(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is planning to revoke temporary legal status for some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict with Russia, a senior Trump official and three sources familiar with the matter said, potentially putting them on a fast-track to deportation.
Yep, there is absolutely no way Trump is a Putin shill and Russian asset.
Comments by Paul Manafort caught my eye, given his links with Trump and his subsequent 'persecution'. I'd reject the idea that Trump is a shill and pose the question about what the Russians can offer the Trump dynasty over the next four years.
Manafort was instrumental in Trump 1.0 to take the view that Ukraine (in 2014) will fall. So this is unfinished business.
@christopherhope NEW Are the wheels wobbling at Nigel Farage's Reform UK party? So far today ... - Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe has raised questions about Nigel Farage's leadership and whether he might be PM telling @toryboypierce : "We have to start developing policy which is going to change the way we govern. I’m not going to be by Nigel’s side at the next election unless we have a proper plan to change the way we govern from top to bottom." - Official Electoral Commissions figures show that the Tories raised £6 for every £1 raised by Reform Oct to Dec last year; - Deputy leader Richard Tice apparently forgets the surnames of two councillors who have defected to his party in Scotland.
Well I'm back from 9 holes (played poorly if you must know) and I can report that Donald Trump has totally lost the golf club demographic. Much gnashing of teeth down there. And it's not a lefty liberal space to put it mildly.
Losing the golf crowd could be an albatross on his back that will take a fair way to come back from unless he can quickly iron out some of the issues.
@christopherhope NEW Are the wheels wobbling at Nigel Farage's Reform UK party? So far today ... - Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe has raised questions about Nigel Farage's leadership and whether he might be PM telling @toryboypierce : "We have to start developing policy which is going to change the way we govern. I’m not going to be by Nigel’s side at the next election unless we have a proper plan to change the way we govern from top to bottom." - Official Electoral Commissions figures show that the Tories raised £6 for every £1 raised by Reform Oct to Dec last year; - Deputy leader Richard Tice apparently forgets the surnames of two councillors who have defected to his party in Scotland.
Gosh, not the surnames of two councillors!
He made a special trip all the way to welcome them to the party, and has no clue who they are.
It was not good press..
He also went to a chippy and refused to eat the chips
Well I'm back from 9 holes (played poorly if you must know) and I can report that Donald Trump has totally lost the golf club demographic. Much gnashing of teeth down there. And it's not a lefty liberal space to put it mildly.
Losing the golf crowd could be an albatross on his back that will take a fair way to come back from unless he can quickly iron out some of the issues.
Netherlands invests $756M in drone production for Ukraine.
The Dutch PM said that the package also aimed partly at Ukraine’s defence industry. The Netherlands will continue its political, military, financial and moral support,” Schoof said. https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1897652648695812299
Shabana Mahmood’s claim that her Labour government won’t stand for “two tier justice” - with an anti white, anti male, anti Christian bias - has been somewhat undermined this morning as it turns out the Sentencing Council is independent
So she can write to them asking them to change it. But she can’t force them. Unless Labour decides to change the law - which, given that they have a trillion seat majority, they could do tomorrow
But will they?
“One point worth noting on this morning's sentencing story.
Shabana Mahmood has written to the Sentencing Council urging them to change course. But a government source confirms this morning she cannot order them to do so.
So on April 1 a new sentencing regime will take effect which the Lord Chancellor herself has described as a "two-tier sentencing approach".
I've had a glance at this and it's just a change to guidance on pre-sentence reports, not the sentences themselves. And it happened under the Tories, and is broadly sensible given the longer sentences ethnic minorities get for similar crimes, and taking into account pregnancy, child abuse survivors etc.
What's sad is I just assumed it was going to be a load of nonsense given you were banging on about it. The issue with this is when you do, occasionally, come across a real scandal, it will be much harder to get people's attention.
Well, I made you “glance at it”… and then work out what it is, and what it does, and how it will work, and who devised it (quite a long glance, there), so job done, despite your claims otherwise
And your dismissal of it is ridiculous. This is racist anti-white two tier justice enshrined in law, which could be quite a problem for Two Tier Kier - and Shabana Mahmoud who has claimed this “cannot happen on her watch”
You keep saying Two Tier Keir.
As all of this pre-dates Labour, why were you not saying Two Tier Rishi?
If you actually care about the actual issue?
Good morning
Actually the conservatives objected when in government to the proposals, but then Labour came into office and sat on the committees discussing these controversial measures but failed to alert Mahmoud
This is on labour and for once not Sunak or the conservatives
Actually the Conservatives set this up. Its their legal framework in action. If there was a problem they could have changed the law to prevent it. They did not.
Its the usual Tory hypocrisy. They do something - half-baked and poorly thought through. And do nothing to fix it. Then try and pretend that the problem is only Labour's fault.
As you know I am not a Labour supporter. But the facts are clear - and until the Tories take ownership of the mess they created their support is not going to recover.
It was discussed this morning on Sky ad even Sky accepted that this was labours responsibility as the previous governmet objected but then came the election
You have this habit on pinning everything on the last government, but you are simply wrong this time
Sky News who state "Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said she will be registering her "displeasure" and will be recommending the guidance is reversed - however, as the Sentencing Council is independent, she cannot order them to do so."
Its very simple. The law as it stands makes sentencing independent of government. It had a consultation. Which ended in February 2024.
So your complaint is that: The independent body, who did a consultation under the Tories, which is now publishing the results of that consultation, is doing something objectionable which is the fault of Labour
Jenrick says Labour are "asleep at the wheel" for not objecting to the consultion which concluded in February 2024 When the Tories Alex Chalk was "at the wheel"
You see the problem? Especially when both sides think the new guidelines are daft and agree that a law change is needed?
BBC Verify on WATO is suggesting that there is likely to be anomalous sentencing based on ethnicity.
Wendy Joseph has just explained the background and facts of it all on WATO. The PSR is additional information for the Judge to consider in sentencing, it does not set guidelines for the sentence.
Now back to the usual suspects block-posting Jenrick's deliberate misrepresentation of it
Point is that the PSR is to be provided preferentially only for certain groups.
She explained that was because these groups are currently disadvantaged. Although I see your point. Inclusivity for all groups would resolve the problem.
I do believe Jenrick has seen a racial grift to claim his brownie points.
To do that he needs to come up with some evidence that his basic claim of sentencing reports causing anti-white man bias is true.
He has produced no such evidence afaics, and has indulged in artfully edited rhetoric. And such current research as we have seems to refute his claim. His basic proposition that sentencing reports cause discrimination is, until then, a fairy story.
I say it's just a social media dog whistle, as I pointed out yesterday.
What I find interesting is that after the - until he proves otherwise - tall tale he told in Parliament, he then went on GB News (subsequently posted to FB and Twitter), and extended his claims from race and religion, to women and gender and disabled (neurodiverse). I'd say that's an attempt to wind up the GB News audience by crafting a different dog whistle around the hot buttons that make their knees jerk.
He went so far as to say that "anybody who is not a Christian" is favoured and that you are more likely to go to jail if you are a "straight white male". He's very confused about his categories.
It seems he hasn't copped that we have, for example, 100k Chinese Christians in this country (out of a Chinese community of 500k), and that most black people are in the 'Christian community' - as church members or by cultural background.
He's following and leveraging JD Vance's nativist, misogynist narrative to appeal to ... I'm not quite sure who. If he's against all those things, there's not a lot of society left that he can be for; certainly not enough for him to get a majority.
Leaving that aside, like JD Vance he is a trained legal professional, so he knows what the purpose of sentencing reports is, and he knows that he is being deliberately misleading.
Personally, I'd think that Kemi should remove the whip, but in the current state of the party that is unlikely.
If any of that bollocks is true, and it isn't, why did Mahmood respond to Jenrick with this tweet, which clearly says he has a point
"The Sentencing Council is entirely independent.
Today's updated guidelines do not represent my views or the views of this government.
I will be writing to the Sentencing Council to register my displeasure and to recommend reversing this change to guidance.
As someone who is from an ethnic minority background myself, I do not stand for any differential treatment before the law, for anyone of any kind.
There will never be a two-tier sentencing approach under my watch."
She clearly believes this IS two tier sentencing, and is objecting
Why? Because of the pointless political dick-measuring contest which is criminal justice.
Both parties have to out-tough the other, so we jack up conviction rates until the prisons are full. Meanwhile whole swathes of the community suffer crime epidemics despite the record numbers in the clink.
We're doing something very wrong. Whatever happened to tough on the causes of crime?
It was found to be complete shite, as one of the biggest causes of crime is that there's no negative consequences.
A large part of that is because we defunded the criminal justice system, such that trials end up happening five years after people are caught.
For anyone liable for a relatively short sentence, the biggest injustice they are likely to face, irrespective of ethnicity, is the years in limbo awaiting trial.
Leon recently gave us his account of his year awaiting his day in court. How would he have felt had it been four years ?
It's also has serious negative consequences for victims of crime, unable to move on from the trauma, less chance of a conviction as evidence, witnesses etc get lost, if not on remand, criminals can carry on offending with no intervention to rehabilitate them, conversely those who are innocent could be remanded, potentially ending up involved in criminality.
Defunding the justice system was a disaster for preventing crime, defunding Surestart was a disaster for tackling some causes of crime.
If you consider offending in broad categories there are crimes of
1) Addiction / poverty / material gain - theft, drug-dealing, fraud 2) Lifestyle violence - football hooliganism etc 3) Sex offences inc some murders
Surestart can be effective at reducing 1 and to a lesser extent 2 by improving life chances/choices More effective policing (chance of being caught) is effective across all Consequences (tougher sentences) is only effective by taking those who can't / won't be rehabilitated out of society, 3.
On Trump's blocking of intelligence to Ukraine, does anyone have any idea how many of the commercial satellite image providers who could supply suitable targeting imagery are beyond the reach of the US Government?
It wouldn't surprise me if most of them were based in the USA.
There's been no mention of a ban on commercial sales of satellite imagery of Ukraine. So in theory the AFU can just buy what they need, or more likely the UK, France or whoever does that for them.
But such imagery isn't going to be as clear or up to date as the US military can provide. The US apparently could see basically in real time Russian bombers taking off, so Ukraine's missile defences could go on alert. Commercial providers can't match that.
That's only true if the satellite was passing over the airfield at exactly the right time.
And, sure, I'm sure that happened. But as often as not, the satellites would overfly when nothing was happening.
The S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow all finished yesterday up on the day before.
We are not even in correction territory yet.
Slump is excessive but the Dow and S&P have both gone through a sharpish downturn these last couple of weeks, albeit after a strong run over the last year.
And still up over the last six months too.
There has been a sharpish downturn, we will see where it goes. The hope seems to be they find a way to save face and end the tariff war.
