Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
Well the number of women MPs is at an all time high
Perhaps it's the other way round. Perhaps the perception is that Nigel is setting the agenda, but that's only because immigration is the talking point of the moment and Nigel is heavily associated with that. When the talking point moves on - as such things tend to - Nigel's perceived influence may wane.
Demographic change isn't a just talking point but the most important political fact about Britain in 2025 and beyond.
Yes, the ageing population and how we can support them.
Axing the Triple Lock and ensuring work pays as well as benefits do would be a good start.
Two teenagers have been locked up for a firework attack which led to the death of widower in his terraced home in east London.
In the years leading up to the attack, Robert Price, 76, had been the target of a prolonged campaign of harassment and criminal damage, the Old Bailey was told.
Nathan Otitodilchukwu, 18, and a 16-year-old who cannot be named due to his age threatened to "torch" the pensioner before punching a hole in his window and pushing a firework into his home on Oval Road North, Dagenham, last July.
The pair had admitted manslaughter and were sentenced on Monday by Judge Rebecca Trowler KC.
Otitodilchukwu was jailed for six years and the youth was handed a custodial sentence of two years and eight months.
Is that the Yorkshire Otitodilchukwus? Don’t they ride with the Quorn?
Here's Nathan Otitodilchukwu and two friends throwing a firework through Robert Price's window in Dagenham, east London. Mr Price died in the fire they caused. https://x.com/CourtNewsUK/status/1929818815753343381
76 year old Mr Price was in the early stages of dementia. He had been harassed so badly by youths in Dagenham that the local council had made the decision to board up his downstairs window. https://x.com/MariaDodds44472/status/1930200549976051889
That second post just sums up so much that is wrong with our society and the authorities that are supposed to protect us.
The solution to his life being blighted by feral teens is simply to board up his downstairs window. Nothing to do with catching and punishing the perpetrators and trying to prevent it.
If bad behaviour is not clamped down on it becomes normalised.
The authorities dealing with this man are just as culpable as the two cockney lads for his death.
Social media currently enjoying the videos of very bored people being forced to listen to Reeves drivel this morning.
Mrs C made very much the same comment during the one 'clock news yesterday, while watching Starmer make his speech to the staff at an industrial workplace of some sort in Glasgow. If ever a group of people clearly didn't want to be there ......
I have no idea who is their media adviser but both Starmer and Reeves standing in front of workers is simply a hostage to fortune and it is only a matter of time until a really embarrassing moment is recorded
The workers behind Reeves today looked simply bored, disinterested, and no doubt wishing they were working rather than being used as a backdrop
Social media currently enjoying the videos of very bored people being forced to listen to Reeves drivel this morning.
Mrs C made very much the same comment during the one 'clock news yesterday, while watching Starmer make his speech to the staff at an industrial workplace of some sort in Glasgow. If ever a group of people clearly didn't want to be there ......
I have no idea who is their media adviser but both Stsrmer and Reeves standing on front of workers is simply a hostage to fortune and it is only a matter of time until a really embarrassing moment is recorded
The workers behind Reeves today looked simply bored, disinterested, and no doubt wishing they were working tather than being used as a backdrop
The media strategy is always the same. Must make an announcement at a factory surrounded by workers. It was like Boris and must have a high-vis on. It doesn't work.
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
Well the number of women MPs is at an all time high
Yes and it went up in both parties that used all women shortlists, and those that did not.
Not discriminating and seeing the individual is the way to success, if you need a crutch like all women shortlists or any other form of discrimination, then you're doing something badly wrong.
Which is perhaps why the party that does use them, is the only one that's never been led by a woman.
Cleverly to make a speech backing net zero in direct challenge to Kemi 'Rather than backing his leader’s decision to drop support for the UK reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, he will say that: “Conservative environmentalism doesn’t mean a choice between growth and sustainability.”
A very smart move by Mr "cos it's a shithole". "Net Zero" is a catastrophic piece of branding that needs evolving. But the goal of pursuing clean energy is the future, and there's a very obvious case to be made for the UK to become a net energy exporter of clean energy generated for buttons. And as we invest in this technology we can then export it.
What is the future for oil and gas? Regardless of the political shenanigans we're on the downslope with north sea production. It is running down, it's just a question of how long we can extend the slope before it inevitably declines into irrelevance. Keep drilling - and I would issue licences based on oil & gas brought ashore and kept here. But that can't be the way forward, regardless of how many low-information voters can be gaslit.
Net zero is not a catastrophic piece of branding. It is a clear policy. Is it do-able? Without an energy crisis or crippling our economy? That's the debate.
Politically it's a disaster. Rename it, reposition it as Energy Freedom or something and watch the people who hate it now backing it because we're sticking it to the foreigners or something.
"Would you like your house to be warmer and your bills to be lower". No, that's divisive woke nonsense "Would you like to tell Putin to sod off and make a load of money for Britain which makes your bills lower." Yeah
The genius of the alt-right is that they are persuading people sat in cold houses that cutting their energy bills will cost them money.
If you think you can make people wealthier and cut their energy bills at the same time by de-carbonising the economy and relying on renewables then explain how it can be done. That doesn't fit with peoples' experiences at the moment. Blaming the branding or political actors is deflection.
What are people's experiences with bills? We saw a terrifying spike driven by the market price for gas. That we don't actually buy lots of gas from the places whose prices shot up just makes it even more baffling.
The cost of generating power is the key to this. We have nuclear power stations and more (eventually) coming with a £bonkers price guaranteed on the power the new stations generate. We have some gas-burning stations and the price of gas is a real problem. We burn some biomass where we buy chippings and ship them half way round the world. Or we have renewables where the wind blows and the sun shines and leccy comes out the other end.
What is "de-carboning"? If its power generation then we're going to need to invest heavily in new power stations to burn vastly expensive imported gas / coal / pellets if we're getting rid of renewables as is the Reform policy. De-carboning power generation is what we already have and what we are already adding.
For all that "Net Zero costs loads" I haven't yet seen how replacing fuel-free generation with expensive imported fuel burning generation is going to be cheaper. People don't experience anything beyond their bills and what they are told.
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
My about to turn 14-year old daughter has her pick of careers - she's absurdly smart. She wants to do marine engineering and is involved in various energy sector school contests and projects.
There has been a little positive discrimination in that they actively want girls to be involved. Had they not involved themselves in "divisive woke bullshit" then we'd positively exclude my daughter and other future engineers from the industry because its for blokes love.
Her future career will sink or swim on her experience and expertise - you don't positively hire people who aren't qualified who then kill people because of DEI. But you do need to positively try and engage from the people who otherwise get excluded by white men.
She won’t have a future career. None of us will
I too have brilliant daughters - and it makes me sad that this is the case, it is going to be hard for them
OT YouTube now has Premium Light (or Lite) which is advert-free except for music, or something, for £8 a month rather than £12 or £13. I've just signed up for the free trial.
Also OT, according to TRiE, Netflix regards YouTube as its biggest competitor, not broadcasters or the other streamers.
Any idea how to downgrade from Youtube Premium? I can't see the option on my account...
Never mind. They were hiding it. Done, thanks.
I've tried to find the light option. Gone as far as cancelling my current premium sub to try and flush out this new option. No success. Any pointers ?
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
Well the number of women MPs is at an all time high
Yes and it went up in both parties that used all women shortlists, and those that did not.
Not discriminating and seeing the individual is the way to success, if you need a crutch like all women shortlists or any other form of discrimination, then you're doing something badly wrong.
Which is perhaps why the party that does use them, is the only one that's never been led by a woman.
46% of Labour MPs are women. 24% of Conservative MPs are women. Tells you something doesn’t it.
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
Well the number of women MPs is at an all time high
Yes and it went up in both parties that used all women shortlists, and those that did not.
Not discriminating and seeing the individual is the way to success, if you need a crutch like all women shortlists or any other form of discrimination, then you're doing something badly wrong.
Which is perhaps why the party that does use them, is the only one that's never been led by a woman.
46% of Labour MPs are women. 24% of Conservative MPs are women. Tells you something doesn’t it.
