I think they are on a sticky wicket, with Reform, bullying and inconsistency - even leaving the strong blowback by Rupert Lowe aside.
A month before the alleged incident, Lee Anderson himself apologised to the House of Commons for bullying a member of staff of Parliament:
Lee Anderson Reform UK, Ashfield 1:21, 6 November 2024 With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a personal statement, in compliance with the findings of the Independent Expert Panel in its report. I accept the findings of the panel and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards in full and without reservation.
On 23 November 2023, at the Derby Gate entrance, I was involved in an incident with a security guard. During the incident, I spoke to the complainant in a manner that was totally unacceptable, and which including swearing and other language that goes against the House of Commons bullying and harassment policy.
I would like to apologise to the complainant and to the House for my behaviour. Our security staff do an incredible job and should always be treated with the utmost respect. An MP’s behaviour must always be of a higher standard. I give you, Mr Speaker, and the House my firm assurance that I have learnt significant lessons through this process, and a firm undertaking that such behaviour on my part will never happen again. https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2024-11-06f.316.0#g316.2
On 3rd November 2023, at the Derby Gate search post, Houses of Parliament, the respondent, Lee Anderson MP, twice verbally insulted the complainant […], who was on duty as a Security Officer. After instructing the complainant to open the door and allow the respondent access to the Parliamentary Estate, the complainant asked to check the respondent's pass. The respondent replied, 'Fuck off, everyone opens the door to me, you are the only one'. The complainant again explained he would need to check the respondent's pass. The respondent then approached the complainant and said, 'Fuck you, I have a train to catch', before walking out of the search post.
Feels weird having to cheer for Manchester United today.
Don't put yourself through that. The title race is over.
PS: my pre-season bet on Liverpool, hall of famer. Slot is the special one.
It's not over until it is mathematically over.
You should be proud of that bet, Slot isn't the special one, he's the lucky one, according to so many opposing fans Liverpool haven't played anybody good this season.
Have you seen that Limburger level cheesy ad that Klopp has done for Trivago? Wtf was he thinking?
There's only one man I have been more loyal to than David Cameron and that man is Jürgen Klopp but ad is very bad, I assume he was rewarded handsomely for his efforts.
Feels weird having to cheer for Manchester United today.
Don't put yourself through that. The title race is over.
PS: my pre-season bet on Liverpool, hall of famer. Slot is the special one.
It's not over until it is mathematically over.
You should be proud of that bet, Slot isn't the special one, he's the lucky one, according to so many opposing fans Liverpool haven't played anybody good this season.
Well, that's kinda why they are winning the league at a canter. The standard this year for most of the clubs is well down on normal, City and United being classic examples. Liverpool have been by far the most consistent plus Salah is playing a blinder. Its not close and its not going to be.
Nurses take notes home all the time. They shouldn’t, but they do. (I bet intensive care nurses stopped taking notes home after the Letby case though, once they realised it could be used against them.) The notes to herself about guilt are ones the therapist appointed to her by her employer told her to make apparently.
According to sources I’ve seen, it was standard practice in the neonatal department to not “rush to intervene” with a crashing baby (in case you made things worse presumably) but to stand by at first, so that doesn’t really count either.
This is the thing with the Letby case, it’s a pile of suspicious sounding stories that sound like clear evidence of her guilt /if/ you think she’s already guilty. If not? They evaporate into thin air.
The only hard evidence is the insulin poisoning & if that fails, it seems to me that everything else fails with it.
Nurses don’t usually take home the notes of babies that died and stash them under the bed and then lie about not being able to dispose of them.
A therapist told her to write about her feelings. The therapist did NOT tell her to confess to baby murders in those notes. What she wrote in those notes was up to her.
I don’t know what nonsense you’ve come up with around desaturating infants, but, no, you don’t just stand there.
You ignored other points I had noted. There was the time the mother of Baby E described hearing her infant scream, and walking in to find him with blood around his mouth and Letby in the room. Baby E later died. There is the other evidence that the deaths were unexpected and unnatural. There is the association between these deaths and Letby being on duty. And so on.
The association between the deaths and Letby being on duty is because the prosecution dropped deaths when Letby was not on duty. They drew the target around the holes, as it were.
Rather than bricks in the wall of evidence, the case seems to be made of Swiss cheese after statisticians have demolished the statistical case and the international Shoo Lee commission did the same for the medical case. It is not even clear there were any excess deaths at all compared to similar trusts.
While I don't know the details, that isn't necessarily the smoking gun you think it is.
It is possible (and again, I don't know the details, so I am just creating a theory here), that she was on duty half the time, and there were 20 deaths when she was on duty, and 2 when she was not.
The question -from a statistical point of view- is what would be the normal number of deaths? It is possible that you would expect 2-4 deaths in the period, and therefore when she was not on duty there were a normal number, and when she was, there was an abnormal.
In which case, excluding the deaths from the case isn't particular evidence of anything.
A much bigger issue to me is that statistical evidence on its own should not be enough to convict. Someone is going to win the lottery every week, even if the odds are 16 million to 1 against. That doesn't make them a cheat, that makes them the one person who - ah hem - won.
This was part of the RSS report iirc. First, were there any excess deaths at all, or was the prosecution using the wrong comparator? Second (as you say) clusters can be due to natural variation. Someone has to win the race, someone has to come last.
Now I am no expert. All I am saying is that experts in statistics have demolished the prosecution's statistical case, and medical experts have demolished the medical case. What we now need is for the CCRC to pull its finger out and not get stuck on legalistic arguments about whether these experts should have had crystal balls so they could have examined the trial before it took place.
I'm not sure "demolished" is quite right: I think the right phrase is "asked some very serious questions". And I also think that Letby's defence was very poor.
That said, I am still on the fence regarding her guilt. The insulin levels, IIRC, were a particular concern that I think need to lead one to believe that a crime actually took place.
See the previous thread (or the Shoo Lee report) discrediting the insulin evidence. Unfortunately the quoting got messed up so it is hard to follow the subthread.
I did a little bit of research, and it seems that Dr Lee had two criticisms of the insulin evidence: firstly that the tests used were not of forensic quality, and secondly that "the insulin and C-peptide levels observed could be typical for babies of that age".
The latter point, one would think, could be fairly easily confirmed or rebutted by testing the levels of a few thousand babies.
C peptide is a short peptide that is removed from from pro-insulin molecules to create one each of insulin and a c-peptide. Hence they are produced in equal numbers, but as Insulin gets consumed while c-peptide persists the c-peptide level is usually significantly higher than the insulin. Synthetic insulin contains no c-peptide.
In baby F the insulin titre was 4657 to a c-peptide of 169.
It would take a forensic chemical pathologist to verify that the sample had been taken properly and assayed in a timely fashion, but both the pathology tests and clinical course of the incident are highly supportive of insulin overdose.
Feels weird having to cheer for Manchester United today.
Don't put yourself through that. The title race is over.
PS: my pre-season bet on Liverpool, hall of famer. Slot is the special one.
It's not over until it is mathematically over.
You should be proud of that bet, Slot isn't the special one, he's the lucky one, according to so many opposing fans Liverpool haven't played anybody good this season.
Well, that's kinda why they are winning the league at a canter. The standard this year for most of the clubs is well down on normal, City and United being classic examples. Liverpool have been by far the most consistent plus Salah is playing a blinder. Its not close and its not going to be.
I still haven't recovered from when we won 97 points and still finished second.
That's the sort of thing that haunts you, I suppose winning the Champions League that season did help, it would have been a lot worse without it.
Feels weird having to cheer for Manchester United today.
Don't put yourself through that. The title race is over.
PS: my pre-season bet on Liverpool, hall of famer. Slot is the special one.
It's not over until it is mathematically over.
You should be proud of that bet, Slot isn't the special one, he's the lucky one, according to so many opposing fans Liverpool haven't played anybody good this season.
They've become a great team. The luck (which you always need) was the implosion of City. Few saw that coming. I certainly didn't.
Well the US enforced that arrangement on Japan after WW2 as part of demilitarising their former enemy.
But I wouldn't expect Trump to understand anything about history, even relativeky recent history.
I wouldn’t expect him to care, in the unlikely event he did.
Can you imagine Eisenhower’s reaction to the USA driving Germany and Japan towards severing links and acquiring nuclear weapons?
Obviously I am personally glad both nations are finally over their WWII hangovers and can be strong allies to the U.K., but there is a LOT of historical context there.
There's now an unholy alliance between the left and the right to bring down Nigel Farage.
