ISTM the Conservatives' best hope is to get some fresh young faces in at the next GE. They'd essentially be fighting local battles under cover of a national campaign. But do they have enough MPs who are ready to step down then, or will they all be focused on keeping their jobs?
Tories best hope is a rearguard rural and held seat defence strategy (with the odd targets like N Northumberland/Hexham) and go hard at blue wall/London. All hands abandon the red wall
Many of the Conservative targets are in the red wall.
And its a lot more likely for Labour to lose support there than for the LibDems to do so in the blue wall.
Bulk of their 'easier' targets are in the East, SE, SW, London LDs will imo lose some of the tactical voting that won them 72 seats on 12.6% in 2024, there are no Tories to 'get out' this time
But nor will there be Labour supporters in those Lib Dem seats who get the tactical calculation wrong. It’ll be clear who are the anti-Tory/Reform option. And there’ll be others who have gone off Labour. So I don’t think we’ll see tactical unwind hurting the Lib Dems.
On the other hand I can see Labour losing a lot of tactical Lib Dems voters in its constituencies, unless the threat of a Farage government feels real.
Lib Dem success is largely in inverse correlation with Tory vote share.
I see Trump has just sent 20k APKWS rockets, ordered by the Biden administration for Ukraine, to the Middle East.
They were designed as a cost effective solution for shooting down the hundreds of Shahed drones Russia is using every day to target civilians.
Those are actually made by BAE, and are a new seeker head on an existing unguided rocket called the Hydra 70 (not sure which company makes those). We use them on our Apache helicopters. They were looking at ground launches years before the 2022 Ukraine invasion.
There's an interchangeable Canadian made version of he Hydra 70 called the CRV7.
It sits in a similar application slot as things like Martlet, but there is a big stock that can be converted.
Perun was talking about the principle it in the winter / spring as a possibility for Europe to step up should the USA pull out.
I have no idea where the IP sits Europe vs USA.
BAE IP. The 20k were paid for by the US.
Yes, but the old question - is it BAE ip that can be ITAR restricted, or is it (or can it be made) sovereign European?
Tories are doing their own decline without BBC help. If they had a leader and a few front benchers as effective at communication as, say Ken Clarke, Heseltine, Thatcher, Farage or Blair and with as much interesting to say, the BBC would be all over it.
I don't think that's true
The RefUKkers (NFF apart) are not of that calibre and are interviewed constantly
This can only be an editorial decision
Presumably because they got 14% of the vote at the last GE and are currently polling at ~30%. They are also "news" ("new political party arises from nowhere") in a way the Tories aren't
ISTM the Conservatives' best hope is to get some fresh young faces in at the next GE. They'd essentially be fighting local battles under cover of a national campaign. But do they have enough MPs who are ready to step down then, or will they all be focused on keeping their jobs?
Tories best hope is a rearguard rural and held seat defence strategy (with the odd targets like N Northumberland/Hexham) and go hard at blue wall/London. All hands abandon the red wall
Many of the Conservative targets are in the red wall.
And its a lot more likely for Labour to lose support there than for the LibDems to do so in the blue wall.
Bulk of their 'easier' targets are in the East, SE, SW, London LDs will imo lose some of the tactical voting that won them 72 seats on 12.6% in 2024, there are no Tories to 'get out' this time
I reckon the challenge for the Tories for the next couple of years is to stay a force in local government. They need to show that both the LibDems and Reform are piss poor at delivering local services The need to pounce on every failure, especially by Reform. Ifthey can stay in touch locally, they can still be a party that voters still see as an option nationally.
Especially if Labour continue down their route of being a by-word for fuck-up.
Trouble is that, in a fair bit of the country, that ship has been sailing for years. Here's the list:
Five very outer London boroughs, a couple of Midlands mets, the counties that postponed elections and some second tier districts that few could locate on a map.
It's better than nothing, but not by much.
A further problem is that the Tory councils are NOT particularly effective. Northhants went bust under Tory control, for example, ditto Woking and many other places. By a large number of metrics Tory councils performance is nothing special.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
Quite happy to see you be dropped in the middle of Tel Aviv and see if you develop into the same thing.
I sense Labour are learning on the job. They seem to be getting incrementally better and with an understanding of how to strike a balance between following public opinion and leading it.
I have a feeling they are now listening to Blair who until Iraq was the master of the genre with their in-house pollsters led by Philip Gould. Find out where the public are and where they can be taken to.
Farage is a mountebank who glitters in the absense of an alternative. The chances of a Party led by him going the distance seem very slight. At the moment with Labour and the Libs holding the centre ground short of a Tory revival I can't see an alternative to the next government being a Labour one
I think there's a reasonable chance that Farage himself won't go the distance to the next election as party leader, if Reform drops back in the polls and the media spotlight is no longer on Reform - or indeed if it remains on Reform and shows it in a less than flattering light.
ISTM the Conservatives' best hope is to get some fresh young faces in at the next GE. They'd essentially be fighting local battles under cover of a national campaign. But do they have enough MPs who are ready to step down then, or will they all be focused on keeping their jobs?
Tories best hope is a rearguard rural and held seat defence strategy (with the odd targets like N Northumberland/Hexham) and go hard at blue wall/London. All hands abandon the red wall
Many of the Conservative targets are in the red wall.
And its a lot more likely for Labour to lose support there than for the LibDems to do so in the blue wall.
Bulk of their 'easier' targets are in the East, SE, SW, London LDs will imo lose some of the tactical voting that won them 72 seats on 12.6% in 2024, there are no Tories to 'get out' this time
But nor will there be Labour supporters in those Lib Dem seats who get the tactical calculation wrong. It’ll be clear who are the anti-Tory/Reform option. And there’ll be others who have gone off Labour. So I don’t think we’ll see tactical unwind hurting the Lib Dems.
On the other hand I can see Labour losing a lot of tactical Lib Dems voters in its constituencies, unless the threat of a Farage government feels real.
Lib Dem success is largely in inverse correlation with Tory vote share.
I disagree. The impetus to GTTO doesn't exist this time so we will, I believe, see some tactical unwind. The seat calculators based at least in part off of recent MRPs are starting to show this. A repeat of 2024s vote shares nationally for LD and Con would see several LD losses (but they'd still be over 50 seats). The locals had the Tories ahead in Witney and Maidenhead, for example. I agree re LD vs Tory vote share generally but there are still 20 seats for the Tories to go at purely by consolidating their vote efficiency more into their traditional heartlands
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
Have they assassinated Thumberg yet by mistake?
No, they've intercepted her selfie boat and are escorting her to show her videos of the 7 October Hamas atrocities.
As an aside, when I was younger I wanted to go into tunnelling (*). One thing that amazes me still is that they can drill tunnels for many miles and end up only a few centimetres out of line. Even in ye olden days, where they often dug tunnels from shafts every few hundred yards, and dug small initial drifts instead of the full tunnel, it was amazing.
But the really amazing thing are the maps of mines, e.g. coal. Not only do they show, to apparently quite high accuracy, the position of the workings, but they can also be objects of beauty. And all done manually, without modern stuff like lasers.
(Somewhere I've got a book on surveying for tunnellers, written in Victorian times.)
Incidentally, there's an online official map of all known old coal workings. I particularly like the ones to the west of Buxton in the Peak District, where the hollows in the ground are still well fenced off.
(*) Yes, I wanted to bore as a profession. Now it's just a hobby...
That's a great map. You can see the close correlation with development in and around Edinburgh and the location of old mines. It's quite a big problem for developers.
I've got a good friend currently working 1km below the North Sea. Mad.
Network Rail have a *lot* of parallel-to-the-line routes which could be used for all kinds of beneficial things, but which they keep fenced off. I have a multiuser path that could take me all the way to (mainline) Alfreton Station but which stops half-a-mile short, because Network Rail keep a parallel track fenced off.
So it is necessary to do battle with dual carriageways or dangerous narrow roads, and huge hills (the EMM goes through the flat valley).
So no one uses it to get to the station. The close by area of potential users has about 200k people in it.
But they won't. They choose, as we know, to block up bridges rather than let them be a public benefit. It's all hidden in plain sight.
There are several aspects to this. One is that these parallel routes are often needed for maintenance access, and opening it up to the public *really* inhibits that - as the public don't like 'their' routes being closed. Another is that a few of the public are gits, and Network Rail already has a significant problem with trespass. And if some scrote goes on the railway line and gets killed, then NR gets the blame. Another is cost: opening up that parallel route for use by the public will cost money as well as the inconvenience, and sometimes a fair amount of money - especially if structures need making safe. Another is access: how do you get the public to the beginning of the route at other end, if it is surrounded by private land?
Perhaps in the case you mention it is feasible. Often it is nowhere near as easy as proponents suppose.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
War crimes are being committed by both sides. Of the two, the greater are now those being committed by Israel, which appears to have a policy of, at the minimum, expelling the Palestinian population of Gaza and, perhaps, given the starvation blockade, simply killing off 2 million people or a substantial proportion of them.
For those who say 'but it's a war; nasty stuff happens', yes: that's why there are rules under international law. Sometimes innocent civilians get killed in wars, especially urban wars and even more so urban wars where one side is using civilian infrastructure as shields (and the other doesn't care that they are). That is to be expected and, while deaths should be minimised where possible, armed forces still have to be able to engage the enemy. However, the deliberate starvation of a nation is a war crime and occupying powers - which Israel now is - have duties to the civilians under their control.
As an aside, when I was younger I wanted to go into tunnelling (*). One thing that amazes me still is that they can drill tunnels for many miles and end up only a few centimetres out of line. Even in ye olden days, where they often dug tunnels from shafts every few hundred yards, and dug small initial drifts instead of the full tunnel, it was amazing.
But the really amazing thing are the maps of mines, e.g. coal. Not only do they show, to apparently quite high accuracy, the position of the workings, but they can also be objects of beauty. And all done manually, without modern stuff like lasers.
(Somewhere I've got a book on surveying for tunnellers, written in Victorian times.)
Incidentally, there's an online official map of all known old coal workings. I particularly like the ones to the west of Buxton in the Peak District, where the hollows in the ground are still well fenced off.
(*) Yes, I wanted to bore as a profession. Now it's just a hobby...
That's a great map. You can see the close correlation with development in and around Edinburgh and the location of old mines. It's quite a big problem for developers.
I've got a good friend currently working 1km below the North Sea. Mad.
Network Rail have a *lot* of parallel-to-the-line routes which could be used for all kinds of beneficial things, but which they keep fenced off. I have a multiuser path that could take me all the way to (mainline) Alfreton Station but which stops half-a-mile short, because Network Rail keep a parallel track fenced off.
So it is necessary to do battle with dual carriageways or dangerous narrow roads, and huge hills (the EMM goes through the flat valley).
So no one uses it to get to the station. The close by area of potential users has about 200k people in it.