The Tories have had 3 female Prime Ministers, Labour has never been led by a woman.
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
Well the number of women MPs is at an all time high
Yes and it went up in both parties that used all women shortlists, and those that did not.
Not discriminating and seeing the individual is the way to success, if you need a crutch like all women shortlists or any other form of discrimination, then you're doing something badly wrong.
Which is perhaps why the party that does use them, is the only one that's never been led by a woman.
46% of Labour MPs are women. 24% of Conservative MPs are women. Tells you something doesn’t it.
The Tories have had 3 female Prime Ministers, Labour has never been led by a woman.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
"Double standards Krishna. Is it because were jewish?'
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
Well the number of women MPs is at an all time high
Yes and it went up in both parties that used all women shortlists, and those that did not.
Not discriminating and seeing the individual is the way to success, if you need a crutch like all women shortlists or any other form of discrimination, then you're doing something badly wrong.
Which is perhaps why the party that does use them, is the only one that's never been led by a woman.
46% of Labour MPs are women. 24% of Conservative MPs are women. Tells you something doesn’t it.
The Tories have had 3 female Prime Ministers, Labour has never been led by a woman.
Tells you something, doesn't it.
Not really, no
Then your stat doesn't either.
The right person for the job should be chosen looking at the individual.
If that right individual is Truss or Reeves then it should be them. If its not, then it shouldn't.
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
Well the number of women MPs is at an all time high
Yes and it went up in both parties that used all women shortlists, and those that did not.
Not discriminating and seeing the individual is the way to success, if you need a crutch like all women shortlists or any other form of discrimination, then you're doing something badly wrong.
Which is perhaps why the party that does use them, is the only one that's never been led by a woman.
46% of Labour MPs are women. 24% of Conservative MPs are women. Tells you something doesn’t it.
The Tories have had 3 female Prime Ministers, Labour has never been led by a woman.
Tells you something, doesn't it.
Not really, no
Then your stat doesn't either.
The right person for the job should be chosen looking at the individual.
If that right individual is Truss or Reeves then it should be them. If its not, then it shouldn't.
My stat tells us lots. Labour have clearly successfully increased representation amongst MPs much more than the Tories. The fact a woman has not been elected leader of Labour yet only tells us something about the electorate, not about positive discrimination. Sorry.
Cleverly to make a speech backing net zero in direct challenge to Kemi 'Rather than backing his leader’s decision to drop support for the UK reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, he will say that: “Conservative environmentalism doesn’t mean a choice between growth and sustainability.”
A very smart move by Mr "cos it's a shithole". "Net Zero" is a catastrophic piece of branding that needs evolving. But the goal of pursuing clean energy is the future, and there's a very obvious case to be made for the UK to become a net energy exporter of clean energy generated for buttons. And as we invest in this technology we can then export it.
What is the future for oil and gas? Regardless of the political shenanigans we're on the downslope with north sea production. It is running down, it's just a question of how long we can extend the slope before it inevitably declines into irrelevance. Keep drilling - and I would issue licences based on oil & gas brought ashore and kept here. But that can't be the way forward, regardless of how many low-information voters can be gaslit.
Net zero is not a catastrophic piece of branding. It is a clear policy. Is it do-able? Without an energy crisis or crippling our economy? That's the debate.
The problem with Net Zero as a branding is that it is a presented as a binary choice and an outcome rather than a trend. If you don't get to zero you have failed when actually decarbonisation through electrification using renewable sources is a set of investment decisions, where avoiding climate change is just one consideration.
From James Heale of the Speccie on twitter Nice line from Kemi Badenoch: "Mr Speaker, I asked the Prime Minister what he believes in. He had to look in his folder to find out the answer."
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
Well the number of women MPs is at an all time high
Yes and it went up in both parties that used all women shortlists, and those that did not.
Not discriminating and seeing the individual is the way to success, if you need a crutch like all women shortlists or any other form of discrimination, then you're doing something badly wrong.
Which is perhaps why the party that does use them, is the only one that's never been led by a woman.
46% of Labour MPs are women. 24% of Conservative MPs are women. Tells you something doesn’t it.
The Tories have had 3 female Prime Ministers, Labour has never been led by a woman.
Tells you something, doesn't it.
Not really, no
Then your stat doesn't either.
The right person for the job should be chosen looking at the individual.
If that right individual is Truss or Reeves then it should be them. If its not, then it shouldn't.
My stat tells us lots. Labour have clearly successfully increased representation amongst MPs much more than the Tories. The fact a woman has not been elected leader of Labour yet only tells us something about the electorate, not about positive discrimination. Sorry.
Why is positive discrimination good for local representatives but not for the leader of the party?
Cleverly to make a speech backing net zero in direct challenge to Kemi 'Rather than backing his leader’s decision to drop support for the UK reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, he will say that: “Conservative environmentalism doesn’t mean a choice between growth and sustainability.”
A very smart move by Mr "cos it's a shithole". "Net Zero" is a catastrophic piece of branding that needs evolving. But the goal of pursuing clean energy is the future, and there's a very obvious case to be made for the UK to become a net energy exporter of clean energy generated for buttons. And as we invest in this technology we can then export it.
What is the future for oil and gas? Regardless of the political shenanigans we're on the downslope with north sea production. It is running down, it's just a question of how long we can extend the slope before it inevitably declines into irrelevance. Keep drilling - and I would issue licences based on oil & gas brought ashore and kept here. But that can't be the way forward, regardless of how many low-information voters can be gaslit.
Net zero is not a catastrophic piece of branding. It is a clear policy. Is it do-able? Without an energy crisis or crippling our economy? That's the debate.
The problem with Net Zero as a branding is that it is a presented as a binary choice and an outcome rather than a trend. If you don't get to zero you have failed when actually decarbonisation through electrification using renewable sources is a set of investment decisions, where avoiding climate change is just one consideration.
I mean we as a species need to get to net zero or we are fucked so it’s not really a choice
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
Well the number of women MPs is at an all time high
Yes and it went up in both parties that used all women shortlists, and those that did not.
Not discriminating and seeing the individual is the way to success, if you need a crutch like all women shortlists or any other form of discrimination, then you're doing something badly wrong.
Which is perhaps why the party that does use them, is the only one that's never been led by a woman.
46% of Labour MPs are women. 24% of Conservative MPs are women. Tells you something doesn’t it.
The Tories have had 3 female Prime Ministers, Labour has never been led by a woman.
Tells you something, doesn't it.
Not really, no
Then your stat doesn't either.
The right person for the job should be chosen looking at the individual.
If that right individual is Truss or Reeves then it should be them. If its not, then it shouldn't.
My stat tells us lots. Labour have clearly successfully increased representation amongst MPs much more than the Tories. The fact a woman has not been elected leader of Labour yet only tells us something about the electorate, not about positive discrimination. Sorry.
Why is positive discrimination good for local representatives but not for the leader of the party?
I didn’t say it wasn’t good for the leader of the party. Labour haven’t used positive discrimination for its leadership, have they? No doubt some people would like to.
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
Well the number of women MPs is at an all time high
Yes and it went up in both parties that used all women shortlists, and those that did not.
Not discriminating and seeing the individual is the way to success, if you need a crutch like all women shortlists or any other form of discrimination, then you're doing something badly wrong.
Which is perhaps why the party that does use them, is the only one that's never been led by a woman.
46% of Labour MPs are women. 24% of Conservative MPs are women. Tells you something doesn’t it.
The Tories have had 3 female Prime Ministers, Labour has never been led by a woman.
Tells you something, doesn't it.
Not really, no
Then your stat doesn't either.
The right person for the job should be chosen looking at the individual.
If that right individual is Truss or Reeves then it should be them. If its not, then it shouldn't.
My stat tells us lots. Labour have clearly successfully increased representation amongst MPs much more than the Tories. The fact a woman has not been elected leader of Labour yet only tells us something about the electorate, not about positive discrimination. Sorry.
Why is positive discrimination good for local representatives but not for the leader of the party?