The growth of the right-wing media ecosystem will make it much harder for Farage to control the narrative this time.
What are you on about?
If you look at the responses to Farage/Reform on Facebook and Twitter, he is being pulled apart by supporters of Lowe as well as people who've always hated "Nigel Fucking Farage".
I've always hated Nigel flipping Farage. You are welcome to join my club.
He was a tosspot in 2016, but he still "won" Brexit.
I've always believed that Leave won despite Nigel Farage, not because of him.
I'd say yes and no. If he'd led the Leave campaign they'd have lost. But if he'd not been a part of it they'd also have lost. The anti-immigration and general "fuck the establishment" vote was needed to get over the line and Farage was key to delivering that.
I’m not so sure that a referendum on the EU wouldn’t have ended similarly even before Farage was a national figure.
Could be and we can't know. But my strong impression is he energised a certain part of the electorate behind Brexit better than any other politician inc even Boris Johnson. He campaigned for it for decades after all. And his Ukip insurgence spooked DC into holding the vote.
I think this is reading history backwards. Support for leaving the EU even during the coalition years was much more broad-based than it became after the referendum polarised people. Brexit was ahead among Labour voters and four out of ten Lib Dems backed it.
Is Lowe more of a proper fascist than Farage then? I wasn't aware of big policy or ideological differences between the two. I thought they were both pretty bog standard old (public) school City reactionaries.
I want to deport people too is that wrong...personally I would start with anyone who has been an mp or stood for parliament or been in the house of lords....send them all to rwanda I say
Is Lowe more of a proper fascist than Farage then? I wasn't aware of big policy or ideological differences between the two. I thought they were both pretty bog standard old (public) school City reactionaries.
I want to deport people too is that wrong...personally I would start with anyone who has been an mp or stood for parliament or been in the house of lords....send them all to rwanda I say
There's now an unholy alliance between the left and the right to bring down Nigel Farage.
The growth of the right-wing media ecosystem will make it much harder for Farage to control the narrative this time.
What are you on about?
If you look at the responses to Farage/Reform on Facebook and Twitter, he is being pulled apart by supporters of Lowe as well as people who've always hated "Nigel Fucking Farage".
I've always hated Nigel flipping Farage. You are welcome to join my club.
He was a tosspot in 2016, but he still "won" Brexit.
I've always believed that Leave won despite Nigel Farage, not because of him.
If Farage had lead the campaign it would have lost. It was Johnson and Gove that won it.
I don’t like Farage fundamentally because I think he hates this country.
I don't think that he hates this country. But he wants a different country from the vast majority of the population including me and you.
If what we've ended up with at the moment is what you and Correct Horse Battery have come up with, I'm happy to roll the dice with Nige.
There's now an unholy alliance between the left and the right to bring down Nigel Farage.
The growth of the right-wing media ecosystem will make it much harder for Farage to control the narrative this time.
What are you on about?
If you look at the responses to Farage/Reform on Facebook and Twitter, he is being pulled apart by supporters of Lowe as well as people who've always hated "Nigel Fucking Farage".
I've always hated Nigel flipping Farage. You are welcome to join my club.
He was a tosspot in 2016, but he still "won" Brexit.
I've always believed that Leave won despite Nigel Farage, not because of him.
I'd say yes and no. If he'd led the Leave campaign they'd have lost. But if he'd not been a part of it they'd also have lost. The anti-immigration and general "fuck the establishment" vote was needed to get over the line and Farage was key to delivering that.
I’m not so sure that a referendum on the EU wouldn’t have ended similarly even before Farage was a national figure.
Could be and we can't know. But my strong impression is he energised a certain part of the electorate behind Brexit better than any other politician inc even Boris Johnson. He campaigned for it for decades after all. And his Ukip insurgence spooked DC into holding the vote.
I think this is reading history backwards. Support for leaving the EU even during the coalition years was much more broad-based than it became after the referendum polarised people. Brexit was ahead among Labour voters and four out of ten Lib Dems backed it.
But polling generally had Remain in the lead. That's why DC was confident of winning and why Remain was the betting favourite.
It didn’t. Leave was often ahead in the polls during that period. It was just assumed that a campaign would steer people towards voting the ‘right’ way but it failed.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Now we have Jelly, brown cocker spaniel, last year's runner up...super fast!! Clear on 30.1, into first place!
Next Fern, working cocker, lost time at the beginning and five faults on the dog walk, 33.4 secs
Now Selfie, reigning champion, shetland sheepdog, the pressure is on...five faults for a refusal! And the dog stops on the seesaw. It's all gone wrong...
Next Sky, another spaniel, favoured but eliminated near the start
Penultimate dog, run by Jo Gleed, Gb team members, clear on 31.9 for second
Lastly, Drift, jumping winner and competition favourite...almost a refusal but no faults, lost time...clear on 31.6 but that hesistation cost the prize
Do we take any Joy watching the Division in Reform?
We should have expected it when that user decided to tell us how brilliant Reform were and how Farage would be PM soon. Sir Keir was finished.
That's an awful response which has completely, totally and utterly missed the point.
India have won the cricket by the way.
No your original post was juvenile and silly. I expect better from you. Weak.
I would just gently say that @stodge is a sensible and knowledgeable member of this forum and nobody is more qualified then you in posting juvenile and silly comments
All @BatteryCorrectHorse did was miss the pun which was my response to @TSE's header. Clearly, Mr Horse is far too young to remember Joy Division and the tragic circumstances around the song.
Sometimes we all take what is written too literally and too seriously.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Being pushed around by the Americans was what persuaded Ernest Bevin to support Britain getting nuclear weapons, but we forgot that lesson.
Is Lowe more of a proper fascist than Farage then? I wasn't aware of big policy or ideological differences between the two. I thought they were both pretty bog standard old (public) school City reactionaries.
I want to deport people too is that wrong...personally I would start with anyone who has been an mp or stood for parliament or been in the house of lords....send them all to rwanda I say
Why? What has Rwanda ever done to hurt you?
Rwanda has done nothing I just suspect those people deported there will be treated with the absolute contempt they deserve
There's now an unholy alliance between the left and the right to bring down Nigel Farage.
The growth of the right-wing media ecosystem will make it much harder for Farage to control the narrative this time.
What are you on about?
If you look at the responses to Farage/Reform on Facebook and Twitter, he is being pulled apart by supporters of Lowe as well as people who've always hated "Nigel Fucking Farage".
I've always hated Nigel flipping Farage. You are welcome to join my club.
He was a tosspot in 2016, but he still "won" Brexit.
I've always believed that Leave won despite Nigel Farage, not because of him.
I'd say yes and no. If he'd led the Leave campaign they'd have lost. But if he'd not been a part of it they'd also have lost. The anti-immigration and general "fuck the establishment" vote was needed to get over the line and Farage was key to delivering that.
I’m not so sure that a referendum on the EU wouldn’t have ended similarly even before Farage was a national figure.
Could be and we can't know. But my strong impression is he energised a certain part of the electorate behind Brexit better than any other politician inc even Boris Johnson. He campaigned for it for decades after all. And his Ukip insurgence spooked DC into holding the vote.
I think this is reading history backwards. Support for leaving the EU even during the coalition years was much more broad-based than it became after the referendum polarised people. Brexit was ahead among Labour voters and four out of ten Lib Dems backed it.
But polling generally had Remain in the lead. That's why DC was confident of winning and why Remain was the betting favourite.
It didn’t. Leave was often ahead in the polls during that period. It was just assumed that a campaign would steer people towards voting the ‘right’ way but it failed.
According to wiki it was an even steven situation with a Remain edge. But your point about it becoming more polarised by age and party via the referendum might be correct. It certainly was a divisive experience/event.
Nurses take notes home all the time. They shouldn’t, but they do. (I bet intensive care nurses stopped taking notes home after the Letby case though, once they realised it could be used against them.) The notes to herself about guilt are ones the therapist appointed to her by her employer told her to make apparently.
According to sources I’ve seen, it was standard practice in the neonatal department to not “rush to intervene” with a crashing baby (in case you made things worse presumably) but to stand by at first, so that doesn’t really count either.
This is the thing with the Letby case, it’s a pile of suspicious sounding stories that sound like clear evidence of her guilt /if/ you think she’s already guilty. If not? They evaporate into thin air.
The only hard evidence is the insulin poisoning & if that fails, it seems to me that everything else fails with it.
Nurses don’t usually take home the notes of babies that died and stash them under the bed and then lie about not being able to dispose of them.