But they won't. They choose, as we know, to block up bridges rather than let them be a public benefit. It's all hidden in plain sight.
It's the same for small stretches of former line right in the centre of Edinburgh. Extremely frustrating - would have thousands, perhaps 10s of thousands, of people per day.
I know that I bang on about this too much, but the BBC's programme/podcast on the background to Elon Musk is well worth hearing. It is presented by a Professor of the History of Science at Harvard. Originally called "The Evening Rocket", it has now been updated and is now called "X Man: The Elon Musk origin Story".
Briefly, if you think his dad is bad, wait until you meet his grandfather. The programme considers the influences of the 1930s Technocratic Movement, the significance of the alphabet (! yes, really!) the symbolism of comic books and various concepts of Master Races, and the way they have all helped to form young Elon.
Sounds like complete drivel and of no use in explaining those parts of Musk that make him interesting (cars and rockets) as opposed to just another golf club Boer. May the Lord preserve us from historians doing cod psychology.
Indeed. There will be lots of people around the world who had grandfathers doing bad things in the 1930s and 1940s. They didn't all turn out like Elon Musk.
I know that I bang on about this too much, but the BBC's programme/podcast on the background to Elon Musk is well worth hearing. It is presented by a Professor of the History of Science at Harvard. Originally called "The Evening Rocket", it has now been updated and is now called "X Man: The Elon Musk origin Story".
Briefly, if you think his dad is bad, wait until you meet his grandfather. The programme considers the influences of the 1930s Technocratic Movement, the significance of the alphabet (! yes, really!) the symbolism of comic books and various concepts of Master Races, and the way they have all helped to form young Elon.
Sounds like complete drivel and of no use in explaining those parts of Musk that make him interesting (cars and rockets) as opposed to just another golf club Boer. May the Lord preserve us from historians doing cod psychology.
Absolutely wrong. It's nothing to do with cod psychology, it's all to do with the history of science - particularly the Technocratic Movement and cultural power of science fiction on the popular imagination. But I agree, we really can do without cod psychology!
I sense Labour are learning on the job. They seem to be getting incrementally better and with an understanding of how to strike a balance between following public opinion and leading it.
I have a feeling they are now listening to Blair who until Iraq was the master of the genre with their in-house pollsters led by Philip Gould. Find out where the public are and where they can be taken to.
Farage is a mountebank who glitters in the absense of an alternative. The chances of a Party led by him going the distance seem very slight. At the moment with Labour and the Libs holding the centre ground short of a Tory revival I can't see an alternative to the next government being a Labour one
I think there's a reasonable chance that Farage himself won't go the distance to the next election as party leader, if Reform drops back in the polls and the media spotlight is no longer on Reform - or indeed if it remains on Reform and shows it in a less than flattering light.
That's already happened. If you listened to Zia Yusuf and he was the brains of the operation I think we might be talking weeks
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
I know that I bang on about this too much, but the BBC's programme/podcast on the background to Elon Musk is well worth hearing. It is presented by a Professor of the History of Science at Harvard. Originally called "The Evening Rocket", it has now been updated and is now called "X Man: The Elon Musk origin Story".
Briefly, if you think his dad is bad, wait until you meet his grandfather. The programme considers the influences of the 1930s Technocratic Movement, the significance of the alphabet (! yes, really!) the symbolism of comic books and various concepts of Master Races, and the way they have all helped to form young Elon.
Sounds like complete drivel and of no use in explaining those parts of Musk that make him interesting (cars and rockets) as opposed to just another golf club Boer. May the Lord preserve us from historians doing cod psychology.
Indeed. There will be lots of people around the world who had grandfathers doing bad things in the 1930s and 1940s. They didn't all turn out like Elon Musk.
We have a contributor to PB, whose *father* was a very, very problematic individual. The person in question didn't turn out to be his farther. And even posts under his actual name. Which I think is fairly brave.
I sense Labour are learning on the job. They seem to be getting incrementally better and with an understanding of how to strike a balance between following public opinion and leading it.
I have a feeling they are now listening to Blair who until Iraq was the master of the genre with their in-house pollsters led by Philip Gould. Find out where the public are and where they can be taken to.
Farage is a mountebank who glitters in the absense of an alternative. The chances of a Party led by him going the distance seem very slight. At the moment with Labour and the Libs holding the centre ground short of a Tory revival I can't see an alternative to the next government being a Labour one
I think there's a reasonable chance that Farage himself won't go the distance to the next election as party leader, if Reform drops back in the polls and the media spotlight is no longer on Reform - or indeed if it remains on Reform and shows it in a less than flattering light.
That's already happened. If you listened to Zia Yusuf and he was the brains of the operation I think we might be talking weeks
Stop it.
Now we have a baked on certainty of Reform at 40% in the polls, thanks to you.
I sense Labour are learning on the job. They seem to be getting incrementally better and with an understanding of how to strike a balance between following public opinion and leading it.
I have a feeling they are now listening to Blair who until Iraq was the master of the genre with their in-house pollsters led by Philip Gould. Find out where the public are and where they can be taken to.
Farage is a mountebank who glitters in the absense of an alternative. The chances of a Party led by him going the distance seem very slight. At the moment with Labour and the Libs holding the centre ground short of a Tory revival I can't see an alternative to the next government being a Labour one
I think there's a reasonable chance that Farage himself won't go the distance to the next election as party leader, if Reform drops back in the polls and the media spotlight is no longer on Reform - or indeed if it remains on Reform and shows it in a less than flattering light.
That's already happened. If you listened to Zia Yusuf and he was the brains of the operation I think we might be talking weeks
Stop it.
Now we have a baked on certainty of Reform at 40% in the polls, thanks to you.
Lol. Farage will get bored though. He always does. Then he will be off to spiv his spiv elsewhere
Digital ID cards could be Starmer’s poll tax ... The Telegraph has reported the concerns of senior risk and cybersecurity staff working on One Login in some detail. The system was being accessed and modified by staff and contractors without the required level of security. Parts of the system were being developed in Romania, a fact that had eluded top management at the Government Digital Service (GDS).
“It’s Horizon all over again,” one global security expert told this newspaper in April, referring to the notorious Post Office computer system. Of the 39 requirements in the National Cybersecurity Centre’s cybersecurity checklist list CAF, One Login still only meets 21.
But instead of taking the warnings seriously, One Login’s senior management at GDS turned on the messengers who had brought them the bad news, dispersing the independent risk and cybersecurity team that first raised the issues. One Login’s management subsequently began to mark their own homework. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/08/digital-id-cards-could-be-starmers-poll-tax/ (£££)
First I've heard of digital ID cards, which sound like a hellish thing.
I d heard of the id cards - what I haven’t heard is about any issues with the One Login system which really should have been focus of the article.
And I’m at a loss as to what is wrong with the digital id scheme, if you need to show your id or prove your right to do something it will make things rather easier. It’s not like the police will stop you and ask to see your id without a valid reason which seems to be the thing people hate
Not being able to prove you are human while online is becoming a serious problem. Digital ID solves this problem, and the benefits are huge while the risks, so far, are very small. It is long overdue that the UK takes the threats in the online world a lot more seriously.
The problem with ID cards isn't the ID cards.
The problem is the insane requirement that every government database be linked up, and access provided to everyone who asks. *Without* segregation of data.
So, under the ID card scheme that was beginning to be implemented, a contractor, working for the council on fly tipping, could see your NHS records.
Yes, they really specified the system that way. So that "administrative friction" wouldn't slow down "necassary work".
When they realised there was a problem, the response was that data for "Important People" (decided by the government) would be segregated in a separate database with limited access.
The problem is not simply the database. It is that to work effectively the police must have the right to ask for them - which raises a whole host of other problems.
Tories are doing their own decline without BBC help. If they had a leader and a few front benchers as effective at communication as, say Ken Clarke, Heseltine, Thatcher, Farage or Blair and with as much interesting to say, the BBC would be all over it.
I don't think that's true
The RefUKkers (NFF apart) are not of that calibre and are interviewed constantly
This can only be an editorial decision
The legacy media are being given far too much credit / blame for the rise of Reform. It really isn't to do with how many times Farage has been on Question Time (which isn't all that many in fact, per year and given how few others Kippers / Refukkers got a look in; compare with the Greens, for example).
Besides, RefUK *should* now be treated as a major party: they've been polling in clear first for months and have just backed that up in the local elections and two parliamentary by-elections (one Westminster, one Holyrood). It is not the media (never mind the Beeb) pumping Reform, it's Reform's performances leading the media.
But, as I say, we should look more to social media for the energy of the movement anyway.
That said, politics, as nature, abhors a vacuum and the Tories and Labour are providing one by being so absent in terms of any vision and so disconnected / downbeat / ineffective in terms of delivery. Reform are offering an 'everything's crap; let's break the system that's made it so' critique and that's understandably superficially attractive. The answer is for Labour to not make things crap (they're the government, they have agency in this), and to provide their own analysis of the problem and strategy for resolution; something which they somehow managed to avoid doing despite four years of opposition and a landslide win. Or for the Tories to get their act together and do likewise.
If they don't, there's a decent chance that both parties could be looking at not forming a government for decades, if ever.
I know that I bang on about this too much, but the BBC's programme/podcast on the background to Elon Musk is well worth hearing. It is presented by a Professor of the History of Science at Harvard. Originally called "The Evening Rocket", it has now been updated and is now called "X Man: The Elon Musk origin Story".
Briefly, if you think his dad is bad, wait until you meet his grandfather. The programme considers the influences of the 1930s Technocratic Movement, the significance of the alphabet (! yes, really!) the symbolism of comic books and various concepts of Master Races, and the way they have all helped to form young Elon.
Sounds like complete drivel and of no use in explaining those parts of Musk that make him interesting (cars and rockets) as opposed to just another golf club Boer. May the Lord preserve us from historians doing cod psychology.
Absolutely wrong. It's nothing to do with cod psychology, it's all to do with the history of science - particularly the Technocratic Movement and cultural power of science fiction on the popular imagination. But I agree, we really can do without cod psychology!
Heinlein forecast a failed revolution by the technocrats (Functionalism).
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
I know that I bang on about this too much, but the BBC's programme/podcast on the background to Elon Musk is well worth hearing. It is presented by a Professor of the History of Science at Harvard. Originally called "The Evening Rocket", it has now been updated and is now called "X Man: The Elon Musk origin Story".
Briefly, if you think his dad is bad, wait until you meet his grandfather. The programme considers the influences of the 1930s Technocratic Movement, the significance of the alphabet (! yes, really!) the symbolism of comic books and various concepts of Master Races, and the way they have all helped to form young Elon.
Sounds like complete drivel and of no use in explaining those parts of Musk that make him interesting (cars and rockets) as opposed to just another golf club Boer. May the Lord preserve us from historians doing cod psychology.
Absolutely wrong. It's nothing to do with cod psychology, it's all to do with the history of science - particularly the Technocratic Movement and cultural power of science fiction on the popular imagination. But I agree, we really can do without cod psychology!