I didn’t say it wasn’t good for the leader of the party. Labour haven’t used positive discrimination for its leadership, have they? No doubt some people would like to.
I think it's simple. The MPs are lobby fodder and it doesn't matter if they are male or female. The leadership is serious and the men aren't giving up their right to have it.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
Well the number of women MPs is at an all time high
Yes and it went up in both parties that used all women shortlists, and those that did not.
Not discriminating and seeing the individual is the way to success, if you need a crutch like all women shortlists or any other form of discrimination, then you're doing something badly wrong.
Which is perhaps why the party that does use them, is the only one that's never been led by a woman.
46% of Labour MPs are women. 24% of Conservative MPs are women. Tells you something doesn’t it.
The Tories have had 3 female Prime Ministers, Labour has never been led by a woman.
Tells you something, doesn't it.
Not really, no
Then your stat doesn't either.
The right person for the job should be chosen looking at the individual.
If that right individual is Truss or Reeves then it should be them. If its not, then it shouldn't.
My stat tells us lots. Labour have clearly successfully increased representation amongst MPs much more than the Tories. The fact a woman has not been elected leader of Labour yet only tells us something about the electorate, not about positive discrimination. Sorry.
Why is positive discrimination good for local representatives but not for the leader of the party?
I didn’t say it wasn’t good for the leader of the party. Labour haven’t used positive discrimination for its leadership, have they? No doubt some people would like to.
As a sometimes Labour voter I'd have been quite happy with Harriet Harman as leader. Or Margaret Beckett, who actually was, as 'caretaker' for a while.
The pride pushback sits alongside the "DEI" pushback - in essence its why do we have to do these positive discrimination things?
We do them because people hire people, and it's very easy for people to hire people like themselves. Which is how we end up with industries which are white and male.
"Woke" people recognise this basic societal and sociological fact and look to do something about it. The anti-woke warriors also recognise it, but decry it because it means less jobs for people like them and more jobs for better qualified people who otherwise get missed because of their gender or race or sexuality or disability.
Back when I was a recruiting manager in a mid-level commercial role I made the point of hiring the best candidate. That made my team stand out from the norm because I hired some people who didn't look like me. At one point I had two women join the team. Women traditionally did the admin roles or category marketing, yet here I was hiring brilliant candidates who bucked this "tradition".
An anti-woke warrior manager asked why I "kept hiring young blonds". Knowing that he had a real problem with women getting promoted I just observed that it's because "I'm Hugh Heffner" as there can't be any other reason. He tried to put in a complaint with HR. And had his arse handed to him.
So we celebrate pride and we focus on women in business leadership or engineering and we try to hire to ensure that we have some diversity in the police. Because the alternative is that everyone is white and everyone is male. And if people don't like that, they need to look in the mirror.
That's funny. I achieve all that in my teams without any of the divisive Woke bullshit.
It's called treating people as individuals.
What I have seen before is management people embracing the culture and language of diversity events, while their actions perpetuate the status quo - freezing out mothers returning from maternity leave, not promoting non-white people because they don't "fit", etc.
A lot of the corporate stuff is just empty posturing, embraced by senior management in order to deflect from demands for genuine change. This is why there's so little resistance to Trump's attacks on DEI - it didn't amount to anything to defend.
Cleverly to make a speech backing net zero in direct challenge to Kemi 'Rather than backing his leader’s decision to drop support for the UK reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, he will say that: “Conservative environmentalism doesn’t mean a choice between growth and sustainability.”
A very smart move by Mr "cos it's a shithole". "Net Zero" is a catastrophic piece of branding that needs evolving. But the goal of pursuing clean energy is the future, and there's a very obvious case to be made for the UK to become a net energy exporter of clean energy generated for buttons. And as we invest in this technology we can then export it.
What is the future for oil and gas? Regardless of the political shenanigans we're on the downslope with north sea production. It is running down, it's just a question of how long we can extend the slope before it inevitably declines into irrelevance. Keep drilling - and I would issue licences based on oil & gas brought ashore and kept here. But that can't be the way forward, regardless of how many low-information voters can be gaslit.
Net zero is not a catastrophic piece of branding. It is a clear policy. Is it do-able? Without an energy crisis or crippling our economy? That's the debate.
The problem with Net Zero as a branding is that it is a presented as a binary choice and an outcome rather than a trend. If you don't get to zero you have failed when actually decarbonisation through electrification using renewable sources is a set of investment decisions, where avoiding climate change is just one consideration.
Of course we can't avoid climate change anyway. Regardless of whether our activities impacts it, climate change of some degree is an entirely natural process. Indeed any human attempt to completely halt climate change could be as damaging as human activity that may be accelerating it
Given the choice of working mainly with women or blokes, I can't comprehend the mentality that would prefer men.
I've been lucky to have got on with the vast majority of my colleagues over the years. For what it's worth, the one I had serious issue with (and, I wasn't the only one to have issues with them) was a woman.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
Given the choice of working mainly with women or blokes, I can't comprehend the mentality that would prefer men.
I've been lucky to have got on with the vast majority of my colleagues over the years. For what it's worth, the one I had serious issue with (and, I wasn't the only one to have issues with them) was a woman.
My better half is in a female dominated area of health. She prefers working with men, could be due to rarity but also due to sharing similarity of mood: things blow up and get sorted and you move on, rather than remembering every single nuance of who slighted who since time immemorial. No different to primary school in that respect...
Perhaps it's the other way round. Perhaps the perception is that Nigel is setting the agenda, but that's only because immigration is the talking point of the moment and Nigel is heavily associated with that. When the talking point moves on - as such things tend to - Nigel's perceived influence may wane.
Demographic change isn't a just talking point but the most important political fact about Britain in 2025 and beyond.
Yes, the ageing population and how we can support them.
Axing the Triple Lock and ensuring work pays as well as benefits do would be a good start.
The minimum wage for a full time worker working 40 hours a week is now £25,396 and the lowest earners don't pay tax and those on UC have to be looking for work or they get sanctioned
40 hours a week is more than 9-5 since minimum wage workers don't generally get paid for breaks.
And for people on UC working 16 hours a week, which is a great many people, HMRC will take about 100% of their earnings they work over 16 so why the hell do you expect people to work 40 hours instead of 16 in that scenario? People are rational.
Its the Laffer Curve in action. Why work more hours if you won't get paid any money for it?
Not since UC which reduces benefits only gradually as you earn more not all in one go. You also now pay no income tax on earnings under £12,570
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
Farage deciding to give in to cake-ism is very disappointing. He must have decided trying to persuade people to be prudent and support balancing the books is too difficult with today's electorate.
Given the choice of working mainly with women or blokes, I can't comprehend the mentality that would prefer men.
I've been lucky to have got on with the vast majority of my colleagues over the years. For what it's worth, the one I had serious issue with (and, I wasn't the only one to have issues with them) was a woman.
My better half is in a female dominated area of health. She prefers working with men, could be due to rarity but also due to sharing similarity of mood: things blow up and get sorted and you move on, rather than remembering every single nuance of who slighted who since time immemorial. No different to primary school in that respect...
My (late) mother was a pharmacist who ran her own pharmacy. It could be quite comical watching reps etc struggle to deal with her rather than my father, a teacher, whom helped out at times!
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Social media currently enjoying the videos of very bored people being forced to listen to Reeves drivel this morning.
Mrs C made very much the same comment during the one 'clock news yesterday, while watching Starmer make his speech to the staff at an industrial workplace of some sort in Glasgow. If ever a group of people clearly didn't want to be there ......
Not sure going to a Govan shipyard to drop the good news that 12 attack subs are going to be built in a place that isn't Govan would put much a smile on the faces of the locals.
Social media currently enjoying the videos of very bored people being forced to listen to Reeves drivel this morning.
Mrs C made very much the same comment during the one 'clock news yesterday, while watching Starmer make his speech to the staff at an industrial workplace of some sort in Glasgow. If ever a group of people clearly didn't want to be there ......