Well I'm back from 9 holes (played poorly if you must know) and I can report that Donald Trump has totally lost the golf club demographic. Much gnashing of teeth down there. And it's not a lefty liberal space to put it mildly.
Losing the golf crowd could be an albatross on his back that will take a fair way to come back from unless he can quickly iron out some of the issues.
He has a bunker mentality though....
A putt option on Trump could pay dividends.
Are you all green?
He may use some of his winnings from the US election.
She's done well there. Good to put it back to the Tories.
I accept that though without Jenrick's intervention I doubt it would have prompted this action
Jenrick did say this morning that he had objected to the proposals previously, but from the letter it seems no official objection was made
In the circumstances I accept @RochdalePioneers comments were correct and I wish to extend a sincere apology to him and also for my unkind remarks about his Tesla
Sometimes we say or do something that needs an apology hence mine and I hope @RochdalePioneers reads this post
Well I'm back from 9 holes (played poorly if you must know) and I can report that Donald Trump has totally lost the golf club demographic. Much gnashing of teeth down there. And it's not a lefty liberal space to put it mildly.
Losing the golf crowd could be an albatross on his back that will take a fair way to come back from unless he can quickly iron out some of the issues.
He has a bunker mentality though....
A putt option on Trump could pay dividends.
Are you all green?
He may use some of his winnings from the US election.
(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is planning to revoke temporary legal status for some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict with Russia, a senior Trump official and three sources familiar with the matter said, potentially putting them on a fast-track to deportation.
Yep, there is absolutely no way Trump is a Putin shill and Russian asset.
Comments by Paul Manafort caught my eye, given his links with Trump and his subsequent 'persecution'. I'd reject the idea that Trump is a shill and pose the question about what the Russians can offer the Trump dynasty over the next four years.
Manafort was instrumental in Trump 1.0 to take the view that Ukraine (in 2014) will fall. So this is unfinished business.
Well I'm back from 9 holes (played poorly if you must know) and I can report that Donald Trump has totally lost the golf club demographic. Much gnashing of teeth down there. And it's not a lefty liberal space to put it mildly.
Losing the golf crowd could be an albatross on his back that will take a fair way to come back from unless he can quickly iron out some of the issues.
He has a bunker mentality though....
A putt option on Trump could pay dividends.
Are you all green?
He may use some of his winnings from the US election.
Oi. Still tender.
Okay, sorry. Won’t mention it again, even if it was in jest.
(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is planning to revoke temporary legal status for some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict with Russia, a senior Trump official and three sources familiar with the matter said, potentially putting them on a fast-track to deportation.
Yep, there is absolutely no way Trump is a Putin shill and Russian asset.
Comments by Paul Manafort caught my eye, given his links with Trump and his subsequent 'persecution'. I'd reject the idea that Trump is a shill and pose the question about what the Russians can offer the Trump dynasty over the next four years.
Manafort was instrumental in Trump 1.0 to take the view that Ukraine (in 2014) will fall. So this is unfinished business.
I don’t think future US administrations will thank Trump for turning a supplicant and soft Europe into a heavily armed, nuclear and rich entity with different aims and wants from the US.
The IS were better off keeping Europe, with its wealth and larger population, on its teat and needing America so America could hold huge sway.
She's done well there. Good to put it back to the Tories.
I accept that though without Jenrick's intervention I doubt it would have prompted this action
Jenrick did say this morning that he had objected to the proposals previously, but from the letter it seems no official objection was made
In the circumstances I accept @RochdalePioneers comments were correct and I wish to extend a sincere apology to him and also for my unkind remarks about his Tesla
Sometimes we say or do something that needs an apology hence mine and I hope @RochdalePioneers reads this post
He’s always struck me as a decent sort. As have you too.
US has stopped sharing all intelligence with Ukraine.
So when U.S. Key Hole reconnaissance satellites see Kh-101 cruise missiles targeted at power plants and hospitals being loaded on to Tu-95’s in Russia, they won’t be warning Ukraine in advance. Nice, another absolutely unconscionable decision. https://x.com/ELINTNews/status/1897303126698549276
Trump is effectively using civilian lives as leverage for his minerals deals.
No pretence they'd be getting (probably worthless anyway) security guarantees in exchange for the "minerals deal". Just sign it or we're abandoning you. Blackmail, pure and simple.
Zelensky has never had any choice but to sign. Even if the other countries involved stumped up heaps of extra cash, we don't have the infrastructure and the kit to take over from the US as the main supplier.
However, whoever signs up to surrender territory to the Russians after losing so many lifes fighting for it, will not survive politically in Ukraine. Once he signs, it will be the end of Zelensky's Presidency.
What Trump and Vance's hardballing has done, whether by accident or design, has given Zelensky a shred of dignity to say "I tried - it was the end of the line - they even cut off the Himars etc.". That won't get him re-elected but it does perhaps soften the blow and enhance his reputation.
You can almost taste the glee as you write those words.
There's no glee. I am in the position of wanting the war to end, but on terms that guarantee the future security (and viability and prosperity) of Ukraine. That has been my position for about two years - it hasn't changed.
Yea, it is a similar view to that held by Oswald Mosely and Lord Halifax.
Why is a dispassionate assessment of the current situation in Ukraine so difficult for PBers to digest.
Whilst some get too passionate and it may affect their assessments, not all 'dispassionate' assessments are as dispassionate as they may claim, and it is absolutely reasonable to point that out if people think that is what is happening, and I think it is. Not all 'realpolitik' positions are, in fact, pragmatic realpolitik either.
Yes. The passionate assessment is that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys. I think we all agree on that? The dispassionate assessment is that Russia is in a uniquely beatable position and through the west assisting Ukraine we have the opportunity to weaken a hostile force. All it takes is the commitmemt to supply materiel and intelligence and logistics, and it is fully in our interests to do so. It is strange when people (whether posters on here or politicians) are trying to discourage our friends and encourage our enemies, and makes us question whose side they are on.
Russia is the aggressor, that is certainly true. They have done wicked things, that is also true. I don't agree with the terminology of good guys and bad guys because the truth usually gets trampled over in that set up. We need to be able to discuss the wrong-doing of the 'good guys' and see the humanity of the 'bad guys' sometimes. Life isn't a film. We haven't been able to do that freely on PB without being accused of treason in some form, which is a loathsome accusation.
As for the 'disapassionate' argument you make, I'm afraid I think you're completely wrong. Russia is a regional power that bullies its neighbours. That is reprehensible, but it is sadly not uncommon. Turkey is currently illegally occupying two other countries. Israel just marched into what's left of Syria to protect ethnic Jews. It may be vaguely in our interests to thwart Russia, but it's nowhere near vital enough that we should be stripping the army of equipment and spending countless billions just to kill a few more of them.
Regarding real threats: China is on a centuries-long mission to supplant the Western economies and become the dominant world power, with widespread industrial espionage and secret police forces on UK soil in its toolbox. India opposes us globally as a hated colonial bogeyman, seeks to influence our society by migration, and has nurtered a growing hold over our politicians. Turkey hosts the Muslim Brotherhood that exercises a hidden but profound influence over many Muslim communities in the UK. Saudi Arabia sponsors the spread of a toxic Salafist doctrine via mosques, that has been at the heart of various acts of terror. To my mind, all these countries represent a significantly bigger threat to our real security interests than Russia does.
I often wholeheartedly disagree with your posts but not this one - I think (a) your assessment overall is good and (b) you bring a valuable analysis to this site that is fairly original - ignore those who accuse you of being a Russian shill.
I would just take issue with the second paragraph. You draw an equivalence between Russia and other regional powers that may or may not be true. Historically Russia was far more than a regional power and there is evidence that Putin harks back to that history as his legitimating myth. The potential downside of Russia being more comparable to Germany in the 1930s is huge. I don't doubt that many on here are overstating the likelihood of this latter comparison, but it's worth insuring ourselves against it if possible.
I agree, though, that this shouldn't be to the exclusion of attempting to defend ourselves against China's more subtle and nefarious infiltration of our economy and society in the ways you mention.
If we beef up our military, including intelligence, this won't just help us counter Russian aggression - it will also help us counter the Chinese (and potentially US) variants. It still probably will be woefully inadequate, but it is worth making the attempt.
@Luckyguy1983's analysis is generally sound, but it does miss the extent to which Russia interferes in the affairs of other countries.
For example, it's funding of environmental groups in Poland with the goal of getting fracking banned. (Which I admit, I am particularly sore about, as I owned a large chunk of Poland's shale gas assets at the time. And I completely missed the political risk.)
OGH * was nearly an oligarch? That's a turn up !
* I'm officially promoting @rcs1000 ; Mike is now OGH Emeritus - if both will consent .
RCS you are completely right about Russia's anti-fracking activities - they have also funded UK anti-fracking groups, something our centrist Dad anti-Russia brigade are oddly silent about.
(Snip)
Ahem. As perhaps PB's most typical 'centrist dad', I've pointed out a fair few times over the years that Russia would be looking to fund anti-fracking and general environmental groups. The response to which was often: "But they're an oil and gas power! Why would they try to stop oil and gas extraction?"
Which was a rather silly response, as fracking could reduce demand for O&G from Russia, so banning it in the UK could help Russia; and Russia was more interested in fomenting division in the west, and environmental groups do that very well.
So no, this one, at least, was not silent.
(In fact, I went further and said that Russia might well fund both sides of a contentious issue, if that issue would sow discord in an enemy country.)
They'll be funding any kind of anti-British energy generation campaigning. Renewables, nuclear, EVs etc have the benefit, eventually, of being independent of OPEC, so they'll be the biggest concern to Russia.
Yes, efforts to wean ourselves away from fossil fuels are a far greater threat to Russian power than the exploitation of the UK's relatively paltry remaining oil and gas reserves. It's no wonder that those with a soft spot for Putin and Trump are also among those most vehemently opposed to green policies.
I don’t think future US administrations will thank Trump for turning a supplicant and soft Europe into a heavily armed, nuclear and rich entity with different aims and wants from the US.
The IS were better off keeping Europe, with its wealth and larger population, on its teat and needing America so America could hold huge sway.
That's my view. I reckon a reasonable chance this ends up positive for Europe in the long term.
She's done well there. Good to put it back to the Tories.
I accept that though without Jenrick's intervention I doubt it would have prompted this action
Jenrick did say this morning that he had objected to the proposals previously, but from the letter it seems no official objection was made
In the circumstances I accept @RochdalePioneers comments were correct and I wish to extend a sincere apology to him and also for my unkind remarks about his Tesla
Sometimes we say or do something that needs an apology hence mine and I hope @RochdalePioneers reads this post
Badenoch had the chance to raise this at PMQs and claim forcing the government u turn herself. The Daily Mail today calls it Labours two tier sentencing guidelines. They don’t date back to being created under a Conservative government.