Heinlein forecast a failed revolution by the technocrats (Functionalism).
I know that I bang on about this too much, but the BBC's programme/podcast on the background to Elon Musk is well worth hearing. It is presented by a Professor of the History of Science at Harvard. Originally called "The Evening Rocket", it has now been updated and is now called "X Man: The Elon Musk origin Story".
Briefly, if you think his dad is bad, wait until you meet his grandfather. The programme considers the influences of the 1930s Technocratic Movement, the significance of the alphabet (! yes, really!) the symbolism of comic books and various concepts of Master Races, and the way they have all helped to form young Elon.
Sounds like complete drivel and of no use in explaining those parts of Musk that make him interesting (cars and rockets) as opposed to just another golf club Boer. May the Lord preserve us from historians doing cod psychology.
Indeed. There will be lots of people around the world who had grandfathers doing bad things in the 1930s and 1940s. They didn't all turn out like Elon Musk.
We have a contributor to PB, whose *father* was a very, very problematic individual. The person in question didn't turn out to be his farther. And even posts under his actual name. Which I think is fairly brave.
I didn't think my dad was *that* much of a hell-raiser in his youth!!
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Remind us all of how many times the Palestinians have been offered "some share in the land" and given some land and how many times they have rejected this. Their "grievance" is the existence of Israel mandated by the UN. As many of their leaders have expressly made clear they want Israel to be abolished and no Jews to live anywhere in the area. Not sure that such a solution = addressing their grievance and pretty sure that this will lead to a whole load more "grievances".
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
War crimes are being committed by both sides. Of the two, the greater are now those being committed by Israel, which appears to have a policy of, at the minimum, expelling the Palestinian population of Gaza and, perhaps, given the starvation blockade, simply killing off 2 million people or a substantial proportion of them.
For those who say 'but it's a war; nasty stuff happens', yes: that's why there are rules under international law. Sometimes innocent civilians get killed in wars, especially urban wars and even more so urban wars where one side is using civilian infrastructure as shields (and the other doesn't care that they are). That is to be expected and, while deaths should be minimised where possible, armed forces still have to be able to engage the enemy. However, the deliberate starvation of a nation is a war crime and occupying powers - which Israel now is - have duties to the civilians under their control.
I do support any innocent civilians who wish to seek refuge elsewhere having the right to do so - as happens in any other conflict. That shouldn't be mandatory, but should be a voluntary option as it is in any other conflict.
I oppose any deliberate starvation of civilians, though blockades have long been a tool of war.
Given how dodgy the UN and other corrupt organisations that have allowed Hamas to flourish have been with aid in the past, I would like to see aid given out as part of Israel's duty being under Israel's auspices and not the UN's. If they have the duty, they should take the responsibility seriously.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
Of course the Israelis did get rid of Netanyahu in the past, and elected leaders who tried to negotiate a peace agreement (rejected by Arafat), then tried to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza (which was taken advantage of by Hamas).
How soon after Hamas 'taking advantage' did Netanyahu start backing them to undermine the Palestine Authority in the West Bank?
Anyway at least we have it clarified that if Israelis elect Netanyahu again they'll bear full collective responsibilty for all his actions.
Tories are doing their own decline without BBC help. If they had a leader and a few front benchers as effective at communication as, say Ken Clarke, Heseltine, Thatcher, Farage or Blair and with as much interesting to say, the BBC would be all over it.
I don't think that's true
The RefUKkers (NFF apart) are not of that calibre and are interviewed constantly
This can only be an editorial decision
Presumably because they got 14% of the vote at the last GE and are currently polling at ~30%. They are also "news" ("new political party arises from nowhere") in a way the Tories aren't
Chicken and egg. Did they get to 30% because of the fawning of the BBC. On the other hand, all criticism of the other parties is published by the MSM without much research. They even blame the current government for the sins of the past ones. Reform are floating on a bed of hot air led by a one-trick pony.
Digital ID cards could be Starmer’s poll tax ... The Telegraph has reported the concerns of senior risk and cybersecurity staff working on One Login in some detail. The system was being accessed and modified by staff and contractors without the required level of security. Parts of the system were being developed in Romania, a fact that had eluded top management at the Government Digital Service (GDS).
“It’s Horizon all over again,” one global security expert told this newspaper in April, referring to the notorious Post Office computer system. Of the 39 requirements in the National Cybersecurity Centre’s cybersecurity checklist list CAF, One Login still only meets 21.
But instead of taking the warnings seriously, One Login’s senior management at GDS turned on the messengers who had brought them the bad news, dispersing the independent risk and cybersecurity team that first raised the issues. One Login’s management subsequently began to mark their own homework. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/08/digital-id-cards-could-be-starmers-poll-tax/ (£££)
First I've heard of digital ID cards, which sound like a hellish thing.
I d heard of the id cards - what I haven’t heard is about any issues with the One Login system which really should have been focus of the article.
And I’m at a loss as to what is wrong with the digital id scheme, if you need to show your id or prove your right to do something it will make things rather easier. It’s not like the police will stop you and ask to see your id without a valid reason which seems to be the thing people hate
Not being able to prove you are human while online is becoming a serious problem. Digital ID solves this problem, and the benefits are huge while the risks, so far, are very small. It is long overdue that the UK takes the threats in the online world a lot more seriously.
The problem with ID cards isn't the ID cards.
The problem is the insane requirement that every government database be linked up, and access provided to everyone who asks. *Without* segregation of data.
So, under the ID card scheme that was beginning to be implemented, a contractor, working for the council on fly tipping, could see your NHS records.
Yes, they really specified the system that way. So that "administrative friction" wouldn't slow down "necassary work".
When they realised there was a problem, the response was that data for "Important People" (decided by the government) would be segregated in a separate database with limited access.
The problem is not simply the database. It is that to work effectively the police must have the right to ask for them - which raises a whole host of other problems.
What would be sensible is
- An ID card (both physical and digital), that consists of a unique identifier (with elaborate checksumming etc built into the identifier), a name and a photo. - The unique identifier can be used to code other databases - indeed, it should. That doesn't mean that they are linked, though. - The ID card database should be simple, and separate - It can be built, quite cheaply, by a small team of developers. No exotic tech is required. - Use the best-of-breed, but existing, coding standards, security protocols etc. - Simplicity makes it easier to secure. - The big money is in validating entries. Even the passport database is full of fake entries. - Hosting the database isn't a big issue- the main issue is security and stability under load. Again, standard stuff. - All access to the database will be logged and monitored. Again, standard best practise in the industry is fine. And also solves the legal issues. - Anyone suggestion Minority Report style unification of all government databases should be impaled. Painfully,
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
Of course the Israelis did get rid of Netanyahu in the past, and elected leaders who tried to negotiate a peace agreement (rejected by Arafat), then tried to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza (which was taken advantage of by Hamas).
How soon after Hamas 'taking advantage' did Netanyahu start backing them to undermine the Palestine Authority in the West bank?
Anyway at least we have it clarified that if Israelis elect Netanyahu again they'll bear full collective responsibilty for all his actions.
There were a couple of years between Hamas taking over Gaza following Israel's withdrawal, and Israelis electing Netanyahu.
To go against my thoughts of Labour doom for a moment, we are not yet at calling it stage. Reform have led outright consistently for less than 2 months (since 16 Apr leading or tied in every poll, leading alone in every poll since May 3). Before that they traded the lead with Labour and occasionally the Tories. Miliband led for over 2 years (1 tie not withstanding) much closer to an election That said i still expect Labour to be docksided because they are filth and everyone hates them
I know that I bang on about this too much, but the BBC's programme/podcast on the background to Elon Musk is well worth hearing. It is presented by a Professor of the History of Science at Harvard. Originally called "The Evening Rocket", it has now been updated and is now called "X Man: The Elon Musk origin Story".
Briefly, if you think his dad is bad, wait until you meet his grandfather. The programme considers the influences of the 1930s Technocratic Movement, the significance of the alphabet (! yes, really!) the symbolism of comic books and various concepts of Master Races, and the way they have all helped to form young Elon.
Sounds like complete drivel and of no use in explaining those parts of Musk that make him interesting (cars and rockets) as opposed to just another golf club Boer. May the Lord preserve us from historians doing cod psychology.
Absolutely wrong. It's nothing to do with cod psychology, it's all to do with the history of science - particularly the Technocratic Movement and cultural power of science fiction on the popular imagination. But I agree, we really can do without cod psychology!
Heinlein forecast a failed revolution by the technocrats (Functionalism).
Interesting. She mentions Heinlein in passing.
"Concerning Function: A Treatise on the Natural Order in Society, the Bible of the Functionalist movement, was first published in 1930. It claimed to be a scientifically accurate theory of social relations. The author, Paul Decker, disclaimed the "outworn and futile" ideas of democracy and human equality, and substituted a system in which human beings were evaluated "functionally"--that is to say, by the role each filled in the economic sequence. The underlying thesis was that it was right and proper for a man to exercise over his fellows whatever power was inherent in his function, and that any other form of social organization was silly, visionary, and contrary to the "natural order." The complete interdependence of modern economic life seems to have escaped him entirely.
His ideas were dressed up with a glib mechanistic pseudopsychology based on the observed orders of precedence among barnyard fowls, and on the famous Pavlov conditioned reflex experiments on dogs. He failed to note that human beings are neither dogs nor chickens. Old Dr. Pavlov ignored him entirely, as he had ignored so many others who had blindly and unscientifically dogmatized about the meaning of his important, but strictly limited, experiments."
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I fear he might have problems finding animal protein for his meat only diet. He may die of starvation before the IDF take him out for deliberately being in the vicinity of a Hamas control centre (aka a hole in the ground).
The interesting question is who gets the second largest number of seats?
If it's Reform then it's hard to see a Tory comeback.
All Labour has to do is have similar policies to the Social Democrats in Denmark and a lot of the support for RefUK will diminish. Will they consider doing so?
Tories are doing their own decline without BBC help. If they had a leader and a few front benchers as effective at communication as, say Ken Clarke, Heseltine, Thatcher, Farage or Blair and with as much interesting to say, the BBC would be all over it.
I don't think that's true
The RefUKkers (NFF apart) are not of that calibre and are interviewed constantly
This can only be an editorial decision
The legacy media are being given far too much credit / blame for the rise of Reform. It really isn't to do with how many times Farage has been on Question Time (which isn't all that many in fact, per year and given how few others Kippers / Refukkers got a look in; compare with the Greens, for example).
Besides, RefUK *should* now be treated as a major party: they've been polling in clear first for months and have just backed that up in the local elections and two parliamentary by-elections (one Westminster, one Holyrood). It is not the media (never mind the Beeb) pumping Reform, it's Reform's performances leading the media.
But, as I say, we should look more to social media for the energy of the movement anyway.
