Israel has started another "ground operation" in Gaza.
I am not really sure what they hope to achieve that they didn't achieve last time.
They got several Hamas leaders, including the de facto head Essam a-Da'lees. That's good news isn't it?
Hamas can end the conflict immediately by releasing all hostages and laying down all arms unconditionally - why hasn't it?
Ukraine can end the conflict immediately by surrendering all their territory and laying down arms unconditionally - why haven't they?
You see your statement sounds as ridiculous as mine.
Somewhat different in that Ukraine is the victim of the war of aggression of Russia.
Israel is the victim of attacks from Hamas continuing decades of harassment and seeking to annihilate Israel from the map right from the start.
We should support Ukraine and Israel to win their wars and defeat their enemies.
The government of Israel is seeking to annihilate Palestine. Some in the Israeli government have been explicit about their desire for a Greater Israel. Israel has been in violation of international law for decades, building settlements on occupied land and annexing territory. Israeli Arabs are treated as second-class citizens.
That doesn’t justify Hamas’s 2023 attack, but to paint Israel as entirely the innocent victim is balderdash.
Israel didn't eliminate Palestine, Egypt and Jordan did when they invaded and annexed it in 1948. That's why there's not been a Palestinian state, not Israel's actions.
"International law" is a bunch of worthless piss.
Israeli Arabs are citizens who get to vote democratically, unlike in the rest of the region.
Bit dull, I’m afraid - like nearly all of Latin America
If you like hefty sausages and nice steaks, day after day, you’re in heaven
I’ve just written a Kanpper’s Gazette article on why the food in the ex-Iberian colonies is almost universally dreary (the Philippines is the one place in SE Asia with shite food, in an area otherwise blessed)
So you are a self-confessed tax-avoider for all your left-of-centre champagne socialism. Such hypocrisy that is so typical of Labour supporters, particularly personified by Rayner and her two council house sales, Starmer and his tax-free benefit in kind clothing and Reeves with her lies on her CV and dodgy attitude to expenses.
You believe that you are some sort of special case, and your virtue is unsullied because you vote for the Labour Party
How nice of you to repeat your unpleasant jibes so more people can see them!
If someone is claiming murder is wrong but its allowed in law if its murder of a lower class person and they murder someone....would you not call them out on it even if what they did was legal?
There are things that are legal I wouldn't do because I believe them to be wrong and not what I believe in, Kinablu says these things are wrong but does them because he can and it benefits him is the point
There are also things that are legal that I don't do because I believe them to be wrong. Eg wearing speedos on the heath.
But on this tax thing. You're seriously suggesting that left wing political views should be penalised with a higher effective tax rate than everybody else?
C'mon that's a total joke. Stop messing around. This is a forum of national repute.
Hypocrisy always gets called out.
See the US politicians who denounce “nationalised healthcare”, while using the free comprehensive insurance (nothing excluded), for life, provided by 5 minutes membership of the Senate or Congress.
Hypocrisy is a sloppily used term. It means do as I say not as I do.
Thus if (say) you slag people off for using a tax break but do it yourself. That's hypocrisy.
But if you simply express a view that the break shouldn't be available (and would support its removal) but use it yourself, that isn't.
So people who advocated the abolition of slavery, while keeping slaves….
Ooo edge case. But no I'll stick with my guns. "Hypocrisy" doesn't quite nail that. Course their general anti-slavery credentials would be somewhat strengthened by not having any.
So let's look at a more reasonable example. I am fervently against Grammar schools for lots of reasons, but if I had lived in an area with Grammar schools and my kids got in I would certainly have sent them. Am I a hypocrite? I don't think so. I'm not going to move out of the area because they have that system and much of the damage of Grammars is to the Secondaries that come as a consequence and I'm not going to martyr my kids because of my principles.
I think it depends how you'd expressed your opposition to grammar schools.
If that it's not the system we should really have, but since we do you'd use it, that seems fine.
If someone suggests the system of grammars is a moral outrage, then I think it would be hypocritical to use it.
Oh dear that is a problem for me kle4 because I am in the moral outrage camp. Luckily I was never in that position with my kids, but what would you suggest I do? Sacrifice my children's future by keeping to the moral high ground or be a hypocrite?
I'm happy being a hypocrite if that is what is necessary.
Let's say your partner will die if they don't have a drug, but you are anti private health care and that is the only way you can get it and you can afford it easily. Would you sacrifice your partner on that principle?
One of the things I found rather disturbing about Jeremy Corbyn was that by his own admission he divorced his wife because she wanted to send their son to a Grammar school and he disagreed.
I am sorry but if you are willing to give up your son and your wife for your political beliefs then that marks you as aan extremist in my eyes.
There you go. But the other way he'd have been (on the sloppy @Nigel_Foremain metric) a hypocrite.
I'm with you btw. Putting your politics above your family smacks of zealotry.
Principles, yes, great, but don't go right up yourself with them. That's off-putting.
You have principles or you don't sorry. If you have principles you don't violate them because it is convenient for you that means they aren't principles
No, you have views and opinions, some of which will be sufficiently dear to you to be called "principles".
They aren't views and opinions they are absolutes I live by. You think it being merely views and opinions demeans you not me
There is a rather simple solution to this, which is a classic case of irregular verb approach.
Since you are human you must have not lived up to some view at some point. However you maintain you would not do so on your principles. Ergo, you probably have views and opinions you have not lived up to, and this is just a dispute on what you regard as people being overdramatic by describing their views as principles.
If a principle is just something people never bend on then no-one has ever violated their principles, since by definition they cannot.
So far I have never violated one of my principles, not saying it couldn't happen I only have a few however
I have never struck a woman I have never raped I have always payed full tax without seeking to avoid it I have never killed anyone when maiming was sufficient I have never maimed someone when injuring them was sufficient I have never injured someone when a harsh word was enough I have never taken from someone things they need I have always helped the less fortunate where I can
These are the principles I live by and yes not violated one as yet
The highly disturbing implication of that sentence is that you have decided, on occasion, that maiming was not sufficient - and killed someone.
I dont see why you see it as disturbing please explain
Well, I'm not too keen on people going around killing other people at random.
Unless you were a soldier.
Well the point was you didn't do it at random only when the previous options were not viable
I am curious why you felt I promoted random killing?
Because I have got through my entire 42 years without managing to feel the need to kill,* maim or even seriously injure anybody, so I'm genuinely surprised anyone else *has* felt that need.
*By a remarkable effort of will, this even includes Amanda Spielman.
How fucked is the US? part 45584763425474534 of an ongoing series...
DOGE illegally occupied a private building by coercing the security guards
Marisa Kabas
Wow. Judge Howell is worried that if she orders DOGE to leave the USIP building it could turn into an “armed standoff” over unwillingness to vacate, and points out law enforcement has shown willingness to help DOGE. Asks if we’ll need foreign mediators to come in.
How fucked is the US? part 45584763425474534 of an ongoing series...
DOGE illegally occupied a private building by coercing the security guards
Marisa Kabas
Wow. Judge Howell is worried that if she orders DOGE to leave the USIP building it could turn into an “armed standoff” over unwillingness to vacate, and points out law enforcement has shown willingness to help DOGE. Asks if we’ll need foreign mediators to come in.
Do you know I'm genuinely pissed off by all this. The Americans are turning the alleged land of the free into an corrupt autocracy and the Democrats are just gaping like dying fish, and the British allegedly left wing party is acting like it's 1997 and there's a end-of-the-Cold-War bonus. They are clever people, or pretend to be. If I can see it, why can't they?
So you are a self-confessed tax-avoider for all your left-of-centre champagne socialism. Such hypocrisy that is so typical of Labour supporters, particularly personified by Rayner and her two council house sales, Starmer and his tax-free benefit in kind clothing and Reeves with her lies on her CV and dodgy attitude to expenses.
You believe that you are some sort of special case, and your virtue is unsullied because you vote for the Labour Party
How nice of you to repeat your unpleasant jibes so more people can see them!
If someone is claiming murder is wrong but its allowed in law if its murder of a lower class person and they murder someone....would you not call them out on it even if what they did was legal?
There are things that are legal I wouldn't do because I believe them to be wrong and not what I believe in, Kinablu says these things are wrong but does them because he can and it benefits him is the point
There are also things that are legal that I don't do because I believe them to be wrong. Eg wearing speedos on the heath.
But on this tax thing. You're seriously suggesting that left wing political views should be penalised with a higher effective tax rate than everybody else?
C'mon that's a total joke. Stop messing around. This is a forum of national repute.
Hypocrisy always gets called out.
See the US politicians who denounce “nationalised healthcare”, while using the free comprehensive insurance (nothing excluded), for life, provided by 5 minutes membership of the Senate or Congress.
Hypocrisy is a sloppily used term. It means do as I say not as I do.
Thus if (say) you slag people off for using a tax break but do it yourself. That's hypocrisy.
But if you simply express a view that the break shouldn't be available (and would support its removal) but use it yourself, that isn't.
So people who advocated the abolition of slavery, while keeping slaves….
Ooo edge case. But no I'll stick with my guns. "Hypocrisy" doesn't quite nail that. Course their general anti-slavery credentials would be somewhat strengthened by not having any.
So let's look at a more reasonable example. I am fervently against Grammar schools for lots of reasons, but if I had lived in an area with Grammar schools and my kids got in I would certainly have sent them. Am I a hypocrite? I don't think so. I'm not going to move out of the area because they have that system and much of the damage of Grammars is to the Secondaries that come as a consequence and I'm not going to martyr my kids because of my principles.
I think it depends how you'd expressed your opposition to grammar schools.
If that it's not the system we should really have, but since we do you'd use it, that seems fine.
If someone suggests the system of grammars is a moral outrage, then I think it would be hypocritical to use it.
Oh dear that is a problem for me kle4 because I am in the moral outrage camp. Luckily I was never in that position with my kids, but what would you suggest I do? Sacrifice my children's future by keeping to the moral high ground or be a hypocrite?
I'm happy being a hypocrite if that is what is necessary.
Let's say your partner will die if they don't have a drug, but you are anti private health care and that is the only way you can get it and you can afford it easily. Would you sacrifice your partner on that principle?
One of the things I found rather disturbing about Jeremy Corbyn was that by his own admission he divorced his wife because she wanted to send their son to a Grammar school and he disagreed.
I am sorry but if you are willing to give up your son and your wife for your political beliefs then that marks you as aan extremist in my eyes.
There you go. But the other way he'd have been (on the sloppy @Nigel_Foremain metric) a hypocrite.
I'm with you btw. Putting your politics above your family smacks of zealotry.
Principles, yes, great, but don't go right up yourself with them. That's off-putting.
You have principles or you don't sorry. If you have principles you don't violate them because it is convenient for you that means they aren't principles
No, you have views and opinions, some of which will be sufficiently dear to you to be called "principles".
They aren't views and opinions they are absolutes I live by. You think it being merely views and opinions demeans you not me
There is a rather simple solution to this, which is a classic case of irregular verb approach.
Since you are human you must have not lived up to some view at some point. However you maintain you would not do so on your principles. Ergo, you probably have views and opinions you have not lived up to, and this is just a dispute on what you regard as people being overdramatic by describing their views as principles.
If a principle is just something people never bend on then no-one has ever violated their principles, since by definition they cannot.
So far I have never violated one of my principles, not saying it couldn't happen I only have a few however
I have never struck a woman I have never raped I have always payed full tax without seeking to avoid it I have never killed anyone when maiming was sufficient I have never maimed someone when injuring them was sufficient I have never injured someone when a harsh word was enough I have never taken from someone things they need I have always helped the less fortunate where I can
These are the principles I live by and yes not violated one as yet
The highly disturbing implication of that sentence is that you have decided, on occasion, that maiming was not sufficient - and killed someone.
I dont see why you see it as disturbing please explain
Well, I'm not too keen on people going around killing other people at random.
Unless you were a soldier.
Well the point was you didn't do it at random only when the previous options were not viable
I am curious why you felt I promoted random killing?
Because I have got through my entire 42 years without managing to feel the need to kill,* maim or even seriously injure anybody, so I'm genuinely surprised anyone else *has* felt that need.
*By a remarkable effort of will, this even includes Amanda Spielman.
How fucked is the US? part 45584763425474534 of an ongoing series...
DOGE illegally occupied a private building by coercing the security guards
Marisa Kabas
Wow. Judge Howell is worried that if she orders DOGE to leave the USIP building it could turn into an “armed standoff” over unwillingness to vacate, and points out law enforcement has shown willingness to help DOGE. Asks if we’ll need foreign mediators to come in.
Looks like I won't be allowed to visit America for at least the next four years.
"This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher's phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration's research policy"
When do we start to call this by its name? A French researcher has his phone and laptop confiscated and is refused entry because of personal messages found in a "random search" at the border criticizing Trump.
He is doing OK but not sure how that will play out when Dianne Abbott makes a highly critical statement in PMQs over the cruelty of taking away disability payments from the vulnerable and Starmer's makes an insensitive response to her
Maybe he is starting to believe he is the chosen one which would be a mistake
So you are a self-confessed tax-avoider for all your left-of-centre champagne socialism. Such hypocrisy that is so typical of Labour supporters, particularly personified by Rayner and her two council house sales, Starmer and his tax-free benefit in kind clothing and Reeves with her lies on her CV and dodgy attitude to expenses.
You believe that you are some sort of special case, and your virtue is unsullied because you vote for the Labour Party
How nice of you to repeat your unpleasant jibes so more people can see them!
If someone is claiming murder is wrong but its allowed in law if its murder of a lower class person and they murder someone....would you not call them out on it even if what they did was legal?
There are things that are legal I wouldn't do because I believe them to be wrong and not what I believe in, Kinablu says these things are wrong but does them because he can and it benefits him is the point
There are also things that are legal that I don't do because I believe them to be wrong. Eg wearing speedos on the heath.
But on this tax thing. You're seriously suggesting that left wing political views should be penalised with a higher effective tax rate than everybody else?
C'mon that's a total joke. Stop messing around. This is a forum of national repute.
Hypocrisy always gets called out.
See the US politicians who denounce “nationalised healthcare”, while using the free comprehensive insurance (nothing excluded), for life, provided by 5 minutes membership of the Senate or Congress.
Hypocrisy is a sloppily used term. It means do as I say not as I do.