I don’t think future US administrations will thank Trump for turning a supplicant and soft Europe into a heavily armed, nuclear and rich entity with different aims and wants from the US.
The IS were better off keeping Europe, with its wealth and larger population, on its teat and needing America so America could hold huge sway.
Indeed, the US is doing it's damnedest to turn Europe from customers into competitors. The US exports it's services and culture across the world, including to Europe and it gives them real power. I worry for the future of the US when they come to terms with what giving this role means for them.
I agree that Europe should pay it's own way for defence of the realm and not rely on the US but the manner in which the US seems to have decided that Russia, not Western Europe is it's main European ally is making them lots of unnecessary enemies with no tangible gain. Russia will ratfuck the Americans, Trump and whoever follows at the first opportunity, they are the scorpion to America's frog. Trump just doesn't realise it yet.
Nice to see the centrist Dads getting bent out of shape over Ukraine whilst the genocide in Gaza has been met with splendid indifference.
The centrist dads aren't happy with that, either. The difference is the UK or Europe's ability to influence events. Which, in the case of whatever it is that Netanyahu and Trump are about to do in Gaza, is close to nil.
Note that Saudi Arabia's bid of $55bn to rebuild the place has just been rejected out of hand by Trump. And MBS probably now has more influence in the White House than we do.
I live a very sheltered life. What is a centrist dad? Am I one because I am both a centrist and a dad or is there a special meaning?
Isn't a 'centrist dad' an anti woke middle aged male with old fashioned conservative views?
Someone like Leon I suppose?
No - that's pretty much the opposite of what it means.
"Centrist dad" was originally a far left term of abuse for social democrat types within the Labour Party, the kind of party members who would turn up to a CLP meeting to vote down Corbynista attempts to replace the sitting MP with some Trot nutter. It has broadened out to encompass a broad swathe of liberal-left opinion, somewhat complacent, enamoured with the status quo, resistant to attempts from both left and right to smash the system. The centrist dad gets his news from Channel 4 News or Newsnight. He likes the Rest is Politics. He cycles to work. He shops at Sainsburys but probably gets an organic veg box in too. He still seethes over Brexit. He wonders what happened to the circa 2000 world that he understood and loved.
To be fair, the circa 2000 world was pretty good. Being born in 1977, my political and general "how the world ought to be" views are pretty firmly shaped by the period when I went to uni, got a first job, etc: post cold war and pre financial crisis. I try to avoid seething about anything, but am a pretty solid match for most of those stereotypes.
Presumably there must be a lot of people who are in a similar late 40s age group but more on the rightward end of the political spectrum: do they also look back fondly on the circa 2000 world?
Yes, and yes: the period between the end of the cold war and the twin towers attack were without doubt the halcyon days. Remarkably worry-free. I also thought that the Labour government of the time was sub-optimal and that Britain would be better off outside of the EU, but neither of these things were in any way existentially troubling.
Someone even wrote a book about it: “The End of History”.
History, unfortunately, came back with a vengeance.
I think - though I may be wrong - that the author of that book - Francis Fukuyama - is one of those unfortunate people whose fate it is that people remember him as making the exact opposite point to the one he actually made. I think - though I haven't read it - that his point was that 1991 was not the end of history and that all sorts of bad things would keep happening. He may even have given some prescient examples.
See also - Epicurus. Who is remembered as someone who really liked tasty and exciting food, but whose point was that the quality of the food was almost entirely superfluous and that the quality of the company was the important thing.
Fukuyama has been misrepresented due to the title of his work - it was not meant to be taken literally (which would be ridiculous).
He was arguing that once society gets to liberal democracy there is nowhere better to go from there. It is a very difficult assertion to argue against.
Liberal democracy is best of breed, no question. The tweak it needs (imo) to become the ultimate forever system is more focus on reducing inequality. Otherwise it becomes vulnerable to the stunted aspirations of too many people. People who are ripe for exploitation by charlatans, extremists and rich shadowy men.
Inequality is bad. Mainly because greedy people are a problem when they become too influential. They can't seem to have enough.
I am also totally fine with levelling down everyone more than twice as rich as me.
I don’t think future US administrations will thank Trump for turning a supplicant and soft Europe into a heavily armed, nuclear and rich entity with different aims and wants from the US.
The IS were better off keeping Europe, with its wealth and larger population, on its teat and needing America so America could hold huge sway.
That's my view. I reckon a reasonable chance this ends up positive for Europe in the long term.
Maybe and I hope so. But having to spend massive sums on the military isn't on the face of it a harbinger of better times.
I don’t think future US administrations will thank Trump for turning a supplicant and soft Europe into a heavily armed, nuclear and rich entity with different aims and wants from the US.
The IS were better off keeping Europe, with its wealth and larger population, on its teat and needing America so America could hold huge sway.
Indeed, the US is doing it's damnedest to turn Europe from customers into competitors. The US exports it's services and culture across the world, including to Europe and it gives them real power. I worry for the future of the US when they come to terms with what giving this role means for them.
I agree that Europe should pay it's own way for defence of the realm and not rely on the US but the manner in which the US seems to have decided that Russia, not Western Europe is it's main European ally is making them lots of unnecessary enemies with no tangible gain. Russia will ratfuck the Americans, Trump and whoever follows at the first opportunity, they are the scorpion to America's frog. Trump just doesn't realise it yet.
They will also likely succeed in getting Canada to look east not south and find rhemselves less relevant - the US will still be hugely powerful due to its tech and finance not just its military but will just be one competing block with Europe, China and possibly n invigorated Middle East with its wealth and influence.
Shabana Mahmood’s claim that her Labour government won’t stand for “two tier justice” - with an anti white, anti male, anti Christian bias - has been somewhat undermined this morning as it turns out the Sentencing Council is independent
So she can write to them asking them to change it. But she can’t force them. Unless Labour decides to change the law - which, given that they have a trillion seat majority, they could do tomorrow
But will they?
“One point worth noting on this morning's sentencing story.
Shabana Mahmood has written to the Sentencing Council urging them to change course. But a government source confirms this morning she cannot order them to do so.
So on April 1 a new sentencing regime will take effect which the Lord Chancellor herself has described as a "two-tier sentencing approach".
I've had a glance at this and it's just a change to guidance on pre-sentence reports, not the sentences themselves. And it happened under the Tories, and is broadly sensible given the longer sentences ethnic minorities get for similar crimes, and taking into account pregnancy, child abuse survivors etc.
What's sad is I just assumed it was going to be a load of nonsense given you were banging on about it. The issue with this is when you do, occasionally, come across a real scandal, it will be much harder to get people's attention.
Well, I made you “glance at it”… and then work out what it is, and what it does, and how it will work, and who devised it (quite a long glance, there), so job done, despite your claims otherwise
And your dismissal of it is ridiculous. This is racist anti-white two tier justice enshrined in law, which could be quite a problem for Two Tier Kier - and Shabana Mahmoud who has claimed this “cannot happen on her watch”
You keep saying Two Tier Keir.
As all of this pre-dates Labour, why were you not saying Two Tier Rishi?
If you actually care about the actual issue?
Good morning
Actually the conservatives objected when in government to the proposals, but then Labour came into office and sat on the committees discussing these controversial measures but failed to alert Mahmoud
This is on labour and for once not Sunak or the conservatives
Actually the Conservatives set this up. Its their legal framework in action. If there was a problem they could have changed the law to prevent it. They did not.
Its the usual Tory hypocrisy. They do something - half-baked and poorly thought through. And do nothing to fix it. Then try and pretend that the problem is only Labour's fault.
As you know I am not a Labour supporter. But the facts are clear - and until the Tories take ownership of the mess they created their support is not going to recover.
It was discussed this morning on Sky ad even Sky accepted that this was labours responsibility as the previous governmet objected but then came the election
You have this habit on pinning everything on the last government, but you are simply wrong this time
Sky News who state "Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said she will be registering her "displeasure" and will be recommending the guidance is reversed - however, as the Sentencing Council is independent, she cannot order them to do so."
Its very simple. The law as it stands makes sentencing independent of government. It had a consultation. Which ended in February 2024.
So your complaint is that: The independent body, who did a consultation under the Tories, which is now publishing the results of that consultation, is doing something objectionable which is the fault of Labour
Jenrick says Labour are "asleep at the wheel" for not objecting to the consultion which concluded in February 2024 When the Tories Alex Chalk was "at the wheel"
You see the problem? Especially when both sides think the new guidelines are daft and agree that a law change is needed?
BBC Verify on WATO is suggesting that there is likely to be anomalous sentencing based on ethnicity.
Wendy Joseph has just explained the background and facts of it all on WATO. The PSR is additional information for the Judge to consider in sentencing, it does not set guidelines for the sentence.
Now back to the usual suspects block-posting Jenrick's deliberate misrepresentation of it
Point is that the PSR is to be provided preferentially only for certain groups.
She explained that was because these groups are currently disadvantaged. Although I see your point. Inclusivity for all groups would resolve the problem.
I do believe Jenrick has seen a racial grift to claim his brownie points.
To do that he needs to come up with some evidence that his basic claim of sentencing reports causing anti-white man bias is true.
He has produced no such evidence afaics, and has indulged in artfully edited rhetoric. And such current research as we have seems to refute his claim. His basic proposition that sentencing reports cause discrimination is, until then, a fairy story.
I say it's just a social media dog whistle, as I pointed out yesterday.
What I find interesting is that after the - until he proves otherwise - tall tale he told in Parliament, he then went on GB News (subsequently posted to FB and Twitter), and extended his claims from race and religion, to women and gender and disabled (neurodiverse). I'd say that's an attempt to wind up the GB News audience by crafting a different dog whistle around the hot buttons that make their knees jerk.
He went so far as to say that "anybody who is not a Christian" is favoured and that you are more likely to go to jail if you are a "straight white male". He's very confused about his categories.
It seems he hasn't copped that we have, for example, 100k Chinese Christians in this country (out of a Chinese community of 500k), and that most black people are in the 'Christian community' - as church members or by cultural background.
He's following and leveraging JD Vance's nativist, misogynist narrative to appeal to ... I'm not quite sure who. If he's against all those things, there's not a lot of society left that he can be for; certainly not enough for him to get a majority.
Leaving that aside, like JD Vance he is a trained legal professional, so he knows what the purpose of sentencing reports is, and he knows that he is being deliberately misleading.
Personally, I'd think that Kemi should remove the whip, but in the current state of the party that is unlikely.
If any of that bollocks is true, and it isn't, why did Mahmood respond to Jenrick with this tweet, which clearly says he has a point
"The Sentencing Council is entirely independent.
Today's updated guidelines do not represent my views or the views of this government.