That said, politics, as nature, abhors a vacuum and the Tories and Labour are providing one by being so absent in terms of any vision and so disconnected / downbeat / ineffective in terms of delivery. Reform are offering an 'everything's crap; let's break the system that's made it so' critique and that's understandably superficially attractive. The answer is for Labour to not make things crap (they're the government, they have agency in this), and to provide their own analysis of the problem and strategy for resolution; something which they somehow managed to avoid doing despite four years of opposition and a landslide win. Or for the Tories to get their act together and do likewise.
If they don't, there's a decent chance that both parties could be looking at not forming a government for decades, if ever.
Labour comms over the last year have been very poor. They can draw a major defeat from any small victory.
The personnel are also as dull as ditch water. Starmer presents like a Vice President of the Rotary Club and Reeves as a primary school Deputy Head mistress.
At least Reform with Farage and Jenrick for the Conservatives have characterful Machiavellian "charm", much like Trump.
I am not sure I agree entirely on your analysis of legacy media. BBC Today had another six minute slot of Zia Yusuf returning to the Party. These interviews are always framed as "Reform could/ will almost certainly be the next Party of Government".
Labour look more b******* than the Tories who could simply morph into Reform still retaining the name.
The legacy media are being given far too much credit / blame for the rise of Reform.
It's so bad it has become a meme
Today's Laura Kuenssberg panel. #BBCLAURAK
A party sits at 30% in most polls. Its the news story as its emergence has been rapid. And you all seem to think (a) the emergence is down to the BBC reporting it and (b) the BBC shouldn't talk to members of that party, you know, the one leading the polls right now?
OK.
Would you have been so energised back in 1981 with the Alliance? We didn't have social media back then but I'm pretty sure there was plenty on the news (twice a day back then) and in the papers.
Let’s look at the numbers to work it out, because the possibility of swingback is real, it always is, as is the likelihood of consolidation or geographic sorting (Lib Dem style) of the vote on both left and right.
That is 46 to Ref and Con combined, and 48 to LLG. Other polls have the right-left lead the other way around. But the “bloc” balance has been stable for months after the centre-left lost its commanding lead a few months into the Labour government. So the country is divided quite equally, as is this forum.
We’re in the era of PR vote shares in a FPTP system. Comparing Labour’s 22% with previous incumbents is tempting but you’d also then need to compare Reform’s 28% with previous challengers, who would usually have been in the 40s mid-term.
I think there are two important dynamics, alongside the usual Scottish one, which are hard to predict.
1. Not all those Green votes will return to Labour. The question is how many will, and whether those that stay out cost any Labour seats. 2. Will Reform consolidate the right? If they do then that helps them against Labour but probably costs even more Tory seats to Lib Dems in the South
Very interesting. However, at some point, I suggest, there needs to be a serious questioning of the blocs of Lab/LD/G and Ref/Tory, and regarding them as broadly 'left' and 'right'.
I can't really find the unique distinguishing marks in each group which justify these characterisations. What are they?
There is nothing 'left' or 'right' about relationships with Europe, and ditto about inward migration numbers. What remains?
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
The interesting question is who gets the second largest number of seats?
If it's Reform then it's hard to see a Tory comeback.
All Labour has to do is have similar policies to the Social Democrats in Denmark and a lot of the support for RefUK will diminish. Will they consider doing so?
He could try telling us all ever so earnestly that he gets it and we are right to be angry because he is too. That should do it
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
A part of it is that some Israelis have picked up the mirror image of the "Death To Israel" position of (some) of their opponents. They see this as playing on the same playing field. So they are now playing the same game as the despots - who have stolen land and pushed various groups around the Middle East like Risk counters.
Tories are doing their own decline without BBC help. If they had a leader and a few front benchers as effective at communication as, say Ken Clarke, Heseltine, Thatcher, Farage or Blair and with as much interesting to say, the BBC would be all over it.
I don't think that's true
The RefUKkers (NFF apart) are not of that calibre and are interviewed constantly
This can only be an editorial decision
The legacy media are being given far too much credit / blame for the rise of Reform. It really isn't to do with how many times Farage has been on Question Time (which isn't all that many in fact, per year and given how few others Kippers / Refukkers got a look in; compare with the Greens, for example).
Besides, RefUK *should* now be treated as a major party: they've been polling in clear first for months and have just backed that up in the local elections and two parliamentary by-elections (one Westminster, one Holyrood). It is not the media (never mind the Beeb) pumping Reform, it's Reform's performances leading the media.
But, as I say, we should look more to social media for the energy of the movement anyway.
That said, politics, as nature, abhors a vacuum and the Tories and Labour are providing one by being so absent in terms of any vision and so disconnected / downbeat / ineffective in terms of delivery. Reform are offering an 'everything's crap; let's break the system that's made it so' critique and that's understandably superficially attractive. The answer is for Labour to not make things crap (they're the government, they have agency in this), and to provide their own analysis of the problem and strategy for resolution; something which they somehow managed to avoid doing despite four years of opposition and a landslide win. Or for the Tories to get their act together and do likewise.
If they don't, there's a decent chance that both parties could be looking at not forming a government for decades, if ever.
Labour comms over the last year have been very poor. They can draw a major defeat from any small victory.
The personnel are also as dull as ditch water. Starmer presents like a Vice President of the Rotary Club and Reeves as a primary school Deputy Head mistress.
At least Reform with Farage and Jenrick for the Conservatives have characterful Machiavellian "charm", much like Trump.
I am not sure I agree entirely on your analysis of legacy media. BBC Today had another six minute slot of Zia Yusuf returning to the Party. These interviews are always framed as "Reform could/ will almost certainly be the next Party of Government".
Labour look more b******* than the Tories who could simply morph into Reform still retaining the name.
FWIW, I think the story of Yusuf leaving / returning to Reform was over-reported by the Beeb but then it routinely over-reports personnel shuffling / gossip / plotting in preference policy in all parties because the latter might involve having to read and understand stuff, and link it in to prevailing contexts, which is harder work.
The legacy media are being given far too much credit / blame for the rise of Reform.
It's so bad it has become a meme
Today's Laura Kuenssberg panel. #BBCLAURAK
A party sits at 30% in most polls. Its the news story as its emergence has been rapid. And you all seem to think (a) the emergence is down to the BBC reporting it and (b) the BBC shouldn't talk to members of that party, you know, the one leading the polls right now?
OK.
Would you have been so energised back in 1981 with the Alliance? We didn't have social media back then but I'm pretty sure there was plenty on the news (twice a day back then) and in the papers.
I remember Tony Benn joshing that the SDP had two constituencies: Shepherds Bush Central and whatever the ITV place was at the time.
Tories are doing their own decline without BBC help. If they had a leader and a few front benchers as effective at communication as, say Ken Clarke, Heseltine, Thatcher, Farage or Blair and with as much interesting to say, the BBC would be all over it.
I don't think that's true
The RefUKkers (NFF apart) are not of that calibre and are interviewed constantly
This can only be an editorial decision
The legacy media are being given far too much credit / blame for the rise of Reform. It really isn't to do with how many times Farage has been on Question Time (which isn't all that many in fact, per year and given how few others Kippers / Refukkers got a look in; compare with the Greens, for example).
Besides, RefUK *should* now be treated as a major party: they've been polling in clear first for months and have just backed that up in the local elections and two parliamentary by-elections (one Westminster, one Holyrood). It is not the media (never mind the Beeb) pumping Reform, it's Reform's performances leading the media.
But, as I say, we should look more to social media for the energy of the movement anyway.
That said, politics, as nature, abhors a vacuum and the Tories and Labour are providing one by being so absent in terms of any vision and so disconnected / downbeat / ineffective in terms of delivery. Reform are offering an 'everything's crap; let's break the system that's made it so' critique and that's understandably superficially attractive. The answer is for Labour to not make things crap (they're the government, they have agency in this), and to provide their own analysis of the problem and strategy for resolution; something which they somehow managed to avoid doing despite four years of opposition and a landslide win. Or for the Tories to get their act together and do likewise.
If they don't, there's a decent chance that both parties could be looking at not forming a government for decades, if ever.
Labour comms over the last year have been very poor. They can draw a major defeat from any small victory.
The personnel are also as dull as ditch water. Starmer presents like a Vice President of the Rotary Club and Reeves as a primary school Deputy Head mistress.
At least Reform with Farage and Jenrick for the Conservatives have characterful Machiavellian "charm", much like Trump.
I am not sure I agree entirely on your analysis of legacy media. BBC Today had another six minute slot of Zia Yusuf returning to the Party. These interviews are always framed as "Reform could/ will almost certainly be the next Party of Government".
Labour look more b******* than the Tories who could simply morph into Reform still retaining the name.
That six minutes of Yusuf was unfair propaganda on behalf of every other party. He was terrible.
The legacy media are being given far too much credit / blame for the rise of Reform.
It's so bad it has become a meme
Today's Laura Kuenssberg panel. #BBCLAURAK
Memes do not necessarily represent reality, nor are they necessarily reflective of what the public as a whole is seeing.
Rather than Reform being given too much space, the party that's really out of line in terms of the platform / support ratio is the Lib Dems, who have the polling / election results to justify being given near-equal time with the Tories but are getting nothing of the sort.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
Tories are doing their own decline without BBC help. If they had a leader and a few front benchers as effective at communication as, say Ken Clarke, Heseltine, Thatcher, Farage or Blair and with as much interesting to say, the BBC would be all over it.
I don't think that's true
The RefUKkers (NFF apart) are not of that calibre and are interviewed constantly
This can only be an editorial decision
The legacy media are being given far too much credit / blame for the rise of Reform. It really isn't to do with how many times Farage has been on Question Time (which isn't all that many in fact, per year and given how few others Kippers / Refukkers got a look in; compare with the Greens, for example).
Besides, RefUK *should* now be treated as a major party: they've been polling in clear first for months and have just backed that up in the local elections and two parliamentary by-elections (one Westminster, one Holyrood). It is not the media (never mind the Beeb) pumping Reform, it's Reform's performances leading the media.
But, as I say, we should look more to social media for the energy of the movement anyway.
That said, politics, as nature, abhors a vacuum and the Tories and Labour are providing one by being so absent in terms of any vision and so disconnected / downbeat / ineffective in terms of delivery. Reform are offering an 'everything's crap; let's break the system that's made it so' critique and that's understandably superficially attractive. The answer is for Labour to not make things crap (they're the government, they have agency in this), and to provide their own analysis of the problem and strategy for resolution; something which they somehow managed to avoid doing despite four years of opposition and a landslide win. Or for the Tories to get their act together and do likewise.
If they don't, there's a decent chance that both parties could be looking at not forming a government for decades, if ever.
Labour comms over the last year have been very poor. They can draw a major defeat from any small victory.
The personnel are also as dull as ditch water. Starmer presents like a Vice President of the Rotary Club and Reeves as a primary school Deputy Head mistress.
