukraine . And when you see what’s happening with the USA it’s even more relevant.
https://www.friendsofeurope.org/insights/frankly-speaking-europe-at-a-crossroads-seizing-russian-assets-to-secure-ukraines-future/
But Roger Moore is way too old for the action sequences. ("Chinese Chop!")
On the positive side, it doesn't take itself too seriously, so I'll give it 6.5/10.
The other thing that has followed is that Conservative leaders have to be continually looking over their shoulders to check the size of Graham Brady's Enormous Mailbag (who is it now?). It's not the only reason for the dismal short-termism of government, but it doesn't help.
And so on & on.
"Give us your...."