I will be writing to the Sentencing Council to register my displeasure and to recommend reversing this change to guidance.
As someone who is from an ethnic minority background myself, I do not stand for any differential treatment before the law, for anyone of any kind.
There will never be a two-tier sentencing approach under my watch."
She clearly believes this IS two tier sentencing, and is objecting
Why? Because of the pointless political dick-measuring contest which is criminal justice.
Both parties have to out-tough the other, so we jack up conviction rates until the prisons are full. Meanwhile whole swathes of the community suffer crime epidemics despite the record numbers in the clink.
We're doing something very wrong. Whatever happened to tough on the causes of crime?
It was found to be complete shite, as one of the biggest causes of crime is that there's no negative consequences.
A large part of that is because we defunded the criminal justice system, such that trials end up happening five years after people are caught.
For anyone liable for a relatively short sentence, the biggest injustice they are likely to face, irrespective of ethnicity, is the years in limbo awaiting trial.
Leon recently gave us his account of his year awaiting his day in court. How would he have felt had it been four years ?
It's also has serious negative consequences for victims of crime, unable to move on from the trauma, less chance of a conviction as evidence, witnesses etc get lost, if not on remand, criminals can carry on offending with no intervention to rehabilitate them, conversely those who are innocent could be remanded, potentially ending up involved in criminality.
Defunding the justice system was a disaster for preventing crime, defunding Surestart was a disaster for tackling some causes of crime.
If you consider offending in broad categories there are crimes of
1) Addiction / poverty / material gain - theft, drug-dealing, fraud 2) Lifestyle violence - football hooliganism etc 3) Sex offences inc some murders
Surestart can be effective at reducing 1 and to a lesser extent 2 by improving life chances/choices More effective policing (chance of being caught) is effective across all Consequences (tougher sentences) is only effective by taking those who can't / won't be rehabilitated out of society, 3.
Having been through parenting small children - and having seen how little opportunity many kids have for, well, anything - I'm all in favour of sure start and its ilk. But I must admit I am a little sceptical of claims of the extent to which it impacts crime. It's, what, an hour of something to do a week? And it still takes parents sufficiently unchaotic to actually get the kids there - most of the poor-but-functional still grow up functional. I'd be interested in stories to the contrary however.
EATO is going to depend on Poland, the UK, France, Ukraine and Norway, isn't it?
Division on boots on the ground into Ukraine between UK, France & Poland though. Poland views it's border as the edge of EATO I think so far as soldiers go, Macron sees it inside Ukraine.
Looks like Rachel From Accounts has now lost control of the bond markets, pushing our economy closer to the abyss. A quick reminder that inflation, growth and bond markets and optimism were all in a better place the moment voters chose to take a chance on a Labour government.
I don’t think future US administrations will thank Trump for turning a supplicant and soft Europe into a heavily armed, nuclear and rich entity with different aims and wants from the US.
The IS were better off keeping Europe, with its wealth and larger population, on its teat and needing America so America could hold huge sway.
Indeed, the US is doing it's damnedest to turn Europe from customers into competitors. The US exports it's services and culture across the world, including to Europe and it gives them real power. I worry for the future of the US when they come to terms with what giving this role means for them.
I agree that Europe should pay it's own way for defence of the realm and not rely on the US but the manner in which the US seems to have decided that Russia, not Western Europe is it's main European ally is making them lots of unnecessary enemies with no tangible gain. Russia will ratfuck the Americans, Trump and whoever follows at the first opportunity, they are the scorpion to America's frog. Trump just doesn't realise it yet.
They will also likely succeed in getting Canada to look east not south and find rhemselves less relevant - the US will still be hugely powerful due to its tech and finance not just its military but will just be one competing block with Europe, China and possibly n invigorated Middle East with its wealth and influence.
Trump is on great terms with the rich bits & people of the middle east, Saudi in particular.
There are still avenues of cooperation with the US on Ukraine as long as we are willing to pay, apparently.
The UK has struck a £30M deal with Anglo-American company Anduril to supply advanced attack drones for Ukraine, boosting @DefenceU capabilities to tackle Russian aggression in the Black Sea. This follows over 10,000 drones delivered to the front line so far. https://x.com/DefenceHQ/status/1897638359004029029
I don’t think future US administrations will thank Trump for turning a supplicant and soft Europe into a heavily armed, nuclear and rich entity with different aims and wants from the US.
The IS were better off keeping Europe, with its wealth and larger population, on its teat and needing America so America could hold huge sway.
Indeed, the US is doing it's damnedest to turn Europe from customers into competitors. The US exports it's services and culture across the world, including to Europe and it gives them real power. I worry for the future of the US when they come to terms with what giving this role means for them.
I agree that Europe should pay it's own way for defence of the realm and not rely on the US but the manner in which the US seems to have decided that Russia, not Western Europe is it's main European ally is making them lots of unnecessary enemies with no tangible gain. Russia will ratfuck the Americans, Trump and whoever follows at the first opportunity, they are the scorpion to America's frog. Trump just doesn't realise it yet.
Russian strategy since Putin has been completely counterproductive. If they'd played along with the West and integrated on the West's terms, then they could have become the de facto hegemonic power in Europe by stealth, but instead they've ended up isolated.
Looks like Rachel From Accounts has now lost control of the bond markets, pushing our economy closer to the abyss. A quick reminder that inflation, growth and bond markets and optimism were all in a better place the moment voters chose to take a chance on a Labour government.
You can't really blame Rachel From Accounts for that. It was Merz who pushed all European bond yields higher with his 'whatever it takes' moment.
Nice to see the centrist Dads getting bent out of shape over Ukraine whilst the genocide in Gaza has been met with splendid indifference.
The centrist dads aren't happy with that, either. The difference is the UK or Europe's ability to influence events. Which, in the case of whatever it is that Netanyahu and Trump are about to do in Gaza, is close to nil.
Note that Saudi Arabia's bid of $55bn to rebuild the place has just been rejected out of hand by Trump. And MBS probably now has more influence in the White House than we do.
I live a very sheltered life. What is a centrist dad? Am I one because I am both a centrist and a dad or is there a special meaning?
Isn't a 'centrist dad' an anti woke middle aged male with old fashioned conservative views?
Someone like Leon I suppose?
No - that's pretty much the opposite of what it means.
"Centrist dad" was originally a far left term of abuse for social democrat types within the Labour Party, the kind of party members who would turn up to a CLP meeting to vote down Corbynista attempts to replace the sitting MP with some Trot nutter. It has broadened out to encompass a broad swathe of liberal-left opinion, somewhat complacent, enamoured with the status quo, resistant to attempts from both left and right to smash the system. The centrist dad gets his news from Channel 4 News or Newsnight. He likes the Rest is Politics. He cycles to work. He shops at Sainsburys but probably gets an organic veg box in too. He still seethes over Brexit. He wonders what happened to the circa 2000 world that he understood and loved.
To be fair, the circa 2000 world was pretty good. Being born in 1977, my political and general "how the world ought to be" views are pretty firmly shaped by the period when I went to uni, got a first job, etc: post cold war and pre financial crisis. I try to avoid seething about anything, but am a pretty solid match for most of those stereotypes.
Presumably there must be a lot of people who are in a similar late 40s age group but more on the rightward end of the political spectrum: do they also look back fondly on the circa 2000 world?
Yes, and yes: the period between the end of the cold war and the twin towers attack were without doubt the halcyon days. Remarkably worry-free. I also thought that the Labour government of the time was sub-optimal and that Britain would be better off outside of the EU, but neither of these things were in any way existentially troubling.
Someone even wrote a book about it: “The End of History”.
History, unfortunately, came back with a vengeance.
I think - though I may be wrong - that the author of that book - Francis Fukuyama - is one of those unfortunate people whose fate it is that people remember him as making the exact opposite point to the one he actually made. I think - though I haven't read it - that his point was that 1991 was not the end of history and that all sorts of bad things would keep happening. He may even have given some prescient examples.
See also - Epicurus. Who is remembered as someone who really liked tasty and exciting food, but whose point was that the quality of the food was almost entirely superfluous and that the quality of the company was the important thing.
Fukuyama has been misrepresented due to the title of his work - it was not meant to be taken literally (which would be ridiculous).
He was arguing that once society gets to liberal democracy there is nowhere better to go from there. It is a very difficult assertion to argue against.
Liberal democracy is best of breed, no question. The tweak it needs (imo) to become the ultimate forever system is more focus on reducing inequality. Otherwise it becomes vulnerable to the stunted aspirations of too many people. People who are ripe for exploitation by charlatans, extremists and rich shadowy men.
Inequality is bad. Mainly because greedy people are a problem when they become too influential. They can't seem to have enough.
I am also totally fine with levelling down everyone more than twice as rich as me.
And the 'left behind' are prone to self-harm with their vote so what we need is to not have anyone left behind. Liberal democracy but with only left wing parties, I think this is the sweet spot. That could then be the End of History.
US poll. I don't think they prompted on the identity of any US allies...
"Those who say (X) is important:
Preventing spread of nuclear weapons: 94% Defending our allies' security: 92% Helping reduce poverty/disease abroad: 89% Promoting/defending human rights abroad: 81% Helping other nations build democracies: 73%
Gallup / Feb 16, 2025 / n=1004"
This is mothers apple pie nonsense. In what world did a country polling like this vote for a buffoon like Trump? What single one of these did they think he was going to support? The answers, sadly, are this one and none.
Looks like Rachel From Accounts has now lost control of the bond markets, pushing our economy closer to the abyss. A quick reminder that inflation, growth and bond markets and optimism were all in a better place the moment voters chose to take a chance on a Labour government.
You can't really blame Rachel From Accounts for that. It was Merz who pushed all European bond yields higher with his 'whatever it takes' moment.
What just happened? Ticked off for criticising Labour by William Glenn 🤦♀️
Tapping out now to reevaluate my entire understanding of everything.
And yet @MattW and The Centrist Dads have been tellling us: nothing to see here, move along
Now she is threatening to scrap the Sentencing Quango outright? Good. She should
When we finally get an alt-right government it needs to sweep away the entire Blob, very much including biassed boondoggles like this
PB to the left of Labour on the issue of crime & punishment & Trump to the right of Putin on refugees from the conflict...
I don't think it's about left or right here, as indicated by the semi-independence of the Sentencing Council (members are appointed by the Lord Chancellor aiui). It's about consistency despite the politics.
Sentencing guidelines are a way to facilitate a standard and common process, and sentencing reports exist to bring relevant circumstances forward to be considered by the Judge so that equal treatment can prevail.
Examples are whether others will be impacted by a sentence, for example women are usually those who care for children and it is not just to impact the education of a 6 year old, for example, more than necessary because of a crime committed by a parent.
It's about whether there is evidence to support this particular change to policy or not. At present I have not seen evidence to question the change, despite the shouting.