At least Reform with Farage and Jenrick for the Conservatives have characterful Machiavellian "charm", much like Trump.
I am not sure I agree entirely on your analysis of legacy media. BBC Today had another six minute slot of Zia Yusuf returning to the Party. These interviews are always framed as "Reform could/ will almost certainly be the next Party of Government".
Labour look more b******* than the Tories who could simply morph into Reform still retaining the name.
That six minutes of Yusuf was unfair propaganda on behalf of every other party. He was terrible.
Digital ID cards could be Starmer’s poll tax ... The Telegraph has reported the concerns of senior risk and cybersecurity staff working on One Login in some detail. The system was being accessed and modified by staff and contractors without the required level of security. Parts of the system were being developed in Romania, a fact that had eluded top management at the Government Digital Service (GDS).
“It’s Horizon all over again,” one global security expert told this newspaper in April, referring to the notorious Post Office computer system. Of the 39 requirements in the National Cybersecurity Centre’s cybersecurity checklist list CAF, One Login still only meets 21.
But instead of taking the warnings seriously, One Login’s senior management at GDS turned on the messengers who had brought them the bad news, dispersing the independent risk and cybersecurity team that first raised the issues. One Login’s management subsequently began to mark their own homework. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/08/digital-id-cards-could-be-starmers-poll-tax/ (£££)
First I've heard of digital ID cards, which sound like a hellish thing.
I d heard of the id cards - what I haven’t heard is about any issues with the One Login system which really should have been focus of the article.
And I’m at a loss as to what is wrong with the digital id scheme, if you need to show your id or prove your right to do something it will make things rather easier. It’s not like the police will stop you and ask to see your id without a valid reason which seems to be the thing people hate
Not being able to prove you are human while online is becoming a serious problem. Digital ID solves this problem, and the benefits are huge while the risks, so far, are very small. It is long overdue that the UK takes the threats in the online world a lot more seriously.
The problem with ID cards isn't the ID cards.
The problem is the insane requirement that every government database be linked up, and access provided to everyone who asks. *Without* segregation of data.
So, under the ID card scheme that was beginning to be implemented, a contractor, working for the council on fly tipping, could see your NHS records.
Yes, they really specified the system that way. So that "administrative friction" wouldn't slow down "necassary work".
When they realised there was a problem, the response was that data for "Important People" (decided by the government) would be segregated in a separate database with limited access.
The problem is not simply the database. It is that to work effectively the police must have the right to ask for them - which raises a whole host of other problems.
What would be sensible is
- An ID card (both physical and digital), that consists of a unique identifier (with elaborate checksumming etc built into the identifier), a name and a photo. - The unique identifier can be used to code other databases - indeed, it should. That doesn't mean that they are linked, though. - The ID card database should be simple, and separate - It can be built, quite cheaply, by a small team of developers. No exotic tech is required. - Use the best-of-breed, but existing, coding standards, security protocols etc. - Simplicity makes it easier to secure. - The big money is in validating entries. Even the passport database is full of fake entries. - Hosting the database isn't a big issue- the main issue is security and stability under load. Again, standard stuff. - All access to the database will be logged and monitored. Again, standard best practise in the industry is fine. And also solves the legal issues. - Anyone suggestion Minority Report style unification of all government databases should be impaled. Painfully,
But we need to combine databases in order to save rainbows or whatever is the fashionable cause du jour. Think back to Covid and Cummings demanding access to various NHS databases, or in America, Musk and 150-year-old pensioners. Won't anyone think of the children?
No seriously, the children. If a young girl is kidnapped, she will need to be fed by her captors, so obviously the police must have access to everyone's supermarket loyalty cards, Deliveroo and credit card accounts to see who is buying Angel Delight and fish fingers in April who wasn't in March.
And there you have it. Privacy nerds are as bad as child-killers.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
And for those who say the problem can be solved by the removal of Israel? Once you start down that road, be careful where you go.
S Korea reforested 70% of its landmass last century. We should do something along those lines.
On what land?
70% of our land is currently getting taken by agriculture versus 5% for housing and we get moaning from people about any green housing despite a chronic housing shortage and a population ten million more than at the turn of the century.
Supposedly we need every acre of that agriculture for "food security".
I'd have no problems with unproductive agricultural land being turned into forests, so long as that's after we ensure we have enough housing. Somehow I suspect many so exercised about concerns about food security would be less bothered by forests than houses for people to live in.
S Korea reforested 70% of its landmass last century. We should do something along those lines.
We are
An entertainment is to suggest to Green types that we should fill in the Norfolk Broads (remains of mad strip mining for peat) or reforest the Lake District.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
Do you not see that Bibi is 50% of the problem? Bibi requires this to continue to keep out of an Israeli jail.
How many dead Gazans is acceptable? If the number of dead Palestinians reaches a 7 figure number, does that cross a line?
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
A part of it is that some Israelis have picked up the mirror image of the "Death To Israel" position of (some) of their opponents. They see this as playing on the same playing field. So they are now playing the same game as the despots - who have stolen land and pushed various groups around the Middle East like Risk counters.
Good morning everyone.
Fine and bright for a Monday morning!
Personally I'm somewhat conflicted over this, as it appears many others are. First of all, the idea of a National Home for the Jews, after centuries of persecution in Europe, although not, to the best of my knowledge, in the Muslim states of the Middle East, or Ethiopia, is salving to the Christian European conscience. Using Palestine ties in with the legends of the Old Testament, part of the Christian Bible.
However, who are the Palestinians? Are they Arabs who have moved onto lands the Jews were forced to abandon? Or are they Jews who put home and land before their religion and stayed put? Or both?
In any event somehow the neighbouring Arab states must be convinced to accept the refugees as citizens; at the moment, for example, the Gazan's have nowhere to go.
Digital ID cards could be Starmer’s poll tax ... The Telegraph has reported the concerns of senior risk and cybersecurity staff working on One Login in some detail. The system was being accessed and modified by staff and contractors without the required level of security. Parts of the system were being developed in Romania, a fact that had eluded top management at the Government Digital Service (GDS).
“It’s Horizon all over again,” one global security expert told this newspaper in April, referring to the notorious Post Office computer system. Of the 39 requirements in the National Cybersecurity Centre’s cybersecurity checklist list CAF, One Login still only meets 21.
But instead of taking the warnings seriously, One Login’s senior management at GDS turned on the messengers who had brought them the bad news, dispersing the independent risk and cybersecurity team that first raised the issues. One Login’s management subsequently began to mark their own homework. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/08/digital-id-cards-could-be-starmers-poll-tax/ (£££)
First I've heard of digital ID cards, which sound like a hellish thing.
I d heard of the id cards - what I haven’t heard is about any issues with the One Login system which really should have been focus of the article.
And I’m at a loss as to what is wrong with the digital id scheme, if you need to show your id or prove your right to do something it will make things rather easier. It’s not like the police will stop you and ask to see your id without a valid reason which seems to be the thing people hate
Not being able to prove you are human while online is becoming a serious problem. Digital ID solves this problem, and the benefits are huge while the risks, so far, are very small. It is long overdue that the UK takes the threats in the online world a lot more seriously.
The problem with ID cards isn't the ID cards.
The problem is the insane requirement that every government database be linked up, and access provided to everyone who asks. *Without* segregation of data.
So, under the ID card scheme that was beginning to be implemented, a contractor, working for the council on fly tipping, could see your NHS records.
Yes, they really specified the system that way. So that "administrative friction" wouldn't slow down "necassary work".
When they realised there was a problem, the response was that data for "Important People" (decided by the government) would be segregated in a separate database with limited access.
The problem is not simply the database. It is that to work effectively the police must have the right to ask for them - which raises a whole host of other problems.
What would be sensible is
- An ID card (both physical and digital), that consists of a unique identifier (with elaborate checksumming etc built into the identifier), a name and a photo. - The unique identifier can be used to code other databases - indeed, it should. That doesn't mean that they are linked, though. - The ID card database should be simple, and separate - It can be built, quite cheaply, by a small team of developers. No exotic tech is required. - Use the best-of-breed, but existing, coding standards, security protocols etc. - Simplicity makes it easier to secure. - The big money is in validating entries. Even the passport database is full of fake entries. - Hosting the database isn't a big issue- the main issue is security and stability under load. Again, standard stuff. - All access to the database will be logged and monitored. Again, standard best practise in the industry is fine. And also solves the legal issues. - Anyone suggestion Minority Report style unification of all government databases should be impaled. Painfully,
But we need to combine databases in order to save rainbows or whatever is the fashionable cause du jour. Think back to Covid and Cummings demanding access to various NHS databases, or in America, Musk and 150-year-old pensioners. Won't anyone think of the children?
No seriously, the children. If a young girl is kidnapped, she will need to be fed by her captors, so obviously the police must have access to everyone's supermarket loyalty cards, Deliveroo and credit card accounts to see who is buying Angel Delight and fish fingers in April who wasn't in March.
And there you have it. Privacy nerds are as bad as child-killers.
One senior civil servant described a simple database of ID, name and photos, as "unsellable" and "boring" as a project, in conversation with me.
It wouldn't need a new agency, a new headquarters building. There would be limited avenues for policy initiatives, changes, re-specification. Even the specification documents would be "un-professionally short".
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
And for those who say the problem can be solved by the removal of Israel? Once you start down that road, be careful where you go.
If Israel is attacked and loses that will happen. Laws be damned.
If the only way to end the conflict is for them to win instead and to remove those who are attacking them, why shouldn't that happen?
Realpolitik not "laws" that won't mean jack if Israel ever loses a war.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
A part of it is that some Israelis have picked up the mirror image of the "Death To Israel" position of (some) of their opponents. They see this as playing on the same playing field. So they are now playing the same game as the despots - who have stolen land and pushed various groups around the Middle East like Risk counters.
Indeed. And in so doing they are throwing away some of their best diplomatic counters and soft power.
By placing themselves on the same playing field as terrorists, despots, radicals and extremist governments, where then lies their moral superiority? Israel could be championed as a democracy with freedom of speech, rights for minorities, rule of law and so on. In theory it still can. In reality, those things mean previous little if they can't constrain crimes against humanity. That always gave it the right to ask for support because they were the better side. True, there were always grave concerns about how it acted on its borders and it did regularly overstep the mark but it also had the not-unreasonable argument that when its enemies were committed to its eradication, prudence makes it wise to err on the side of excess when the cost of erring on the other side could be permanent.
But if Israel is to act no better than these terrorists and extremist governments itself, that negates the values arguments for supporting it.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
Didn't the Romans do that and move a population?
And the Americans with Native American peoples, such as the Cherokees.
S Korea reforested 70% of its landmass last century. We should do something along those lines.
On what land?
70% of our land is currently getting taken by agriculture versus 5% for housing and we get moaning from people about any green housing despite a chronic housing shortage and a population ten million more than at the turn of the century.