Thus if (say) you slag people off for using a tax break but do it yourself. That's hypocrisy.
But if you simply express a view that the break shouldn't be available (and would support its removal) but use it yourself, that isn't.
So people who advocated the abolition of slavery, while keeping slaves….
Ooo edge case. But no I'll stick with my guns. "Hypocrisy" doesn't quite nail that. Course their general anti-slavery credentials would be somewhat strengthened by not having any.
So let's look at a more reasonable example. I am fervently against Grammar schools for lots of reasons, but if I had lived in an area with Grammar schools and my kids got in I would certainly have sent them. Am I a hypocrite? I don't think so. I'm not going to move out of the area because they have that system and much of the damage of Grammars is to the Secondaries that come as a consequence and I'm not going to martyr my kids because of my principles.
I think it depends how you'd expressed your opposition to grammar schools.
If that it's not the system we should really have, but since we do you'd use it, that seems fine.
If someone suggests the system of grammars is a moral outrage, then I think it would be hypocritical to use it.
Oh dear that is a problem for me kle4 because I am in the moral outrage camp. Luckily I was never in that position with my kids, but what would you suggest I do? Sacrifice my children's future by keeping to the moral high ground or be a hypocrite?
I'm happy being a hypocrite if that is what is necessary.
Let's say your partner will die if they don't have a drug, but you are anti private health care and that is the only way you can get it and you can afford it easily. Would you sacrifice your partner on that principle?
One of the things I found rather disturbing about Jeremy Corbyn was that by his own admission he divorced his wife because she wanted to send their son to a Grammar school and he disagreed.
I am sorry but if you are willing to give up your son and your wife for your political beliefs then that marks you as aan extremist in my eyes.
There you go. But the other way he'd have been (on the sloppy @Nigel_Foremain metric) a hypocrite.
I'm with you btw. Putting your politics above your family smacks of zealotry.
Principles, yes, great, but don't go right up yourself with them. That's off-putting.
You have principles or you don't sorry. If you have principles you don't violate them because it is convenient for you that means they aren't principles
No, you have views and opinions, some of which will be sufficiently dear to you to be called "principles".
They aren't views and opinions they are absolutes I live by. You think it being merely views and opinions demeans you not me
There is a rather simple solution to this, which is a classic case of irregular verb approach.
Since you are human you must have not lived up to some view at some point. However you maintain you would not do so on your principles. Ergo, you probably have views and opinions you have not lived up to, and this is just a dispute on what you regard as people being overdramatic by describing their views as principles.
If a principle is just something people never bend on then no-one has ever violated their principles, since by definition they cannot.
So far I have never violated one of my principles, not saying it couldn't happen I only have a few however
I have never struck a woman I have never raped I have always payed full tax without seeking to avoid it I have never killed anyone when maiming was sufficient I have never maimed someone when injuring them was sufficient I have never injured someone when a harsh word was enough I have never taken from someone things they need I have always helped the less fortunate where I can
These are the principles I live by and yes not violated one as yet
The highly disturbing implication of that sentence is that you have decided, on occasion, that maiming was not sufficient - and killed someone.
My principles and rules for life are simpler.
1) Never drink straight from a bottle. Insist on a glass.
2) Never wear sportswear except when participating in sport.
3) At social events, always spend some time talking to the oldest person in the room.
That pretty much covers it really.
Those principles are great but fairly specific to social functions
All life is a social function.
Well there are social functions like the local hospital dinner dance
and social functions
such as you walk into an alley to find five guys gang raping a girl
I suspect that your principles work for the former but not the latter
I don't think any of my rules would be invalidated in such a situation, not that I have been in it.
I would risk assess the situation to determine the best way of minimising harm and maximising successful prosecution of the individuals. I have training in non-violent de-escalation of threatening situations.
Wow. Hodges pulls no punches as he tears into Starmer's administration over welfare:
Remember what people were told they were voting for last July: ‘Change’. And what were they presented with yesterday? The spectacle of a Labour minister – a Labour minister – aggressively confronting anyone who had the gall to question whether demanding that the most vulnerable in society again make the greatest sacrifices was really morally or economically sustainable.
A storm is coming. The British people have had enough. They are not going to tolerate another parade of ministers in tight grey suits, sporting red – rather than blue – ties, telling them those in most need have to do with less.
As I keep pointing out, Blairism DOES NOT WORK in the 2020s. We tried corporatism in 1945-1979: it had its day and then it died. We tried neoliberalism in 1980-2019: it had its day and then it died. This warmed-over rotting-fish neoliberalism is not working and requires Labour to act out of character: if it isn't there to defend the old and the sick, what the hell is it there for? When is the "taxing the rich" bit due to kick in? They aren't going to do that because Blairism could afford not to do so, but these days you have to.
Honestly Morgan McSweeney, if you read PB, please do the bloody maths, yes?
You can’t tax the rich any more because the rich are ever more mobile, as Covid and WFH and the interweb have shown
Britain is already suffering a profound exodus of rich people, more than any other nation on earth. At the same time sunnier places without terror attacks, migration nightmares and machete-wielding Rolex robbers are attracting these rich people (often the young) with digital nomad visas and very low taxes
The Treasury is well aware of this, hence Labour backtracking on non doms and desperately trying to change its rhetoric on wealth
If you want our tax base to entirely disappear, go ahead an impose a wealth tax, and see how much rain mobile wealthy people are willing to tolerate in return for, uhm, ah, the brilliance of the NHS?
So you are a self-confessed tax-avoider for all your left-of-centre champagne socialism. Such hypocrisy that is so typical of Labour supporters, particularly personified by Rayner and her two council house sales, Starmer and his tax-free benefit in kind clothing and Reeves with her lies on her CV and dodgy attitude to expenses.
You believe that you are some sort of special case, and your virtue is unsullied because you vote for the Labour Party
How nice of you to repeat your unpleasant jibes so more people can see them!
If someone is claiming murder is wrong but its allowed in law if its murder of a lower class person and they murder someone....would you not call them out on it even if what they did was legal?
There are things that are legal I wouldn't do because I believe them to be wrong and not what I believe in, Kinablu says these things are wrong but does them because he can and it benefits him is the point
There are also things that are legal that I don't do because I believe them to be wrong. Eg wearing speedos on the heath.
But on this tax thing. You're seriously suggesting that left wing political views should be penalised with a higher effective tax rate than everybody else?
C'mon that's a total joke. Stop messing around. This is a forum of national repute.
Hypocrisy always gets called out.
See the US politicians who denounce “nationalised healthcare”, while using the free comprehensive insurance (nothing excluded), for life, provided by 5 minutes membership of the Senate or Congress.
Hypocrisy is a sloppily used term. It means do as I say not as I do.
Thus if (say) you slag people off for using a tax break but do it yourself. That's hypocrisy.
But if you simply express a view that the break shouldn't be available (and would support its removal) but use it yourself, that isn't.
So people who advocated the abolition of slavery, while keeping slaves….
Ooo edge case. But no I'll stick with my guns. "Hypocrisy" doesn't quite nail that. Course their general anti-slavery credentials would be somewhat strengthened by not having any.
So let's look at a more reasonable example. I am fervently against Grammar schools for lots of reasons, but if I had lived in an area with Grammar schools and my kids got in I would certainly have sent them. Am I a hypocrite? I don't think so. I'm not going to move out of the area because they have that system and much of the damage of Grammars is to the Secondaries that come as a consequence and I'm not going to martyr my kids because of my principles.
I think it depends how you'd expressed your opposition to grammar schools.
If that it's not the system we should really have, but since we do you'd use it, that seems fine.
If someone suggests the system of grammars is a moral outrage, then I think it would be hypocritical to use it.
Oh dear that is a problem for me kle4 because I am in the moral outrage camp. Luckily I was never in that position with my kids, but what would you suggest I do? Sacrifice my children's future by keeping to the moral high ground or be a hypocrite?
I'm happy being a hypocrite if that is what is necessary.
Let's say your partner will die if they don't have a drug, but you are anti private health care and that is the only way you can get it and you can afford it easily. Would you sacrifice your partner on that principle?
One of the things I found rather disturbing about Jeremy Corbyn was that by his own admission he divorced his wife because she wanted to send their son to a Grammar school and he disagreed.
I am sorry but if you are willing to give up your son and your wife for your political beliefs then that marks you as aan extremist in my eyes.
There you go. But the other way he'd have been (on the sloppy @Nigel_Foremain metric) a hypocrite.
I'm with you btw. Putting your politics above your family smacks of zealotry.
Principles, yes, great, but don't go right up yourself with them. That's off-putting.
You have principles or you don't sorry. If you have principles you don't violate them because it is convenient for you that means they aren't principles
No, you have views and opinions, some of which will be sufficiently dear to you to be called "principles".
They aren't views and opinions they are absolutes I live by. You think it being merely views and opinions demeans you not me
There is a rather simple solution to this, which is a classic case of irregular verb approach.
Since you are human you must have not lived up to some view at some point. However you maintain you would not do so on your principles. Ergo, you probably have views and opinions you have not lived up to, and this is just a dispute on what you regard as people being overdramatic by describing their views as principles.
If a principle is just something people never bend on then no-one has ever violated their principles, since by definition they cannot.
So far I have never violated one of my principles, not saying it couldn't happen I only have a few however
I have never struck a woman I have never raped I have always payed full tax without seeking to avoid it I have never killed anyone when maiming was sufficient I have never maimed someone when injuring them was sufficient I have never injured someone when a harsh word was enough I have never taken from someone things they need I have always helped the less fortunate where I can
These are the principles I live by and yes not violated one as yet
The highly disturbing implication of that sentence is that you have decided, on occasion, that maiming was not sufficient - and killed someone.
My principles and rules for life are simpler.
1) Never drink straight from a bottle. Insist on a glass.
2) Never wear sportswear except when participating in sport.
3) At social events, always spend some time talking to the oldest person in the room.
That pretty much covers it really.
Those principles are great but fairly specific to social functions
All life is a social function.
Well there are social functions like the local hospital dinner dance
and social functions
such as you walk into an alley to find five guys gang raping a girl
I suspect that your principles work for the former but not the latter
I don't think any of my rules would be invalidated in such a situation, not that I have been in it.
I would risk assess the situation to determine the best way of minimising harm and maximising successful prosecution of the individuals. I have training in non-violent de-escalation of threatening situations.
Yes you have training in deescalating a gang rape so they all go away embarressed.....sorry dont believe it
Looks like I won't be allowed to visit America for at least the next four years.
"This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher's phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration's research policy"
When do we start to call this by its name? A French researcher has his phone and laptop confiscated and is refused entry because of personal messages found in a "random search" at the border criticizing Trump.
So you are a self-confessed tax-avoider for all your left-of-centre champagne socialism. Such hypocrisy that is so typical of Labour supporters, particularly personified by Rayner and her two council house sales, Starmer and his tax-free benefit in kind clothing and Reeves with her lies on her CV and dodgy attitude to expenses.
You believe that you are some sort of special case, and your virtue is unsullied because you vote for the Labour Party
How nice of you to repeat your unpleasant jibes so more people can see them!
If someone is claiming murder is wrong but its allowed in law if its murder of a lower class person and they murder someone....would you not call them out on it even if what they did was legal?
There are things that are legal I wouldn't do because I believe them to be wrong and not what I believe in, Kinablu says these things are wrong but does them because he can and it benefits him is the point
There are also things that are legal that I don't do because I believe them to be wrong. Eg wearing speedos on the heath.
But on this tax thing. You're seriously suggesting that left wing political views should be penalised with a higher effective tax rate than everybody else?
C'mon that's a total joke. Stop messing around. This is a forum of national repute.
Hypocrisy always gets called out.
See the US politicians who denounce “nationalised healthcare”, while using the free comprehensive insurance (nothing excluded), for life, provided by 5 minutes membership of the Senate or Congress.
Hypocrisy is a sloppily used term. It means do as I say not as I do.
Thus if (say) you slag people off for using a tax break but do it yourself. That's hypocrisy.
But if you simply express a view that the break shouldn't be available (and would support its removal) but use it yourself, that isn't.
So people who advocated the abolition of slavery, while keeping slaves….
Ooo edge case. But no I'll stick with my guns. "Hypocrisy" doesn't quite nail that. Course their general anti-slavery credentials would be somewhat strengthened by not having any.
So let's look at a more reasonable example. I am fervently against Grammar schools for lots of reasons, but if I had lived in an area with Grammar schools and my kids got in I would certainly have sent them. Am I a hypocrite? I don't think so. I'm not going to move out of the area because they have that system and much of the damage of Grammars is to the Secondaries that come as a consequence and I'm not going to martyr my kids because of my principles.
I think it depends how you'd expressed your opposition to grammar schools.
If that it's not the system we should really have, but since we do you'd use it, that seems fine.
If someone suggests the system of grammars is a moral outrage, then I think it would be hypocritical to use it.
Oh dear that is a problem for me kle4 because I am in the moral outrage camp. Luckily I was never in that position with my kids, but what would you suggest I do? Sacrifice my children's future by keeping to the moral high ground or be a hypocrite?
I'm happy being a hypocrite if that is what is necessary.
Let's say your partner will die if they don't have a drug, but you are anti private health care and that is the only way you can get it and you can afford it easily. Would you sacrifice your partner on that principle?
One of the things I found rather disturbing about Jeremy Corbyn was that by his own admission he divorced his wife because she wanted to send their son to a Grammar school and he disagreed.
I am sorry but if you are willing to give up your son and your wife for your political beliefs then that marks you as aan extremist in my eyes.
There you go. But the other way he'd have been (on the sloppy @Nigel_Foremain metric) a hypocrite.
I'm with you btw. Putting your politics above your family smacks of zealotry.
Principles, yes, great, but don't go right up yourself with them. That's off-putting.
You have principles or you don't sorry. If you have principles you don't violate them because it is convenient for you that means they aren't principles
No, you have views and opinions, some of which will be sufficiently dear to you to be called "principles".
They aren't views and opinions they are absolutes I live by. You think it being merely views and opinions demeans you not me
There is a rather simple solution to this, which is a classic case of irregular verb approach.
Since you are human you must have not lived up to some view at some point. However you maintain you would not do so on your principles. Ergo, you probably have views and opinions you have not lived up to, and this is just a dispute on what you regard as people being overdramatic by describing their views as principles.