A therapist told her to write about her feelings. The therapist did NOT tell her to confess to baby murders in those notes. What she wrote in those notes was up to her.
I don’t know what nonsense you’ve come up with around desaturating infants, but, no, you don’t just stand there.
You ignored other points I had noted. There was the time the mother of Baby E described hearing her infant scream, and walking in to find him with blood around his mouth and Letby in the room. Baby E later died. There is the other evidence that the deaths were unexpected and unnatural. There is the association between these deaths and Letby being on duty. And so on.
The association between the deaths and Letby being on duty is because the prosecution dropped deaths when Letby was not on duty. They drew the target around the holes, as it were.
Rather than bricks in the wall of evidence, the case seems to be made of Swiss cheese after statisticians have demolished the statistical case and the international Shoo Lee commission did the same for the medical case. It is not even clear there were any excess deaths at all compared to similar trusts.
While I don't know the details, that isn't necessarily the smoking gun you think it is.
It is possible (and again, I don't know the details, so I am just creating a theory here), that she was on duty half the time, and there were 20 deaths when she was on duty, and 2 when she was not.
The question -from a statistical point of view- is what would be the normal number of deaths? It is possible that you would expect 2-4 deaths in the period, and therefore when she was not on duty there were a normal number, and when she was, there was an abnormal.
In which case, excluding the deaths from the case isn't particular evidence of anything.
A much bigger issue to me is that statistical evidence on its own should not be enough to convict. Someone is going to win the lottery every week, even if the odds are 16 million to 1 against. That doesn't make them a cheat, that makes them the one person who - ah hem - won.
This was part of the RSS report iirc. First, were there any excess deaths at all, or was the prosecution using the wrong comparator? Second (as you say) clusters can be due to natural variation. Someone has to win the race, someone has to come last.
Now I am no expert. All I am saying is that experts in statistics have demolished the prosecution's statistical case, and medical experts have demolished the medical case. What we now need is for the CCRC to pull its finger out and not get stuck on legalistic arguments about whether these experts should have had crystal balls so they could have examined the trial before it took place.
no they haven't. don't believe everything that you read
Nurses take notes home all the time. They shouldn’t, but they do. (I bet intensive care nurses stopped taking notes home after the Letby case though, once they realised it could be used against them.) The notes to herself about guilt are ones the therapist appointed to her by her employer told her to make apparently.
According to sources I’ve seen, it was standard practice in the neonatal department to not “rush to intervene” with a crashing baby (in case you made things worse presumably) but to stand by at first, so that doesn’t really count either.
This is the thing with the Letby case, it’s a pile of suspicious sounding stories that sound like clear evidence of her guilt /if/ you think she’s already guilty. If not? They evaporate into thin air.
The only hard evidence is the insulin poisoning & if that fails, it seems to me that everything else fails with it.
Nurses don’t usually take home the notes of babies that died and stash them under the bed and then lie about not being able to dispose of them.
A therapist told her to write about her feelings. The therapist did NOT tell her to confess to baby murders in those notes. What she wrote in those notes was up to her.
I don’t know what nonsense you’ve come up with around desaturating infants, but, no, you don’t just stand there.
You ignored other points I had noted. There was the time the mother of Baby E described hearing her infant scream, and walking in to find him with blood around his mouth and Letby in the room. Baby E later died. There is the other evidence that the deaths were unexpected and unnatural. There is the association between these deaths and Letby being on duty. And so on.
The association between the deaths and Letby being on duty is because the prosecution dropped deaths when Letby was not on duty. They drew the target around the holes, as it were.
Rather than bricks in the wall of evidence, the case seems to be made of Swiss cheese after statisticians have demolished the statistical case and the international Shoo Lee commission did the same for the medical case. It is not even clear there were any excess deaths at all compared to similar trusts.
While I don't know the details, that isn't necessarily the smoking gun you think it is.
It is possible (and again, I don't know the details, so I am just creating a theory here), that she was on duty half the time, and there were 20 deaths when she was on duty, and 2 when she was not.
The question -from a statistical point of view- is what would be the normal number of deaths? It is possible that you would expect 2-4 deaths in the period, and therefore when she was not on duty there were a normal number, and when she was, there was an abnormal.
In which case, excluding the deaths from the case isn't particular evidence of anything.
A much bigger issue to me is that statistical evidence on its own should not be enough to convict. Someone is going to win the lottery every week, even if the odds are 16 million to 1 against. That doesn't make them a cheat, that makes them the one person who - ah hem - won.
This was part of the RSS report iirc. First, were there any excess deaths at all, or was the prosecution using the wrong comparator? Second (as you say) clusters can be due to natural variation. Someone has to win the race, someone has to come last.
Now I am no expert. All I am saying is that experts in statistics have demolished the prosecution's statistical case, and medical experts have demolished the medical case. What we now need is for the CCRC to pull its finger out and not get stuck on legalistic arguments about whether these experts should have had crystal balls so they could have examined the trial before it took place.
any nutter with an axe to grind and a few hundred quid to spare can join the RSS
Is Lowe more of a proper fascist than Farage then? I wasn't aware of big policy or ideological differences between the two. I thought they were both pretty bog standard old (public) school City reactionaries.
I want to deport people too is that wrong...personally I would start with anyone who has been an mp or stood for parliament or been in the house of lords....send them all to rwanda I say
At least they actually take part in our representative democracy rather than not even bothering to vote like you
There's now an unholy alliance between the left and the right to bring down Nigel Farage.
The growth of the right-wing media ecosystem will make it much harder for Farage to control the narrative this time.
What are you on about?
If you look at the responses to Farage/Reform on Facebook and Twitter, he is being pulled apart by supporters of Lowe as well as people who've always hated "Nigel Fucking Farage".
I've always hated Nigel flipping Farage. You are welcome to join my club.
He was a tosspot in 2016, but he still "won" Brexit.
I've always believed that Leave won despite Nigel Farage, not because of him.
I'd say yes and no. If he'd led the Leave campaign they'd have lost. But if he'd not been a part of it they'd also have lost. The anti-immigration and general "fuck the establishment" vote was needed to get over the line and Farage was key to delivering that.
I’m not so sure that a referendum on the EU wouldn’t have ended similarly even before Farage was a national figure.
Could be and we can't know. But my strong impression is he energised a certain part of the electorate behind Brexit better than any other politician inc even Boris Johnson. He campaigned for it for decades after all. And his Ukip insurgence spooked DC into holding the vote.
I think this is reading history backwards. Support for leaving the EU even during the coalition years was much more broad-based than it became after the referendum polarised people. Brexit was ahead among Labour voters and four out of ten Lib Dems backed it.
But polling generally had Remain in the lead. That's why DC was confident of winning and why Remain was the betting favourite.
It didn’t. Leave was often ahead in the polls during that period. It was just assumed that a campaign would steer people towards voting the ‘right’ way but it failed.
Johnson's relatively late intervention was crucial. He underestimated his own power of persuasion. Had Remain won 52 to 48 he could have still challenged Cameron as the voice of the Tory party, become PM and not had the millstone of Brexit to undermine his Premiership.
Next, the final of the Hero Dog competition, decided by online vote. I'm backing three-legged former police dog Baloo, injured chasing a criminal, who now does school and care home visits.
There's now an unholy alliance between the left and the right to bring down Nigel Farage.
The growth of the right-wing media ecosystem will make it much harder for Farage to control the narrative this time.
What are you on about?
If you look at the responses to Farage/Reform on Facebook and Twitter, he is being pulled apart by supporters of Lowe as well as people who've always hated "Nigel Fucking Farage".
I've always hated Nigel flipping Farage. You are welcome to join my club.
He was a tosspot in 2016, but he still "won" Brexit.
I've always believed that Leave won despite Nigel Farage, not because of him.
If Farage had lead the campaign it would have lost. It was Johnson and Gove that won it.
I don’t like Farage fundamentally because I think he hates this country.
I don't think that he hates this country. But he wants a different country from the vast majority of the population including me and you.
Like a lot of people on the nationalist right, he claims to love his country while at the same time hating many of the people in it, harking back to a mythical past while criticising its modern incarnation.
Its possible to formulate a right-wing vision of Britain:
Anti-wokery and anti-welfarism Low immigration and tough on crime Patriotic traditionalism and traditional patriotism
But that would involve dealing with the real world and doing the hard work of creating realistic policies and then putting them into practice.
Instead the likes of Farage and Truss become obsessed about a mythical version of Britain or playing a mythical version of Thatcher or demanding that this country becomes a mythical version of the USA or Singapore.