Supposedly we need every acre of that agriculture for "food security".
I'd have no problems with unproductive agricultural land being turned into forests, so long as that's after we ensure we have enough housing. Somehow I suspect many so exercised about concerns about food security would be less bothered by forests than houses for people to live in.
I think your argument is a bit contrived - the bits that require lots of subsidy and are unproductive are a long way from population centres and tend to be at altitude. I don't think reforestation (though that term is a bit odd given we currently have more trees than at any time for more than 500 years) and housing are competing objectives.
And anyway, you could house over 1 million people just on the vacant and derelict land in Glasgow. I can see acres and acres of it from our office, less than a 10 minute cycle from Central Station. But no one wants to build here because the Scottish economy and population is moving eastward at a dramatic rate, plastering agricultural East Lothian in car-dependent box housing. .
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
Do you not see that Bibi is 50% of the problem? Bibi requires this to continue to keep out of an Israeli jail.
How many dead Gazans is acceptable? If the number of dead Palestinians reaches a 7 figure number, does that cross a line?
No dead Palestinians are acceptable after Hamas surrenders unconditionally.
Sorry, missed your question over the weekend about Goodwin's population projections.
I'm not a social scientist (how dare you - I do proper science* ) but it's close enough that I have a few thoughts.
The underlying method is legit, but like any method it depends on the assumptions - projecting this kind of distance in the future, any small variations in assumptions will make a huge difference
Projections in general are often misunderstood - they're a mathematical analysis of what will happen if a particular set of assumptions are met. Those assumptions are very, very likely wrong over any extended timescale
He seems to use recent population migration stats as baseline, which are skewed by Brexit and other policy changes - it's not obvious that this is a good basis for a migration mix assumption going forwards. Likely laughably bad - in either direction - for the timescales covered
This may be particularly relevant to migration outflows - e.g. White Europeans leaving post-Brexit, including British-born children
He assumes unchanging fertility rates - that, even over extended timescales, immigrants will remain hugely distinct on this
The estimates, while using demographic-specific fertility rates, do not do this for mortality - so the sub-Saharan immigrant having 13 children is nonetheless assumed to live as long as a White British person (so are their children)
"Additionally, it is assumed that all descendants of each religious group inherit the religious identity of their parents, maintaining the Non-Muslim or Muslim classification across generations without variation." (I'm not clear what he does on mixed-marriages here)
I think, but may be wrong, that he takes a blood-purity view going forwards - anyone with an ancestor classified non-white can never be white
The 're-calibration to ONS estimates' gives a veneer of respectability, but it's just scaling the overall numbers to match ONS overall population projections, so it has no effect on the proportions he has calculated.
Again, projections this far ahead are just not realistic. The ONS re-calibrate population projections after each census, often quite significantly (Brexit really fucked up the projections from the 2011 census). There are other efforts at population projection, e.g. Ethpop, that also do so.
TLDR: Projections over these timescales by anyone are likely to be bollocks. I think he's made some very interesting assumptions which do happen to align in a particular direction.
So much for the BBC's rigorous demand for balance.
Davie and Gibb are a real problem for Starmer (and for the impartiality of the BBC). Starmer can do something about this immediately. The headlines are going to be terrible anyway, so take the shots.
Sorry, missed your question over the weekend about Goodwin's population projections.
I'm not a social scientist (how dare you - I do proper science* ) but it's close enough that I have a few thoughts.
The underlying method is legit, but like any method it depends on the assumptions - projecting this kind of distance in the future, any small variations in assumptions will make a huge difference
Projections in general are often misunderstood - they're a mathematical analysis of what will happen if a particular set of assumptions are met. Those assumptions are very, very likely wrong over any extended timescale
He seems to use recent population migration stats as baseline, which are skewed by Brexit and other policy changes - it's not obvious that this is a good basis for a migration mix assumption going forwards. Likely laughably bad - in either direction - for the timescales covered
This may be particularly relevant to migration outflows - e.g. White Europeans leaving post-Brexit, including British-born children
He assumes unchanging fertility rates - that, even over extended timescales, immigrants will remain hugely distinct on this
The estimates, while using demographic-specific fertility rates, do not do this for mortality - so the sub-Saharan immigrant having 13 children is nonetheless assumed to live as long as a White British person (so are their children)
"Additionally, it is assumed that all descendants of each religious group inherit the religious identity of their parents, maintaining the Non-Muslim or Muslim classification across generations without variation." (I'm not clear what he does on mixed-marriages here)
I think, but may be wrong, that he takes a blood-purity view going forwards - anyone with an ancestor classified non-white can never be white
The 're-calibration to ONS estimates' gives a veneer of respectability, but it's just scaling the overall numbers to match ONS overall population projections, so it has no effect on the proportions he has calculated.
Again, projections this far ahead are just not realistic. The ONS re-calibrate population projections after each census, often quite significantly (Brexit really fucked up the projections from the 2011 census). There are other efforts at population projection, e.g. Ethpop, that also do so.
TLDR: Projections over these timescales by anyone are likely to be bollocks. I think he's made some very interesting assumptions which do happen to align in a particular direction.
Ah, forgot the *:
*I'm an epidemiologist. We're different to social science because while there's a clear replication crisis in social science, in epidemiology it's much harder for other people to get the same data for replication, so there's much less of a replication crisis
I do do some projections, but never more than 10-15 years in advance. I recently got to evaluate some we did in 2015 where we produced three scenarios. One that we included for completeness, an absolute minimum estimate if increases in life expectancy for a group of conditions stopped completely has turned out to be the most accurate (and actually, within the confidence intervals, correct). We included it at the request of a study steering committee to show that the population would continue to rise a bit even without the expected changes in life expectancy; none of us thought it was realistic at the time. The core predictions included assumptions of ongoing life-expectancy increases calibrated over various different historical timescales and split/not split by condition types.
ETA: I skimmed the report quickly, so I may have missed some bits or got parts wrong.
Unsurprising, as Davie himself is actually a former Tory election candidate.
The artistic and intellectual decline, overall, of the BBC since the 1990's, has continued under his watch. It was a gradual commercialisatilon and popularisaton process then, as now, just under the different Tory placeman of John Birt.
Trussell Trust and WPI released analysis today suggesting 440,000 disabled households will be forced into food banks by the disability cull proposed by Labour. But get war ready and stuff and yay for e gates
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
And for those who say the problem can be solved by the removal of Israel? Once you start down that road, be careful where you go.
If Israel is attacked and loses that will happen. Laws be damned.
If the only way to end the conflict is for them to win instead and to remove those who are attacking them, why shouldn't that happen?
Realpolitik not "laws" that won't mean jack if Israel ever loses a war.
If Israel refuses to abide by those laws then it loses the right to be defended by them. In any case, by your argument, if you can remove a troublesome population if you win a war against it then you legitimise the policy of those who don't recognise Israel in the first place - providing they can win.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
Do you not see that Bibi is 50% of the problem? Bibi requires this to continue to keep out of an Israeli jail.
How many dead Gazans is acceptable? If the number of dead Palestinians reaches a 7 figure number, does that cross a line?
No dead Palestinians are acceptable after Hamas surrenders unconditionally.
Only a rank antisemite would show the level of disregard for Israeli lives that you show for Palestinians.
S Korea reforested 70% of its landmass last century. We should do something along those lines.
On what land?
70% of our land is currently getting taken by agriculture versus 5% for housing and we get moaning from people about any green housing despite a chronic housing shortage and a population ten million more than at the turn of the century.
Supposedly we need every acre of that agriculture for "food security".
I'd have no problems with unproductive agricultural land being turned into forests, so long as that's after we ensure we have enough housing. Somehow I suspect many so exercised about concerns about food security would be less bothered by forests than houses for people to live in.
Read the article. "Along those lines" doesn't mean 70% of our land, but it does mean very large scale planting.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
Do you not see that Bibi is 50% of the problem? Bibi requires this to continue to keep out of an Israeli jail.
How many dead Gazans is acceptable? If the number of dead Palestinians reaches a 7 figure number, does that cross a line?
No dead Palestinians are acceptable after Hamas surrenders unconditionally.
That is absurd. So up to that point 2 million, or 5 million dead Palestinians is acceptable to you.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
Do you not see that Bibi is 50% of the problem? Bibi requires this to continue to keep out of an Israeli jail.
How many dead Gazans is acceptable? If the number of dead Palestinians reaches a 7 figure number, does that cross a line?
No dead Palestinians are acceptable after Hamas surrenders unconditionally.
Only a rank antisemite would show the level of disregard for Israeli lives that you show for Palestinians.
One of the main differences between the two sets of leaders is that the Israeli government does what it can to protect its people. Hamas do the very opposite with their people.
S Korea reforested 70% of its landmass last century. We should do something along those lines.
We are
An entertainment is to suggest to Green types that we should fill in the Norfolk Broads (remains of mad strip mining for peat) or reforest the Lake District.
Reforesting large parts of the Lakes is not a daft idea. But not with conifers.
"Eastbourne's international tennis event downgraded
Caroline Ansell, the MP for Eastbourne, said the change will "challenging", adding: "It wasn’t what I wanted to hear." The downgrade is as a result of the LTA achieving its aim of staging a women's tournament at Queen's Club, in west London, in the first week of the grass court season."
So much for the BBC's rigorous demand for balance.
Davie and Gibb are a real problem for Starmer (and for the impartiality of the BBC). Starmer can do something about this immediately. The headlines are going to be terrible anyway, so take the shots.
In what way is it *not* balance to seek to broadcast stories of interest to people of all political persuasions?
1979, 1997, 2010, 2024. These changes don’t come around often. I expect a much reduced Labour majority good for 5 more years.
Me too.
#tenyearkeir
And before that period of stability: 1964, 1970, 1974, 1979. Trends change too.
But more importantly, the whole party structure is in flux at the moment. We would be better looking to 1918-31 for precedent rather than 1945-2010.
Also, in 1979, 1997 and 2010 then new government came in with a clear critique of what was wrong with the country and a plan laid out in advance and in depth as to what they would do to fix it, with an explanation of how that would work and why it was necessary. They then did that and reaped their reward at the next election (even in 1983, when the result was clearly boosted by the Falklands, opinion was already shifting back to the Tories before the invasion). But with Labour this time there's been barely such analysis nor attempt at meaningful reform. As such, it feels more like 1974, with a derisory attempt to reboot a status quo. (1964 and 1970 can be marked down in a third category of 'we had a plan and screwed it up').
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
Do you not see that Bibi is 50% of the problem? Bibi requires this to continue to keep out of an Israeli jail.
How many dead Gazans is acceptable? If the number of dead Palestinians reaches a 7 figure number, does that cross a line?
No dead Palestinians are acceptable after Hamas surrenders unconditionally.
Only a rank antisemite would show the level of disregard for Israeli lives that you show for Palestinians.