If a principle is just something people never bend on then no-one has ever violated their principles, since by definition they cannot.
So far I have never violated one of my principles, not saying it couldn't happen I only have a few however
I have never struck a woman I have never raped I have always payed full tax without seeking to avoid it I have never killed anyone when maiming was sufficient I have never maimed someone when injuring them was sufficient I have never injured someone when a harsh word was enough I have never taken from someone things they need I have always helped the less fortunate where I can
These are the principles I live by and yes not violated one as yet
The highly disturbing implication of that sentence is that you have decided, on occasion, that maiming was not sufficient - and killed someone.
My principles and rules for life are simpler.
1) Never drink straight from a bottle. Insist on a glass.
2) Never wear sportswear except when participating in sport.
3) At social events, always spend some time talking to the oldest person in the room.
That pretty much covers it really.
Those principles are great but fairly specific to social functions
All life is a social function.
Well there are social functions like the local hospital dinner dance
and social functions
such as you walk into an alley to find five guys gang raping a girl
I suspect that your principles work for the former but not the latter
I don't think any of my rules would be invalidated in such a situation, not that I have been in it.
I would risk assess the situation to determine the best way of minimising harm and maximising successful prosecution of the individuals. I have training in non-violent de-escalation of threatening situations.
Yes you have training in deescalating a gang rape so they all go away embarressed.....sorry dont believe it
This a problem as well with pb not only are most rich they also have little experience of the worse streets in town
So you are a self-confessed tax-avoider for all your left-of-centre champagne socialism. Such hypocrisy that is so typical of Labour supporters, particularly personified by Rayner and her two council house sales, Starmer and his tax-free benefit in kind clothing and Reeves with her lies on her CV and dodgy attitude to expenses.
You believe that you are some sort of special case, and your virtue is unsullied because you vote for the Labour Party
How nice of you to repeat your unpleasant jibes so more people can see them!
If someone is claiming murder is wrong but its allowed in law if its murder of a lower class person and they murder someone....would you not call them out on it even if what they did was legal?
There are things that are legal I wouldn't do because I believe them to be wrong and not what I believe in, Kinablu says these things are wrong but does them because he can and it benefits him is the point
There are also things that are legal that I don't do because I believe them to be wrong. Eg wearing speedos on the heath.
But on this tax thing. You're seriously suggesting that left wing political views should be penalised with a higher effective tax rate than everybody else?
C'mon that's a total joke. Stop messing around. This is a forum of national repute.
Hypocrisy always gets called out.
See the US politicians who denounce “nationalised healthcare”, while using the free comprehensive insurance (nothing excluded), for life, provided by 5 minutes membership of the Senate or Congress.
Hypocrisy is a sloppily used term. It means do as I say not as I do.
Thus if (say) you slag people off for using a tax break but do it yourself. That's hypocrisy.
But if you simply express a view that the break shouldn't be available (and would support its removal) but use it yourself, that isn't.
So people who advocated the abolition of slavery, while keeping slaves….
Ooo edge case. But no I'll stick with my guns. "Hypocrisy" doesn't quite nail that. Course their general anti-slavery credentials would be somewhat strengthened by not having any.
So let's look at a more reasonable example. I am fervently against Grammar schools for lots of reasons, but if I had lived in an area with Grammar schools and my kids got in I would certainly have sent them. Am I a hypocrite? I don't think so. I'm not going to move out of the area because they have that system and much of the damage of Grammars is to the Secondaries that come as a consequence and I'm not going to martyr my kids because of my principles.
I think it depends how you'd expressed your opposition to grammar schools.
If that it's not the system we should really have, but since we do you'd use it, that seems fine.
If someone suggests the system of grammars is a moral outrage, then I think it would be hypocritical to use it.
Oh dear that is a problem for me kle4 because I am in the moral outrage camp. Luckily I was never in that position with my kids, but what would you suggest I do? Sacrifice my children's future by keeping to the moral high ground or be a hypocrite?
I'm happy being a hypocrite if that is what is necessary.
Let's say your partner will die if they don't have a drug, but you are anti private health care and that is the only way you can get it and you can afford it easily. Would you sacrifice your partner on that principle?
One of the things I found rather disturbing about Jeremy Corbyn was that by his own admission he divorced his wife because she wanted to send their son to a Grammar school and he disagreed.
I am sorry but if you are willing to give up your son and your wife for your political beliefs then that marks you as aan extremist in my eyes.
There you go. But the other way he'd have been (on the sloppy @Nigel_Foremain metric) a hypocrite.
I'm with you btw. Putting your politics above your family smacks of zealotry.
Principles, yes, great, but don't go right up yourself with them. That's off-putting.
You have principles or you don't sorry. If you have principles you don't violate them because it is convenient for you that means they aren't principles
No, you have views and opinions, some of which will be sufficiently dear to you to be called "principles".
They aren't views and opinions they are absolutes I live by. You think it being merely views and opinions demeans you not me
There is a rather simple solution to this, which is a classic case of irregular verb approach.
Since you are human you must have not lived up to some view at some point. However you maintain you would not do so on your principles. Ergo, you probably have views and opinions you have not lived up to, and this is just a dispute on what you regard as people being overdramatic by describing their views as principles.
If a principle is just something people never bend on then no-one has ever violated their principles, since by definition they cannot.
So far I have never violated one of my principles, not saying it couldn't happen I only have a few however
I have never struck a woman I have never raped I have always payed full tax without seeking to avoid it I have never killed anyone when maiming was sufficient I have never maimed someone when injuring them was sufficient I have never injured someone when a harsh word was enough I have never taken from someone things they need I have always helped the less fortunate where I can
These are the principles I live by and yes not violated one as yet
The highly disturbing implication of that sentence is that you have decided, on occasion, that maiming was not sufficient - and killed someone.
My principles and rules for life are simpler.
1) Never drink straight from a bottle. Insist on a glass.
2) Never wear sportswear except when participating in sport.
3) At social events, always spend some time talking to the oldest person in the room.
That pretty much covers it really.
Those principles are great but fairly specific to social functions
All life is a social function.
Well there are social functions like the local hospital dinner dance
and social functions
such as you walk into an alley to find five guys gang raping a girl
I suspect that your principles work for the former but not the latter
I don't think any of my rules would be invalidated in such a situation, not that I have been in it.
I would risk assess the situation to determine the best way of minimising harm and maximising successful prosecution of the individuals. I have training in non-violent de-escalation of threatening situations.
Yes you have training in deescalating a gang rape so they all go away embarressed.....sorry dont believe it
I didn't say that.
We have excellent training in de-escalation of situations in my Trust, from a former Squaddie turned Copper, and it has worked for me in a number of situations. Threatened and actual violence are not unusual in my line of work. The most recent time I used it was diverting assaults on a paramedic who was tending an unconscious man. No one got hurt and I talked them down from actions that would probably have got them nicked when the police finally got there. It seemed an age.
So you are a self-confessed tax-avoider for all your left-of-centre champagne socialism. Such hypocrisy that is so typical of Labour supporters, particularly personified by Rayner and her two council house sales, Starmer and his tax-free benefit in kind clothing and Reeves with her lies on her CV and dodgy attitude to expenses.
You believe that you are some sort of special case, and your virtue is unsullied because you vote for the Labour Party
How nice of you to repeat your unpleasant jibes so more people can see them!
If someone is claiming murder is wrong but its allowed in law if its murder of a lower class person and they murder someone....would you not call them out on it even if what they did was legal?
There are things that are legal I wouldn't do because I believe them to be wrong and not what I believe in, Kinablu says these things are wrong but does them because he can and it benefits him is the point
There are also things that are legal that I don't do because I believe them to be wrong. Eg wearing speedos on the heath.
But on this tax thing. You're seriously suggesting that left wing political views should be penalised with a higher effective tax rate than everybody else?
C'mon that's a total joke. Stop messing around. This is a forum of national repute.
Hypocrisy always gets called out.
See the US politicians who denounce “nationalised healthcare”, while using the free comprehensive insurance (nothing excluded), for life, provided by 5 minutes membership of the Senate or Congress.
Hypocrisy is a sloppily used term. It means do as I say not as I do.
Thus if (say) you slag people off for using a tax break but do it yourself. That's hypocrisy.
But if you simply express a view that the break shouldn't be available (and would support its removal) but use it yourself, that isn't.
So people who advocated the abolition of slavery, while keeping slaves….
Ooo edge case. But no I'll stick with my guns. "Hypocrisy" doesn't quite nail that. Course their general anti-slavery credentials would be somewhat strengthened by not having any.
So let's look at a more reasonable example. I am fervently against Grammar schools for lots of reasons, but if I had lived in an area with Grammar schools and my kids got in I would certainly have sent them. Am I a hypocrite? I don't think so. I'm not going to move out of the area because they have that system and much of the damage of Grammars is to the Secondaries that come as a consequence and I'm not going to martyr my kids because of my principles.
I think it depends how you'd expressed your opposition to grammar schools.
If that it's not the system we should really have, but since we do you'd use it, that seems fine.
If someone suggests the system of grammars is a moral outrage, then I think it would be hypocritical to use it.
Oh dear that is a problem for me kle4 because I am in the moral outrage camp. Luckily I was never in that position with my kids, but what would you suggest I do? Sacrifice my children's future by keeping to the moral high ground or be a hypocrite?
I'm happy being a hypocrite if that is what is necessary.
Let's say your partner will die if they don't have a drug, but you are anti private health care and that is the only way you can get it and you can afford it easily. Would you sacrifice your partner on that principle?
One of the things I found rather disturbing about Jeremy Corbyn was that by his own admission he divorced his wife because she wanted to send their son to a Grammar school and he disagreed.
I am sorry but if you are willing to give up your son and your wife for your political beliefs then that marks you as aan extremist in my eyes.
There you go. But the other way he'd have been (on the sloppy @Nigel_Foremain metric) a hypocrite.
I'm with you btw. Putting your politics above your family smacks of zealotry.
Principles, yes, great, but don't go right up yourself with them. That's off-putting.
You have principles or you don't sorry. If you have principles you don't violate them because it is convenient for you that means they aren't principles
No, you have views and opinions, some of which will be sufficiently dear to you to be called "principles".
They aren't views and opinions they are absolutes I live by. You think it being merely views and opinions demeans you not me
There is a rather simple solution to this, which is a classic case of irregular verb approach.
Since you are human you must have not lived up to some view at some point. However you maintain you would not do so on your principles. Ergo, you probably have views and opinions you have not lived up to, and this is just a dispute on what you regard as people being overdramatic by describing their views as principles.
If a principle is just something people never bend on then no-one has ever violated their principles, since by definition they cannot.
So far I have never violated one of my principles, not saying it couldn't happen I only have a few however
I have never struck a woman I have never raped I have always payed full tax without seeking to avoid it I have never killed anyone when maiming was sufficient I have never maimed someone when injuring them was sufficient I have never injured someone when a harsh word was enough I have never taken from someone things they need I have always helped the less fortunate where I can
These are the principles I live by and yes not violated one as yet
The highly disturbing implication of that sentence is that you have decided, on occasion, that maiming was not sufficient - and killed someone.
My principles and rules for life are simpler.
1) Never drink straight from a bottle. Insist on a glass.
2) Never wear sportswear except when participating in sport.
3) At social events, always spend some time talking to the oldest person in the room.
That pretty much covers it really.
Those principles are great but fairly specific to social functions
All life is a social function.
Well there are social functions like the local hospital dinner dance
and social functions
such as you walk into an alley to find five guys gang raping a girl
I suspect that your principles work for the former but not the latter
I don't think any of my rules would be invalidated in such a situation, not that I have been in it.
I would risk assess the situation to determine the best way of minimising harm and maximising successful prosecution of the individuals. I have training in non-violent de-escalation of threatening situations.
Yes you have training in deescalating a gang rape so they all go away embarressed.....sorry dont believe it
This a problem as well with pb not only are most rich they also have little experience of the worse streets in town
Shall we get into a four yorkshireman sketch? I live in a poor area and was poor growing up too, I just have minimal expenditure, I cannot help that I have 'middle class' stamped on my personality.
SCOOP: Canada is in advanced talks to participate in the new EU military industry project, highlighting how traditional US allies are teaming up to Trump-proof their military production. The budding deal would see Canada get EU contracts to build in Canadian factories.
Very interesting - this is the new EU defence procurement cooperation project that for now the UK is not joining, but Canada is joining, after new PM Carney diplomatic push…
Looks like I won't be allowed to visit America for at least the next four years.
"This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher's phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration's research policy"
When do we start to call this by its name? A French researcher has his phone and laptop confiscated and is refused entry because of personal messages found in a "random search" at the border criticizing Trump.
Looks like I won't be allowed to visit America for at least the next four years.
"This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher's phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration's research policy"
When do we start to call this by its name? A French researcher has his phone and laptop confiscated and is refused entry because of personal messages found in a "random search" at the border criticizing Trump.
Bit dull, I’m afraid - like nearly all of Latin America
If you like hefty sausages and nice steaks, day after day, you’re in heaven
I’ve just written a Kanpper’s Gazette article on why the food in the ex-Iberian colonies is almost universally dreary (the Philippines is the one place in SE Asia with shite food, in an area otherwise blessed)
But they do have the wine. Ah, the wine
With apologies for linking to a part-time writer - this was the first time I read about 'the steak situation' in Latin America :
(he has some rather good bits about travel all round. Not in flint-knapper league of course. But I remember his first trip to the middle-east, being woken day after day by the call for prayer. "It was a sad day when Islam met electronic amplification.")
So you are a self-confessed tax-avoider for all your left-of-centre champagne socialism. Such hypocrisy that is so typical of Labour supporters, particularly personified by Rayner and her two council house sales, Starmer and his tax-free benefit in kind clothing and Reeves with her lies on her CV and dodgy attitude to expenses.
You believe that you are some sort of special case, and your virtue is unsullied because you vote for the Labour Party
How nice of you to repeat your unpleasant jibes so more people can see them!
If someone is claiming murder is wrong but its allowed in law if its murder of a lower class person and they murder someone....would you not call them out on it even if what they did was legal?