And because Britain isn't and cannot by these mythical places they become embittered and think their fantasies can only be imposed on the ruins of the current country.
There are, of course, Corbynite equivalents on the political left.
The likes of Leon and BJO have political similarities.
There's now an unholy alliance between the left and the right to bring down Nigel Farage.
The growth of the right-wing media ecosystem will make it much harder for Farage to control the narrative this time.
What are you on about?
If you look at the responses to Farage/Reform on Facebook and Twitter, he is being pulled apart by supporters of Lowe as well as people who've always hated "Nigel Fucking Farage".
I've always hated Nigel flipping Farage. You are welcome to join my club.
He was a tosspot in 2016, but he still "won" Brexit.
I've always believed that Leave won despite Nigel Farage, not because of him.
If Farage had lead the campaign it would have lost. It was Johnson and Gove that won it.
I don’t like Farage fundamentally because I think he hates this country.
I don't think that he hates this country. But he wants a different country from the vast majority of the population including me and you.
Like a lot of people on the nationalist right, he claims to love his country while at the same time hating many of the people in it, harking back to a mythical past while criticising its modern incarnation.
Its possible to formulate a right-wing vision of Britain:
Anti-wokery and anti-welfarism Low immigration and tough on crime Patriotic traditionalism and traditional patriotism
But that would involve dealing with the real world and doing the hard work of creating realistic policies and then putting them into practice.
Instead the likes of Farage and Truss become obsessed about a mythical version of Britain or playing a mythical version of Thatcher or demanding that this country becomes a mythical version of the USA or Singapore.
And because Britain isn't and cannot by these mythical places they become embittered and think their fantasies can only be imposed on the ruins of the current country.
There are, of course, Corbynite equivalents on the political left.
The likes of Leon and BJO have political similarities.
I don't think Farage is like Truss. At least she tried to do something, but if he got power he wouldn't know what to do with it.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Being pushed around by the Americans was what persuaded Ernest Bevin to support Britain getting nuclear weapons, but we forgot that lesson.
On that note, this Guardian editorial has not aged particularly well. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/29/trident-renewal-philip-hammond … Threatening to slaughter cities full of civilians was morally questionable even within the rules of the standoff with the Soviet Union; 20 years after that great game crumbled, and with no minister able to say whom they might fancy threatening in the same way in future, it is beyond the pale. In a world of footloose threats, Mr Hammond's claim that a great clunking ballistic missile remains "the ultimate safeguard of our national security" is ludicrous. ..
There's now an unholy alliance between the left and the right to bring down Nigel Farage.
The growth of the right-wing media ecosystem will make it much harder for Farage to control the narrative this time.
What are you on about?
If you look at the responses to Farage/Reform on Facebook and Twitter, he is being pulled apart by supporters of Lowe as well as people who've always hated "Nigel Fucking Farage".
I've always hated Nigel flipping Farage. You are welcome to join my club.
He was a tosspot in 2016, but he still "won" Brexit.
I've always believed that Leave won despite Nigel Farage, not because of him.
If Farage had lead the campaign it would have lost. It was Johnson and Gove that won it.
I don’t like Farage fundamentally because I think he hates this country.
I don't think that he hates this country. But he wants a different country from the vast majority of the population including me and you.
Like a lot of people on the nationalist right, he claims to love his country while at the same time hating many of the people in it, harking back to a mythical past while criticising its modern incarnation.
Its possible to formulate a right-wing vision of Britain:
Anti-wokery and anti-welfarism Low immigration and tough on crime Patriotic traditionalism and traditional patriotism
But that would involve dealing with the real world and doing the hard work of creating realistic policies and then putting them into practice.
Instead the likes of Farage and Truss become obsessed about a mythical version of Britain or playing a mythical version of Thatcher or demanding that this country becomes a mythical version of the USA or Singapore.
And because Britain isn't and cannot by these mythical places they become embittered and think their fantasies can only be imposed on the ruins of the current country.
There are, of course, Corbynite equivalents on the political left.
The likes of Leon and BJO have political similarities.
God, that's my idea of hell other than the "tough on crime" bit.
Trump would claim "patriotic traditionalism and traditional patriotism" . Whatever they might be.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
There's now an unholy alliance between the left and the right to bring down Nigel Farage.
The growth of the right-wing media ecosystem will make it much harder for Farage to control the narrative this time.
What are you on about?
If you look at the responses to Farage/Reform on Facebook and Twitter, he is being pulled apart by supporters of Lowe as well as people who've always hated "Nigel Fucking Farage".
I've always hated Nigel flipping Farage. You are welcome to join my club.
He was a tosspot in 2016, but he still "won" Brexit.
I've always believed that Leave won despite Nigel Farage, not because of him.
If Farage had lead the campaign it would have lost. It was Johnson and Gove that won it.
I don’t like Farage fundamentally because I think he hates this country.
I don't think that he hates this country. But he wants a different country from the vast majority of the population including me and you.
Like a lot of people on the nationalist right, he claims to love his country while at the same time hating many of the people in it, harking back to a mythical past while criticising its modern incarnation.
Its possible to formulate a right-wing vision of Britain:
Anti-wokery and anti-welfarism Low immigration and tough on crime Patriotic traditionalism and traditional patriotism
But that would involve dealing with the real world and doing the hard work of creating realistic policies and then putting them into practice.
Instead the likes of Farage and Truss become obsessed about a mythical version of Britain or playing a mythical version of Thatcher or demanding that this country becomes a mythical version of the USA or Singapore.
And because Britain isn't and cannot by these mythical places they become embittered and think their fantasies can only be imposed on the ruins of the current country.
There are, of course, Corbynite equivalents on the political left.
The likes of Leon and BJO have political similarities.
You're not wrong and what you call a "right wing" version of Britain could equally be attributed to elements in the authoritarian Labour Party as well. The likes of Blunkett and Straw in the Blair period could have signed up yi what you call a right-wing version of Britain and you only have to go back to the 60s to see working class attitudes to immigration and patriotism.
I note the upsurge in violence in Syria and it's disappointing but perhaps less than surprising to see the bloody settling of accounts.
It's probably fair to say it wasn't wise to criticise Assad even if you were an Alawite but we know Alawites got top jobs in the Government and army and it was, as it is in many other countries, a case of who you know not what you know.
With Assad gone, the Alawites are exposed to the wrath of the Sunni majority and it's hard to blame those who endured decades of repression and violence seeking some sort of retribution. The Assad family themselves have escaped but the scale of the represssion and terror they exacted on the Syrian people is scarcely believable.
The one thing no one will get from any of this, however, is justice for those murdered by the Assad regime.
Nurses take notes home all the time. They shouldn’t, but they do. (I bet intensive care nurses stopped taking notes home after the Letby case though, once they realised it could be used against them.) The notes to herself about guilt are ones the therapist appointed to her by her employer told her to make apparently.
According to sources I’ve seen, it was standard practice in the neonatal department to not “rush to intervene” with a crashing baby (in case you made things worse presumably) but to stand by at first, so that doesn’t really count either.
This is the thing with the Letby case, it’s a pile of suspicious sounding stories that sound like clear evidence of her guilt /if/ you think she’s already guilty. If not? They evaporate into thin air.
The only hard evidence is the insulin poisoning & if that fails, it seems to me that everything else fails with it.
Nurses don’t usually take home the notes of babies that died and stash them under the bed and then lie about not being able to dispose of them.
A therapist told her to write about her feelings. The therapist did NOT tell her to confess to baby murders in those notes. What she wrote in those notes was up to her.
I don’t know what nonsense you’ve come up with around desaturating infants, but, no, you don’t just stand there.
You ignored other points I had noted. There was the time the mother of Baby E described hearing her infant scream, and walking in to find him with blood around his mouth and Letby in the room. Baby E later died. There is the other evidence that the deaths were unexpected and unnatural. There is the association between these deaths and Letby being on duty. And so on.
The association between the deaths and Letby being on duty is because the prosecution dropped deaths when Letby was not on duty. They drew the target around the holes, as it were.
Rather than bricks in the wall of evidence, the case seems to be made of Swiss cheese after statisticians have demolished the statistical case and the international Shoo Lee commission did the same for the medical case. It is not even clear there were any excess deaths at all compared to similar trusts.
While I don't know the details, that isn't necessarily the smoking gun you think it is.
It is possible (and again, I don't know the details, so I am just creating a theory here), that she was on duty half the time, and there were 20 deaths when she was on duty, and 2 when she was not.