I have no idea who is their media adviser but both Starmer and Reeves standing in front of workers is simply a hostage to fortune and it is only a matter of time until a really embarrassing moment is recorded
The workers behind Reeves today looked simply bored, disinterested, and no doubt wishing they were working rather than being used as a backdrop
Whereas the autoworkers behind Trump the other day were genuinely fully on board. A politician simply has to make the punter believe. Neither Reeves nor Starmer can do this. For the Tories, Jenrick, Johnson and Farage can. For Labour maybe Burnham.
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
Well the number of women MPs is at an all time high
Yes and it went up in both parties that used all women shortlists, and those that did not.
Not discriminating and seeing the individual is the way to success, if you need a crutch like all women shortlists or any other form of discrimination, then you're doing something badly wrong.
Which is perhaps why the party that does use them, is the only one that's never been led by a woman.
46% of Labour MPs are women. 24% of Conservative MPs are women. Tells you something doesn’t it.
The Tories have had 3 female Prime Ministers, Labour has never been led by a woman.
Tells you something, doesn't it.
Not really, no
Then your stat doesn't either.
The right person for the job should be chosen looking at the individual.
If that right individual is Truss or Reeves then it should be them. If its not, then it shouldn't.
My stat tells us lots. Labour have clearly successfully increased representation amongst MPs much more than the Tories. The fact a woman has not been elected leader of Labour yet only tells us something about the electorate, not about positive discrimination. Sorry.
No they haven't, the leader is the main representative of the party. 100 backbenchers nobody has ever heard of or knows the name of isn't as much of a representative of the party as their leader is.
That's without debating the quality of any of those individuals.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
I am. Do you have any Jewih friends? Have you ever encountered anti-semitism? Where did you get this obsession with Jews?
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics are positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
They're discrimination pure and simple, there's nothing positive about it. And its illegal in regular employment law, the politicians exempted themselves from the law.
Well it worked, and that’s a good thing.
How did it work?
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
Well the number of women MPs is at an all time high
Yes and it went up in both parties that used all women shortlists, and those that did not.
Not discriminating and seeing the individual is the way to success, if you need a crutch like all women shortlists or any other form of discrimination, then you're doing something badly wrong.
Which is perhaps why the party that does use them, is the only one that's never been led by a woman.
46% of Labour MPs are women. 24% of Conservative MPs are women. Tells you something doesn’t it.
The Tories have had 3 female Prime Ministers, Labour has never been led by a woman.
Tells you something, doesn't it.
Not really, no
Then your stat doesn't either.
The right person for the job should be chosen looking at the individual.
If that right individual is Truss or Reeves then it should be them. If its not, then it shouldn't.
My stat tells us lots. Labour have clearly successfully increased representation amongst MPs much more than the Tories. The fact a woman has not been elected leader of Labour yet only tells us something about the electorate, not about positive discrimination. Sorry.
No they haven't, the leader is the main representative of the party. 100 backbenchers nobody has ever heard of or knows the name of isn't as much of a representative of the party as their leader is.
That's without debating the quality of any of those individuals.
Perhaps it's the other way round. Perhaps the perception is that Nigel is setting the agenda, but that's only because immigration is the talking point of the moment and Nigel is heavily associated with that. When the talking point moves on - as such things tend to - Nigel's perceived influence may wane.
Demographic change isn't a just talking point but the most important political fact about Britain in 2025 and beyond.
Yes, the ageing population and how we can support them.
Axing the Triple Lock and ensuring work pays as well as benefits do would be a good start.
The minimum wage for a full time worker working 40 hours a week is now £25,396 and the lowest earners don't pay tax and those on UC have to be looking for work or they get sanctioned
40 hours a week is more than 9-5 since minimum wage workers don't generally get paid for breaks.
And for people on UC working 16 hours a week, which is a great many people, HMRC will take about 100% of their earnings they work over 16 so why the hell do you expect people to work 40 hours instead of 16 in that scenario? People are rational.
Its the Laffer Curve in action. Why work more hours if you won't get paid any money for it?
Not since UC which reduces benefits only gradually as you earn more not all in one go. You also now pay no income tax on earnings under £12,570
Cleverly to make a speech backing net zero in direct challenge to Kemi 'Rather than backing his leader’s decision to drop support for the UK reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, he will say that: “Conservative environmentalism doesn’t mean a choice between growth and sustainability.”
A very smart move by Mr "cos it's a shithole". "Net Zero" is a catastrophic piece of branding that needs evolving. But the goal of pursuing clean energy is the future, and there's a very obvious case to be made for the UK to become a net energy exporter of clean energy generated for buttons. And as we invest in this technology we can then export it.
What is the future for oil and gas? Regardless of the political shenanigans we're on the downslope with north sea production. It is running down, it's just a question of how long we can extend the slope before it inevitably declines into irrelevance. Keep drilling - and I would issue licences based on oil & gas brought ashore and kept here. But that can't be the way forward, regardless of how many low-information voters can be gaslit.
Net zero is not a catastrophic piece of branding. It is a clear policy. Is it do-able? Without an energy crisis or crippling our economy? That's the debate.
The problem with Net Zero as a branding is that it is a presented as a binary choice and an outcome rather than a trend. If you don't get to zero you have failed when actually decarbonisation through electrification using renewable sources is a set of investment decisions, where avoiding climate change is just one consideration.
I recommend this article on the direct economic costs of clean energy versus fossil fuels. As with any capital intensive investment you have to pay upfront to save money down the line. The easiest way to save money now is not to make the investment.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
The IDF have about the same regard for human life as the Russian army do. She would be well-advised not to attempt to land.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
Social media currently enjoying the videos of very bored people being forced to listen to Reeves drivel this morning.
Mrs C made very much the same comment during the one 'clock news yesterday, while watching Starmer make his speech to the staff at an industrial workplace of some sort in Glasgow. If ever a group of people clearly didn't want to be there ......
I have no idea who is their media adviser but both Starmer and Reeves standing in front of workers is simply a hostage to fortune and it is only a matter of time until a really embarrassing moment is recorded
The workers behind Reeves today looked simply bored, disinterested, and no doubt wishing they were working rather than being used as a backdrop
Farage deciding to give in to cake-ism is very disappointing. He must have decided trying to persuade people to be prudent and support balancing the books is too difficult with today's electorate.
To mark Pride month, and to stand in solidarity with our LGBTQ+ colleagues, #MI6 is proudly flying the Pride flag from Vauxhall Cross, alongside the Union Flag, for the whole month of June. Your sexual orientation is no bar to you working and thriving at MI6 #Pride2025
Lol, that's the law
Well, MI6 aren’t always too bothered by the law, so it’s nice to see the, following it in this case!
Cleverly to make a speech backing net zero in direct challenge to Kemi 'Rather than backing his leader’s decision to drop support for the UK reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, he will say that: “Conservative environmentalism doesn’t mean a choice between growth and sustainability.”
These are current Tory voters? 60% think Boris would be better? I suppose that gives the lie to the idea that all the daftest Tory supporters have gone off to Reform and they now retain a core of 'sensibles'.
The inverted commas around 'sensible' are doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
The pride pushback sits alongside the "DEI" pushback - in essence its why do we have to do these positive discrimination things?
We do them because people hire people, and it's very easy for people to hire people like themselves. Which is how we end up with industries which are white and male.
"Woke" people recognise this basic societal and sociological fact and look to do something about it. The anti-woke warriors also recognise it, but decry it because it means less jobs for people like them and more jobs for better qualified people who otherwise get missed because of their gender or race or sexuality or disability.
Back when I was a recruiting manager in a mid-level commercial role I made the point of hiring the best candidate. That made my team stand out from the norm because I hired some people who didn't look like me. At one point I had two women join the team. Women traditionally did the admin roles or category marketing, yet here I was hiring brilliant candidates who bucked this "tradition".
An anti-woke warrior manager asked why I "kept hiring young blonds". Knowing that he had a real problem with women getting promoted I just observed that it's because "I'm Hugh Heffner" as there can't be any other reason. He tried to put in a complaint with HR. And had his arse handed to him.