There are things that are legal I wouldn't do because I believe them to be wrong and not what I believe in, Kinablu says these things are wrong but does them because he can and it benefits him is the point
There are also things that are legal that I don't do because I believe them to be wrong. Eg wearing speedos on the heath.
But on this tax thing. You're seriously suggesting that left wing political views should be penalised with a higher effective tax rate than everybody else?
C'mon that's a total joke. Stop messing around. This is a forum of national repute.
Hypocrisy always gets called out.
See the US politicians who denounce “nationalised healthcare”, while using the free comprehensive insurance (nothing excluded), for life, provided by 5 minutes membership of the Senate or Congress.
Hypocrisy is a sloppily used term. It means do as I say not as I do.
Thus if (say) you slag people off for using a tax break but do it yourself. That's hypocrisy.
But if you simply express a view that the break shouldn't be available (and would support its removal) but use it yourself, that isn't.
So people who advocated the abolition of slavery, while keeping slaves….
Ooo edge case. But no I'll stick with my guns. "Hypocrisy" doesn't quite nail that. Course their general anti-slavery credentials would be somewhat strengthened by not having any.
So let's look at a more reasonable example. I am fervently against Grammar schools for lots of reasons, but if I had lived in an area with Grammar schools and my kids got in I would certainly have sent them. Am I a hypocrite? I don't think so. I'm not going to move out of the area because they have that system and much of the damage of Grammars is to the Secondaries that come as a consequence and I'm not going to martyr my kids because of my principles.
I think it depends how you'd expressed your opposition to grammar schools.
If that it's not the system we should really have, but since we do you'd use it, that seems fine.
If someone suggests the system of grammars is a moral outrage, then I think it would be hypocritical to use it.
Oh dear that is a problem for me kle4 because I am in the moral outrage camp. Luckily I was never in that position with my kids, but what would you suggest I do? Sacrifice my children's future by keeping to the moral high ground or be a hypocrite?
I'm happy being a hypocrite if that is what is necessary.
Let's say your partner will die if they don't have a drug, but you are anti private health care and that is the only way you can get it and you can afford it easily. Would you sacrifice your partner on that principle?
One of the things I found rather disturbing about Jeremy Corbyn was that by his own admission he divorced his wife because she wanted to send their son to a Grammar school and he disagreed.
I am sorry but if you are willing to give up your son and your wife for your political beliefs then that marks you as aan extremist in my eyes.
There you go. But the other way he'd have been (on the sloppy @Nigel_Foremain metric) a hypocrite.
I'm with you btw. Putting your politics above your family smacks of zealotry.
Principles, yes, great, but don't go right up yourself with them. That's off-putting.
You have principles or you don't sorry. If you have principles you don't violate them because it is convenient for you that means they aren't principles
No, you have views and opinions, some of which will be sufficiently dear to you to be called "principles".
They aren't views and opinions they are absolutes I live by. You think it being merely views and opinions demeans you not me
There is a rather simple solution to this, which is a classic case of irregular verb approach.
Since you are human you must have not lived up to some view at some point. However you maintain you would not do so on your principles. Ergo, you probably have views and opinions you have not lived up to, and this is just a dispute on what you regard as people being overdramatic by describing their views as principles.
If a principle is just something people never bend on then no-one has ever violated their principles, since by definition they cannot.
So far I have never violated one of my principles, not saying it couldn't happen I only have a few however
I have never struck a woman I have never raped I have always payed full tax without seeking to avoid it I have never killed anyone when maiming was sufficient I have never maimed someone when injuring them was sufficient I have never injured someone when a harsh word was enough I have never taken from someone things they need I have always helped the less fortunate where I can
These are the principles I live by and yes not violated one as yet
The highly disturbing implication of that sentence is that you have decided, on occasion, that maiming was not sufficient - and killed someone.
My principles and rules for life are simpler.
1) Never drink straight from a bottle. Insist on a glass.
2) Never wear sportswear except when participating in sport.
3) At social events, always spend some time talking to the oldest person in the room.
That pretty much covers it really.
Those principles are great but fairly specific to social functions
All life is a social function.
Well there are social functions like the local hospital dinner dance
and social functions
such as you walk into an alley to find five guys gang raping a girl
I suspect that your principles work for the former but not the latter
I don't think any of my rules would be invalidated in such a situation, not that I have been in it.
I would risk assess the situation to determine the best way of minimising harm and maximising successful prosecution of the individuals. I have training in non-violent de-escalation of threatening situations.
Yes you have training in deescalating a gang rape so they all go away embarressed.....sorry dont believe it
This a problem as well with pb not only are most rich they also have little experience of the worse streets in town
Shall we get into a four yorkshireman sketch? I live in a poor area and was poor growing up too, I just have minimal expenditure, I cannot help that I have 'middle class' stamped on my personality.
I wasn't saying everyone was generalising but as an anecdote
I had a friend who was sitting in his flat watching tv...door gets kicked in they walk in steal the tv he is watching, no masks because they know he wont give a description....how many on pb do you think have experienced that or friends that have?
Wow. Hodges pulls no punches as he tears into Starmer's administration over welfare:
Remember what people were told they were voting for last July: ‘Change’. And what were they presented with yesterday? The spectacle of a Labour minister – a Labour minister – aggressively confronting anyone who had the gall to question whether demanding that the most vulnerable in society again make the greatest sacrifices was really morally or economically sustainable.
A storm is coming. The British people have had enough. They are not going to tolerate another parade of ministers in tight grey suits, sporting red – rather than blue – ties, telling them those in most need have to do with less.
As I keep pointing out, Blairism DOES NOT WORK in the 2020s. We tried corporatism in 1945-1979: it had its day and then it died. We tried neoliberalism in 1980-2019: it had its day and then it died. This warmed-over rotting-fish neoliberalism is not working and requires Labour to act out of character: if it isn't there to defend the old and the sick, what the hell is it there for? When is the "taxing the rich" bit due to kick in? They aren't going to do that because Blairism could afford not to do so, but these days you have to.
Honestly Morgan McSweeney, if you read PB, please do the bloody maths, yes?
You can’t tax the rich any more because the rich are ever more mobile, as Covid and WFH and the interweb have shown
Britain is already suffering a profound exodus of rich people, more than any other nation on earth. At the same time sunnier places without terror attacks, migration nightmares and machete-wielding Rolex robbers are attracting these rich people (often the young) with digital nomad visas and very low taxes
The Treasury is well aware of this, hence Labour backtracking on non doms and desperately trying to change its rhetoric on wealth
If you want our tax base to entirely disappear, go ahead an impose a wealth tax, and see how much rain mobile wealthy people are willing to tolerate in return for, uhm, ah, the brilliance of the NHS?
I don't know whether Viewcode thinks he is being insightful with this facile critique of 'neoliberalism' but it is utter tripe.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested allowing bird flu to spread, so as to identify birds that may be immune. Veterinary scientists said that would be inhumane, dangerous and have enormous economic consequences.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested allowing bird flu to spread, so as to identify birds that may be immune. Veterinary scientists said that would be inhumane, dangerous and have enormous economic consequences.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested allowing bird flu to spread, so as to identify birds that may be immune. Veterinary scientists said that would be inhumane, dangerous and have enormous economic consequences.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested allowing bird flu to spread, so as to identify birds that may be immune. Veterinary scientists said that would be inhumane, dangerous and have enormous economic consequences.
Think the price of eggs was too high? And. More inhumane than current US poultry farm practices?
How fucked is the US? part 45584763425474534 of an ongoing series...
DOGE illegally occupied a private building by coercing the security guards
Marisa Kabas
Wow. Judge Howell is worried that if she orders DOGE to leave the USIP building it could turn into an “armed standoff” over unwillingness to vacate, and points out law enforcement has shown willingness to help DOGE. Asks if we’ll need foreign mediators to come in.
Do you know I'm genuinely pissed off by all this. The Americans are turning the alleged land of the free into an corrupt autocracy and the Democrats are just gaping like dying fish, and the British allegedly left wing party is acting like it's 1997 and there's a end-of-the-Cold-War bonus. They are clever people, or pretend to be. If I can see it, why can't they?
The Democratic leadership isn't rising to the moment. But I suspect they won't last too long, as the dissatisfaction with them has gone off the scale in the last week..
How fucked is the US? part 45584763425474534 of an ongoing series...
DOGE illegally occupied a private building by coercing the security guards
Marisa Kabas
Wow. Judge Howell is worried that if she orders DOGE to leave the USIP building it could turn into an “armed standoff” over unwillingness to vacate, and points out law enforcement has shown willingness to help DOGE. Asks if we’ll need foreign mediators to come in.
Do you know I'm genuinely pissed off by all this. The Americans are turning the alleged land of the free into an corrupt autocracy and the Democrats are just gaping like dying fish, and the British allegedly left wing party is acting like it's 1997 and there's a end-of-the-Cold-War bonus. They are clever people, or pretend to be. If I can see it, why can't they?
The Democratic leadership isn't rising to the moment. But I suspect they won't last too long, as the dissatisfaction with them has gone off the scale in the last week..
Wow. Hodges pulls no punches as he tears into Starmer's administration over welfare:
Remember what people were told they were voting for last July: ‘Change’. And what were they presented with yesterday? The spectacle of a Labour minister – a Labour minister – aggressively confronting anyone who had the gall to question whether demanding that the most vulnerable in society again make the greatest sacrifices was really morally or economically sustainable.
A storm is coming. The British people have had enough. They are not going to tolerate another parade of ministers in tight grey suits, sporting red – rather than blue – ties, telling them those in most need have to do with less.
As I keep pointing out, Blairism DOES NOT WORK in the 2020s. We tried corporatism in 1945-1979: it had its day and then it died. We tried neoliberalism in 1980-2019: it had its day and then it died. This warmed-over rotting-fish neoliberalism is not working and requires Labour to act out of character: if it isn't there to defend the old and the sick, what the hell is it there for? When is the "taxing the rich" bit due to kick in? They aren't going to do that because Blairism could afford not to do so, but these days you have to.
Honestly Morgan McSweeney, if you read PB, please do the bloody maths, yes?
You can’t tax the rich any more because the rich are ever more mobile, as Covid and WFH and the interweb have shown
Britain is already suffering a profound exodus of rich people, more than any other nation on earth. At the same time sunnier places without terror attacks, migration nightmares and machete-wielding Rolex robbers are attracting these rich people (often the young) with digital nomad visas and very low taxes
The Treasury is well aware of this, hence Labour backtracking on non doms and desperately trying to change its rhetoric on wealth
If you want our tax base to entirely disappear, go ahead an impose a wealth tax, and see how much rain mobile wealthy people are willing to tolerate in return for, uhm, ah, the brilliance of the NHS?
You have to tax something.
You can't run a nation state on debt indefinitely and I don't care what Modern Monetary Theory says. If you can't tax people, tax land. If you can't tax land, tax houses. If you can't tax houses, tax luxury goods. Stop thinking you can enjoy an entire economy and culture and hundreds of nuclear warheads to avenge your death based on nothing but more and more interest payments and more and more debt. It isn't working.
Wow. Hodges pulls no punches as he tears into Starmer's administration over welfare:
Remember what people were told they were voting for last July: ‘Change’. And what were they presented with yesterday? The spectacle of a Labour minister – a Labour minister – aggressively confronting anyone who had the gall to question whether demanding that the most vulnerable in society again make the greatest sacrifices was really morally or economically sustainable.
A storm is coming. The British people have had enough. They are not going to tolerate another parade of ministers in tight grey suits, sporting red – rather than blue – ties, telling them those in most need have to do with less.
As I keep pointing out, Blairism DOES NOT WORK in the 2020s. We tried corporatism in 1945-1979: it had its day and then it died. We tried neoliberalism in 1980-2019: it had its day and then it died. This warmed-over rotting-fish neoliberalism is not working and requires Labour to act out of character: if it isn't there to defend the old and the sick, what the hell is it there for? When is the "taxing the rich" bit due to kick in? They aren't going to do that because Blairism could afford not to do so, but these days you have to.
Honestly Morgan McSweeney, if you read PB, please do the bloody maths, yes?
You can’t tax the rich any more because the rich are ever more mobile, as Covid and WFH and the interweb have shown
Britain is already suffering a profound exodus of rich people, more than any other nation on earth. At the same time sunnier places without terror attacks, migration nightmares and machete-wielding Rolex robbers are attracting these rich people (often the young) with digital nomad visas and very low taxes
The Treasury is well aware of this, hence Labour backtracking on non doms and desperately trying to change its rhetoric on wealth
If you want our tax base to entirely disappear, go ahead an impose a wealth tax, and see how much rain mobile wealthy people are willing to tolerate in return for, uhm, ah, the brilliance of the NHS?
You have to tax something.
You can't run a nation state on debt indefinitely and I don't care what Modern Monetary Theory says. If you can't tax people, tax land. If you can't tax land, tax houses. If you can't tax houses, tax luxury goods. Stop thinking you can enjoy an entire economy and culture and hundreds of nuclear warheads to avenge your death based on nothing but more and more interest payments and more and more debt. It isn't working.
Wow. Hodges pulls no punches as he tears into Starmer's administration over welfare:
Remember what people were told they were voting for last July: ‘Change’. And what were they presented with yesterday? The spectacle of a Labour minister – a Labour minister – aggressively confronting anyone who had the gall to question whether demanding that the most vulnerable in society again make the greatest sacrifices was really morally or economically sustainable.
A storm is coming. The British people have had enough. They are not going to tolerate another parade of ministers in tight grey suits, sporting red – rather than blue – ties, telling them those in most need have to do with less.
As I keep pointing out, Blairism DOES NOT WORK in the 2020s. We tried corporatism in 1945-1979: it had its day and then it died. We tried neoliberalism in 1980-2019: it had its day and then it died. This warmed-over rotting-fish neoliberalism is not working and requires Labour to act out of character: if it isn't there to defend the old and the sick, what the hell is it there for? When is the "taxing the rich" bit due to kick in? They aren't going to do that because Blairism could afford not to do so, but these days you have to.
Honestly Morgan McSweeney, if you read PB, please do the bloody maths, yes?