The question -from a statistical point of view- is what would be the normal number of deaths? It is possible that you would expect 2-4 deaths in the period, and therefore when she was not on duty there were a normal number, and when she was, there was an abnormal.
In which case, excluding the deaths from the case isn't particular evidence of anything.
A much bigger issue to me is that statistical evidence on its own should not be enough to convict. Someone is going to win the lottery every week, even if the odds are 16 million to 1 against. That doesn't make them a cheat, that makes them the one person who - ah hem - won.
SFAICS Letby was not in fact convicted on statistical evidence in any expert sense, as opposed to the facts as a whole (from both defence and prosecution) being put to the jury for them to make conclusions about.
There was, SFAICS, no attempt to say 'these babies died, and they were linked to the presence of LL in such a mathematical way that they must have been murdered'. I each case the prosecution case was 'the baby was murdered/attempted, and here is the evidence of that, and there is evidence taken as a whole that LL did it, both in each individual case and as a whole.
There's now an unholy alliance between the left and the right to bring down Nigel Farage.
The growth of the right-wing media ecosystem will make it much harder for Farage to control the narrative this time.
What are you on about?
If you look at the responses to Farage/Reform on Facebook and Twitter, he is being pulled apart by supporters of Lowe as well as people who've always hated "Nigel Fucking Farage".
I've always hated Nigel flipping Farage. You are welcome to join my club.
He was a tosspot in 2016, but he still "won" Brexit.
I've always believed that Leave won despite Nigel Farage, not because of him.
If Farage had lead the campaign it would have lost. It was Johnson and Gove that won it.
I don’t like Farage fundamentally because I think he hates this country.
I don't think that he hates this country. But he wants a different country from the vast majority of the population including me and you.
Like a lot of people on the nationalist right, he claims to love his country while at the same time hating many of the people in it, harking back to a mythical past while criticising its modern incarnation.
Its possible to formulate a right-wing vision of Britain:
Anti-wokery and anti-welfarism Low immigration and tough on crime Patriotic traditionalism and traditional patriotism
But that would involve dealing with the real world and doing the hard work of creating realistic policies and then putting them into practice.
Instead the likes of Farage and Truss become obsessed about a mythical version of Britain or playing a mythical version of Thatcher or demanding that this country becomes a mythical version of the USA or Singapore.
And because Britain isn't and cannot by these mythical places they become embittered and think their fantasies can only be imposed on the ruins of the current country.
There are, of course, Corbynite equivalents on the political left.
The likes of Leon and BJO have political similarities.
I don't think Farage is like Truss. At least she tried to do something, but if he got power he wouldn't know what to do with it.
There's now an unholy alliance between the left and the right to bring down Nigel Farage.
The growth of the right-wing media ecosystem will make it much harder for Farage to control the narrative this time.
What are you on about?
If you look at the responses to Farage/Reform on Facebook and Twitter, he is being pulled apart by supporters of Lowe as well as people who've always hated "Nigel Fucking Farage".
I've always hated Nigel flipping Farage. You are welcome to join my club.
He was a tosspot in 2016, but he still "won" Brexit.
I've always believed that Leave won despite Nigel Farage, not because of him.
If Farage had lead the campaign it would have lost. It was Johnson and Gove that won it.
I don’t like Farage fundamentally because I think he hates this country.
I don't think that he hates this country. But he wants a different country from the vast majority of the population including me and you.
Like a lot of people on the nationalist right, he claims to love his country while at the same time hating many of the people in it, harking back to a mythical past while criticising its modern incarnation.
Its possible to formulate a right-wing vision of Britain:
Anti-wokery and anti-welfarism Low immigration and tough on crime Patriotic traditionalism and traditional patriotism
But that would involve dealing with the real world and doing the hard work of creating realistic policies and then putting them into practice.
Instead the likes of Farage and Truss become obsessed about a mythical version of Britain or playing a mythical version of Thatcher or demanding that this country becomes a mythical version of the USA or Singapore.
And because Britain isn't and cannot by these mythical places they become embittered and think their fantasies can only be imposed on the ruins of the current country.
There are, of course, Corbynite equivalents on the political left.
The likes of Leon and BJO have political similarities.
I think you will find that all available versions of right wing 'anti-welfarism' involve applying it to anyone and everyone apart from the voters they are seeking, many of whom are heavily reliant on that well known branch of welfarism known as the state pension and the other one called the NHS free at the point of delivery.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at one of the UK's US bases.
I note Romania is banning Georgescu from running for president because he has the wrong views on stuff.
Actually, it's more likely because he has a serious chance of winning. If he was polling 1% they wouldn't bother but as he is on 44% in the latest first round poll for all, rather like Le Pen in France, he loses the second round run off to either Bolejan or Dan.
It will be interesting to see the public reaction.
There's now an unholy alliance between the left and the right to bring down Nigel Farage.
The growth of the right-wing media ecosystem will make it much harder for Farage to control the narrative this time.
What are you on about?
If you look at the responses to Farage/Reform on Facebook and Twitter, he is being pulled apart by supporters of Lowe as well as people who've always hated "Nigel Fucking Farage".
I've always hated Nigel flipping Farage. You are welcome to join my club.
He was a tosspot in 2016, but he still "won" Brexit.
I've always believed that Leave won despite Nigel Farage, not because of him.
If Farage had lead the campaign it would have lost. It was Johnson and Gove that won it.
I don’t like Farage fundamentally because I think he hates this country.
I don't think that he hates this country. But he wants a different country from the vast majority of the population including me and you.
Like a lot of people on the nationalist right, he claims to love his country while at the same time hating many of the people in it, harking back to a mythical past while criticising its modern incarnation.
Its possible to formulate a right-wing vision of Britain:
Anti-wokery and anti-welfarism Low immigration and tough on crime Patriotic traditionalism and traditional patriotism
But that would involve dealing with the real world and doing the hard work of creating realistic policies and then putting them into practice.
Instead the likes of Farage and Truss become obsessed about a mythical version of Britain or playing a mythical version of Thatcher or demanding that this country becomes a mythical version of the USA or Singapore.
And because Britain isn't and cannot by these mythical places they become embittered and think their fantasies can only be imposed on the ruins of the current country.
There are, of course, Corbynite equivalents on the political left.
The likes of Leon and BJO have political similarities.
I think you will find that all available versions of right wing 'anti-welfarism' involve applying it to anyone and everyone apart from the voters they are seeking, many of whom are heavily reliant on that well known branch of welfarism known as the state pension and the other one called the NHS free at the point of delivery.
And that is why I said:
that would involve dealing with the real world and doing the hard work of creating realistic policies and then putting them into practice
although there are no shortage of people of the political right on this very website who are prepared to grasp this nettle.
Anyone suggesting the end of triple lock pensions and raising the retirement age is showing a willingness to deal with the real world.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at one of the UK's US bases.
I think @Cicero US friends are right about the elections. No way is Trumpski gonna allow free and fair election in 2026.
Will that trigger civil war? Certainly a possibility. But so far it seems vast majority of americans dont care their country has been taken over by a Russian-friendly cult of lunatics.
I note Romania is banning Georgescu from running for president because he has the wrong views on stuff.
Actually, it's more likely because he has a serious chance of winning. If he was polling 1% they wouldn't bother but as he is on 44% in the latest first round poll for all, rather like Le Pen in France, he loses the second round run off to either Bolejan or Dan.
It will be interesting to see the public reaction.
Well that should be up to the people of Romania not their jumped up court. Anyway we will see in time
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
There’s a video on one of the US media channels from some Tesla driver unhappy that people are doing Nazi salutes at him as he drives about in his car.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
There’s a video on one of the US media channels from some Tesla driver unhappy that people are doing Nazi salutes at him as he drives about in his car.
Meanwhile is Bill Gates bidding for was-Twitter?
He could call it Z. It would have an appropriate air of finality about it.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at one of the UK's US bases.
I think @Cicero US friends are right about the elections. No way is Trumpski gonna allow free and fair election in 2026.
Will that trigger civil war? Certainly a possibility. But so far it seems vast majority of americans dont care their country has been taken over by a Russian-friendly cult of lunatics.
Anyone who has travelled around the US knows that most of them don’t know where the rest of the world is, let alone caring even one X about its fate.
The midterms will hang on the impact of Trump’s chaotic first year on food prices and on how much they have to pay to fill up their car, and on the value of their pensions and investments. What happens in Ukraine or Gaza or Europe or Canada won’t make much difference at all.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at one of the UK's US bases.