So we celebrate pride and we focus on women in business leadership or engineering and we try to hire to ensure that we have some diversity in the police. Because the alternative is that everyone is white and everyone is male. And if people don't like that, they need to look in the mirror.
That's funny. I achieve all that in my teams without any of the divisive Woke bullshit.
It's called treating people as individuals.
What I have seen before is management people embracing the culture and language of diversity events, while their actions perpetuate the status quo - freezing out mothers returning from maternity leave, not promoting non-white people because they don't "fit", etc.
A lot of the corporate stuff is just empty posturing, embraced by senior management in order to deflect from demands for genuine change. This is why there's so little resistance to Trump's attacks on DEI - it didn't amount to anything to defend.
True. It's narcissistic on the one hand and entirely superficial on the other.
Maybe that's why I dislike it so intensely since I hate narcissism and insincerity. But I am expected to believe and go along with both.
I spend a lot of my time eye-rolling and fuming off camera.
To mark Pride month, and to stand in solidarity with our LGBTQ+ colleagues, #MI6 is proudly flying the Pride flag from Vauxhall Cross, alongside the Union Flag, for the whole month of June. Your sexual orientation is no bar to you working and thriving at MI6 #Pride2025
There's a clear opening for Reform's DOGE-style chainsaws. Of course, they'd not save money on the flag since they've already bought that, and the wages of the chap who raises and lowers flags on the South Bank are another sunk cost, and Elon doesn't charge by the tweet. So no actual savings.
Given DOGE is one of the biggest failures in political history, it is notable that Reform UK think it’s a brand worth associating with.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
From James Heale of the Speccie on twitter Nice line from Kemi Badenoch: "Mr Speaker, I asked the Prime Minister what he believes in. He had to look in his folder to find out the answer."
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
So, it will be fought out.
Netanyahu's government is almost as bad as Hamas.
No, Netanyahu is bad, but they're nowhere near as bad.
If Israel lays down its arms then Hamas would gladly kill every Jew from the river to the sea. If Hamas lays down its arms, the conflict would be over.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
I am. Do you have any Jewih friends? Have you ever encountered anti-semitism? Where did you get this obsession with Jews?
No Jewish friends that I am aware of. I don't live in a place where you'll find much of a Jewish community. But I saw after 7 October how many decent patriotic British Jews felt abandoned and thought it was appalling. When people consider leaving this country because they don't feel safe here anymore it shames us, or at least it ought to.
Farage is setting the agenda in terms of immigration and cutting spending via DOGE etc. Reform backers in the media are also making news eg Matt Goodwin's report today that white British people will be a minority in the UK in 50 years time.
However his statements aren't necessarily always positive for his party. For instance his backing scrapping the 2 child benefit cap for those on UC has seen Reform down 3% to 28% with the Conservatives up 2% to 21% on today's MoreinCommon poll as some Thatcherites shift back to the Tories after Kemi backed keeping the cap https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1930157861297946958
Godwin’s prediction is for a definition of “white British” that excludes the King and Boris Johnson.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
So, it will be fought out.
Netanyahu's government is almost as bad as Hamas.
No, Netanyahu is bad, but they're nowhere near as bad.
If Israel lays down its arms then Hamas would gladly kill every Jew from the river to the sea. If Hamas lays down its arms, the conflict would be over.
But in the real world, it's the Israelis doing the mass-killing.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
I am. Do you have any Jewih friends? Have you ever encountered anti-semitism? Where did you get this obsession with Jews?
So it seems right wingers can make the same schoolboy error as Corbyn but from a slightly different angle and conflate Netanyahu's vile government with Judaism in general. It is just from their point of view supporting Netanyahu's immoral and repugnant regime is demonstrating support for Jewish people in general. It is not. The two notions (Netanyahu's cabinet and wider Judaism) are distinctly different.
"A rock musician who co-wrote a song with the lyrics "I don't like cricket - I love it" has just gone to his first match - nearly 47 years after the hit was released. Graham Gouldman, a founding member of the band 10cc, had never seen live cricket, despite the 1978 hit "Dreadlock Holiday" being adopted as an anthem by many fans of the sport. Gouldman saw England beat the West Indies, external in Tuesday's one-day international at The Oval."
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
So, it will be fought out.
Wait a minute. The Israelis offered a pretty generous deal to Arafat in 2000 which was rejected out of hand. They were rewarded with the second intifada. They withdrew from Gaza and were rewarded with Hamas. I think that helps to explain why we have Netanyahu now.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
So, it will be fought out.
Netanyahu's government is almost as bad as Hamas.
No, Netanyahu is bad, but they're nowhere near as bad.
If Israel lays down its arms then Hamas would gladly kill every Jew from the river to the sea. If Hamas lays down its arms, the conflict would be over.
But in the real world, it's the Israelis doing the mass-killing.
In the real world the Israelis are going after Hamas who did the mass-killing and still have hostages. As they bloody should.
In the real world the innocents are being denied the right to seek refuge in neighbouring nations as normally happens in wars.
In the real world innocents are being used as human shields by Hamas.
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
"Positive action" = ensuring that a person in a group is interviewed = legal in the UK "Positive discrimination" = ensuring that a person in a group is hired = illegal in the UK
Social media currently enjoying the videos of very bored people being forced to listen to Reeves drivel this morning.
Mrs C made very much the same comment during the one 'clock news yesterday, while watching Starmer make his speech to the staff at an industrial workplace of some sort in Glasgow. If ever a group of people clearly didn't want to be there ......
Not sure going to a Govan shipyard to drop the good news that 12 attack subs are going to be built in a place that isn't Govan would put much a smile on the faces of the locals.
The way modern ships are built, it's perfectly feasible for components / parts to be built around the place. In the same way the QE2 carriers were built in parts, in places like Portsmouth, Birkenhead, Appledore and Portsmouth, before being assembled at Rosyth. Whether the subs will be built in that manner is another matter...
(ISTR the Germans had some (ahem) problems when they tried building their Type 21 boats in that manner, late in the war.)
Welcome to the US where big additions to bills can be inserted at the last second before people are asked to vote on it
Its 1100 pages of US legalese (worse than UK legalese). It was significantly modified late on 21 May and voted on in the morning of 22 May. Without wishing to defend MTG, I'd suggest the number who read it and understood it in full before voting is most likely 0 and certainly no more than single figures.
The process is the problem here rather than the individuals, even taking into account an unusual number of them are loons.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
So, it will be fought out.
Israel will win in that case.
They've had nearly two years. The IDF of 1967 conquered Gaza within 2 days.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
So, it will be fought out.
I disagree.
I think the Israelis are primarily motivated by a desire for security. And I think the Palestinians are primarily motivated by a desire for justice.
Both sides identify having full control of all of the land of mandate Palestine as the best way to achieve security/justice, but I think in principle that there is a way to provide Israelis with security and Palestinians with justice by other means, and so a resolution is possible without one side achieving a total victory over the other.
Welcome to the US where big additions to bills can be inserted at the last second before people are asked to vote on it
Its 1100 pages of US legalese (worse than UK legalese). It was significantly modified late on 21 May and voted on in the morning of 22 May. Without wishing to defend MTG, I'd suggest the number who read it and understood it in full before voting is most likely 0 and certainly no more than single figures.
The process is the problem here rather than the individuals, even taking into account an unusual number of them are loons.
The deep flaws in the bill - and the fact that a number of seriously dodgy measures were added - were well known before the vote. The GOPer who passed it, now lining up to say they don't like it, are reprehensible.
The fact they didn't read every word is in this particular case, irrelevant. This wasn't sprung on them; it was a massive omnibus bill by design, that the congressional party bought into.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
So, it will be fought out.
Netanyahu's government is almost as bad as Hamas.
No, Netanyahu is bad, but they're nowhere near as bad.
If Israel lays down its arms then Hamas would gladly kill every Jew from the river to the sea. If Hamas lays down its arms, the conflict would be over.
Hamas' aim is to murder every Jew in the region.
Netanyahu's aim is to ethnically cleanse every Palestinian from Gaza and the West Bank, and his government will use starvation as a means to achieve that aim.