It went out to public consultation under the last Government, for part of which Jenrick was a Government Minister, and for the other part of which he was a back bencher. He had ample opportunity to comment, yet has not demonstrated that did not do so as and is shit-stirring now.
"Ban the Blob" demagoguery is the kind of kneejerk thinking that led Mr Chump to sack people responsible for looking after the USA's nuclear weapons.
Good, thoughtful Government is important, especially where distance from day to day politics required.
US has stopped sharing all intelligence with Ukraine.
So when U.S. Key Hole reconnaissance satellites see Kh-101 cruise missiles targeted at power plants and hospitals being loaded on to Tu-95’s in Russia, they won’t be warning Ukraine in advance. Nice, another absolutely unconscionable decision. https://x.com/ELINTNews/status/1897303126698549276
Trump is effectively using civilian lives as leverage for his minerals deals.
No pretence they'd be getting (probably worthless anyway) security guarantees in exchange for the "minerals deal". Just sign it or we're abandoning you. Blackmail, pure and simple.
Zelensky has never had any choice but to sign. Even if the other countries involved stumped up heaps of extra cash, we don't have the infrastructure and the kit to take over from the US as the main supplier.
However, whoever signs up to surrender territory to the Russians after losing so many lifes fighting for it, will not survive politically in Ukraine. Once he signs, it will be the end of Zelensky's Presidency.
What Trump and Vance's hardballing has done, whether by accident or design, has given Zelensky a shred of dignity to say "I tried - it was the end of the line - they even cut off the Himars etc.". That won't get him re-elected but it does perhaps soften the blow and enhance his reputation.
You can almost taste the glee as you write those words.
There's no glee. I am in the position of wanting the war to end, but on terms that guarantee the future security (and viability and prosperity) of Ukraine. That has been my position for about two years - it hasn't changed.
Yea, it is a similar view to that held by Oswald Mosely and Lord Halifax.
Why is a dispassionate assessment of the current situation in Ukraine so difficult for PBers to digest.
Whilst some get too passionate and it may affect their assessments, not all 'dispassionate' assessments are as dispassionate as they may claim, and it is absolutely reasonable to point that out if people think that is what is happening, and I think it is. Not all 'realpolitik' positions are, in fact, pragmatic realpolitik either.
Yes. The passionate assessment is that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys. I think we all agree on that? The dispassionate assessment is that Russia is in a uniquely beatable position and through the west assisting Ukraine we have the opportunity to weaken a hostile force. All it takes is the commitmemt to supply materiel and intelligence and logistics, and it is fully in our interests to do so. It is strange when people (whether posters on here or politicians) are trying to discourage our friends and encourage our enemies, and makes us question whose side they are on.
Russia is the aggressor, that is certainly true. They have done wicked things, that is also true. I don't agree with the terminology of good guys and bad guys because the truth usually gets trampled over in that set up. We need to be able to discuss the wrong-doing of the 'good guys' and see the humanity of the 'bad guys' sometimes. Life isn't a film. We haven't been able to do that freely on PB without being accused of treason in some form, which is a loathsome accusation.
As for the 'disapassionate' argument you make, I'm afraid I think you're completely wrong. Russia is a regional power that bullies its neighbours. That is reprehensible, but it is sadly not uncommon. Turkey is currently illegally occupying two other countries. Israel just marched into what's left of Syria to protect ethnic Jews. It may be vaguely in our interests to thwart Russia, but it's nowhere near vital enough that we should be stripping the army of equipment and spending countless billions just to kill a few more of them.
Regarding real threats: China is on a centuries-long mission to supplant the Western economies and become the dominant world power, with widespread industrial espionage and secret police forces on UK soil in its toolbox. India opposes us globally as a hated colonial bogeyman, seeks to influence our society by migration, and has nurtered a growing hold over our politicians. Turkey hosts the Muslim Brotherhood that exercises a hidden but profound influence over many Muslim communities in the UK. Saudi Arabia sponsors the spread of a toxic Salafist doctrine via mosques, that has been at the heart of various acts of terror. To my mind, all these countries represent a significantly bigger threat to our real security interests than Russia does.
I often wholeheartedly disagree with your posts but not this one - I think (a) your assessment overall is good and (b) you bring a valuable analysis to this site that is fairly original - ignore those who accuse you of being a Russian shill.
I would just take issue with the second paragraph. You draw an equivalence between Russia and other regional powers that may or may not be true. Historically Russia was far more than a regional power and there is evidence that Putin harks back to that history as his legitimating myth. The potential downside of Russia being more comparable to Germany in the 1930s is huge. I don't doubt that many on here are overstating the likelihood of this latter comparison, but it's worth insuring ourselves against it if possible.
I agree, though, that this shouldn't be to the exclusion of attempting to defend ourselves against China's more subtle and nefarious infiltration of our economy and society in the ways you mention.
If we beef up our military, including intelligence, this won't just help us counter Russian aggression - it will also help us counter the Chinese (and potentially US) variants. It still probably will be woefully inadequate, but it is worth making the attempt.
@Luckyguy1983's analysis is generally sound, but it does miss the extent to which Russia interferes in the affairs of other countries.
For example, it's funding of environmental groups in Poland with the goal of getting fracking banned. (Which I admit, I am particularly sore about, as I owned a large chunk of Poland's shale gas assets at the time. And I completely missed the political risk.)
OGH * was nearly an oligarch? That's a turn up !
* I'm officially promoting @rcs1000 ; Mike is now OGH Emeritus - if both will consent .
RCS you are completely right about Russia's anti-fracking activities - they have also funded UK anti-fracking groups, something our centrist Dad anti-Russia brigade are oddly silent about.
(Snip)
Ahem. As perhaps PB's most typical 'centrist dad', I've pointed out a fair few times over the years that Russia would be looking to fund anti-fracking and general environmental groups. The response to which was often: "But they're an oil and gas power! Why would they try to stop oil and gas extraction?"
Which was a rather silly response, as fracking could reduce demand for O&G from Russia, so banning it in the UK could help Russia; and Russia was more interested in fomenting division in the west, and environmental groups do that very well.
So no, this one, at least, was not silent.
(In fact, I went further and said that Russia might well fund both sides of a contentious issue, if that issue would sow discord in an enemy country.)
They'll be funding any kind of anti-British energy generation campaigning. Renewables, nuclear, EVs etc have the benefit, eventually, of being independent of OPEC, so they'll be the biggest concern to Russia.
Yes, efforts to wean ourselves away from fossil fuels are a far greater threat to Russian power than the exploitation of the UK's relatively paltry remaining oil and gas reserves. It's no wonder that those with a soft spot for Putin and Trump are also among those most vehemently opposed to green policies.
At the start of the Ukraine invasion, I put a video up of me cycling 10k to work and pointed out that by helping to reduce our consumption and exposure to oil/gas prices, we could negate much of Russia's malign influence on the West.
Shabana Mahmood’s claim that her Labour government won’t stand for “two tier justice” - with an anti white, anti male, anti Christian bias - has been somewhat undermined this morning as it turns out the Sentencing Council is independent
So she can write to them asking them to change it. But she can’t force them. Unless Labour decides to change the law - which, given that they have a trillion seat majority, they could do tomorrow
But will they?
“One point worth noting on this morning's sentencing story.
Shabana Mahmood has written to the Sentencing Council urging them to change course. But a government source confirms this morning she cannot order them to do so.
So on April 1 a new sentencing regime will take effect which the Lord Chancellor herself has described as a "two-tier sentencing approach".
I've had a glance at this and it's just a change to guidance on pre-sentence reports, not the sentences themselves. And it happened under the Tories, and is broadly sensible given the longer sentences ethnic minorities get for similar crimes, and taking into account pregnancy, child abuse survivors etc.
What's sad is I just assumed it was going to be a load of nonsense given you were banging on about it. The issue with this is when you do, occasionally, come across a real scandal, it will be much harder to get people's attention.
Well, I made you “glance at it”… and then work out what it is, and what it does, and how it will work, and who devised it (quite a long glance, there), so job done, despite your claims otherwise
And your dismissal of it is ridiculous. This is racist anti-white two tier justice enshrined in law, which could be quite a problem for Two Tier Kier - and Shabana Mahmoud who has claimed this “cannot happen on her watch”
You keep saying Two Tier Keir.
As all of this pre-dates Labour, why were you not saying Two Tier Rishi?
If you actually care about the actual issue?
Good morning
Actually the conservatives objected when in government to the proposals, but then Labour came into office and sat on the committees discussing these controversial measures but failed to alert Mahmoud
This is on labour and for once not Sunak or the conservatives
Actually the Conservatives set this up. Its their legal framework in action. If there was a problem they could have changed the law to prevent it. They did not.
Its the usual Tory hypocrisy. They do something - half-baked and poorly thought through. And do nothing to fix it. Then try and pretend that the problem is only Labour's fault.
As you know I am not a Labour supporter. But the facts are clear - and until the Tories take ownership of the mess they created their support is not going to recover.
It was discussed this morning on Sky ad even Sky accepted that this was labours responsibility as the previous governmet objected but then came the election
You have this habit on pinning everything on the last government, but you are simply wrong this time
Sky News who state "Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said she will be registering her "displeasure" and will be recommending the guidance is reversed - however, as the Sentencing Council is independent, she cannot order them to do so."
Its very simple. The law as it stands makes sentencing independent of government. It had a consultation. Which ended in February 2024.
So your complaint is that: The independent body, who did a consultation under the Tories, which is now publishing the results of that consultation, is doing something objectionable which is the fault of Labour
Jenrick says Labour are "asleep at the wheel" for not objecting to the consultion which concluded in February 2024 When the Tories Alex Chalk was "at the wheel"
You see the problem? Especially when both sides think the new guidelines are daft and agree that a law change is needed?
BBC Verify on WATO is suggesting that there is likely to be anomalous sentencing based on ethnicity.
Wendy Joseph has just explained the background and facts of it all on WATO. The PSR is additional information for the Judge to consider in sentencing, it does not set guidelines for the sentence.
Now back to the usual suspects block-posting Jenrick's deliberate misrepresentation of it
Point is that the PSR is to be provided preferentially only for certain groups.
She explained that was because these groups are currently disadvantaged. Although I see your point. Inclusivity for all groups would resolve the problem.
I do believe Jenrick has seen a racial grift to claim his brownie points.
To do that he needs to come up with some evidence that his basic claim of sentencing reports causing anti-white man bias is true.
He has produced no such evidence afaics, and has indulged in artfully edited rhetoric. And such current research as we have seems to refute his claim. His basic proposition that sentencing reports cause discrimination is, until then, a fairy story.
I say it's just a social media dog whistle, as I pointed out yesterday.