You can’t tax the rich any more because the rich are ever more mobile, as Covid and WFH and the interweb have shown
Britain is already suffering a profound exodus of rich people, more than any other nation on earth. At the same time sunnier places without terror attacks, migration nightmares and machete-wielding Rolex robbers are attracting these rich people (often the young) with digital nomad visas and very low taxes
The Treasury is well aware of this, hence Labour backtracking on non doms and desperately trying to change its rhetoric on wealth
If you want our tax base to entirely disappear, go ahead an impose a wealth tax, and see how much rain mobile wealthy people are willing to tolerate in return for, uhm, ah, the brilliance of the NHS?
I don't know whether Viewcode thinks he is being insightful with this facile critique of 'neoliberalism' but it is utter tripe.
If you have a better idea, I'm not stopping you writing it down.
How fucked is the US? part 45584763425474534 of an ongoing series...
DOGE illegally occupied a private building by coercing the security guards
Marisa Kabas
Wow. Judge Howell is worried that if she orders DOGE to leave the USIP building it could turn into an “armed standoff” over unwillingness to vacate, and points out law enforcement has shown willingness to help DOGE. Asks if we’ll need foreign mediators to come in.
Do you know I'm genuinely pissed off by all this. The Americans are turning the alleged land of the free into an corrupt autocracy and the Democrats are just gaping like dying fish, and the British allegedly left wing party is acting like it's 1997 and there's a end-of-the-Cold-War bonus. They are clever people, or pretend to be. If I can see it, why can't they?
The Democratic leadership isn't rising to the moment. But I suspect they won't last too long, as the dissatisfaction with them has gone off the scale in the last week..
There are few Dems that are standing up to be counted. Sanders and AOC most notably, but a few others too. Walz and Pritzker too.
It's hard for them to get air time or Social Media coverage with the msm so cowed, and the SM companies being active Trump collaborators.
“Schumer was bullish on everything, especially after Biden’s dramatic exit from the race.
“He liked telling people that Robert Caro, the famed biographer of President Lyndon B Johnson, had referred to him, Schumer, as the ‘Jewish LBJ’. So, he let himself fantasize about Democrats winning everything, the White House, the Senate, and the dysfunctional House and steamrolling through progressive legislation that would have him live up to the moniker.
increasingly convinced that DOGE isn't so much an office of the white house or a federal advisory committee as much as it is a criminal organization in the RICO sense
SCOOP: Canada is in advanced talks to participate in the new EU military industry project, highlighting how traditional US allies are teaming up to Trump-proof their military production. The budding deal would see Canada get EU contracts to build in Canadian factories.
Very interesting - this is the new EU defence procurement cooperation project that for now the UK is not joining, but Canada is joining, after new PM Carney diplomatic push…
Why is the UK not signing up ? It would be good for both security and business.
Is this some misguided attempt to stay in with Trump ?
SCOOP: Canada is in advanced talks to participate in the new EU military industry project, highlighting how traditional US allies are teaming up to Trump-proof their military production. The budding deal would see Canada get EU contracts to build in Canadian factories.
Very interesting - this is the new EU defence procurement cooperation project that for now the UK is not joining, but Canada is joining, after new PM Carney diplomatic push…
Wow. Hodges pulls no punches as he tears into Starmer's administration over welfare:
Remember what people were told they were voting for last July: ‘Change’. And what were they presented with yesterday? The spectacle of a Labour minister – a Labour minister – aggressively confronting anyone who had the gall to question whether demanding that the most vulnerable in society again make the greatest sacrifices was really morally or economically sustainable.
A storm is coming. The British people have had enough. They are not going to tolerate another parade of ministers in tight grey suits, sporting red – rather than blue – ties, telling them those in most need have to do with less.
As I keep pointing out, Blairism DOES NOT WORK in the 2020s. We tried corporatism in 1945-1979: it had its day and then it died. We tried neoliberalism in 1980-2019: it had its day and then it died. This warmed-over rotting-fish neoliberalism is not working and requires Labour to act out of character: if it isn't there to defend the old and the sick, what the hell is it there for? When is the "taxing the rich" bit due to kick in? They aren't going to do that because Blairism could afford not to do so, but these days you have to.
Honestly Morgan McSweeney, if you read PB, please do the bloody maths, yes?
You can’t tax the rich any more because the rich are ever more mobile, as Covid and WFH and the interweb have shown
Britain is already suffering a profound exodus of rich people, more than any other nation on earth. At the same time sunnier places without terror attacks, migration nightmares and machete-wielding Rolex robbers are attracting these rich people (often the young) with digital nomad visas and very low taxes
The Treasury is well aware of this, hence Labour backtracking on non doms and desperately trying to change its rhetoric on wealth
If you want our tax base to entirely disappear, go ahead an impose a wealth tax, and see how much rain mobile wealthy people are willing to tolerate in return for, uhm, ah, the brilliance of the NHS?
You have to tax something.
You can't run a nation state on debt indefinitely and I don't care what Modern Monetary Theory says. If you can't tax people, tax land. If you can't tax land, tax houses. If you can't tax houses, tax luxury goods. Stop thinking you can enjoy an entire economy and culture and hundreds of nuclear warheads to avenge your death based on nothing but more and more interest payments and more and more debt. It isn't working.
You can cut spending first. Let's start with £18billion for Chagos, £11billion for climate and god knows how much for foreign aid first. Oh and slash welfare in half.
Wow. Hodges pulls no punches as he tears into Starmer's administration over welfare:
Remember what people were told they were voting for last July: ‘Change’. And what were they presented with yesterday? The spectacle of a Labour minister – a Labour minister – aggressively confronting anyone who had the gall to question whether demanding that the most vulnerable in society again make the greatest sacrifices was really morally or economically sustainable.
A storm is coming. The British people have had enough. They are not going to tolerate another parade of ministers in tight grey suits, sporting red – rather than blue – ties, telling them those in most need have to do with less.
As I keep pointing out, Blairism DOES NOT WORK in the 2020s. We tried corporatism in 1945-1979: it had its day and then it died. We tried neoliberalism in 1980-2019: it had its day and then it died. This warmed-over rotting-fish neoliberalism is not working and requires Labour to act out of character: if it isn't there to defend the old and the sick, what the hell is it there for? When is the "taxing the rich" bit due to kick in? They aren't going to do that because Blairism could afford not to do so, but these days you have to.
Honestly Morgan McSweeney, if you read PB, please do the bloody maths, yes?
You can’t tax the rich any more because the rich are ever more mobile, as Covid and WFH and the interweb have shown
Britain is already suffering a profound exodus of rich people, more than any other nation on earth. At the same time sunnier places without terror attacks, migration nightmares and machete-wielding Rolex robbers are attracting these rich people (often the young) with digital nomad visas and very low taxes
The Treasury is well aware of this, hence Labour backtracking on non doms and desperately trying to change its rhetoric on wealth
If you want our tax base to entirely disappear, go ahead an impose a wealth tax, and see how much rain mobile wealthy people are willing to tolerate in return for, uhm, ah, the brilliance of the NHS?
You have to tax something.
You can't run a nation state on debt indefinitely and I don't care what Modern Monetary Theory says. If you can't tax people, tax land. If you can't tax land, tax houses. If you can't tax houses, tax luxury goods. Stop thinking you can enjoy an entire economy and culture and hundreds of nuclear warheads to avenge your death based on nothing but more and more interest payments and more and more debt. It isn't working.
First on the list of what should be taxed more is people owning very expensive properties in London that they hardly ever, if ever, live in.
SCOOP: Canada is in advanced talks to participate in the new EU military industry project, highlighting how traditional US allies are teaming up to Trump-proof their military production. The budding deal would see Canada get EU contracts to build in Canadian factories.
Very interesting - this is the new EU defence procurement cooperation project that for now the UK is not joining, but Canada is joining, after new PM Carney diplomatic push…
Why is the UK not signing up ? It would be good for both security and business.
Is this some misguided attempt to stay in with Trump ?
The FT has a much more nuanced take on it, and of course if Europe wants a defence pact it is not viable without UK involvement
Also Canada has a huge involvement with US military equipment as indeed does Europe
Europe needs to understand it is not a them and us if they want European defence security against Russia and other hostile states
increasingly convinced that DOGE isn't so much an office of the white house or a federal advisory committee as much as it is a criminal organization in the RICO sense
One day, I predict, he will wake up in a cell in a jump suit.
Wow. Hodges pulls no punches as he tears into Starmer's administration over welfare:
Remember what people were told they were voting for last July: ‘Change’. And what were they presented with yesterday? The spectacle of a Labour minister – a Labour minister – aggressively confronting anyone who had the gall to question whether demanding that the most vulnerable in society again make the greatest sacrifices was really morally or economically sustainable.
A storm is coming. The British people have had enough. They are not going to tolerate another parade of ministers in tight grey suits, sporting red – rather than blue – ties, telling them those in most need have to do with less.
As I keep pointing out, Blairism DOES NOT WORK in the 2020s. We tried corporatism in 1945-1979: it had its day and then it died. We tried neoliberalism in 1980-2019: it had its day and then it died. This warmed-over rotting-fish neoliberalism is not working and requires Labour to act out of character: if it isn't there to defend the old and the sick, what the hell is it there for? When is the "taxing the rich" bit due to kick in? They aren't going to do that because Blairism could afford not to do so, but these days you have to.
Honestly Morgan McSweeney, if you read PB, please do the bloody maths, yes?
You can’t tax the rich any more because the rich are ever more mobile, as Covid and WFH and the interweb have shown
Britain is already suffering a profound exodus of rich people, more than any other nation on earth. At the same time sunnier places without terror attacks, migration nightmares and machete-wielding Rolex robbers are attracting these rich people (often the young) with digital nomad visas and very low taxes
The Treasury is well aware of this, hence Labour backtracking on non doms and desperately trying to change its rhetoric on wealth
If you want our tax base to entirely disappear, go ahead an impose a wealth tax, and see how much rain mobile wealthy people are willing to tolerate in return for, uhm, ah, the brilliance of the NHS?
You have to tax something.
You can't run a nation state on debt indefinitely and I don't care what Modern Monetary Theory says. If you can't tax people, tax land. If you can't tax land, tax houses. If you can't tax houses, tax luxury goods. Stop thinking you can enjoy an entire economy and culture and hundreds of nuclear warheads to avenge your death based on nothing but more and more interest payments and more and more debt. It isn't working.
You can cut spending first. Let's start with £18billion for Chagos, £11billion for climate and god knows how much for foreign aid first. Oh and slash welfare in half.
Foreign Aid has just been slashed in half(and much of the remaining half is spent in the UK), the Chagos Deal is still being negotiated, and is over a century so has no instant payoff, and slashing welfare is not easy, with even today's modest cuts inflicting lots of misery, and saving only a little by the end of the parliament. The CChange fund is also spread over a decade.
There simply are not massive cuts to be made, mostly because folk are very ignorant about where the money actually goes.
High tax rates are not incompatible with a strong economy. Indeed the strongest decades of post war growth both here and in the UK were in times of high rates of income tax.
To raise the tone above the likes of @kinabalu and @kjh - this is why my tour guide was so amazing
He met me at the cathedral and we spent a pleasant couple of hours touring pleasant, safe, unexciting Montevideo
Then there was a thunderstorm and we were forced inside a very atmospheric old cafe (Caffe Braziliano). 19th century. Great coffee. At this point he opened up about his prior life in the Uruguayan army - mainly in their UN peacekeeping force (I had no idea Uruguay did so much peacekeeping)
By the time we got to the famous old market in the port for a famous Uruguayan barbecue lunch we’d bonded so much he admitted that not only had he spent years in the Congo and Georgia (where he was held hostage at gunpoint for a week) in his UN mission, he was also in Rwanda (again for the UN) where he witnessed, personally, the entire genocide from before it began to the aftermath - seeing the killings, driving through corpses, everything. He showed me the evidence and discussed how it changed him
Maybe the most compelling single hour of conversation I’ve ever had. To arrive BEFORE that genocide and leave AFTER. What does that do to you? He tried to explain and he was very articulate
To accompany this extraordinary conversation we had excellent steaks, chorizo, provolone, a good bottle of Tannat red wine and this secret Uruguayan wine they call “half and half”
This is one reason I love my job
Interesting story (though why the unnecessary dig at a couple of PBers ?).
I didn't know there were Uruguayan members of the UN forces in Rwanda during the genocide. They are not mentioned here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roméo_Dallaire I'd be interested to hear more of his story.
increasingly convinced that DOGE isn't so much an office of the white house or a federal advisory committee as much as it is a criminal organization in the RICO sense
One day, I predict, he will wake up in a cell in a jump suit.
That is one possible future. There are other timelines, and we seem destined to follow the darkest/dumbest of them all...
increasingly convinced that DOGE isn't so much an office of the white house or a federal advisory committee as much as it is a criminal organization in the RICO sense
Senators to do not impeach anyone.
The House impeaches and then the Senate convicts or not, with a two thirds majority needed for conviction.
Musk can give as much money as he wants but cannot achieve anything by doing this.
To raise the tone above the likes of @kinabalu and @kjh - this is why my tour guide was so amazing
He met me at the cathedral and we spent a pleasant couple of hours touring pleasant, safe, unexciting Montevideo
Then there was a thunderstorm and we were forced inside a very atmospheric old cafe (Caffe Braziliano). 19th century. Great coffee. At this point he opened up about his prior life in the Uruguayan army - mainly in their UN peacekeeping force (I had no idea Uruguay did so much peacekeeping)
By the time we got to the famous old market in the port for a famous Uruguayan barbecue lunch we’d bonded so much he admitted that not only had he spent years in the Congo and Georgia (where he was held hostage at gunpoint for a week) in his UN mission, he was also in Rwanda (again for the UN) where he witnessed, personally, the entire genocide from before it began to the aftermath - seeing the killings, driving through corpses, everything. He showed me the evidence and discussed how it changed him
Maybe the most compelling single hour of conversation I’ve ever had. To arrive BEFORE that genocide and leave AFTER. What does that do to you? He tried to explain and he was very articulate
To accompany this extraordinary conversation we had excellent steaks, chorizo, provolone, a good bottle of Tannat red wine and this secret Uruguayan wine they call “half and half”
This is one reason I love my job
Interesting story (though why the unnecessary dig at a couple of PBers ?).