One of the main differences between the two sets of leaders is that the Israeli government does what it can to protect its people. Hamas do the very opposite with their people.
Bibi didn't seem to be particularly interested in the live hostages, and was quite comfortable for them to become collateral damage in his grand plan.
They're averaging 30% in the polls so I suppose the beeb can't ignore them.
From the story linked from the tweet:-
The BBC has previously been criticised by some viewers for heavily featuring Reform UK politicians on its programmes, despite the party only having five elected members of Parliament. Previous research has identified Nigel Farage as being among the most invited guests on the BBC’s flagship Question Time discussion programme. https://bylinetimes.com/2025/06/09/bbc-news-tim-davie-robbie-gibb-reform-voters-nigel-farage-trust/
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
Do you not see that Bibi is 50% of the problem? Bibi requires this to continue to keep out of an Israeli jail.
How many dead Gazans is acceptable? If the number of dead Palestinians reaches a 7 figure number, does that cross a line?
No dead Palestinians are acceptable after Hamas surrenders unconditionally.
That's going to be quite a difficult target to hit given that the population is starving and the devastation to civilian infrastructure, including hospitals but also logistics.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
The tunnels situation is quite interesting. In such a densely-packed area as Gaza, it's quite possible that a tunnel network starting from (say) a shop, spreads not just downwards, but laterally, to cover an area that encompasses the footprints of both a school and a hospital. They may (or may not) be connected to those buildings (*), but even if they are not connected, they are using those civilian structures as cover.
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
It is astonishing that some (not you) still try to pretend that hospitals and schools are not used by Hamas for their command and control centres making them both legal targets for the Israelis and putting their own vulnerable people at risk. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Abhorrent but sadly necessary to defeat Hamas.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
I think it's bloody stupid and Netanyahu is the wrong person to be Israeli PM.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Thank goodness Israel is a democracy and Israelis have had multiple opportunities (checks notes: since 1996) to get rid of Netanyahu, unlike the vile Gazans who bear all responsibilty for Hamas being in power since a single election in 2006.
If I had one wish it would be that someone would drop Bartholomew Roberts in the middle of Gaza with his laptop and see whether he develops into a human being
I want the war to end, with the surrender of Hamas.
That won't happen until the grievances that Hamas feeds off are addressed. Even if Hamas were somehow destroyed, some successor organisation would take its place.
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Israel has repeatedly offered genuine concessions, this century. Such as the agreement spurned by Arafat, or the subsequent withdrawal from Gaza which Hamas then stepped into the void with. Both were before Netanyahu returned to power.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
The way Israel is carrying on is more likely to radicalise not only Palestinian opinion but Arab and muslim opinion more widely (as indeed we see in this country).
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
If peace isn't possible without the population being moved then the population should be moved, which happens regularly in conflicts most recently in Azerbaijan without so much as a murmur from most of the world.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
Do you not see that Bibi is 50% of the problem? Bibi requires this to continue to keep out of an Israeli jail.
How many dead Gazans is acceptable? If the number of dead Palestinians reaches a 7 figure number, does that cross a line?
No dead Palestinians are acceptable after Hamas surrenders unconditionally.
Only a rank antisemite would show the level of disregard for Israeli lives that you show for Palestinians.
One of the main differences between the two sets of leaders is that the Israeli government does what it can to protect its people. Hamas do the very opposite with their people.
Bibi didn't seem to be particularly interested in the live hostages, and was quite comfortable for them to become collateral damage in his grand plan.
Yep, as ever, it's Israel who are to blame for Hamas invading Israel and taking hostages.
So much for the BBC's rigorous demand for balance.
Davie and Gibb are a real problem for Starmer (and for the impartiality of the BBC). Starmer can do something about this immediately. The headlines are going to be terrible anyway, so take the shots.
In what way is it *not* balance to seek to broadcast stories of interest to people of all political persuasions?
There is a substantial difference between "reporting" and "promoting" a party.
I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
War crimes are being committed by both sides. Of the two, the greater are now those being committed by Israel, which appears to have a policy of, at the minimum, expelling the Palestinian population of Gaza and, perhaps, given the starvation blockade, simply killing off 2 million people or a substantial proportion of them.
For those who say 'but it's a war; nasty stuff happens', yes: that's why there are rules under international law. Sometimes innocent civilians get killed in wars, especially urban wars and even more so urban wars where one side is using civilian infrastructure as shields (and the other doesn't care that they are). That is to be expected and, while deaths should be minimised where possible, armed forces still have to be able to engage the enemy. However, the deliberate starvation of a nation is a war crime and occupying powers - which Israel now is - have duties to the civilians under their control.
Yet no-one gets worked up about the Russians doing much worse in Ukraine, most bizarre.
1979, 1997, 2010, 2024. These changes don’t come around often. I expect a much reduced Labour majority good for 5 more years.
Me too.
#tenyearkeir
And before that period of stability: 1964, 1970, 1974, 1979. Trends change too.
But more importantly, the whole party structure is in flux at the moment. We would be better looking to 1918-31 for precedent rather than 1945-2010.
Also, in 1979, 1997 and 2010 then new government came in with a clear critique of what was wrong with the country and a plan laid out in advance and in depth as to what they would do to fix it, with an explanation of how that would work and why it was necessary. They then did that and reaped their reward at the next election (even in 1983, when the result was clearly boosted by the Falklands, opinion was already shifting back to the Tories before the invasion). But with Labour this time there's been barely such analysis nor attempt at meaningful reform. As such, it feels more like 1974, with a derisory attempt to reboot a status quo. (1964 and 1970 can be marked down in a third category of 'we had a plan and screwed it up').
Yes, there has never been a more fragile landslide majority than this one. I do make them favs for largest party next time but I'm not remotely tempted at 2.5.
Comments
On the other hand I can see Labour losing a lot of tactical Lib Dems voters in its constituencies, unless the threat of a Farage government feels real.
Lib Dem success is largely in inverse correlation with Tory vote share.
If the 'proof you are human' exists only in the machine, then the machine can easily impersonate a human
Quite happy to see you be dropped in the middle of Tel Aviv and see if you develop into the same thing.
I agree re LD vs Tory vote share generally but there are still 20 seats for the Tories to go at purely by consolidating their vote efficiency more into their traditional heartlands
Perhaps you could do with seeing the same videos.
Perhaps in the case you mention it is feasible. Often it is nowhere near as easy as proponents suppose.
For those who say 'but it's a war; nasty stuff happens', yes: that's why there are rules under international law. Sometimes innocent civilians get killed in wars, especially urban wars and even more so urban wars where one side is using civilian infrastructure as shields (and the other doesn't care that they are). That is to be expected and, while deaths should be minimised where possible, armed forces still have to be able to engage the enemy. However, the deliberate starvation of a nation is a war crime and occupying powers - which Israel now is - have duties to the civilians under their control.
But I agree, we really can do without cod psychology!
https://x.com/simongerman600/status/1931976095533772915
Unlike, say, the Ukraine war, which is basically one man's folly, though he is backed by a band of opportunists and fanatics, the Palestinian cause seems genuinely popular and has survived God knows how many military defeats.
Until Israel offers genuine concessions and deals with the Palestinians as equals, entitled to at least some share in the land the Israelis occupied last century, the tragic, pointless sore will continue to fester.
Now we have a baked on certainty of Reform at 40% in the polls, thanks to you.
Farage will get bored though. He always does. Then he will be off to spiv his spiv elsewhere
The problem is not simply the database. It is that to work effectively the police must have the right to ask for them - which raises a whole host of other problems.
Besides, RefUK *should* now be treated as a major party: they've been polling in clear first for months and have just backed that up in the local elections and two parliamentary by-elections (one Westminster, one Holyrood). It is not the media (never mind the Beeb) pumping Reform, it's Reform's performances leading the media.
But, as I say, we should look more to social media for the energy of the movement anyway.
That said, politics, as nature, abhors a vacuum and the Tories and Labour are providing one by being so absent in terms of any vision and so disconnected / downbeat / ineffective in terms of delivery. Reform are offering an 'everything's crap; let's break the system that's made it so' critique and that's understandably superficially attractive. The answer is for Labour to not make things crap (they're the government, they have agency in this), and to provide their own analysis of the problem and strategy for resolution; something which they somehow managed to avoid doing despite four years of opposition and a landslide win. Or for the Tories to get their act together and do likewise.
If they don't, there's a decent chance that both parties could be looking at not forming a government for decades, if ever.
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas defeated, then some Palestinian leadership stepping into the void that settles and ends the fighting. I'm confident most Israelis would vote for that too, if it were an option.
Its not an option until Hamas is eradicated though.
I oppose any deliberate starvation of civilians, though blockades have long been a tool of war.
Given how dodgy the UN and other corrupt organisations that have allowed Hamas to flourish have been with aid in the past, I would like to see aid given out as part of Israel's duty being under Israel's auspices and not the UN's. If they have the duty, they should take the responsibility seriously.
Anyway at least we have it clarified that if Israelis elect Netanyahu again they'll bear full collective responsibilty for all his actions.
- An ID card (both physical and digital), that consists of a unique identifier (with elaborate checksumming etc built into the identifier), a name and a photo.
- The unique identifier can be used to code other databases - indeed, it should. That doesn't mean that they are linked, though.
- The ID card database should be simple, and separate
- It can be built, quite cheaply, by a small team of developers. No exotic tech is required.
- Use the best-of-breed, but existing, coding standards, security protocols etc.
- Simplicity makes it easier to secure.
- The big money is in validating entries. Even the passport database is full of fake entries.
- Hosting the database isn't a big issue- the main issue is security and stability under load. Again, standard stuff.
- All access to the database will be logged and monitored. Again, standard best practise in the industry is fine. And also solves the legal issues.
- Anyone suggestion Minority Report style unification of all government databases should be impaled. Painfully,
Today's Laura Kuenssberg panel.
#BBCLAURAK
Reform have led outright consistently for less than 2 months (since 16 Apr leading or tied in every poll, leading alone in every poll since May 3). Before that they traded the lead with Labour and occasionally the Tories.
Miliband led for over 2 years (1 tie not withstanding) much closer to an election
That said i still expect Labour to be docksided because they are filth and everyone hates them
the Bible of the Functionalist movement, was first published in 1930.
It claimed to be a scientifically accurate theory of social relations. The
author, Paul Decker, disclaimed the "outworn and futile" ideas of
democracy and human equality, and substituted a system in which
human beings were evaluated "functionally"--that is to say, by the role
each filled in the economic sequence. The underlying thesis was that it
was right and proper for a man to exercise over his fellows whatever
power was inherent in his function, and that any other form of social
organization was silly, visionary, and contrary to the "natural order."
The complete interdependence of modern economic life seems to
have escaped him entirely.