I think @Cicero US friends are right about the elections. No way is Trumpski gonna allow free and fair election in 2026.
Will that trigger civil war? Certainly a possibility. But so far it seems vast majority of americans dont care their country has been taken over by a Russian-friendly cult of lunatics.
How much longer must we wait before senior figures from previous administrations speak out against the madness? The political groundhogs have to emerge sooner or later.
I have, over the years, been an expert medical witness, both for prosecution and defence. I am not involved in the Letby case, and have no more knowledge of it than has been published in the press.
It is common practice for the defence not to present their own experts' evidence (as happened in this case) usually because they know that it will undermine their own case. I have been involved in exactly such a case
I see nothing that has been in Private Eye or elsewhere to persuade me that the opinion of the jury, who heard every word, was incorrect. I note that Judith Moritz, the BBC correspondent, was, I think, the only person who sat through every word of the trial )other than Letby, the lawyers and the jury. She has said nothing in support of Letby's case
I think that the fact that the defence never put Letby in the witness box is telling. A weeping Letby protesting her innocence would have tugged at the heartstrings of even the most hard hearted juror, but they didn't do it. No doubt they knew that a skilled prosecutor would have pulled her evidence to pieces. The ability of a good criminal prosecuting barrister is something to behold.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
There’s a video on one of the US media channels from some Tesla driver unhappy that people are doing Nazi salutes at him as he drives about in his car.
Meanwhile is Bill Gates bidding for was-Twitter?
He could call it Z. It would have an appropriate air of finality about it.
It should really be bought by Alphabet. They could rename their other businesses to fit the theme.
There's now an unholy alliance between the left and the right to bring down Nigel Farage.
The growth of the right-wing media ecosystem will make it much harder for Farage to control the narrative this time.
What are you on about?
If you look at the responses to Farage/Reform on Facebook and Twitter, he is being pulled apart by supporters of Lowe as well as people who've always hated "Nigel Fucking Farage".
I've always hated Nigel flipping Farage. You are welcome to join my club.
He was a tosspot in 2016, but he still "won" Brexit.
I've always believed that Leave won despite Nigel Farage, not because of him.
If Farage had lead the campaign it would have lost. It was Johnson and Gove that won it.
I don’t like Farage fundamentally because I think he hates this country.
I don't think that he hates this country. But he wants a different country from the vast majority of the population including me and you.
Like a lot of people on the nationalist right, he claims to love his country while at the same time hating many of the people in it, harking back to a mythical past while criticising its modern incarnation.
Its possible to formulate a right-wing vision of Britain:
Anti-wokery and anti-welfarism Low immigration and tough on crime Patriotic traditionalism and traditional patriotism
But that would involve dealing with the real world and doing the hard work of creating realistic policies and then putting them into practice.
Instead the likes of Farage and Truss become obsessed about a mythical version of Britain or playing a mythical version of Thatcher or demanding that this country becomes a mythical version of the USA or Singapore.
And because Britain isn't and cannot by these mythical places they become embittered and think their fantasies can only be imposed on the ruins of the current country.
There are, of course, Corbynite equivalents on the political left.
The likes of Leon and BJO have political similarities.
I think you will find that all available versions of right wing 'anti-welfarism' involve applying it to anyone and everyone apart from the voters they are seeking, many of whom are heavily reliant on that well known branch of welfarism known as the state pension and the other one called the NHS free at the point of delivery.
And that is why I said:
that would involve dealing with the real world and doing the hard work of creating realistic policies and then putting them into practice
although there are no shortage of people of the political right on this very website who are prepared to grasp this nettle.
Anyone suggesting the end of triple lock pensions and raising the retirement age is showing a willingness to deal with the real world.
I don't disagree at all. But putting it simply, I just don't believe there is a voting constituency either now or possible in the UK which is prepared to vote for genuine anti-welfarism. The post war world in the UK had two pillars: the welfare state and NATO. The second looks like being radically recast, though no-one would have voted for it. They aren't going to vote for the radical recasting of the other one either.
I have, over the years, been an expert medical witness, both for prosecution and defence. I am not involved in the Letby case, and have no more knowledge of it than has been published in the press.
It is common practice for the defence not to present their own experts' evidence (as happened in this case) usually because they know that it will undermine their own case. I have been involved in exactly such a case
I see nothing that has been in Private Eye or elsewhere to persuade me that the opinion of the jury, who heard every word, was incorrect. I note that Judith Moritz, the BBC correspondent, was, I think, the only person who sat through every word of the trial )other than Letby, the lawyers and the jury. She has said nothing in support of Letby's case
I think that the fact that the defence never put Letby in the witness box is telling. A weeping Letby protesting her innocence would have tugged at the heartstrings of even the most hard hearted juror, but they didn't do it. No doubt they knew that a skilled prosecutor would have pulled her evidence to pieces. The ability of a good criminal prosecuting barrister is something to behold.
Factual correction: Letby gave evidence over several days. Only those who were there can give an idea of the impression she made. The jury, and the jury alone, get to decide who is lying in contested evidence. I think we must draw the conclusion that they were not impressed.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
There’s a video on one of the US media channels from some Tesla driver unhappy that people are doing Nazi salutes at him as he drives about in his car.
Meanwhile is Bill Gates bidding for was-Twitter?
He could call it Z. It would have an appropriate air of finality about it.
In view of its role in promoting pro-Moscow propaganda, the name Z would fit in rather neatly with the Russian military operations in Ukraine
Meanwhile world affairs can wait, while the dogs in the Working group enter the ring of the world’s greatest dog show….
Is there a modelling category for your dog?
A Crufts judge once told me off for "wasting my dog” for not taking him onto the show circuit..just after that same guy had disqualified him from an amateur show for growling when the judge tried to look in his ears.
I told him I’d be wasting my dog if the high spots of his life were travelling the length of the country to be stood on some table while some random bloke tried to poke about in his ears.
Which is still the second worst approval rating for a US President less than 2 months after his inaugration, the worst being for Trump in March 2017 and before the full price impact of his tariffs are felt
Meanwhile world affairs can wait, while the dogs in the Working group enter the ring of the world’s greatest dog show….
Is there a modelling category for your dog?
A Crufts judge once told me off for "wasting my dog” for not taking him onto the show circuit..just after that same guy had disqualified him from an amateur show for growling when the judge tried to look in his ears.
I told him I’d be wasting my dog if the high spots of his life were travelling the length of the country to be stood on some table while some random bloke tried to poke about in his ears.
So showing isn’t our thing.
Has anyone ever looked into your ears to establish your worthiness?
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
There’s a video on one of the US media channels from some Tesla driver unhappy that people are doing Nazi salutes at him as he drives about in his car.
Meanwhile is Bill Gates bidding for was-Twitter?
There are quite a few Teslas round our way. I have been sorely tempted to give them a 'wave' as they pass by.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at one of the UK's US bases.
I think @Cicero US friends are right about the elections. No way is Trumpski gonna allow free and fair election in 2026.
Will that trigger civil war? Certainly a possibility. But so far it seems vast majority of americans dont care their country has been taken over by a Russian-friendly cult of lunatics.
Unless the military support Trump restricting free and fair elections he can't do much to stop them taking place in 2026 in the usual manner, not least as the state governments run elections in their state not the Federal government
Which is still the second worst approval rating for a US President less than 2 months after his inaugration, the worst being for Trump in March 2017 and before the full price impact of his tariffs are felt
A substantial proportion of Americans believe they have become rich through their own personal efforts and cannot see the carefully-constructed network of admirers, friends, allies and trading partners that has made their wealth possible. When Trump trashes all of these, and reduces them to penury, they will inevitably blame foreigners for their problems.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at one of the UK's US bases.
I think @Cicero US friends are right about the elections. No way is Trumpski gonna allow free and fair election in 2026.
Will that trigger civil war? Certainly a possibility. But so far it seems vast majority of americans dont care their country has been taken over by a Russian-friendly cult of lunatics.
The power change is too recent to have hit them. When US Govt expenditure is cut by 20% or whatever the number is, Medicaid is crippled, 50k people have left the Veterans Administration, the economy is in recession, Canada has responded with tariffs so gasoline is 25% up in price, the 50% of fresh tomatoes that come from Mexico are 50% higher in price, and all the rest .... then they will notice.
If Trump persists, and the economy is 3-5% down, inflation is 5% or 8%, and so on ... then they will notice even more.
It's like here with Starmer - "why haven't we got three million more houses, seven million fewer potholes, waiting lists halved, and zero small boats", when the first lot of tax changes don't even kick in for another month.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at one of the UK's US bases.