I didn't know there were Uruguayan members of the UN forces in Rwanda during the genocide. They are not mentioned here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roméo_Dallaire I'd be interested to hear more of his story.
increasingly convinced that DOGE isn't so much an office of the white house or a federal advisory committee as much as it is a criminal organization in the RICO sense
One day, I predict, he will wake up in a cell in a jump suit.
That is one possible future. There are other timelines, and we seem destined to follow the darkest/dumbest of them all...
America may follow those dark timelines but I feel optimistic that in the end - after a hell of a lot nightmarish trouble - they will deal with this regime.
I assume someone is betting on who will be the next head of the IOC. I also assume Coe is too old, and that politics and background money deals are the main indicator of getting the job.
An important role, I am sure, though I find the 'highest office in sport' to be an odd description of it. Journalists like dramatic descriptions, but it is not as though all other sports roles report to the IOC surely.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/articles/c9812112rxdo Whoever wins, there has already been scrutiny of a process lacking transparency, but this will only intensify if Coventry is successful because she is widely seen as Bach's preferred candidate.
increasingly convinced that DOGE isn't so much an office of the white house or a federal advisory committee as much as it is a criminal organization in the RICO sense
One day, I predict, he will wake up in a cell in a jump suit.
That is one possible future. There are other timelines, and we seem destined to follow the darkest/dumbest of them all...
America may follow those dark timelines but I feel optimistic that in the end - after a hell of a lot nightmarish trouble - they will deal with this regime.
Historically it has been true that America does the right thing, having tried and exhausted all other options.
SCOOP: Canada is in advanced talks to participate in the new EU military industry project, highlighting how traditional US allies are teaming up to Trump-proof their military production. The budding deal would see Canada get EU contracts to build in Canadian factories.
Very interesting - this is the new EU defence procurement cooperation project that for now the UK is not joining, but Canada is joining, after new PM Carney diplomatic push…
Why is the UK not signing up ? It would be good for both security and business.
Is this some misguided attempt to stay in with Trump ?
The last I heard we had a defence deal ready to go but the French wanted fishing rights included in it.
It’s incredibly difficult to remove a federal judge but the main concern now is that the disgraceful rhetoric from Musk and the rest of the Trump arselickers leads to even more threats of violence against judges and they may begin to fear making proper decisions based on law .
SCOOP: Canada is in advanced talks to participate in the new EU military industry project, highlighting how traditional US allies are teaming up to Trump-proof their military production. The budding deal would see Canada get EU contracts to build in Canadian factories.
Very interesting - this is the new EU defence procurement cooperation project that for now the UK is not joining, but Canada is joining, after new PM Carney diplomatic push…
Why is the UK not signing up ? It would be good for both security and business.
Is this some misguided attempt to stay in with Trump ?
The last I heard we had a defence deal ready to go but the French wanted fishing rights included in it.
It’s incredibly difficult to remove a federal judge but the main concern now is that the disgraceful rhetoric from Musk and the rest of the Trump arselickers leads to even more threats of violence against judges and they may begin to fear making proper decisions based on law .
I genuinely think it is all over for anyone who tries to defy Trump by using the law
Whoever thought America would become an autocracy run by a narcissistic President with billionaire unelected bullies
To raise the tone above the likes of @kinabalu and @kjh - this is why my tour guide was so amazing
He met me at the cathedral and we spent a pleasant couple of hours touring pleasant, safe, unexciting Montevideo
Then there was a thunderstorm and we were forced inside a very atmospheric old cafe (Caffe Braziliano). 19th century. Great coffee. At this point he opened up about his prior life in the Uruguayan army - mainly in their UN peacekeeping force (I had no idea Uruguay did so much peacekeeping)
By the time we got to the famous old market in the port for a famous Uruguayan barbecue lunch we’d bonded so much he admitted that not only had he spent years in the Congo and Georgia (where he was held hostage at gunpoint for a week) in his UN mission, he was also in Rwanda (again for the UN) where he witnessed, personally, the entire genocide from before it began to the aftermath - seeing the killings, driving through corpses, everything. He showed me the evidence and discussed how it changed him
Maybe the most compelling single hour of conversation I’ve ever had. To arrive BEFORE that genocide and leave AFTER. What does that do to you? He tried to explain and he was very articulate
To accompany this extraordinary conversation we had excellent steaks, chorizo, provolone, a good bottle of Tannat red wine and this secret Uruguayan wine they call “half and half”
This is one reason I love my job
Interesting story (though why the unnecessary dig at a couple of PBers ?).
I didn't know there were Uruguayan members of the UN forces in Rwanda during the genocide. They are not mentioned here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roméo_Dallaire I'd be interested to hear more of his story.
If they are going to try that then Labour will lose badly. People will choose the real thing over pallid and unconvincing facsimile.
Interesting focus groups in Grimsby on C4 News, of both Labour voters and non-voters. Mostly leaning Reform, but complaints about Labour mostly about cutting benefits.
I know the Face Eating Leopards meme is getting a bit tired, but is there another way to describe this?
Leopards are graceful beauteous creatures, perhaps something lower down the food chain? Face Eating Hyena party or Face Eating Maggots party..
To raise the tone above the likes of @kinabalu and @kjh - this is why my tour guide was so amazing
He met me at the cathedral and we spent a pleasant couple of hours touring pleasant, safe, unexciting Montevideo
Then there was a thunderstorm and we were forced inside a very atmospheric old cafe (Caffe Braziliano). 19th century. Great coffee. At this point he opened up about his prior life in the Uruguayan army - mainly in their UN peacekeeping force (I had no idea Uruguay did so much peacekeeping)
By the time we got to the famous old market in the port for a famous Uruguayan barbecue lunch we’d bonded so much he admitted that not only had he spent years in the Congo and Georgia (where he was held hostage at gunpoint for a week) in his UN mission, he was also in Rwanda (again for the UN) where he witnessed, personally, the entire genocide from before it began to the aftermath - seeing the killings, driving through corpses, everything. He showed me the evidence and discussed how it changed him
Maybe the most compelling single hour of conversation I’ve ever had. To arrive BEFORE that genocide and leave AFTER. What does that do to you? He tried to explain and he was very articulate
To accompany this extraordinary conversation we had excellent steaks, chorizo, provolone, a good bottle of Tannat red wine and this secret Uruguayan wine they call “half and half”
This is one reason I love my job
Interesting story (though why the unnecessary dig at a couple of PBers ?).
I didn't know there were Uruguayan members of the UN forces in Rwanda during the genocide. They are not mentioned here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roméo_Dallaire I'd be interested to hear more of his story.
"CONTRIBUTORS OF MILITARY AND CIVILIAN POLICE PERSONNEL Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Germany, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, India, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Togo, Tunisia, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Zambia and Zimbabwe"
Yes, I just did that myself. My bad.
Probably only a handful of troops from the countries other than Belgium (the majority, but withdrawn early on) Pakistan, Canada, Ghana, Tunisia, and Bangladesh, though ?
It’s incredibly difficult to remove a federal judge but the main concern now is that the disgraceful rhetoric from Musk and the rest of the Trump arselickers leads to even more threats of violence against judges and they may begin to fear making proper decisions based on law .
I genuinely think it is all over for anyone who tries to defy Trump by using the law
Whoever thought America would become an autocracy run by a narcissistic President with billionaire unelected bullies
SCOOP: Canada is in advanced talks to participate in the new EU military industry project, highlighting how traditional US allies are teaming up to Trump-proof their military production. The budding deal would see Canada get EU contracts to build in Canadian factories.
Very interesting - this is the new EU defence procurement cooperation project that for now the UK is not joining, but Canada is joining, after new PM Carney diplomatic push…
Why is the UK not signing up ? It would be good for both security and business.
Is this some misguided attempt to stay in with Trump ?
France kicked off. The French are very good at cooperating with others, provided you remember that i) they are in charge and ii) they can leave whenever they like.
SCOOP: Canada is in advanced talks to participate in the new EU military industry project, highlighting how traditional US allies are teaming up to Trump-proof their military production. The budding deal would see Canada get EU contracts to build in Canadian factories.
Very interesting - this is the new EU defence procurement cooperation project that for now the UK is not joining, but Canada is joining, after new PM Carney diplomatic push…
Why is the UK not signing up ? It would be good for both security and business.
Is this some misguided attempt to stay in with Trump ?
France kicked off. The French are very good at cooperating with others, provided you remember that i) they are in charge and ii) they can leave whenever they like.
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
This could have been written any time in the last 10 years.
I think the question is do these people continue to be disappointed by the main parties but still vote for them or do we see a rise in much much more radical left and right parties* that are common place in Europe. We did for a brief moment see the rise in the BNP in places like Stoke for exactly this reason, it was local people who joined the BNP and were pushing Corbynista economic policies.
*I don't really see Reform as radical, its a one man party of a bloke who could easily been in the Tories prior to Cameron and is quite to disown anything too radical and its really trying the same trick as Boris promising all the sweeties without any of the pain.
It’s incredibly difficult to remove a federal judge but the main concern now is that the disgraceful rhetoric from Musk and the rest of the Trump arselickers leads to even more threats of violence against judges and they may begin to fear making proper decisions based on law .
I genuinely think it is all over for anyone who tries to defy Trump by using the law
Whoever thought America would become an autocracy run by a narcissistic President with billionaire unelected bullies
The US has been a pretty shaky democracy for some time. The two-party system, blatant gerrymandering, excessive power of the president and poor education of its population, among other things, are not conducive to stability.
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
This could have been written any time in the last 10 years.
No, I think there's been a marked shift in the last 12 months. There's now much more elite acceptance that Britain is in decline and that mass migration is not working and at the same time large parts of the public have become more radical.
Paradoxically the election of Labour broke the liberal consensus that had prevailed since Blair.
Wow. Hodges pulls no punches as he tears into Starmer's administration over welfare:
Remember what people were told they were voting for last July: ‘Change’. And what were they presented with yesterday? The spectacle of a Labour minister – a Labour minister – aggressively confronting anyone who had the gall to question whether demanding that the most vulnerable in society again make the greatest sacrifices was really morally or economically sustainable.
A storm is coming. The British people have had enough. They are not going to tolerate another parade of ministers in tight grey suits, sporting red – rather than blue – ties, telling them those in most need have to do with less.
As I keep pointing out, Blairism DOES NOT WORK in the 2020s. We tried corporatism in 1945-1979: it had its day and then it died. We tried neoliberalism in 1980-2019: it had its day and then it died. This warmed-over rotting-fish neoliberalism is not working and requires Labour to act out of character: if it isn't there to defend the old and the sick, what the hell is it there for? When is the "taxing the rich" bit due to kick in? They aren't going to do that because Blairism could afford not to do so, but these days you have to.
Honestly Morgan McSweeney, if you read PB, please do the bloody maths, yes?
You can’t tax the rich any more because the rich are ever more mobile, as Covid and WFH and the interweb have shown
Britain is already suffering a profound exodus of rich people, more than any other nation on earth. At the same time sunnier places without terror attacks, migration nightmares and machete-wielding Rolex robbers are attracting these rich people (often the young) with digital nomad visas and very low taxes
The Treasury is well aware of this, hence Labour backtracking on non doms and desperately trying to change its rhetoric on wealth
If you want our tax base to entirely disappear, go ahead an impose a wealth tax, and see how much rain mobile wealthy people are willing to tolerate in return for, uhm, ah, the brilliance of the NHS?
You have to tax something.
You can't run a nation state on debt indefinitely and I don't care what Modern Monetary Theory says. If you can't tax people, tax land. If you can't tax land, tax houses. If you can't tax houses, tax luxury goods. Stop thinking you can enjoy an entire economy and culture and hundreds of nuclear warheads to avenge your death based on nothing but more and more interest payments and more and more debt. It isn't working.
You can cut spending first. Let's start with £18billion for Chagos, £11billion for climate and god knows how much for foreign aid first. Oh and slash welfare in half.
You can do both. In fact you should. But I return to my original question: if Labour isn't there to defend the old and the sick, what the hell is it there for?
It’s incredibly difficult to remove a federal judge but the main concern now is that the disgraceful rhetoric from Musk and the rest of the Trump arselickers leads to even more threats of violence against judges and they may begin to fear making proper decisions based on law .
I genuinely think it is all over for anyone who tries to defy Trump by using the law
Whoever thought America would become an autocracy run by a narcissistic President with billionaire unelected bullies
The US has been a pretty shaky democracy for some time. The two-party system, blatant gerrymandering, excessive power of the president and poor education of its population, among other things, are not conducive to stability.
I think in some areas they don't do well on some 'freedom indices', as compared to other Western places, though I don't know if said ratings are worth the paper they are printed on.
Some places are so bad they could remain oppressive autocracies and still rocket will up the lists, though on a certain PBers 'democratic state' index almost everyone would be ok.
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
This could have been written any time in the last 10 years.
No, I think there's been a marked shift in the last 12 months. There's now much more elite acceptance that Britain is in decline and that mass migration is not working and at the same time large parts of the public have become more radical.
Paradoxically the election of Labour broke the liberal consensus that had prevailed since Blair.
I'm not sure of the cause but I do feel like it is the case there is more acceptance some things are structurally broken or problematic, it isn't just that the Tories did a bad job or whatever.
Doesn't guarantee proper solutions will be tried, or work, and I guarantee voters will object to most things attempted, but it does perhaps mean there is some hope of addressing some of the problems at least.
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
This could have been written any time in the last 10 years.
No, I think there's been a marked shift in the last 12 months. There's now much more elite acceptance that Britain is in decline and that mass migration is not working and at the same time large parts of the public have become more radical.
Paradoxically the election of Labour broke the liberal consensus that had prevailed since Blair.
Social media is destroying our democracy.
That focus group seems to be stuff full of conspiracy theories and is "the most america" the guy has seen.
Can't think where these voters are getting all their information from.
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
This could have been written any time in the last 10 years.
No, I think there's been a marked shift in the last 12 months. There's now much more elite acceptance that Britain is in decline and that mass migration is not working and at the same time large parts of the public have become more radical.
Paradoxically the election of Labour broke the liberal consensus that had prevailed since Blair.
Yes. This is COMPLETELY different now, and extremely dangerous
It’s incredibly difficult to remove a federal judge but the main concern now is that the disgraceful rhetoric from Musk and the rest of the Trump arselickers leads to even more threats of violence against judges and they may begin to fear making proper decisions based on law .