What I find interesting is that after the - until he proves otherwise - tall tale he told in Parliament, he then went on GB News (subsequently posted to FB and Twitter), and extended his claims from race and religion, to women and gender and disabled (neurodiverse). I'd say that's an attempt to wind up the GB News audience by crafting a different dog whistle around the hot buttons that make their knees jerk.
He went so far as to say that "anybody who is not a Christian" is favoured and that you are more likely to go to jail if you are a "straight white male". He's very confused about his categories.
It seems he hasn't copped that we have, for example, 100k Chinese Christians in this country (out of a Chinese community of 500k), and that most black people are in the 'Christian community' - as church members or by cultural background.
He's following and leveraging JD Vance's nativist, misogynist narrative to appeal to ... I'm not quite sure who. If he's against all those things, there's not a lot of society left that he can be for; certainly not enough for him to get a majority.
Leaving that aside, like JD Vance he is a trained legal professional, so he knows what the purpose of sentencing reports is, and he knows that he is being deliberately misleading.
Personally, I'd think that Kemi should remove the whip, but in the current state of the party that is unlikely.
If any of that bollocks is true, and it isn't, why did Mahmood respond to Jenrick with this tweet, which clearly says he has a point
"The Sentencing Council is entirely independent.
Today's updated guidelines do not represent my views or the views of this government.
I will be writing to the Sentencing Council to register my displeasure and to recommend reversing this change to guidance.
As someone who is from an ethnic minority background myself, I do not stand for any differential treatment before the law, for anyone of any kind.
There will never be a two-tier sentencing approach under my watch."
She clearly believes this IS two tier sentencing, and is objecting
Why? Because of the pointless political dick-measuring contest which is criminal justice.
Both parties have to out-tough the other, so we jack up conviction rates until the prisons are full. Meanwhile whole swathes of the community suffer crime epidemics despite the record numbers in the clink.
We're doing something very wrong. Whatever happened to tough on the causes of crime?
It was found to be complete shite, as one of the biggest causes of crime is that there's no negative consequences.
A large part of that is because we defunded the criminal justice system, such that trials end up happening five years after people are caught.
For anyone liable for a relatively short sentence, the biggest injustice they are likely to face, irrespective of ethnicity, is the years in limbo awaiting trial.
Leon recently gave us his account of his year awaiting his day in court. How would he have felt had it been four years ?
It's also has serious negative consequences for victims of crime, unable to move on from the trauma, less chance of a conviction as evidence, witnesses etc get lost, if not on remand, criminals can carry on offending with no intervention to rehabilitate them, conversely those who are innocent could be remanded, potentially ending up involved in criminality.
Defunding the justice system was a disaster for preventing crime, defunding Surestart was a disaster for tackling some causes of crime.
If you consider offending in broad categories there are crimes of
1) Addiction / poverty / material gain - theft, drug-dealing, fraud 2) Lifestyle violence - football hooliganism etc 3) Sex offences inc some murders
Surestart can be effective at reducing 1 and to a lesser extent 2 by improving life chances/choices More effective policing (chance of being caught) is effective across all Consequences (tougher sentences) is only effective by taking those who can't / won't be rehabilitated out of society, 3.
Having been through parenting small children - and having seen how little opportunity many kids have for, well, anything - I'm all in favour of sure start and its ilk. But I must admit I am a little sceptical of claims of the extent to which it impacts crime. It's, what, an hour of something to do a week? And it still takes parents sufficiently unchaotic to actually get the kids there - most of the poor-but-functional still grow up functional. I'd be interested in stories to the contrary however.
I think the way to get a handle on that one is to ask people involved then, and involved since, how well it worked.
Conversations I have held suggest that it worked quite well.
I don’t think future US administrations will thank Trump for turning a supplicant and soft Europe into a heavily armed, nuclear and rich entity with different aims and wants from the US.
The IS were better off keeping Europe, with its wealth and larger population, on its teat and needing America so America could hold huge sway.
That's my view. I reckon a reasonable chance this ends up positive for Europe in the long term.
Maybe and I hope so. But having to spend massive sums on the military isn't on the face of it a harbinger of better times.
Intuitively, no. And yet it worked for America from the late 30s onwards. I struggle to fully draw the thread between cause and effect, but having the military power to bring about the outcomes you want globally - rather than the outcomes that your main ally wants - is kinda helpful to your overall wealth. Of course, like you, I'd want this done by other means than military, but that's not where we are in the right now.
There is a plausible scenario in which Europe comes out of this rather better than America.
Yesterday Lord Justice William Davis, chairman of the Sentencing Council for England and Wales, issued a statement defending the new guidelines criticised by Robert Jenrick and Shabana Mahmood. He said:
One of the purposes of the revised Imposition of community and custodial sentences guideline is to make sure that the courts have the most comprehensive information available so that they can impose a sentence that is the most appropriate for the offender and the offence and so more likely to be effective. The guideline emphasises the crucial role played by pre-sentence reports (PSRs) in this process and identifies particular cohorts for whom evidence suggests PSRs might be of particular value to the court. The reasons for including groups vary but include evidence of disparities in sentencing outcomes, disadvantages faced within the criminal justice system and complexities in circumstances of individual offenders that can only be understood through an assessment.
PSRs provide the court with information about the offender; they are not an indication of sentence. Sentences are decided by the independent judiciary, following sentencing guidelines and taking into account all the circumstances of the individual offence and the individual offender.
Nothing in there refutes what Mahmood and Jenrick are saying though? He's actually saying we will be moving to two tier justice in many more words than necessary. Hopefully Labour abolish this body and shit can this idea because it's wrong. Crime is crime whether it's been perpetrated by a rich white woman or a poor black man, it's still crime.
No one is actually disputing that. These reports are for post conviction sentencing when the rich white woman or the poor black man has already been convicted.
The purpose of the report is to work out what is best to do with the convict. Several factors will be relevant, their age, their criminal record, their risk assessment, etc.
What the statistics show is that if the convict is that poor black man he is much more likely to end up in jail than the rich white woman. A report that sets out more productive penalties, such as requiring the convict to work on his predilection to commit a certain offence will be of assistance to the court and can seek to remedy that bias in the system.
I remain a bit twitchy about this on the basis that it is an important principle that convicts are treated the same for the same crime. But if that is not currently the case it does not seem contrary to that principle to seek to address it.
Again, this is advocating for different outcomes for the same crime based on someone race or other immutable characteristic. It's fundamentally wrong and Labour would do well to abolish the body and make a big song and dance about how they abolished the body suggesting two tier sentencing.
So the poor black man continues to be sentenced to jail while the rich white woman gets a community based disposal?
That's not right either and it is to the credit of the sentencing council that they are trying to do something about it.
EATO is going to depend on Poland, the UK, France, Ukraine and Norway, isn't it?
I think it will be more than that, but we'll see.
The countries at the Paris summit included all the big 7 - so also Spain, Italy, Germany and Turkey.
UK and France were allies of the Ottomans to contain the Russian Empire 160 years ago when Russia was after controlling the Bosporus, and the strategic factors are the same, so we may be surprised.
Poland won't go into Ukraine heavily, because they have their own borders with Russia and Kaliningrad.
US has stopped sharing all intelligence with Ukraine.
So when U.S. Key Hole reconnaissance satellites see Kh-101 cruise missiles targeted at power plants and hospitals being loaded on to Tu-95’s in Russia, they won’t be warning Ukraine in advance. Nice, another absolutely unconscionable decision. https://x.com/ELINTNews/status/1897303126698549276
Trump is effectively using civilian lives as leverage for his minerals deals.
No pretence they'd be getting (probably worthless anyway) security guarantees in exchange for the "minerals deal". Just sign it or we're abandoning you. Blackmail, pure and simple.
Zelensky has never had any choice but to sign. Even if the other countries involved stumped up heaps of extra cash, we don't have the infrastructure and the kit to take over from the US as the main supplier.
However, whoever signs up to surrender territory to the Russians after losing so many lifes fighting for it, will not survive politically in Ukraine. Once he signs, it will be the end of Zelensky's Presidency.
What Trump and Vance's hardballing has done, whether by accident or design, has given Zelensky a shred of dignity to say "I tried - it was the end of the line - they even cut off the Himars etc.". That won't get him re-elected but it does perhaps soften the blow and enhance his reputation.
You can almost taste the glee as you write those words.
There's no glee. I am in the position of wanting the war to end, but on terms that guarantee the future security (and viability and prosperity) of Ukraine. That has been my position for about two years - it hasn't changed.
Yea, it is a similar view to that held by Oswald Mosely and Lord Halifax.
Why is a dispassionate assessment of the current situation in Ukraine so difficult for PBers to digest.
Whilst some get too passionate and it may affect their assessments, not all 'dispassionate' assessments are as dispassionate as they may claim, and it is absolutely reasonable to point that out if people think that is what is happening, and I think it is. Not all 'realpolitik' positions are, in fact, pragmatic realpolitik either.
Yes. The passionate assessment is that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys. I think we all agree on that? The dispassionate assessment is that Russia is in a uniquely beatable position and through the west assisting Ukraine we have the opportunity to weaken a hostile force. All it takes is the commitmemt to supply materiel and intelligence and logistics, and it is fully in our interests to do so. It is strange when people (whether posters on here or politicians) are trying to discourage our friends and encourage our enemies, and makes us question whose side they are on.
Russia is the aggressor, that is certainly true. They have done wicked things, that is also true. I don't agree with the terminology of good guys and bad guys because the truth usually gets trampled over in that set up. We need to be able to discuss the wrong-doing of the 'good guys' and see the humanity of the 'bad guys' sometimes. Life isn't a film. We haven't been able to do that freely on PB without being accused of treason in some form, which is a loathsome accusation.
As for the 'disapassionate' argument you make, I'm afraid I think you're completely wrong. Russia is a regional power that bullies its neighbours. That is reprehensible, but it is sadly not uncommon. Turkey is currently illegally occupying two other countries. Israel just marched into what's left of Syria to protect ethnic Jews. It may be vaguely in our interests to thwart Russia, but it's nowhere near vital enough that we should be stripping the army of equipment and spending countless billions just to kill a few more of them.
Regarding real threats: China is on a centuries-long mission to supplant the Western economies and become the dominant world power, with widespread industrial espionage and secret police forces on UK soil in its toolbox. India opposes us globally as a hated colonial bogeyman, seeks to influence our society by migration, and has nurtered a growing hold over our politicians. Turkey hosts the Muslim Brotherhood that exercises a hidden but profound influence over many Muslim communities in the UK. Saudi Arabia sponsors the spread of a toxic Salafist doctrine via mosques, that has been at the heart of various acts of terror. To my mind, all these countries represent a significantly bigger threat to our real security interests than Russia does.