I think @Cicero US friends are right about the elections. No way is Trumpski gonna allow free and fair election in 2026.
Will that trigger civil war? Certainly a possibility. But so far it seems vast majority of americans dont care their country has been taken over by a Russian-friendly cult of lunatics.
Unless the military support Trump restricting free and fair elections he can't do much to stop them taking place in 2026 in the usual manner, not least as the state governments run elections in their state not the Federal government
There is also the power if the purse. Trump is trying to get the GOP Congress to sign their control over Federal funding streams solely to him, via the 2025 funding bill.
https://x.com/FrankC164/status/1898457236361416960 … Governor Trump is setting up a loyalty-based funding system where lawmakers and local officials have to petition the executive branch for money—just like a king’s court.
1. Preventing Congress from directing spending on defunded projects, shifting more power to the White House.
2. Eliminating all FY 2024 earmarks, cutting local project funding and forcing states & cities to seek federal approval for funds.
3. Keeping social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and housing assistance stagnant, while military spending increases.
This isn’t just authoritarian vibes—it’s an actual shift in power away from Congress and toward the presidency.
🚨 Democracy isn’t lost overnight—it gets rewritten into law.
None of this stuff is likely to reverse a midterm landslide against him, though.
So the shortlist for the Working Group is the Doberman, Leonberger, Newfoundland, Rottweiler, Tibetan mastiff, Alaskan malamute, Russian black terrier, and bouvier.
And the group winner is….the Tibetan mastiff! The third dog in the best of show from Italy. The Newfoundland is second, the malamute third, and the Rottweiler fourth.
Viking the mastiff is from Ferrara in Italy. Unusually for an Italian, the winning handler is lost for words. Also the first male dog to make it to best in show, the others all being female DEI hires.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
There’s a video on one of the US media channels from some Tesla driver unhappy that people are doing Nazi salutes at him as he drives about in his car.
Meanwhile is Bill Gates bidding for was-Twitter?
There are quite a few Teslas round our way. I have been sorely tempted to give them a 'wave' as they pass by.
I'd avoid that ... they all have lots of cameras, which I think would detect the wobble and film you even if you put a "My Other Car is a Kugelwagen" sticker on it everso gently. From here to being named and shamed on JustGetaTesla is a very short journey.
Which is still the second worst approval rating for a US President less than 2 months after his inaugration, the worst being for Trump in March 2017 and before the full price impact of his tariffs are felt
A substantial proportion of Americans believe they have become rich through their own personal efforts and cannot see the carefully-constructed network of admirers, friends, allies and trading partners that has made their wealth possible. When Trump trashes all of these, and reduces them to penury, they will inevitably blame foreigners for their problems.
Even they can see that it is only imported goods going up fastest in price and at the end of the day most US voters vote on their wallets and they can't vote on foreigners only the US and state governments who have made their goods more expensive (unless they only now buy American made products of course which is what Trump and the GOP hope)
We are quite fortunate I think in that Trump's perfidy is emerging at a time of substantial military weakness in the Kremlin. Ukrainian's become even more the heroes.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at one of the UK's US bases.
I think @Cicero US friends are right about the elections. No way is Trumpski gonna allow free and fair election in 2026.
Will that trigger civil war? Certainly a possibility. But so far it seems vast majority of americans dont care their country has been taken over by a Russian-friendly cult of lunatics.
Unless the military support Trump restricting free and fair elections he can't do much to stop them taking place in 2026 in the usual manner, not least as the state governments run elections in their state not the Federal government
There is also the power if the purse. Trump is trying to get the GOP Congress to sign their control over Federal funding streams solely to him, via the 2025 funding bill.
https://x.com/FrankC164/status/1898457236361416960 … Governor Trump is setting up a loyalty-based funding system where lawmakers and local officials have to petition the executive branch for money—just like a king’s court.
1. Preventing Congress from directing spending on defunded projects, shifting more power to the White House.
2. Eliminating all FY 2024 earmarks, cutting local project funding and forcing states & cities to seek federal approval for funds.
3. Keeping social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and housing assistance stagnant, while military spending increases.
This isn’t just authoritarian vibes—it’s an actual shift in power away from Congress and toward the presidency.
🚨 Democracy isn’t lost overnight—it gets rewritten into law.
None of this stuff is likely to reverse a midterm landslide against him, though.
IMO there is a non-trivial chance that Trump and the gangster oligarchy will conclude that they cannot risk a free and fair election in 2026; so there would need to be an emergency emerging, or a Reichstag Fire moment and not too far away in time.
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at one of the UK's US bases.
I think @Cicero US friends are right about the elections. No way is Trumpski gonna allow free and fair election in 2026.
Will that trigger civil war? Certainly a possibility. But so far it seems vast majority of americans dont care their country has been taken over by a Russian-friendly cult of lunatics.
How much longer must we wait before senior figures from previous administrations speak out against the madness? The political groundhogs have to emerge sooner or later.
Don't they?
Would Chump's habit of removing protective security from people he wants to target be a worry?
Honestly, that Musk comment to the polish minister is just.. horrifying. Are they bothering to care about diplomacy or allies, or do they all want us to put two fingers up at them.
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Musk has already sowed the seeds of his own destruction. TwiX is worth a fraction of the $40 billion he paid for it, Tesla sales both international and domestic have collapsed and the write down of the value of his stock will trigger margin calls across the rest of his Empire, Starlink is facing technical and now political problems. The flagrantly illegal things he is doing at DOGE are finally getting legal pushback.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at one of the UK's US bases.
I think @Cicero US friends are right about the elections. No way is Trumpski gonna allow free and fair election in 2026.
Will that trigger civil war? Certainly a possibility. But so far it seems vast majority of americans dont care their country has been taken over by a Russian-friendly cult of lunatics.
Unless the military support Trump restricting free and fair elections he can't do much to stop them taking place in 2026 in the usual manner, not least as the state governments run elections in their state not the Federal government
There is also the power if the purse. Trump is trying to get the GOP Congress to sign their control over Federal funding streams solely to him, via the 2025 funding bill.
https://x.com/FrankC164/status/1898457236361416960 … Governor Trump is setting up a loyalty-based funding system where lawmakers and local officials have to petition the executive branch for money—just like a king’s court.
1. Preventing Congress from directing spending on defunded projects, shifting more power to the White House.
2. Eliminating all FY 2024 earmarks, cutting local project funding and forcing states & cities to seek federal approval for funds.
3. Keeping social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and housing assistance stagnant, while military spending increases.
This isn’t just authoritarian vibes—it’s an actual shift in power away from Congress and toward the presidency.
🚨 Democracy isn’t lost overnight—it gets rewritten into law.
None of this stuff is likely to reverse a midterm landslide against him, though.
IMO there is a non-trivial chance that Trump and the gangster oligarchy will conclude that they cannot risk a free and fair election in 2026; so there would need to be an emergency emerging, or a Reichstag Fire moment and not too far away in time.
Only Congress has the power to postpone Federal elections and only the states are responsible for administering them
Comments
https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/mps-lords--offices/standards-and-financial-interests/independent-expert-panel/hc-372---the-conduct-of-lee-anderson-mp.pdf
Also: (This is gossip tbf)
https://thewestminstercentral.substack.com/p/reforms-lee-anderson-obnoxious-aggressive
In baby F the insulin titre was 4657 to a c-peptide of 169.
It would take a forensic chemical pathologist to verify that the sample had been taken properly and assayed in a timely fashion, but both the pathology tests and clinical course of the incident are highly supportive of insulin overdose.
The first of eleven dogs, collie Endevour, clear on 29.5 seconds....going to be hard to beat!
Second dog, sheltland sheepdog, has a refusal, five faults. home in 37 seconds
Third goes Scout, another shetland sheepdog, looking good but not so fast...home clear in 31.4
Next Blossom, working cocker spaniel, five faults at the start with a refusal. 36.2 secs
The pressure is now on. Fifth goes Sam, eleven year old veteran springer spaniel. Competent but without the speed of the collies, clear on 34.2 secs
That's the sort of thing that haunts you, I suppose winning the Champions League that season did help, it would have been a lot worse without it.
Obviously I am personally glad both nations are finally over their WWII hangovers and can be strong allies to the U.K., but there is a LOT of historical context there.
Now Maggie, collie cross, this morning's jumping winner...barking all the way round...clear on 30.5, goes into second place
Next dog, five faults on 38.4 secs
The penultimate, spaniel Dexter, part of the Gb team, five faults for a hesitation and then catching the long jump
Last, collie Munchie, last year's winner, fast from the off, but five faults on the weaves.