So yes, less bad, in the sense of being expulsionist, rather than exterminationist, but still pretty awful.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
So, it will be fought out.
Israel will win in that case.
They've had nearly two years. The IDF of 1967 conquered Gaza within 2 days.
Starving 2 million Gazans (eventually to death) means Netanyahu wins. I suspect to him, a price worth paying to keep himself out of the Israeli courts.
Max Hastings has written in detail on Netanyahu's character flaws.
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
Positive discrimination? I agree. That way you are not hiring the best people.
At the same time we have had real issues with deeply entrenched racism in the police. Of racist white men being the bulk of the police force. You can't just keep hiring racists to beat up black people whilst claiming that not doing "creates more problems than it solves".
That police force called out for trying to recruit non-whites. At a surface level I agree that it's a bad look. But when its a service like the police which needs to be seen to be race neutral, what else do we do? Attack "divisive woke bullshit" like the idea of not having only racist white men policing black and asian populations? Because that's what we've had.
We also need to be realistic and let pragmatism take over. There are some physical tasks that women are always going to struggle at during high stress moments. You can find any number of videos on YouTube of female police officers trying and failing to break down doors with breaking in tools, usually with a big burly male officer watching them. Breaking in doors takes skill( hit the damn thing in the right place!) and the kit is very heavy, and you'll soon get tired if you mess up the first couple of goes. What's wrong with letting the male copper do what he's probably better at than the female copper on that raid, rather than watch the female officer get tired and embarrassed?
That’s an argument for big, burly officers, not for male officers. If a job requires body strength, you can put that in the job requirements.
To mark Pride month, and to stand in solidarity with our LGBTQ+ colleagues, #MI6 is proudly flying the Pride flag from Vauxhall Cross, alongside the Union Flag, for the whole month of June. Your sexual orientation is no bar to you working and thriving at MI6 #Pride2025
There's a clear opening for Reform's DOGE-style chainsaws. Of course, they'd not save money on the flag since they've already bought that, and the wages of the chap who raises and lowers flags on the South Bank are another sunk cost, and Elon doesn't charge by the tweet. So no actual savings.
Perhaps MI6 could reconsider their entire social media strategy - maybe naively I thought spies were meant to be inconspicuous.
Positive discrimination probably creates more problems than it solves in the long-term.
There's no such thing as discrimination that is positive.
It creates unfairness and injustice to individuals however it's labelled.
Just wrong. Positive discrimination has been very successful over the last 20 years in getting more women into law, medicine, engineering and construction, for example.
Politics also.
You need to learn that just because someone doesn't agree with you that doesn't mean they are "wrong". That's called dogma.
For your information, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK; targets are not.
Where did you do your legal training again?
All women shortlists in politics is positive discrimination, let’s be honest. Illegal or not, I don’t do employment law so who knows.
All women shortlists in politics had to be made legal with a specific piece of legislation and won’t be again in 5 years time. No major party currently uses them.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
I am. Do you have any Jewih friends? Have you ever encountered anti-semitism? Where did you get this obsession with Jews?
No Jewish friends that I am aware of. I don't live in a place where you'll find much of a Jewish community. But I saw after 7 October how many decent patriotic British Jews felt abandoned and thought it was appalling. When people consider leaving this country because they don't feel safe here anymore it shames us, or at least it ought to.
I'm sorry i wasn't trying to catch you out. I just think it's more complicated than I think you do.
It's not surprising that you don't know any as I think there are only about 250,000 in the country and most non practicing will tend to fit into the landscape so you probably wouldn't know them if you tripped over them (or knew them and their families).
It's become very fractured these days anyway as many 'married out' so their kids wouldn't be Jewish anyway. At the other end the ultra orthodox will more than likely have over 8 children and tend to live in particular areas in the large cities. They are easily identifyable but tend to live a ghettoised existence.
My irritation -shared by many -is that israel keep referring to Jews and israelis as though they are interchangeable. Which those of us of a leftish persasion find offensive.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
So, it will be fought out.
Netanyahu's government is almost as bad as Hamas.
No, Netanyahu is bad, but they're nowhere near as bad.
If Israel lays down its arms then Hamas would gladly kill every Jew from the river to the sea. If Hamas lays down its arms, the conflict would be over.
Hamas' aim is to murder every Jew in the region.
Netanyahu's aim is to ethnically cleanse every Palestinian from Gaza and the West Bank, and his government will use starvation as a means to achieve that aim.
So yes, less bad, in the sense of being expulsionist, rather than exterminationist, but still pretty awful.
Well the Israelis do at least provide aid to the Gazans as opposed to Hamas who steal it. I haven't seen the kind of clear reporting of the IDF committing torture rape and massacres that seem commonplace among the Russian military. Perhaps you know otherwise?
The German authorities are desperate to get a break. Bruckner gets out in September. I suspect Bruckner wandering the streets of Europe is a political negative.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
So, it will be fought out.
Wait a minute. The Israelis offered a pretty generous deal to Arafat in 2000 which was rejected out of hand. They were rewarded with the second intifada. They withdrew from Gaza and were rewarded with Hamas. I think that helps to explain why we have Netanyahu now.
You are right. That's why we have Netanyahu now. He rewarded Hamas. It blew back on him. And now he needs to keep this murderous war going to keep himself out of jail. It is personal, and evil.
In an interview with Politico in 2023, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that "In the last 15 years, Israel did everything to downgrade the Palestinian Authority and to boost Hamas.
At a Likud party conference in 2019, Benjamin Netanyahu said: "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas ... This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."
Social media currently enjoying the videos of very bored people being forced to listen to Reeves drivel this morning.
Mrs C made very much the same comment during the one 'clock news yesterday, while watching Starmer make his speech to the staff at an industrial workplace of some sort in Glasgow. If ever a group of people clearly didn't want to be there ......
Not sure going to a Govan shipyard to drop the good news that 12 attack subs are going to be built in a place that isn't Govan would put much a smile on the faces of the locals.
The way modern ships are built, it's perfectly feasible for components / parts to be built around the place. In the same way the QE2 carriers were built in parts, in places like Portsmouth, Birkenhead, Appledore and Portsmouth, before being assembled at Rosyth. Whether the subs will be built in that manner is another matter...
(ISTR the Germans had some (ahem) problems when they tried building their Type 21 boats in that manner, late in the war.)
That was because the German companies in question (a number new to ship building) were not used to steel fabrication in the required accuracy. With a pressure hull 25mm thick, 5mm is a catastrophic miss.
Then there was fun with plans not accurately specifying where pipe work ran… so pipes in one section didn’t meet those in another.
These days, some yards can fabricate to sub-millimetre tolerances.
Welcome to the US where big additions to bills can be inserted at the last second before people are asked to vote on it
Its 1100 pages of US legalese (worse than UK legalese). It was significantly modified late on 21 May and voted on in the morning of 22 May. Without wishing to defend MTG, I'd suggest the number who read it and understood it in full before voting is most likely 0 and certainly no more than single figures.
The process is the problem here rather than the individuals, even taking into account an unusual number of them are loons.
The deep flaws in the bill - and the fact that a number of seriously dodgy measures were added - were well known before the vote. The GOPer who passed it, now lining up to say they don't like it, are reprehensible.
The fact they didn't read every word is in this particular case, irrelevant. This wasn't sprung on them; it was a massive omnibus bill by design, that the congressional party bought into.
Criticising MTG for being a loon who backs Trumps agenda, and presumably trusts his to make decisions, is of course fine. But the story being amplified wasn't that but that MTG was somehow incompetent for not reading the bill.
Social media currently enjoying the videos of very bored people being forced to listen to Reeves drivel this morning.
Mrs C made very much the same comment during the one 'clock news yesterday, while watching Starmer make his speech to the staff at an industrial workplace of some sort in Glasgow. If ever a group of people clearly didn't want to be there ......
Not sure going to a Govan shipyard to drop the good news that 12 attack subs are going to be built in a place that isn't Govan would put much a smile on the faces of the locals.