I often wholeheartedly disagree with your posts but not this one - I think (a) your assessment overall is good and (b) you bring a valuable analysis to this site that is fairly original - ignore those who accuse you of being a Russian shill.
I would just take issue with the second paragraph. You draw an equivalence between Russia and other regional powers that may or may not be true. Historically Russia was far more than a regional power and there is evidence that Putin harks back to that history as his legitimating myth. The potential downside of Russia being more comparable to Germany in the 1930s is huge. I don't doubt that many on here are overstating the likelihood of this latter comparison, but it's worth insuring ourselves against it if possible.
I agree, though, that this shouldn't be to the exclusion of attempting to defend ourselves against China's more subtle and nefarious infiltration of our economy and society in the ways you mention.
If we beef up our military, including intelligence, this won't just help us counter Russian aggression - it will also help us counter the Chinese (and potentially US) variants. It still probably will be woefully inadequate, but it is worth making the attempt.
@Luckyguy1983's analysis is generally sound, but it does miss the extent to which Russia interferes in the affairs of other countries.
For example, it's funding of environmental groups in Poland with the goal of getting fracking banned. (Which I admit, I am particularly sore about, as I owned a large chunk of Poland's shale gas assets at the time. And I completely missed the political risk.)
OGH * was nearly an oligarch? That's a turn up !
* I'm officially promoting @rcs1000 ; Mike is now OGH Emeritus - if both will consent .
RCS you are completely right about Russia's anti-fracking activities - they have also funded UK anti-fracking groups, something our centrist Dad anti-Russia brigade are oddly silent about.
(Snip)
Ahem. As perhaps PB's most typical 'centrist dad', I've pointed out a fair few times over the years that Russia would be looking to fund anti-fracking and general environmental groups. The response to which was often: "But they're an oil and gas power! Why would they try to stop oil and gas extraction?"
Which was a rather silly response, as fracking could reduce demand for O&G from Russia, so banning it in the UK could help Russia; and Russia was more interested in fomenting division in the west, and environmental groups do that very well.
So no, this one, at least, was not silent.
(In fact, I went further and said that Russia might well fund both sides of a contentious issue, if that issue would sow discord in an enemy country.)
They'll be funding any kind of anti-British energy generation campaigning. Renewables, nuclear, EVs etc have the benefit, eventually, of being independent of OPEC, so they'll be the biggest concern to Russia.
Yes, efforts to wean ourselves away from fossil fuels are a far greater threat to Russian power than the exploitation of the UK's relatively paltry remaining oil and gas reserves. It's no wonder that those with a soft spot for Putin and Trump are also among those most vehemently opposed to green policies.
At the start of the Ukraine invasion, I put a video up of me cycling 10k to work and pointed out that by helping to reduce our consumption and exposure to oil/gas prices, we could negate much of Russia's malign influence on the West.
Yesterday Lord Justice William Davis, chairman of the Sentencing Council for England and Wales, issued a statement defending the new guidelines criticised by Robert Jenrick and Shabana Mahmood. He said:
One of the purposes of the revised Imposition of community and custodial sentences guideline is to make sure that the courts have the most comprehensive information available so that they can impose a sentence that is the most appropriate for the offender and the offence and so more likely to be effective. The guideline emphasises the crucial role played by pre-sentence reports (PSRs) in this process and identifies particular cohorts for whom evidence suggests PSRs might be of particular value to the court. The reasons for including groups vary but include evidence of disparities in sentencing outcomes, disadvantages faced within the criminal justice system and complexities in circumstances of individual offenders that can only be understood through an assessment.
PSRs provide the court with information about the offender; they are not an indication of sentence. Sentences are decided by the independent judiciary, following sentencing guidelines and taking into account all the circumstances of the individual offence and the individual offender.
Nothing in there refutes what Mahmood and Jenrick are saying though? He's actually saying we will be moving to two tier justice in many more words than necessary. Hopefully Labour abolish this body and shit can this idea because it's wrong. Crime is crime whether it's been perpetrated by a rich white woman or a poor black man, it's still crime.
No one is actually disputing that. These reports are for post conviction sentencing when the rich white woman or the poor black man has already been convicted.
The purpose of the report is to work out what is best to do with the convict. Several factors will be relevant, their age, their criminal record, their risk assessment, etc.
What the statistics show is that if the convict is that poor black man he is much more likely to end up in jail than the rich white woman. A report that sets out more productive penalties, such as requiring the convict to work on his predilection to commit a certain offence will be of assistance to the court and can seek to remedy that bias in the system.
I remain a bit twitchy about this on the basis that it is an important principle that convicts are treated the same for the same crime. But if that is not currently the case it does not seem contrary to that principle to seek to address it.
Again, this is advocating for different outcomes for the same crime based on someone race or other immutable characteristic. It's fundamentally wrong and Labour would do well to abolish the body and make a big song and dance about how they abolished the body suggesting two tier sentencing.
So the poor black man continues to be sentenced to jail while the rich white woman gets a community based disposal?
That's not right either and it is to the credit of the sentencing council that they are trying to do something about it.
Aren't 'women' another one of the groups supposed to be worthy of special consideration? If there is unfairness within the sentencing in the justice system judges should be made aware of it and urged to make sure they don't allow biases to creep in.
And it is incredibly vague to say 'ethnic minorities.' Is that all ethnic minorities or not? If it is particular ones, then which? If for instance black people are treated worse I don't see why other ethnic minority groups deserve to be singled out as well. And who has come up with the analysis? Data driven social scientists or political activists?
Amid the Trump administration’s full throated attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, Black lawmakers in California introduced a package of reparations bills to start the new legislative session.
Black legislators say these attacks on racial equity make it even more imperative to implement reparations in California, the first state in the US to undertake such a process, which has become a blueprint for other state-level reparations programs.
“With the constant attacks on civil rights and the rolling back of decades of progress, it is essential that we continue the fight for justice,” said the state senator Akilah Weber Pierson, chair of the congressional Black caucus.
The bills, which are based on recommendations from the California reparations taskforce’s landmark 2023 report, include measures that could give priority in public university admission for descendants of enslaved people, update the public elementary and high-school curriculum to include the “impacts of segregation, slavery, and systemic discrimination”, and require government agencies to conduct racial equity analysis.
US has stopped sharing all intelligence with Ukraine.
So when U.S. Key Hole reconnaissance satellites see Kh-101 cruise missiles targeted at power plants and hospitals being loaded on to Tu-95’s in Russia, they won’t be warning Ukraine in advance. Nice, another absolutely unconscionable decision. https://x.com/ELINTNews/status/1897303126698549276
Trump is effectively using civilian lives as leverage for his minerals deals.
No pretence they'd be getting (probably worthless anyway) security guarantees in exchange for the "minerals deal". Just sign it or we're abandoning you. Blackmail, pure and simple.
Zelensky has never had any choice but to sign. Even if the other countries involved stumped up heaps of extra cash, we don't have the infrastructure and the kit to take over from the US as the main supplier.
However, whoever signs up to surrender territory to the Russians after losing so many lifes fighting for it, will not survive politically in Ukraine. Once he signs, it will be the end of Zelensky's Presidency.
What Trump and Vance's hardballing has done, whether by accident or design, has given Zelensky a shred of dignity to say "I tried - it was the end of the line - they even cut off the Himars etc.". That won't get him re-elected but it does perhaps soften the blow and enhance his reputation.
You can almost taste the glee as you write those words.
There's no glee. I am in the position of wanting the war to end, but on terms that guarantee the future security (and viability and prosperity) of Ukraine. That has been my position for about two years - it hasn't changed.
Yea, it is a similar view to that held by Oswald Mosely and Lord Halifax.
Why is a dispassionate assessment of the current situation in Ukraine so difficult for PBers to digest.
Whilst some get too passionate and it may affect their assessments, not all 'dispassionate' assessments are as dispassionate as they may claim, and it is absolutely reasonable to point that out if people think that is what is happening, and I think it is. Not all 'realpolitik' positions are, in fact, pragmatic realpolitik either.
Yes. The passionate assessment is that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys. I think we all agree on that? The dispassionate assessment is that Russia is in a uniquely beatable position and through the west assisting Ukraine we have the opportunity to weaken a hostile force. All it takes is the commitmemt to supply materiel and intelligence and logistics, and it is fully in our interests to do so. It is strange when people (whether posters on here or politicians) are trying to discourage our friends and encourage our enemies, and makes us question whose side they are on.
Russia is the aggressor, that is certainly true. They have done wicked things, that is also true. I don't agree with the terminology of good guys and bad guys because the truth usually gets trampled over in that set up. We need to be able to discuss the wrong-doing of the 'good guys' and see the humanity of the 'bad guys' sometimes. Life isn't a film. We haven't been able to do that freely on PB without being accused of treason in some form, which is a loathsome accusation.
As for the 'disapassionate' argument you make, I'm afraid I think you're completely wrong. Russia is a regional power that bullies its neighbours. That is reprehensible, but it is sadly not uncommon. Turkey is currently illegally occupying two other countries. Israel just marched into what's left of Syria to protect ethnic Jews. It may be vaguely in our interests to thwart Russia, but it's nowhere near vital enough that we should be stripping the army of equipment and spending countless billions just to kill a few more of them.
Regarding real threats: China is on a centuries-long mission to supplant the Western economies and become the dominant world power, with widespread industrial espionage and secret police forces on UK soil in its toolbox. India opposes us globally as a hated colonial bogeyman, seeks to influence our society by migration, and has nurtered a growing hold over our politicians. Turkey hosts the Muslim Brotherhood that exercises a hidden but profound influence over many Muslim communities in the UK. Saudi Arabia sponsors the spread of a toxic Salafist doctrine via mosques, that has been at the heart of various acts of terror. To my mind, all these countries represent a significantly bigger threat to our real security interests than Russia does.
I often wholeheartedly disagree with your posts but not this one - I think (a) your assessment overall is good and (b) you bring a valuable analysis to this site that is fairly original - ignore those who accuse you of being a Russian shill.
I would just take issue with the second paragraph. You draw an equivalence between Russia and other regional powers that may or may not be true. Historically Russia was far more than a regional power and there is evidence that Putin harks back to that history as his legitimating myth. The potential downside of Russia being more comparable to Germany in the 1930s is huge. I don't doubt that many on here are overstating the likelihood of this latter comparison, but it's worth insuring ourselves against it if possible.
I agree, though, that this shouldn't be to the exclusion of attempting to defend ourselves against China's more subtle and nefarious infiltration of our economy and society in the ways you mention.
If we beef up our military, including intelligence, this won't just help us counter Russian aggression - it will also help us counter the Chinese (and potentially US) variants. It still probably will be woefully inadequate, but it is worth making the attempt.
@Luckyguy1983's analysis is generally sound, but it does miss the extent to which Russia interferes in the affairs of other countries.