So Endeavour wins it! The only one to break below 30 seconds
@KemiBadenoch
Delighted to meet with US Chargé d’Affaires Matthew Palmer.
For decades, our two nations have stood shoulder to shoulder through triumphs and challenges alike.
There’s still so much more we can do to strengthen our partnership, including advancing including advancing UK-US trade 🇬🇧🇺🇸
The first of eleven, Blue, cocker spaniel, a steady clear round, 32.8 seconds
Next shetland sheepdog Halo, retiring after this season, steady and clear 34.6 secs
Snazzy, shetland sheepdog, clear on 34.6 into second place
Now River, working cocker spaniel, another noisy one, who has recovered from last season injury. Fast, clear, 32.1 seconds, into the lead!
Another cocker, Nikita, ready to go...great handling, clear on 32.8 goes into second
We need to decouple from the US as quickly as we can. We can’t bridge anything with those loons in power
Next Fern, working cocker, lost time at the beginning and five faults on the dog walk, 33.4 secs
Now Selfie, reigning champion, shetland sheepdog, the pressure is on...five faults for a refusal! And the dog stops on the seesaw. It's all gone wrong...
Next Sky, another spaniel, favoured but eliminated near the start
Penultimate dog, run by Jo Gleed, Gb team members, clear on 31.9 for second
Lastly, Drift, jumping winner and competition favourite...almost a refusal but no faults, lost time...clear on 31.6 but that hesistation cost the prize
Jelly wins!
All @BatteryCorrectHorse did was miss the pun which was my response to @TSE's header. Clearly, Mr Horse is far too young to remember Joy Division and the tragic circumstances around the song.
Sometimes we all take what is written too literally and too seriously.
https://x.com/jonsopel/status/1898775616490521005
The more I read, the more I think it is the rest of Reform leadership that have questions to answer over their behaviour
Though Farage may be right that there is only about 10-15% support for a UK AfD or Tommy Robinson lite under Lowe's leadership
Anti-wokery and anti-welfarism
Low immigration and tough on crime
Patriotic traditionalism and traditional patriotism
But that would involve dealing with the real world and doing the hard work of creating realistic policies and then putting them into practice.
Instead the likes of Farage and Truss become obsessed about a mythical version of Britain or playing a mythical version of Thatcher or demanding that this country becomes a mythical version of the USA or Singapore.
And because Britain isn't and cannot by these mythical places they become embittered and think their fantasies can only be imposed on the ruins of the current country.
There are, of course, Corbynite equivalents on the political left.
The likes of Leon and BJO have political similarities.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/29/trident-renewal-philip-hammond
… Threatening to slaughter cities full of civilians was morally questionable even within the rules of the standoff with the Soviet Union; 20 years after that great game crumbled, and with no minister able to say whom they might fancy threatening in the same way in future, it is beyond the pale. In a world of footloose threats, Mr Hammond's claim that a great clunking ballistic missile remains "the ultimate safeguard of our national security" is ludicrous. ..
Trump would claim "patriotic traditionalism and traditional patriotism" . Whatever they might be.
Investors are walking away, the banks will not be far behind, and the Chinese will own major parts of the wreckage.
Meanwhile Trump as capo de tutti capi will show his customary loyalty to his mafia crew. You thought the ruin and shame of Giuliani was the nadir... Musk will be so, so, much worse.
Meanwhile the "Treason of America" will become proverbial so the US will find they can sell no weapons to their former allies, and indeed as consumer boycotts bite, not much else. The equity market, currently a bit weak will then be on its back, the country in a deep recession and US treasuries in the toilet.
To my growing shock, many US military friends of mine are now quite matter-of-factly predicting a civil war in the US as Trump and the Heritage Foundation seek to circumvent the crushing defeat that would otherwise come in the midterms.
The Euro-NATO cannot come soon enough.
...and the winner is Baloo!!!
Romanian Far-Right Frontrunner Barred From May Presidential Vote
It's probably fair to say it wasn't wise to criticise Assad even if you were an Alawite but we know Alawites got top jobs in the Government and army and it was, as it is in many other countries, a case of who you know not what you know.
With Assad gone, the Alawites are exposed to the wrath of the Sunni majority and it's hard to blame those who endured decades of repression and violence seeking some sort of retribution. The Assad family themselves have escaped but the scale of the represssion and terror they exacted on the Syrian people is scarcely believable.
The one thing no one will get from any of this, however, is justice for those murdered by the Assad regime.
There was, SFAICS, no attempt to say 'these babies died, and they were linked to the presence of LL in such a mathematical way that they must have been murdered'. I each case the prosecution case was 'the baby was murdered/attempted, and here is the evidence of that, and there is evidence taken as a whole that LL did it, both in each individual case and as a whole.
It will be interesting to see the public reaction.
I'll get my coat
Also, did you just assume my gender?
that would involve dealing with the real world and doing the hard work of creating realistic policies and then putting them into practice
although there are no shortage of people of the political right on this very website who are prepared to grasp this nettle.
Anyone suggesting the end of triple lock pensions and raising the retirement age is showing a willingness to deal with the real world.
Will that trigger civil war? Certainly a possibility. But so far it seems vast majority of americans dont care their country has been taken over by a Russian-friendly cult of lunatics.
There’s a video on one of the US media channels from some Tesla driver unhappy that people are doing Nazi salutes at him as he drives about in his car.
Meanwhile is Bill Gates bidding for was-Twitter?
Trump approval poll
🟢 Approval 50% (+5)
🔴 Disapprove 45%
Insider advantage #A - 800 RV - 3/5
The midterms will hang on the impact of Trump’s chaotic first year on food prices and on how much they have to pay to fill up their car, and on the value of their pensions and investments. What happens in Ukraine or Gaza or Europe or Canada won’t make much difference at all.
Don't they?
It is common practice for the defence not to present their own experts' evidence (as happened in this case) usually because they know that it will undermine their own case. I have been involved in exactly such a case
I see nothing that has been in Private Eye or elsewhere to persuade me that the opinion of the jury, who heard every word, was incorrect. I note that Judith Moritz, the BBC correspondent, was, I think, the only person who sat through every word of the trial )other than Letby, the lawyers and the jury. She has said nothing in support of Letby's case
I think that the fact that the defence never put Letby in the witness box is telling. A weeping Letby protesting her innocence would have tugged at the heartstrings of even the most hard hearted juror, but they didn't do it. No doubt they knew that a skilled prosecutor would have pulled her evidence to pieces. The ability of a good criminal prosecuting barrister is something to behold.
The Greenland dog has just entered the ring…
I told him I’d be wasting my dog if the high spots of his life were travelling the length of the country to be stood on some table while some random bloke tried to poke about in his ears.
So showing isn’t our thing.
If Trump persists, and the economy is 3-5% down, inflation is 5% or 8%, and so on ... then they will notice even more.
It's like here with Starmer - "why haven't we got three million more houses, seven million fewer potholes, waiting lists halved, and zero small boats", when the first lot of tax changes don't even kick in for another month.
Trump is trying to get the GOP Congress to sign their control over Federal funding streams solely to him, via the 2025 funding bill.
https://x.com/FrankC164/status/1898457236361416960
… Governor Trump is setting up a loyalty-based funding system where lawmakers and local officials have to petition the executive branch for money—just like a king’s court.
1. Preventing Congress from directing spending on defunded projects, shifting more power to the White House.
2. Eliminating all FY 2024 earmarks, cutting local project funding and forcing states & cities to seek federal approval for funds.
3. Keeping social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and housing assistance stagnant, while military spending increases.
This isn’t just authoritarian vibes—it’s an actual shift in power away from Congress and toward the presidency.
🚨 Democracy isn’t lost overnight—it gets rewritten into law.
None of this stuff is likely to reverse a midterm landslide against him, though.
And the group winner is….the Tibetan mastiff! The third dog in the best of show from Italy. The Newfoundland is second, the malamute third, and the Rottweiler fourth.
Viking the mastiff is from Ferrara in Italy. Unusually for an Italian, the winning handler is lost for words. Also the first male dog to make it to best in show, the others all being female DEI hires.
And in comes the Pumi, “always a crowd pleaser” says the commentator.
Also a very nice Finnish Lapphund, Commendor, and Maremma.
The Shetland Sheepdog is clearly the crowd favourite.
Last in, the winner of the import group, the Hungarian kuvasz.