I genuinely think it is all over for anyone who tries to defy Trump by using the law
Whoever thought America would become an autocracy run by a narcissistic President with billionaire unelected bullies
The US has been a pretty shaky democracy for some time. The two-party system, blatant gerrymandering, excessive power of the president and poor education of its population, among other things, are not conducive to stability.
President Trump’s angry call on Tuesday for the impeachment of a federal judge who ruled against his administration on deportation flights has set off a string of near-instant social media taunts and threats, including images of judges being marched off in handcuffs.
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
This could have been written any time in the last 10 years.
No, I think there's been a marked shift in the last 12 months. There's now much more elite acceptance that Britain is in decline and that mass migration is not working and at the same time large parts of the public have become more radical.
Paradoxically the election of Labour broke the liberal consensus that had prevailed since Blair.
Social media is destroying our democracy.
That focus group seems to be stuff full of conspiracy theories and is "the most america" the guy has seen.
Can't think where these voters are getting all their information from.
There does seem to be a significant horseshoe effect of right leaning people joining the far left in things like shadowy elites control the world. You hear the right wingers banging on about conspiracy of Davos globalist elites running the world as much as a Corbynista these days.
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
This could have been written any time in the last 10 years.
I think the question is do these people continue to be disappointed by the main parties but still vote for them or do we see a rise in much much more radical left and right parties* that are common place in Europe. We did for a brief moment see the rise in the BNP in places like Stoke for exactly this reason, it was local people who joined the BNP and were pushing Corbynista economic policies.
*I don't really see Reform as radical, its a one man party of a bloke who could easily been in the Tories prior to Cameron and is quite to disown anything too radical and its really trying the same trick as Boris promising all the sweeties without any of the pain.
There is also a great complacency about voting for real dipshits offering the moon on a stick.
Think things couldn't get worse? They certainly can, and not just a bit worse. There are plenty of failed states in history, where the citizens thought the party could run forever.
To raise the tone above the likes of @kinabalu and @kjh - this is why my tour guide was so amazing
He met me at the cathedral and we spent a pleasant couple of hours touring pleasant, safe, unexciting Montevideo
Then there was a thunderstorm and we were forced inside a very atmospheric old cafe (Caffe Braziliano). 19th century. Great coffee. At this point he opened up about his prior life in the Uruguayan army - mainly in their UN peacekeeping force (I had no idea Uruguay did so much peacekeeping)
By the time we got to the famous old market in the port for a famous Uruguayan barbecue lunch we’d bonded so much he admitted that not only had he spent years in the Congo and Georgia (where he was held hostage at gunpoint for a week) in his UN mission, he was also in Rwanda (again for the UN) where he witnessed, personally, the entire genocide from before it began to the aftermath - seeing the killings, driving through corpses, everything. He showed me the evidence and discussed how it changed him
Maybe the most compelling single hour of conversation I’ve ever had. To arrive BEFORE that genocide and leave AFTER. What does that do to you? He tried to explain and he was very articulate
To accompany this extraordinary conversation we had excellent steaks, chorizo, provolone, a good bottle of Tannat red wine and this secret Uruguayan wine they call “half and half”
This is one reason I love my job
Interesting story (though why the unnecessary dig at a couple of PBers ?).
I didn't know there were Uruguayan members of the UN forces in Rwanda during the genocide. They are not mentioned here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roméo_Dallaire I'd be interested to hear more of his story.
"CONTRIBUTORS OF MILITARY AND CIVILIAN POLICE PERSONNEL Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Germany, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, India, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Togo, Tunisia, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Zambia and Zimbabwe"
Yes, I just did that myself. My bad.
Probably only a handful of troops from the countries other than Belgium (the majority, but withdrawn early on) Pakistan, Canada, Ghana, Tunisia, and Bangladesh, though ?
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
This could have been written any time in the last 10 years.
No, I think there's been a marked shift in the last 12 months. There's now much more elite acceptance that Britain is in decline and that mass migration is not working and at the same time large parts of the public have become more radical.
Paradoxically the election of Labour broke the liberal consensus that had prevailed since Blair.
Social media is destroying our democracy.
That focus group seems to be stuff full of conspiracy theories and is "the most america" the guy has seen.
Can't think where these voters are getting all their information from.
I'm sure we've all fallen for something online before, especially something we wanted to believe or which aligned with our politics, but I am struck by one acquaintance of mine who will read out a story and if it is something which I know pretty confidently from personal experience to be untrue and say so, their response is a just as confident 'it says X here' or 'they' say it is true (that is, the internet says it). It doesn't seem to make a difference if they read it from a news site or it is shared by someone they know on facebook, the fact they read it seems in itself to be sufficient to be accepted as fact.
Attempting not to be condescending that level of credulity at online content is problematic unless you want to be President of the United States or run a multi-billion dollar company.
(Ok, I didn't entirely succeed at the non-condescension)
To raise the tone above the likes of @kinabalu and @kjh - this is why my tour guide was so amazing
He met me at the cathedral and we spent a pleasant couple of hours touring pleasant, safe, unexciting Montevideo
Then there was a thunderstorm and we were forced inside a very atmospheric old cafe (Caffe Braziliano). 19th century. Great coffee. At this point he opened up about his prior life in the Uruguayan army - mainly in their UN peacekeeping force (I had no idea Uruguay did so much peacekeeping)
By the time we got to the famous old market in the port for a famous Uruguayan barbecue lunch we’d bonded so much he admitted that not only had he spent years in the Congo and Georgia (where he was held hostage at gunpoint for a week) in his UN mission, he was also in Rwanda (again for the UN) where he witnessed, personally, the entire genocide from before it began to the aftermath - seeing the killings, driving through corpses, everything. He showed me the evidence and discussed how it changed him
Maybe the most compelling single hour of conversation I’ve ever had. To arrive BEFORE that genocide and leave AFTER. What does that do to you? He tried to explain and he was very articulate
To accompany this extraordinary conversation we had excellent steaks, chorizo, provolone, a good bottle of Tannat red wine and this secret Uruguayan wine they call “half and half”
This is one reason I love my job
Interesting story (though why the unnecessary dig at a couple of PBers ?).
I didn't know there were Uruguayan members of the UN forces in Rwanda during the genocide. They are not mentioned here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roméo_Dallaire I'd be interested to hear more of his story.
"CONTRIBUTORS OF MILITARY AND CIVILIAN POLICE PERSONNEL Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Germany, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, India, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Togo, Tunisia, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Zambia and Zimbabwe"
Yes, I just did that myself. My bad.
Probably only a handful of troops from the countries other than Belgium (the majority, but withdrawn early on) Pakistan, Canada, Ghana, Tunisia, and Bangladesh, though ?
To raise the tone above the likes of @kinabalu and @kjh - this is why my tour guide was so amazing
He met me at the cathedral and we spent a pleasant couple of hours touring pleasant, safe, unexciting Montevideo
Then there was a thunderstorm and we were forced inside a very atmospheric old cafe (Caffe Braziliano). 19th century. Great coffee. At this point he opened up about his prior life in the Uruguayan army - mainly in their UN peacekeeping force (I had no idea Uruguay did so much peacekeeping)
By the time we got to the famous old market in the port for a famous Uruguayan barbecue lunch we’d bonded so much he admitted that not only had he spent years in the Congo and Georgia (where he was held hostage at gunpoint for a week) in his UN mission, he was also in Rwanda (again for the UN) where he witnessed, personally, the entire genocide from before it began to the aftermath - seeing the killings, driving through corpses, everything. He showed me the evidence and discussed how it changed him
Maybe the most compelling single hour of conversation I’ve ever had. To arrive BEFORE that genocide and leave AFTER. What does that do to you? He tried to explain and he was very articulate
To accompany this extraordinary conversation we had excellent steaks, chorizo, provolone, a good bottle of Tannat red wine and this secret Uruguayan wine they call “half and half”
This is one reason I love my job
Interesting story (though why the unnecessary dig at a couple of PBers ?).
I didn't know there were Uruguayan members of the UN forces in Rwanda during the genocide. They are not mentioned here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roméo_Dallaire I'd be interested to hear more of his story.
"CONTRIBUTORS OF MILITARY AND CIVILIAN POLICE PERSONNEL Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Germany, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, India, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Togo, Tunisia, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Zambia and Zimbabwe"
Yes, I just did that myself. My bad.
Probably only a handful of troops from the countries other than Belgium (the majority, but withdrawn early on) Pakistan, Canada, Ghana, Tunisia, and Bangladesh, though ?
Can't think why they would do that as a very stable genius who voters returned because he is a brilliant businessman who will end Biden's disaster economy and end inflation on day one is back in the WH.
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
This could have been written any time in the last 10 years.
No, I think there's been a marked shift in the last 12 months. There's now much more elite acceptance that Britain is in decline and that mass migration is not working and at the same time large parts of the public have become more radical.
Paradoxically the election of Labour broke the liberal consensus that had prevailed since Blair.
Social media is destroying our democracy.
That focus group seems to be stuff full of conspiracy theories and is "the most america" the guy has seen.
Can't think where these voters are getting all their information from.
Overwhelming mass immigration is not a “racist conspiracy theory”. Nor; as we now know, is “two tier justice”
British people can see the boriswave on their streets. They can see the 10 million we have let in since 1997. They can see that - despite all claims otherwise - this immigration is not “essential for growth and prosperity”. GDP per capita has basically flatlined for fifteen years. They can also see that both main parties are responsible for this and both of them have no clue what to do about it
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
This could have been written any time in the last 10 years.
I think the question is do these people continue to be disappointed by the main parties but still vote for them or do we see a rise in much much more radical left and right parties* that are common place in Europe. We did for a brief moment see the rise in the BNP in places like Stoke for exactly this reason, it was local people who joined the BNP and were pushing Corbynista economic policies.
*I don't really see Reform as radical, its a one man party of a bloke who could easily been in the Tories prior to Cameron and is quite to disown anything too radical and its really trying the same trick as Boris promising all the sweeties without any of the pain.
There is also a great complacency about voting for real dipshits offering the moon on a stick.
Think things couldn't get worse? They certainly can, and not just a bit worse. There are plenty of failed states in history, where the citizens thought the party could run forever.
These really are dark times . I do wonder what sort of country those cheering on Trump think they’re going to end up with . It’s quite astonishing now to see the US AG effectively trashing the law and constitution she’s there to protect .
And it’s now upto the Supreme Court to step in which is quite something when saving the last vestiges of US democracy are down to a Conservative majority court . Although I expect the Mago loons now to turn on that if it makes any rulings that Trump doesn’t like .
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
This could have been written any time in the last 10 years.
No, I think there's been a marked shift in the last 12 months. There's now much more elite acceptance that Britain is in decline and that mass migration is not working and at the same time large parts of the public have become more radical.
Paradoxically the election of Labour broke the liberal consensus that had prevailed since Blair.
Yes. This is COMPLETELY different now, and extremely dangerous
Maybe and maybe not.
But how would you know from far off Uruguay or China or wherever you will be next week ?
To raise the tone above the likes of @kinabalu and @kjh - this is why my tour guide was so amazing
He met me at the cathedral and we spent a pleasant couple of hours touring pleasant, safe, unexciting Montevideo
Then there was a thunderstorm and we were forced inside a very atmospheric old cafe (Caffe Braziliano). 19th century. Great coffee. At this point he opened up about his prior life in the Uruguayan army - mainly in their UN peacekeeping force (I had no idea Uruguay did so much peacekeeping)
By the time we got to the famous old market in the port for a famous Uruguayan barbecue lunch we’d bonded so much he admitted that not only had he spent years in the Congo and Georgia (where he was held hostage at gunpoint for a week) in his UN mission, he was also in Rwanda (again for the UN) where he witnessed, personally, the entire genocide from before it began to the aftermath - seeing the killings, driving through corpses, everything. He showed me the evidence and discussed how it changed him
Maybe the most compelling single hour of conversation I’ve ever had. To arrive BEFORE that genocide and leave AFTER. What does that do to you? He tried to explain and he was very articulate
To accompany this extraordinary conversation we had excellent steaks, chorizo, provolone, a good bottle of Tannat red wine and this secret Uruguayan wine they call “half and half”
This is one reason I love my job
Interesting story (though why the unnecessary dig at a couple of PBers ?).
I didn't know there were Uruguayan members of the UN forces in Rwanda during the genocide. They are not mentioned here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roméo_Dallaire I'd be interested to hear more of his story.
"CONTRIBUTORS OF MILITARY AND CIVILIAN POLICE PERSONNEL Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Germany, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, India, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Togo, Tunisia, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Zambia and Zimbabwe"
Yes, I just did that myself. My bad.
Probably only a handful of troops from the countries other than Belgium (the majority, but withdrawn early on) Pakistan, Canada, Ghana, Tunisia, and Bangladesh, though ?
“A 30 años del genocidio de Ruanda de 1994: la experiencia de los cascos azules uruguayos”
I wasn't suggesting he was (and I've already corrected/acknowledged my mistake upthread).
I am genuinely interested in hearing more.
Fair enough
He was full of the most incredible stories. At one point he saved his life by giving away a stick of chewing gum just as he was about to be shot
He also pointed out that he was unarmed, they had no guns. They were “military observers”, so they had to stand there and watch as the butchering took place right in front of them
We had some wine (excellent Tannat!) and got quite candid and I asked him right out if he was affected by it, perhaps traumatized. He was adamant that he was and is fine. “I am a soldier”. It seemed to be the case. He was good company, level headed, quite amusing, and I think a bit bored of boring Montevideo
He did admit that one of his superior officers, a Canadian, went a bit bonkers - then wrote this book
To raise the tone above the likes of @kinabalu and @kjh - this is why my tour guide was so amazing
He met me at the cathedral and we spent a pleasant couple of hours touring pleasant, safe, unexciting Montevideo
Then there was a thunderstorm and we were forced inside a very atmospheric old cafe (Caffe Braziliano). 19th century. Great coffee. At this point he opened up about his prior life in the Uruguayan army - mainly in their UN peacekeeping force (I had no idea Uruguay did so much peacekeeping)
By the time we got to the famous old market in the port for a famous Uruguayan barbecue lunch we’d bonded so much he admitted that not only had he spent years in the Congo and Georgia (where he was held hostage at gunpoint for a week) in his UN mission, he was also in Rwanda (again for the UN) where he witnessed, personally, the entire genocide from before it began to the aftermath - seeing the killings, driving through corpses, everything. He showed me the evidence and discussed how it changed him
Maybe the most compelling single hour of conversation I’ve ever had. To arrive BEFORE that genocide and leave AFTER. What does that do to you? He tried to explain and he was very articulate
To accompany this extraordinary conversation we had excellent steaks, chorizo, provolone, a good bottle of Tannat red wine and this secret Uruguayan wine they call “half and half”
This is one reason I love my job
Interesting story (though why the unnecessary dig at a couple of PBers ?).