The way modern ships are built, it's perfectly feasible for components / parts to be built around the place. In the same way the QE2 carriers were built in parts, in places like Portsmouth, Birkenhead, Appledore and Portsmouth, before being assembled at Rosyth. Whether the subs will be built in that manner is another matter...
(ISTR the Germans had some (ahem) problems when they tried building their Type 21 boats in that manner, late in the war.)
Yes but afaik Govan has no history of building sub modules, the BBC puff piece mentioned Barrow-in-Furness and Derby for the attack subs. If you’re going to do pork barrel go to the place that’s getting the pork is one of the first lessons of low politicking. Additionally there’s quite an important by-election for SLab taking place less than 20 miles from Govan, you’d have thought Sir Keir might have found time to have sprinkled some of his special brand of fairy dust there.
The chancellor has begun meeting groups of backbenchers to argue that the money, part of a £113bn investment in capital projects over the rest of the parliament including transport, homes and energy, would only have happened under Labour.
Just three Whitehall departments are still to agree their multi-year budgets with the Treasury before the spending review, the Guardian understands, with the home secretary, Yvette Cooper; the energy secretary, Ed Miliband; and the housing secretary, Angela Rayner, holding out...
That £15bn for trains and trams outside London looks very positive. A big chunk of it needs to be trams and light rail.
But there will be a few battles around groups such as Transport 2000 (whatever they are called now) trying to nick multiuser rail-trails back). We had an attempted mugging to grab the Monsal Trail in Derbyshire for a proposed railway, despite it being used by 300-600k people per annum. When I last heard it had been fought off, but I am not fully up to date - they will be back.
Rail Trails of course being ideal accessible (and safe family cycling) trails, like towpaths.
I can see RefUK Councils (and TBH others) falling for that one - oooh, big exciting machines - if they get around to doing any projects, and not being especially good at listening to different stakeholders. They like easy answers.
That's why he need the whole damn lot of Local Authority managed trails made into Public Rights of Way by statute. I have not won that one yet !
We have a similar upcoming battle in Edinburgh. The principle should always to put trams on roads, not paths, if the intention is to reduce car use. Learn the lesson from Dublin - they don't work as well if hidden away down an embankment.
For railways, I think it's harder to make that argument. 600,000 is a lot of people though, so you'd hope that alternative provision is put in place - the Australians manage to do this with new infrastructure, and so did HS2.
The trams work better on roads because that is where people are is an interesting argument. Nottingham has in general done this really well imo, but they already had "green corridors" in a number of places in the early 20c or 19C - I'm not sure of reasons why.
It's in the Peak National Park, which should help - so I think the Local Planning authority is the Peak Park itself.
It's one question around us till need to be developing decent networks of separated mobility tracks in a country with chaotic transport policy. Defending an existing network would be easier, but here we are.
And Equal Rights to transport services (including accessible trails) are presumably on the Farage list of things to destroy by killing the Equalities Act 2010. I'm not sure if they are on the DOLGE list of "inefficiencies".
Many locals do not actually like the Monsal Trail - or at least bits that are not *their* bit. The area is already very busy in summer, with sometimes massive traffic queues. The trail has just acted as a draw for more people to come, increasing the traffic problems.
Imagine if there was a nice railway line that could bring people up into the very heart of the Peak District from Sheffield, Manchester, or even London, as the Hope Valley line does for the area further north?
(I wasn't quite a local, even when I lived in Derbyshire.)
I think spending money on grabbing one of the few decent, used things, to destroy it, is perhaps a mistake.
I would argue the other way - imagine if there was an entire network of accessible paths - everywhere, with no barriers keeping disabled and other people out, rather than just the Monsal Trail.
Then there would be more visitors, great for the economy, and they would spread out more. Done reasonably, including access routes etc, and traffic would fall.
Being a little more ambitious, imagine if that were everywhere - mobility tracks, ideally separated, as alternatives to every A and B road in the country. That's one element of what I want to see, and the road length in England is only 80k miles for A and B roads.
One practical idea I do wonder about is if some of these proposals could use narrow gauge.
It is not one of the "few decent, used things". Nearby are two other, very long, active travel routes along disused railways - the Tissington Trail and the High Peak Trail. The entire area is crisscrossed with routes, including the Pennine Bridleway. The area has many routes for cyclists and walkers.
Also, unless they've opened the extension towards Matlock, the trail starts in the middle of nowhere and ends even more in the middle of nowhere. It is not like an active travel route in a city, used by commuters: it is a *destination*. People travel - by car - to use it.
It makes the transport situation far worse, not better.
No, narrow gauge would be f-all use. As you well know for cyclists, we need *networks*, not disjointed sections.
The suggestion that the Monsal trail is either/or is daft. It was a double track main line, it would be perfectly feasible to put it back as single track with passing loops, with the trail on the space originally used for the other track.
It is a really obvious missing transport link, and it would be dirt cheap to put back, the only thing missing is the political will.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
So, it will be fought out.
Wait a minute. The Israelis offered a pretty generous deal to Arafat in 2000 which was rejected out of hand. They were rewarded with the second intifada. They withdrew from Gaza and were rewarded with Hamas. I think that helps to explain why we have Netanyahu now.
You are right. That's why we have Netanyahu now. He rewarded Hamas. It blew back on him. And now he needs to keep this murderous war going to keep himself out of jail. It is personal, and evil.
In an interview with Politico in 2023, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that "In the last 15 years, Israel did everything to downgrade the Palestinian Authority and to boost Hamas.
At a Likud party conference in 2019, Benjamin Netanyahu said: "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas ... This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."
Yes but my point is why did the Israelis repeatedly VOTE for Netanyahu. It appears they had concluded they didn't have a serious partner when it came to creating peace.
I could comment on how this has nothing to do with climate change and, in general, how much of a dogmatic silly sausage she is - but I'm not going to. I am genuinely worried for her, though.
She's not dealing with Brits or Swedes here, but the Israelis who've boarded such vessels in the past and killed activists (unfortunately and with regret etc.)
This isn't a game. I hope she turns around.
I agree. She's playing with the big boys now, and that could get rough. The climate change gig does seem to have been knocked aside by her Gaza focus, and she needs to be careful to avoid the antisemitic tropes that she's sometimes been dragged into. Still, I like her style.
She doesn't need to worry about anti semitic tropes anymore. The israelis have used that card to destruction and no one takes any notice anymore. It's the new 'Nazis'.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
'Do you hate Jews?'
Channel 4 isn't still repeating that farcical hoax story are they?
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
Are you jewish?
Nope.
Uh-oh. PB's newly self-appointed Jewfinder General draws a blank.
I've commented on here since 2007. Prior to 2023 I rarely said anything about the middle east as I knew others were far more knowledgeable than I on the matter. Over the last 20 months I've sought to educate myself about it and pretty much everything I've learned has made me more sympathetic to Israel and appalled by the level of antisemitism both in the UK and elsewhere. And even more appalled by the indifference to it of those who should know better.
Both Israelis and the Palestinians want all of the land of Palestine/ancient Israel (delete as appropriate).
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
So, it will be fought out.
Netanyahu's government is almost as bad as Hamas.
No, Netanyahu is bad, but they're nowhere near as bad.
If Israel lays down its arms then Hamas would gladly kill every Jew from the river to the sea. If Hamas lays down its arms, the conflict would be over.
But in the real world, it's the Israelis doing the mass-killing.
In the real world the Israelis are going after Hamas who did the mass-killing and still have hostages. As they bloody should.
In the real world the innocents are being denied the right to seek refuge in neighbouring nations as normally happens in wars.
In the real world innocents are being used as human shields by Hamas.
If the Gazans leave & seek refuge elsewhere, then the Israeli government will never allow them to return to Gaza.
Defenders of the Israeli government are not operating in good faith when they make this argument.
A permanent displacement and ethnic cleansing of Gaza is part of the official policy of the Netenyahu government (and also, now the Trump government).
If the neighbouring Arab countries allow any Gazans to enter their territory, then they would be complicit in this ethnic cleansing.