For example, it's funding of environmental groups in Poland with the goal of getting fracking banned. (Which I admit, I am particularly sore about, as I owned a large chunk of Poland's shale gas assets at the time. And I completely missed the political risk.)
OGH * was nearly an oligarch? That's a turn up !
* I'm officially promoting @rcs1000 ; Mike is now OGH Emeritus - if both will consent .
RCS you are completely right about Russia's anti-fracking activities - they have also funded UK anti-fracking groups, something our centrist Dad anti-Russia brigade are oddly silent about.
(Snip)
Ahem. As perhaps PB's most typical 'centrist dad', I've pointed out a fair few times over the years that Russia would be looking to fund anti-fracking and general environmental groups. The response to which was often: "But they're an oil and gas power! Why would they try to stop oil and gas extraction?"
Which was a rather silly response, as fracking could reduce demand for O&G from Russia, so banning it in the UK could help Russia; and Russia was more interested in fomenting division in the west, and environmental groups do that very well.
So no, this one, at least, was not silent.
(In fact, I went further and said that Russia might well fund both sides of a contentious issue, if that issue would sow discord in an enemy country.)
They'll be funding any kind of anti-British energy generation campaigning. Renewables, nuclear, EVs etc have the benefit, eventually, of being independent of OPEC, so they'll be the biggest concern to Russia.
Yes, efforts to wean ourselves away from fossil fuels are a far greater threat to Russian power than the exploitation of the UK's relatively paltry remaining oil and gas reserves. It's no wonder that those with a soft spot for Putin and Trump are also among those most vehemently opposed to green policies.
At the start of the Ukraine invasion, I put a video up of me cycling 10k to work and pointed out that by helping to reduce our consumption and exposure to oil/gas prices, we could negate much of Russia's malign influence on the West.
Putin's bots were pissed.
Wow, that really showed Vlad. Bet he was livid.
Well, his bots certainly were. I've no doubt that much of the anti-British energy stuff online is Russian, whether it's EVs, O&G, renewables, nuclear or cycling.
Amid the Trump administration’s full throated attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, Black lawmakers in California introduced a package of reparations bills to start the new legislative session.
Black legislators say these attacks on racial equity make it even more imperative to implement reparations in California, the first state in the US to undertake such a process, which has become a blueprint for other state-level reparations programs.
“With the constant attacks on civil rights and the rolling back of decades of progress, it is essential that we continue the fight for justice,” said the state senator Akilah Weber Pierson, chair of the congressional Black caucus.
The bills, which are based on recommendations from the California reparations taskforce’s landmark 2023 report, include measures that could give priority in public university admission for descendants of enslaved people, update the public elementary and high-school curriculum to include the “impacts of segregation, slavery, and systemic discrimination”, and require government agencies to conduct racial equity analysis.
Will they ever learn how electorally damaging this is ?
I know why the policy should be enacted.
It’s electorally damaging because there is a rump of residents that don’t want to admit their privilege is unearned.
So they take against someone putting a different priority on progressing the repressed and left behind. The rump are resentful and their undeserved place may be being usurped.
They know for sure that they ain’t any better than the people they despise. It’s a big part of their problem. And they don’t like it up them.
Comments
The CIO of Soros Fund Management - investors underestimate Trumps tolerance for stock sell offs.
https://youtu.be/Qv4qPPj5wI4?si=dJlwUvs3YWLy1xc2
Manafort was instrumental in Trump 1.0 to take the view that Ukraine (in 2014) will fall. So this is unfinished business.
https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-changed-views-on-ukraine-after-hiring-paul-manafort-campaign-manager-russia-vladimir-putin/
TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau says he expects Canada and the US to be in a trade war for the foreseeable future.
@JenniferJJacobs
NEWS: Trump may exempt all goods that fall under USMCA trade agreement until April 2, not just cars, @howardlutnick says on CNBC.
This is the confusing bit. Trump's a pussy. If you put up a fight he backs down. WTF are Republican congresspeople waiting for?
It was not good press..
He also went to a chippy and refused to eat the chips
The Dutch PM said that the package also aimed partly at Ukraine’s defence industry. The Netherlands will continue its political, military, financial and moral support,” Schoof said.
https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1897652648695812299
I don't think they prompted on the identity of any US allies...
"Those who say (X) is important:
Preventing spread of nuclear weapons: 94%
Defending our allies' security: 92%
Helping reduce poverty/disease abroad: 89%
Promoting/defending human rights abroad: 81%
Helping other nations build democracies: 73%
Gallup / Feb 16, 2025 / n=1004"
Defunding the justice system was a disaster for preventing crime, defunding Surestart was a disaster for tackling some causes of crime.
If you consider offending in broad categories there are crimes of
1) Addiction / poverty / material gain - theft, drug-dealing, fraud
2) Lifestyle violence - football hooliganism etc
3) Sex offences inc some murders
Surestart can be effective at reducing 1 and to a lesser extent 2 by improving life chances/choices
More effective policing (chance of being caught) is effective across all
Consequences (tougher sentences) is only effective by taking those who can't / won't be rehabilitated out of society, 3.
And, sure, I'm sure that happened. But as often as not, the satellites would overfly when nothing was happening.
There has been a sharpish downturn, we will see where it goes. The hope seems to be they find a way to save face and end the tariff war.
I wonder how dogmatic trump is about tariffs ?
It's almost as tasteless. You have been warned.
https://x.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1897633269916860817
Jenrick did say this morning that he had objected to the proposals previously, but from the letter it seems no official objection was made
In the circumstances I accept @RochdalePioneers comments were correct and I wish to extend a sincere apology to him and also for my unkind remarks about his Tesla
Sometimes we say or do something that needs an apology hence mine and I hope @RochdalePioneers reads this post
And who has just acquired a prime stretch of Black Sea coast ripe for redevelopment? It's a pretty obvious carrot to dangle.
FFS !!
https://x.com/tonydowson5/status/1897662336745304468?s=61
.... and thanks for holding onto to those difficult customers in the 6 counties. Can we send more Guinness?
We could even build a new town for them a short bus ride from one of the most productive parts of the country.
I know just the site.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu/status/1897640369606570412
The IS were better off keeping Europe, with its wealth and larger population, on its teat and needing America so America could hold huge sway.
Sometimes apologising is the right thing to do.
Now she is threatening to scrap the Sentencing Quango outright? Good. She should
When we finally get an alt-right government it needs to sweep away the entire Blob, very much including biassed boondoggles like this
I agree that Europe should pay it's own way for defence of the realm and not rely on the US but the manner in which the US seems to have decided that Russia, not Western Europe is it's main European ally is making them lots of unnecessary enemies with no tangible gain. Russia will ratfuck the Americans, Trump and whoever follows at the first opportunity, they are the scorpion to America's frog. Trump just doesn't realise it yet.
Inequality is bad. Mainly because greedy people are a problem when they become too influential. They can't seem to have enough.
I am also totally fine with levelling down everyone more than twice as rich as me.
It’s likely that it will push Poland’s military spending in 2026 to well over 5% of GDP, by far the highest in NATO.
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1897078640380403827
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/06/donald-trump-threat-to-peace-ukraine-talks-survey-western-europeans
The UK has struck a £30M deal with Anglo-American company Anduril to supply advanced attack drones for Ukraine, boosting @DefenceU capabilities to tackle Russian aggression in the Black Sea. This follows over 10,000 drones delivered to the front line so far.
https://x.com/DefenceHQ/status/1897638359004029029
NEW THREAD
Tapping out now to reevaluate my entire understanding of everything.
Sentencing guidelines are a way to facilitate a standard and common process, and sentencing reports exist to bring relevant circumstances forward to be considered by the Judge so that equal treatment can prevail.
Examples are whether others will be impacted by a sentence, for example women are usually those who care for children and it is not just to impact the education of a 6 year old, for example, more than necessary because of a crime committed by a parent.
It's about whether there is evidence to support this particular change to policy or not. At present I have not seen evidence to question the change, despite the shouting.
It went out to public consultation under the last Government, for part of which Jenrick was a Government Minister, and for the other part of which he was a back bencher. He had ample opportunity to comment, yet has not demonstrated that did not do so as and is shit-stirring now.
"Ban the Blob" demagoguery is the kind of kneejerk thinking that led Mr Chump to sack people responsible for looking after the USA's nuclear weapons.
Good, thoughtful Government is important, especially where distance from day to day politics required.
Putin's bots were pissed.
Conversations I have held suggest that it worked quite well.
There is a plausible scenario in which Europe comes out of this rather better than America.
There's another scenario of course in which Western Europe is a distant and poor part of an American empire which spans half the world. And another in which ditto but Chinese. And a fourth which we'll call the 'Civilisation II' scenario.
(https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/12/civilisation-ii-reddit-eternal-war-over_n_1597177.html)
We'll have to wait and see.
That's not right either and it is to the credit of the sentencing council that they are trying to do something about it.
The countries at the Paris summit included all the big 7 - so also Spain, Italy, Germany and Turkey.
UK and France were allies of the Ottomans to contain the Russian Empire 160 years ago when Russia was after controlling the Bosporus, and the strategic factors are the same, so we may be surprised.
Poland won't go into Ukraine heavily, because they have their own borders with Russia and Kaliningrad.
We'll see.
And it is incredibly vague to say 'ethnic minorities.' Is that all ethnic minorities or not? If it is particular ones, then which? If for instance black people are treated worse I don't see why other ethnic minority groups deserve to be singled out as well. And who has come up with the analysis? Data driven social scientists or political activists?
Another busy day for the short sellers...
Amid the Trump administration’s full throated attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, Black lawmakers in California introduced a package of reparations bills to start the new legislative session.
Black legislators say these attacks on racial equity make it even more imperative to implement reparations in California, the first state in the US to undertake such a process, which has become a blueprint for other state-level reparations programs.
“With the constant attacks on civil rights and the rolling back of decades of progress, it is essential that we continue the fight for justice,” said the state senator Akilah Weber Pierson, chair of the congressional Black caucus.
The bills, which are based on recommendations from the California reparations taskforce’s landmark 2023 report, include measures that could give priority in public university admission for descendants of enslaved people, update the public elementary and high-school curriculum to include the “impacts of segregation, slavery, and systemic discrimination”, and require government agencies to conduct racial equity analysis.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/06/california-reparations-trump-dei
Will they ever learn how electorally damaging this is ?
I know why the policy should be enacted.
It’s electorally damaging because there is a rump of residents that don’t want to admit their privilege is unearned.
So they take against someone putting a different priority on progressing the repressed and left behind. The rump are resentful and their undeserved place may be being usurped.
They know for sure that they ain’t any better than the people they despise. It’s a big part of their problem. And they don’t like it up them.
Challenge is good.