I didn't know there were Uruguayan members of the UN forces in Rwanda during the genocide. They are not mentioned here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roméo_Dallaire I'd be interested to hear more of his story.
"CONTRIBUTORS OF MILITARY AND CIVILIAN POLICE PERSONNEL Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Germany, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, India, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Togo, Tunisia, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Zambia and Zimbabwe"
Yes, I just did that myself. My bad.
Probably only a handful of troops from the countries other than Belgium (the majority, but withdrawn early on) Pakistan, Canada, Ghana, Tunisia, and Bangladesh, though ?
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
This could have been written any time in the last 10 years.
No, I think there's been a marked shift in the last 12 months. There's now much more elite acceptance that Britain is in decline and that mass migration is not working and at the same time large parts of the public have become more radical.
Paradoxically the election of Labour broke the liberal consensus that had prevailed since Blair.
Social media is destroying our democracy.
That focus group seems to be stuff full of conspiracy theories and is "the most america" the guy has seen.
Can't think where these voters are getting all their information from.
Overwhelming mass immigration is not a “racist conspiracy theory”. Nor; as we now know, is “two tier justice”
British people can see the boriswave on their streets. They can see the 10 million we have let in since 1997. They can see that - despite all claims otherwise - this immigration is not “essential for growth and prosperity”. GDP per capita has basically flatlined for fifteen years. They can also see that both main parties are responsible for this and both of them have no clue what to do about it
Brace. It’s gonna kick off
Immigration is not the conspiracy theories the focus group are talking about. I get the anger about "Boriswave" of migrants but the conspiracy shit is beyond that:
"Conspiracy theories abounded: Epstein and a shady force “pulling the strings” featured."
"But bit by bit, our politics is becoming more online, more conspiratorial, more fractious, more American."
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
This could have been written any time in the last 10 years.
No, I think there's been a marked shift in the last 12 months. There's now much more elite acceptance that Britain is in decline and that mass migration is not working and at the same time large parts of the public have become more radical.
Paradoxically the election of Labour broke the liberal consensus that had prevailed since Blair.
Yes. This is COMPLETELY different now, and extremely dangerous
Maybe and maybe not.
But how would you know from far off Uruguay or China or wherever you will be next week ?
Have you considered the possibility that extremely wide experience of the world - eg my encounter today with a fairly unique living witness to the Rwandan genocide - might give me some insights that others don’t? I’m not saying that is necessarily true, or even probably true, but it is of course possible
To raise the tone above the likes of @kinabalu and @kjh - this is why my tour guide was so amazing
He met me at the cathedral and we spent a pleasant couple of hours touring pleasant, safe, unexciting Montevideo
Then there was a thunderstorm and we were forced inside a very atmospheric old cafe (Caffe Braziliano). 19th century. Great coffee. At this point he opened up about his prior life in the Uruguayan army - mainly in their UN peacekeeping force (I had no idea Uruguay did so much peacekeeping)
By the time we got to the famous old market in the port for a famous Uruguayan barbecue lunch we’d bonded so much he admitted that not only had he spent years in the Congo and Georgia (where he was held hostage at gunpoint for a week) in his UN mission, he was also in Rwanda (again for the UN) where he witnessed, personally, the entire genocide from before it began to the aftermath - seeing the killings, driving through corpses, everything. He showed me the evidence and discussed how it changed him
Maybe the most compelling single hour of conversation I’ve ever had. To arrive BEFORE that genocide and leave AFTER. What does that do to you? He tried to explain and he was very articulate
To accompany this extraordinary conversation we had excellent steaks, chorizo, provolone, a good bottle of Tannat red wine and this secret Uruguayan wine they call “half and half”
This is one reason I love my job
Interesting story (though why the unnecessary dig at a couple of PBers ?).
I didn't know there were Uruguayan members of the UN forces in Rwanda during the genocide. They are not mentioned here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roméo_Dallaire I'd be interested to hear more of his story.
"CONTRIBUTORS OF MILITARY AND CIVILIAN POLICE PERSONNEL Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Germany, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, India, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Togo, Tunisia, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Zambia and Zimbabwe"
Yes, I just did that myself. My bad.
Probably only a handful of troops from the countries other than Belgium (the majority, but withdrawn early on) Pakistan, Canada, Ghana, Tunisia, and Bangladesh, though ?
Comments
"International law" is a bunch of worthless piss.
Israeli Arabs are citizens who get to vote democratically, unlike in the rest of the region.
If you like hefty sausages and nice steaks, day after day, you’re in heaven
I’ve just written a Kanpper’s Gazette article on why the food in the ex-Iberian colonies is almost universally dreary (the Philippines is the one place in SE Asia with shite food, in an area otherwise blessed)
But they do have the wine. Ah, the wine
(Yes I know their two scores would not combine if the other were not there).
Maybe he is starting to believe he is the chosen one which would be a mistake
I would risk assess the situation to determine the best way of minimising harm and maximising successful prosecution of the individuals. I have training in non-violent de-escalation of threatening situations.
Britain is already suffering a profound exodus of rich people, more than any other nation on earth. At the same time sunnier places without terror attacks, migration nightmares and machete-wielding Rolex robbers are attracting these rich people (often the young) with digital nomad visas and very low taxes
The Treasury is well aware of this, hence Labour backtracking on non doms and desperately trying to change its rhetoric on wealth
If you want our tax base to entirely disappear, go ahead an impose a wealth tax, and see how much rain mobile wealthy people are willing to tolerate in return for, uhm, ah, the brilliance of the NHS?
We have excellent training in de-escalation of situations in my Trust, from a former Squaddie turned Copper, and it has worked for me in a number of situations. Threatened and actual violence are not unusual in my line of work. The most recent time I used it was diverting assaults on a paramedic who was tending an unconscious man. No one got hurt and I talked them down from actions that would probably have got them nicked when the police finally got there. It seemed an age.
@MatinaStevis
SCOOP: Canada is in advanced talks to participate in the new EU military industry project, highlighting how traditional US allies are teaming up to Trump-proof their military production. The budding deal would see Canada get EU contracts to build in Canadian factories.
@faisalislam
Very interesting - this is the new EU defence procurement cooperation project that for now the UK is not joining, but Canada is joining, after new PM Carney diplomatic push…
https://idlewords.com/2006/04/argentina_on_two_steaks_a_day.htm
(he has some rather good bits about travel all round. Not in flint-knapper league of course. But I remember his first trip to the middle-east, being woken day after day by the call for prayer. "It was a sad day when Islam met electronic amplification.")
I had a friend who was sitting in his flat watching tv...door gets kicked in they walk in steal the tv he is watching, no masks because they know he wont give a description....how many on pb do you think have experienced that or friends that have?
(I kid, I kid...)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested allowing bird flu to spread, so as to identify birds that may be immune. Veterinary scientists said that would be inhumane, dangerous and have enormous economic consequences.
Mikhail Bakunin
And.
More inhumane than current US poultry farm practices?
But I suspect they won't last too long, as the dissatisfaction with them has gone off the scale in the last week..
Ian Dury.
You can't run a nation state on debt indefinitely and I don't care what Modern Monetary Theory says. If you can't tax people, tax land. If you can't tax land, tax houses. If you can't tax houses, tax luxury goods. Stop thinking you can enjoy an entire economy and culture and hundreds of nuclear warheads to avenge your death based on nothing but more and more interest payments and more and more debt. It isn't working.
It's hard for them to get air time or Social Media coverage with the msm so cowed, and the SM companies being active Trump collaborators.
“Schumer was bullish on everything, especially after Biden’s dramatic exit from the race.
“He liked telling people that Robert Caro, the famed biographer of President Lyndon B Johnson, had referred to him, Schumer, as the ‘Jewish LBJ’. So, he let himself fantasize about Democrats winning everything, the White House, the Senate, and the dysfunctional House and steamrolling through progressive legislation that would have him live up to the moniker.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/19/chuck-schumer-trump-book
@joshuaerlich.bsky.social
increasingly convinced that DOGE isn't so much an office of the white house or a federal advisory committee as much as it is a criminal organization in the RICO sense
It would be good for both security and business.
Is this some misguided attempt to stay in with Trump ?
Also Canada has a huge involvement with US military equipment as indeed does Europe
Europe needs to understand it is not a them and us if they want European defence security against Russia and other hostile states
There simply are not massive cuts to be made, mostly because folk are very ignorant about where the money actually goes.
High tax rates are not incompatible with a strong economy. Indeed the strongest decades of post war growth both here and in the UK were in times of high rates of income tax.
I didn't know there were Uruguayan members of the UN forces in Rwanda during the genocide.
They are not mentioned here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roméo_Dallaire
I'd be interested to hear more of his story.
https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/trump-attacks-global-law-firms-as-top-uk-names-face-dei-probe
The House impeaches and then the Senate convicts or not, with a two thirds majority needed for conviction.
Musk can give as much money as he wants but cannot achieve anything by doing this.
https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/unamirF.htm
"CONTRIBUTORS OF MILITARY AND CIVILIAN POLICE PERSONNEL
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Germany, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, India, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Togo, Tunisia, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Zambia and Zimbabwe"
An important role, I am sure, though I find the 'highest office in sport' to be an odd description of it. Journalists like dramatic descriptions, but it is not as though all other sports roles report to the IOC surely.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/articles/c9812112rxdo
Whoever wins, there has already been scrutiny of a process lacking transparency, but this will only intensify if Coventry is successful because she is widely seen as Bach's preferred candidate.
Those days may be gone though.
I have no idea where this ends for any of us, but it is scary and worrying for millions
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2025/feb/06/fishing-rights-not-derail-eu-uk-security-pact-european-council-president
This week I ran a focus group in Grimsby for @channel4news.
The mood amongst voters was nothing short of apocalyptic. On migration, welfare, and the future of Britain.
No party leader was seen as truly capable of leading Britain out of a mess they felt was caused above all by mass immigration.
Rich in anger and conspiracy theories, it was also the most American of the English focus groups I’ve ever conducted.
Whoever thought America would become an autocracy run by a narcissistic President with billionaire unelected bullies
uruguayans were involved.
https://peacekeeping.un.org/mission/past/unamir.htm#:~:text=UNITED NATIONS ASSISTANCE MISSION FOR,parties on 4 August 1993.
Face Eating Hyena party or Face Eating Maggots party..
Probably only a handful of troops from the countries other than Belgium (the majority, but withdrawn early on) Pakistan, Canada, Ghana, Tunisia, and Bangladesh, though ?
When people tell you who they are, believe them.
*I don't really see Reform as radical, its a one man party of a bloke who could easily been in the Tories prior to Cameron and is quite to disown anything too radical and its really trying the same trick as Boris promising all the sweeties without any of the pain.
Paradoxically the election of Labour broke the liberal consensus that had prevailed since Blair.
Some places are so bad they could remain oppressive autocracies and still rocket will up the lists, though on a certain PBers 'democratic state' index almost everyone would be ok.
Doesn't guarantee proper solutions will be tried, or work, and I guarantee voters will object to most things attempted, but it does perhaps mean there is some hope of addressing some of the problems at least.
That focus group seems to be stuff full of conspiracy theories and is "the most america" the guy has seen.
Can't think where these voters are getting all their information from.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/us/trump-judges-threats.html
Again. Fucking social media. It will kill us all at this rate.
Think things couldn't get worse? They certainly can, and not just a bit worse. There are plenty of failed states in history, where the citizens thought the party could run forever.
https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/testimonios/article/view/47125
“A 30 años del genocidio de Ruanda de 1994: la experiencia de los cascos azules uruguayos”
The Federal Reserve cuts 2025 growth outlook, raises inflation forecast, raises unemployment projection to 4.4%
https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/1902422065933648200
Attempting not to be condescending that level of credulity at online content is problematic unless you want to be President of the United States or run a multi-billion dollar company.
(Ok, I didn't entirely succeed at the non-condescension)
I am genuinely interested in hearing more.
The world has forgotten that lesson, so is determined to repeat the crimes.
British people can see the boriswave on their streets. They can see the 10 million we have let in since 1997. They can see that - despite all claims otherwise - this immigration is not “essential for growth and prosperity”. GDP per capita has basically flatlined for fifteen years. They can also see that both main parties are responsible for this and both of them have no clue what to do about it
Brace. It’s gonna kick off
And it’s now upto the Supreme Court to step in which is quite something when saving the last vestiges of US democracy are down to a Conservative majority court . Although I expect the Mago loons now to turn on that if it makes any rulings that Trump doesn’t like .
But how would you know from far off Uruguay or China or wherever you will be next week ?
He was full of the most incredible stories. At one point he saved his life by giving away a stick of chewing gum just as he was about to be shot
He also pointed out that he was unarmed, they had no guns. They were “military observers”, so they had to stand there and watch as the butchering took place right in front of them
We had some wine (excellent Tannat!) and got quite candid and I asked him right out if he was affected by it, perhaps traumatized. He was adamant that he was and is fine. “I am a soldier”. It seemed to be the case. He was good company, level headed, quite amusing, and I think a bit bored of boring Montevideo
He did admit that one of his superior officers, a Canadian, went a bit bonkers - then wrote this book
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shake_Hands_with_the_Devil_(book)
"Conspiracy theories abounded: Epstein and a shady force “pulling the strings” featured."
"But bit by bit, our politics is becoming more online, more conspiratorial, more fractious, more American."
https://www.channel4.com/news/james-johnson-pollsters-thoughts-on-political-swing-in-uk
@cb_doge
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6h
🚨 ELON MUSK: "I sleep for about 6 hours on average and I work almost every waking hour.
I don't have social dinners really. I literally just will have lunch and dinner during meetings and continue the meeting."
===
The problem in a nutshell.