Cleverly to make a speech backing net zero in direct challenge to Kemi 'Rather than backing his leader’s decision to drop support for the UK reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, he will say that: “Conservative environmentalism doesn’t mean a choice between growth and sustainability.”
A very smart move by Mr "cos it's a shithole". "Net Zero" is a catastrophic piece of branding that needs evolving. But the goal of pursuing clean energy is the future, and there's a very obvious case to be made for the UK to become a net energy exporter of clean energy generated for buttons. And as we invest in this technology we can then export it.
What is the future for oil and gas? Regardless of the political shenanigans we're on the downslope with north sea production. It is running down, it's just a question of how long we can extend the slope before it inevitably declines into irrelevance. Keep drilling - and I would issue licences based on oil & gas brought ashore and kept here. But that can't be the way forward, regardless of how many low-information voters can be gaslit.
Net zero is not a catastrophic piece of branding. It is a clear policy. Is it do-able? Without an energy crisis or crippling our economy? That's the debate.
The problem with Net Zero as a branding is that it is a presented as a binary choice and an outcome rather than a trend. If you don't get to zero you have failed when actually decarbonisation through electrification using renewable sources is a set of investment decisions, where avoiding climate change is just one consideration.
I mean we as a species need to get to net zero or we are fucked so it’s not really a choice
I don't entirely disagree but if making those investments can be justified, or mostly justified, without reference to climate change that's an argument against Farage etc and their scare stories.
Also decarbonisation should be seen as a journey. Net-a-lot-less-than-now is easily achievable (we're currently on 80% fossil fuels worldwide) even if we're not ready yet for Absolute net-zero.
Comments
https://x.com/Ike_Saul/status/1929961463466340847
We've had three female Prime Ministers, I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not, but all came from a party that did not use all women shortlists and instead followed the law that the rest of us have to follow rather than the exemption.
The solution to his life being blighted by feral teens is simply to board up his downstairs window. Nothing to do with catching and punishing the perpetrators and trying to prevent it.
If bad behaviour is not clamped down on it becomes normalised.
The authorities dealing with this man are just as culpable as the two cockney lads for his death.
The workers behind Reeves today looked simply bored, disinterested, and no doubt wishing they were working rather than being used as a backdrop
Not discriminating and seeing the individual is the way to success, if you need a crutch like all women shortlists or any other form of discrimination, then you're doing something badly wrong.
Which is perhaps why the party that does use them, is the only one that's never been led by a woman.
The cost of generating power is the key to this. We have nuclear power stations and more (eventually) coming with a £bonkers price guaranteed on the power the new stations generate. We have some gas-burning stations and the price of gas is a real problem. We burn some biomass where we buy chippings and ship them half way round the world. Or we have renewables where the wind blows and the sun shines and leccy comes out the other end.
What is "de-carboning"? If its power generation then we're going to need to invest heavily in new power stations to burn vastly expensive imported gas / coal / pellets if we're getting rid of renewables as is the Reform policy. De-carboning power generation is what we already have and what we are already adding.
For all that "Net Zero costs loads" I haven't yet seen how replacing fuel-free generation with expensive imported fuel burning generation is going to be cheaper. People don't experience anything beyond their bills and what they are told.
I too have brilliant daughters - and it makes me sad that this is the case, it is going to be hard for them
Tells you something, doesn't it.
David Mensa said to Krishna Guru-Merty last night in answer to the perfectly sensible question 'Do you think shooting starving people desperate for food is reasonable?'
"Double standards Krishna. Is it because were jewish?'
The right person for the job should be chosen looking at the individual.
If that right individual is Truss or Reeves then it should be them. If its not, then it shouldn't.
I am joking BTW, other than quality of MPs is terrible, both male and female.
Nice line from Kemi Badenoch: "Mr Speaker, I asked the Prime Minister what he believes in. He had to look in his folder to find out the answer."
The fact you don't care about antisemitism in the UK really does sum up your lack of any moral compass, frankly.
A lot of the corporate stuff is just empty posturing, embraced by senior management in order to deflect from demands for genuine change. This is why there's so little resistance to Trump's attacks on DEI - it didn't amount to anything to defend.
That's without debating the quality of any of those individuals.
https://acjsissons.medium.com/is-net-zero-good-or-bad-for-growth-adc58500063f
I don't see how that square is ever circled since neither want to compromise.
So, it will be fought out.
https://x.com/conservatives/status/1930212767794954583?s=61
Maybe that's why I dislike it so intensely since I hate narcissism and insincerity. But I am expected to believe and go along with both.
I spend a lot of my time eye-rolling and fuming off camera.
If Israel lays down its arms then Hamas would gladly kill every Jew from the river to the sea.
If Hamas lays down its arms, the conflict would be over.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c365r85xp2wo
In the real world the innocents are being denied the right to seek refuge in neighbouring nations as normally happens in wars.
In the real world innocents are being used as human shields by Hamas.
https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/strengths-and-weaknesses-of-reforms
There's a lot there, and it let me straight in.
There's an extra section on the end which is for paid subscribers, which I don't get therefore.
"Positive discrimination" = ensuring that a person in a group is hired = illegal in the UK
(ISTR the Germans had some (ahem) problems when they tried building their Type 21 boats in that manner, late in the war.)
The process is the problem here rather than the individuals, even taking into account an unusual number of them are loons.
I think the Israelis are primarily motivated by a desire for security. And I think the Palestinians are primarily motivated by a desire for justice.
Both sides identify having full control of all of the land of mandate Palestine as the best way to achieve security/justice, but I think in principle that there is a way to provide Israelis with security and Palestinians with justice by other means, and so a resolution is possible without one side achieving a total victory over the other.
The GOPer who passed it, now lining up to say they don't like it, are reprehensible.
The fact they didn't read every word is in this particular case, irrelevant. This wasn't sprung on them; it was a massive omnibus bill by design, that the congressional party bought into.
Netanyahu's aim is to ethnically cleanse every Palestinian from Gaza and the West Bank, and his government will use starvation as a means to achieve that aim.
So yes, less bad, in the sense of being expulsionist, rather than exterminationist, but still pretty awful.
Max Hastings has written in detail on Netanyahu's character flaws.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20qdwxq394o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEacFrHfcIU
It's not surprising that you don't know any as I think there are only about 250,000 in the country and most non practicing will tend to fit into the landscape so you probably wouldn't know them if you tripped over them (or knew them and their families).
It's become very fractured these days anyway as many 'married out' so their kids wouldn't be Jewish anyway. At the other end the ultra orthodox will more than likely have over 8 children and tend to live in particular areas in the large cities. They are easily identifyable but tend to live a ghettoised existence.
My irritation -shared by many -is that israel keep referring to Jews and israelis as though they are interchangeable. Which those of us of a leftish persasion find offensive.
In an interview with Politico in 2023, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that "In the last 15 years, Israel did everything to downgrade the Palestinian Authority and to boost Hamas.
At a Likud party conference in 2019, Benjamin Netanyahu said:
"Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas ... This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."
Then there was fun with plans not accurately specifying where pipe work ran… so pipes in one section didn’t meet those in another.
These days, some yards can fabricate to sub-millimetre tolerances.
Additionally there’s quite an important by-election for SLab taking place less than 20 miles from Govan, you’d have thought Sir Keir might have found time to have sprinkled some of his special brand of fairy dust there.
It was a double track main line, it would be perfectly feasible to put it back as single track with passing loops, with the trail on the space originally used for the other track.
It is a really obvious missing transport link, and it would be dirt cheap to put back, the only thing missing is the political will.
Defenders of the Israeli government are not operating in good faith when they make this argument.
A permanent displacement and ethnic cleansing of Gaza is part of the official policy of the Netenyahu government (and also, now the Trump government).
If the neighbouring Arab countries allow any Gazans to enter their territory, then they would be complicit in this ethnic cleansing.
Also decarbonisation should be seen as a journey. Net-a-lot-less-than-now is easily achievable (we're currently on 80% fossil fuels worldwide) even if we're not ready yet for Absolute net-zero.