His ideas were dressed up with a glib mechanistic
pseudopsychology based on the observed orders of precedence among
barnyard fowls, and on the famous Pavlov conditioned reflex
experiments on dogs. He failed to note that human beings are neither
dogs nor chickens. Old Dr. Pavlov ignored him entirely, as he had
ignored so many others who had blindly and unscientifically
dogmatized about the meaning of his important, but strictly limited,
experiments."
The personnel are also as dull as ditch water. Starmer presents like a Vice President of the Rotary Club and Reeves as a primary school Deputy Head mistress.
At least Reform with Farage and Jenrick for the Conservatives have characterful Machiavellian "charm", much like Trump.
I am not sure I agree entirely on your analysis of legacy media. BBC Today had another six minute slot of Zia Yusuf returning to the Party. These interviews are always framed as "Reform could/ will almost certainly be the next Party of Government".
Labour look more b******* than the Tories who could simply morph into Reform still retaining the name.
OK.
Would you have been so energised back in 1981 with the Alliance? We didn't have social media back then but I'm pretty sure there was plenty on the news (twice a day back then) and in the papers.
I can't really find the unique distinguishing marks in each group which justify these characterisations. What are they?
There is nothing 'left' or 'right' about relationships with Europe, and ditto about inward migration numbers. What remains?
But I don't accept the premise that a Hamas regime was inevitable; it wasn't in the West Bank (which admittedly wasn't kept under such tight restrictions - though the restrictions followed the Hamas coup rather than vice versa). That the Palestinian leadership have previously rejected genuine offers is their own stupid fault; that doesn't give Israel a green light to make even worse decisions.
Hamas does need removing from Gaza; that's not going to happen militarily unless you remove the population - which seems to be the conclusion Israel has come to: and a a war crime and a crime against humanity. It's also a bloody stupid precedent given that extreme Arab opinion holds much the same view of the presence of the state of Israel.
That should do it
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/09/north-of-england-lost-out-on-140bn-for-transport-in-decade-of-deceit-study
...In the decade to 2022-23, London received £1,183 per person per year while the north got less than half of that – £486 of transport spending per person.
The figure for the north-west was £540, there was £441 spent per person in Yorkshire and the Humber, and as little as £430 in the north-east.
The East Midlands fared even worse, with an average of £355 per person spent – less than a third of that received by London...
Rather than Reform being given too much space, the party that's really out of line in terms of the platform / support ratio is the Lib Dems, who have the polling / election results to justify being given near-equal time with the Tories but are getting nothing of the sort.
Though hopefully it won't come to that and Hamas can surrender instead, as the Tamil Tigers did.
No seriously, the children. If a young girl is kidnapped, she will need to be fed by her captors, so obviously the police must have access to everyone's supermarket loyalty cards, Deliveroo and credit card accounts to see who is buying Angel Delight and fish fingers in April who wasn't in March.
And there you have it. Privacy nerds are as bad as child-killers.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/09/britain-deserts-dead-zones-purple-moor-grass
S Korea reforested 70% of its landmass last century. We should do something along those lines.
70% of our land is currently getting taken by agriculture versus 5% for housing and we get moaning from people about any green housing despite a chronic housing shortage and a population ten million more than at the turn of the century.
Supposedly we need every acre of that agriculture for "food security".
I'd have no problems with unproductive agricultural land being turned into forests, so long as that's after we ensure we have enough housing. Somehow I suspect many so exercised about concerns about food security would be less bothered by forests than houses for people to live in.
An entertainment is to suggest to Green types that we should fill in the Norfolk Broads (remains of mad strip mining for peat) or reforest the Lake District.
How many dead Gazans is acceptable? If the number of dead Palestinians reaches a 7 figure number, does that cross a line?
Fine and bright for a Monday morning!
Personally I'm somewhat conflicted over this, as it appears many others are. First of all, the idea of a National Home for the Jews, after centuries of persecution in Europe, although not, to the best of my knowledge, in the Muslim states of the Middle East, or Ethiopia, is salving to the Christian European conscience. Using Palestine ties in with the legends of the Old Testament, part of the Christian Bible.
However, who are the Palestinians? Are they Arabs who have moved onto lands the Jews were forced to abandon? Or are they Jews who put home and land before their religion and stayed put? Or both?
In any event somehow the neighbouring Arab states must be convinced to accept the refugees as citizens; at the moment, for example, the Gazan's have nowhere to go.
EXCLUSIVE: The BBC has drawn up plans to win over Reform voters by changing its news and drama output.
BBC Director General Tim Davie and other execs discussed altering "story selection" in order to win the "trust" of supporters of Nigel Farage
https://bsky.app/profile/adambienkov.bsky.social/post/3lr5x5ezafs23
It wouldn't need a new agency, a new headquarters building. There would be limited avenues for policy initiatives, changes, re-specification. Even the specification documents would be "un-professionally short".
If the only way to end the conflict is for them to win instead and to remove those who are attacking them, why shouldn't that happen?
Realpolitik not "laws" that won't mean jack if Israel ever loses a war.
By placing themselves on the same playing field as terrorists, despots, radicals and extremist governments, where then lies their moral superiority? Israel could be championed as a democracy with freedom of speech, rights for minorities, rule of law and so on. In theory it still can. In reality, those things mean previous little if they can't constrain crimes against humanity. That always gave it the right to ask for support because they were the better side. True, there were always grave concerns about how it acted on its borders and it did regularly overstep the mark but it also had the not-unreasonable argument that when its enemies were committed to its eradication, prudence makes it wise to err on the side of excess when the cost of erring on the other side could be permanent.
But if Israel is to act no better than these terrorists and extremist governments itself, that negates the values arguments for supporting it.
I think your argument is a bit contrived - the bits that require lots of subsidy and are unproductive are a long way from population centres and tend to be at altitude. I don't think reforestation (though that term is a bit odd given we currently have more trees than at any time for more than 500 years) and housing are competing objectives.
And anyway, you could house over 1 million people just on the vacant and derelict land in Glasgow. I can see acres and acres of it from our office, less than a 10 minute cycle from Central Station. But no one wants to build here because the Scottish economy and population is moving eastward at a dramatic rate, plastering agricultural East Lothian in car-dependent box housing.
.
Sorry, missed your question over the weekend about Goodwin's population projections.
I'm not a social scientist (how dare you - I do proper science*
- The underlying method is legit, but like any method it depends on the assumptions - projecting this kind of distance in the future, any small variations in assumptions will make a huge difference
- Projections in general are often misunderstood - they're a mathematical analysis of what will happen if a particular set of assumptions are met. Those assumptions are very, very likely wrong over any extended timescale
- He seems to use recent population migration stats as baseline, which are skewed by Brexit and other policy changes - it's not obvious that this is a good basis for a migration mix assumption going forwards. Likely laughably bad - in either direction - for the timescales covered
- This may be particularly relevant to migration outflows - e.g. White Europeans leaving post-Brexit, including British-born children
- He assumes unchanging fertility rates - that, even over extended timescales, immigrants will remain hugely distinct on this
- The estimates, while using demographic-specific fertility rates, do not do this for mortality - so the sub-Saharan immigrant having 13 children is nonetheless assumed to live as long as a White British person (so are their children)
- "Additionally, it is assumed that all descendants of each religious group inherit the religious identity of their parents, maintaining the Non-Muslim or Muslim classification across generations without variation."
(I'm not clear what he does on mixed-marriages here)
- I think, but may be wrong, that he takes a blood-purity view going forwards - anyone with an ancestor classified non-white can never be white
- The 're-calibration to ONS estimates' gives a veneer of respectability, but it's just scaling the overall numbers to match ONS overall population projections, so it has no effect on the proportions he has calculated.
- Again, projections this far ahead are just not realistic. The ONS re-calibrate population projections after each census, often quite significantly (Brexit really fucked up the projections from the 2011 census). There are other efforts at population projection, e.g. Ethpop, that also do so.
TLDR: Projections over these timescales by anyone are likely to be bollocks. I think he's made some very interesting assumptions which do happen to align in a particular direction.Davie and Gibb are a real problem for Starmer (and for the impartiality of the BBC). Starmer can do something about this immediately. The headlines are going to be terrible anyway, so take the shots.
*I'm an epidemiologist. We're different to social science because while there's a clear replication crisis in social science, in epidemiology it's much harder for other people to get the same data for replication, so there's much less of a replication crisis
I do do some projections, but never more than 10-15 years in advance. I recently got to evaluate some we did in 2015 where we produced three scenarios. One that we included for completeness, an absolute minimum estimate if increases in life expectancy for a group of conditions stopped completely has turned out to be the most accurate (and actually, within the confidence intervals, correct). We included it at the request of a study steering committee to show that the population would continue to rise a bit even without the expected changes in life expectancy; none of us thought it was realistic at the time. The core predictions included assumptions of ongoing life-expectancy increases calibrated over various different historical timescales and split/not split by condition types.
ETA: I skimmed the report quickly, so I may have missed some bits or got parts wrong.
#tenyearkeir
The artistic and intellectual decline, overall, of the BBC since the 1990's, has continued under his watch. It was a gradual commercialisatilon and popularisaton process then, as now, just under the different Tory placeman of John Birt.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tom-homan-trump-border-czar-los-angeles-rcna211701
How many Tory PMs in the past decade?
"Along those lines" doesn't mean 70% of our land, but it does mean very large scale planting.
#noonewantslabourforaneighbour?
#keirskeestergonebyeaster?
But not with conifers.
Caroline Ansell, the MP for Eastbourne, said the change will "challenging", adding: "It wasn’t what I wanted to hear." The downgrade is as a result of the LTA achieving its aim of staging a women's tournament at Queen's Club, in west London, in the first week of the grass court season."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjmk9wnm9dmo
But more importantly, the whole party structure is in flux at the moment. We would be better looking to 1918-31 for precedent rather than 1945-2010.
Also, in 1979, 1997 and 2010 then new government came in with a clear critique of what was wrong with the country and a plan laid out in advance and in depth as to what they would do to fix it, with an explanation of how that would work and why it was necessary. They then did that and reaped their reward at the next election (even in 1983, when the result was clearly boosted by the Falklands, opinion was already shifting back to the Tories before the invasion). But with Labour this time there's been barely such analysis nor attempt at meaningful reform. As such, it feels more like 1974, with a derisory attempt to reboot a status quo. (1964 and 1970 can be marked down in a third category of 'we had a plan and screwed it up').
The BBC has previously been criticised by some viewers for heavily featuring Reform UK politicians on its programmes, despite the party only having five elected members of Parliament. Previous research has identified Nigel Farage as being among the most invited guests on the BBC’s flagship Question Time discussion programme.
https://bylinetimes.com/2025/06/09/bbc-news-tim-davie-robbie-gibb-reform-voters-nigel-farage-trust/
Pay unto Ceasar...
@PaulSkallas
Send the military to suppress an internal rebellion in a faraway state during the day, and then attend the gladiator match at night
Very Roman
https://x.com/PaulSkallas/status/1931533060022895096
Just wanted to type "tenyearkeir"