Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
Nearly. Had a plan about levelling up, you name it, then COVID. So everything changed. We can speculate about what he would have been like under BAU conditions, but he was manifestly unfit to be a crisis leader. But crisis and fiscal near-extinction event there most certainly was. Under Lab and the LDs I think we would still be locked down. Just in case and to save the NHS.
Levelling up was a slogan, not a plan. What did Levelling Up mean in practice? Local authority - financially broken thanks to the budget cuts and policy changes imposed on it by the Tory government - is offered a lifeline. Why not competitively tender for this shiny sixpence of Levelling Up money?
If you spend millions that you don't have to pull together a "why I should get the money and not the neighbouring LAs also bidding for it" bid then you can create all kinds of exciting plans! Which your newly elected Tory MP can then parade about as Proof that Levelling Up is real! And then you don't win the cash, find that you are poorer than ever, and your Tory MP is out at the next election.
Had levelling up actually delivered what the slogan and the grand plans announced then the Tories would still be in office. Covid had nothing to do with it - the money was never there. Towns competitively pitched against each other as to who was the most worthy / in need was a sick joke.
Great seeing so many young Irish on the Cote d'azur working and speaking fluent French. I can't imagine it'll take long before those in the North want some of it if they don't already have it.
They're already entitled to take Irish citizenship if they want it. So I'm not sure what your point is.
I'm not sure what the rules are. I see a lot of Irish in the South of France working. I don't know if they're from the North or South and I didn't know that those in the North had free movement. Lucky them!
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
He needs to make some BIG promises to overcome the Faragedozer.
Farage getting quite an outing here in Wales for reopening all the Welsh superpits and both Port Talbot blast furnaces yesterday.
It was a busy day and the Welsh broadcast media are grateful for his service.
Beat that Boris!
He's going to Make Wales Great Again, isn't he, the little tinker.
Harvest the votes first and then best to sideline the impossible stuff like blast furnaces and mines. Planning and engineering requirements would take years to resolve anyway.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
"Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government."
Defending Boris slightly, I think that's unfair. He won the GE in December 2019, and had only three months before the Covid nightmare derailed his government - as it derailed every government. He definitely had a plan; we will never know whether that plan would have worked, as he had virtually no time to deliver it.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
"Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government."
Defending Boris slightly, I think that's unfair. He won the GE in December 2019, and had only three months before the Covid nightmare derailed his government - as it derailed every government. He definitely had a plan; we will never know whether that plan would have worked, as he had virtually no time to deliver it.
He was writing a book on Shakespeare that he had already been paid for instead of being Prime Minister when COVID hit.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
He needs to make some BIG promises to overcome the Faragedozer.
Farage getting quite an outing here in Wales for reopening all the Welsh superpits and both Port Talbot blast furnaces yesterday.
It was a busy day and the Welsh broadcast media are grateful for his service.
Beat that Boris!
He's going to Make Wales Great Again, isn't he, the little tinker.
Harvest the votes first and then best to sideline the impossible stuff like blast furnaces and mines. Planning and engineering requirements would take years to resolve anyway.
All about the vibes. It will collapse under scrutiny (obvs) but let's hope that happens before GE29 rather than after.
Employment data this morning grim, 109,000 fewer in work in May and 55,000 fewer revised in April. Reeves job taxes hitting hone hard, employment falling off a cliff. 274,000 fewer in work than July. She's a genius.
Can we go back to the Trump vs States Rights issue for a minute. Several people on the last thread arguing Trump is ok to do this because Eisenhower and Johnson did it.
There is a significant difference.
Those two presidents sent in troops over the heads of the state to protect people against the illegal racism in those states. To protect people against racist law enforcement beating them and worse.
In California Trump is sending in the racists to abduct and terrorise and beat them up and worse. He’s trying to claim that his ICE thugs are the law - but the courts keep ruling they are not.
If people want to support black-shirted SA cosplay thugs riding into town abducting people at random off the streets and now commuting violence against people’s first amendment rights then man up and say so openly.
I am not for one moment suggesting what Trump is doing is right or moral. I was merely pointing out that the argument for State rights was determined somewhat bloodily in 1865 and that there is nothing new in a President using Federal power to uphold the law in a State as they see it.
What's the legal basis for his action then, David ?
His position, AIUI, is that California is deliberately impeding the work of ICE agents seeking to enforce Federal immigration laws there by creating "sanctuaries". The historical analogy most apposite was the use of Federal power to recover escaped slaves and the infamous Dred Scott decision which did much to trigger the Civil war, possibly the last time the US Supreme Court was so out of control.
In the present another frankly mad SC decision on May 30th let Trump's administration revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States. The court put on hold U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's order halting the administration's move to end the immigration "parole" granted to 532,000 of these migrants by Trump's predecessor Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal, while a legal challenge plays out in lower courts.
It was an appalling decision allowing people to be extradited before their rights are determined by the courts but many in the southern States felt the same about Brown v Board of Education which led to the Little Rock crisis. The ICE officers are seeking to enforce the law as determined by the SC.
I was asking about the legal basis for the deployment of federal troops.
Trump has not invoked the Chapter 15, Title 10 of the federal code insurrection clauses, so is in clear breach of the Posse Commitatus Act.
If this is not stopped, it sets a precedent for him to deploy the military at will in pursuit of pretty well any political aim.
Employment data this morning grim, 109,000 fewer in work in May and 55,000 fewer revised in April. Reeves job taxes hitting hone hard, employment falling off a cliff. 274,000 fewer in work than July. She's a genius.
What it also shows is that government drives to get people off benefits and back into work are misguided. There aren't enough jobs to go round and for employers, it is surely better to have well-motivated employees than borderline mentally ill or disabled victims of the JobCentre press gangs. By all means improve training and end perverse disincentives around losing benefits, but this should not be an expensive moral crusade.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
He needs to make some BIG promises to overcome the Faragedozer.
Farage getting quite an outing here in Wales for reopening all the Welsh superpits and both Port Talbot blast furnaces yesterday.
It was a busy day and the Welsh broadcast media are grateful for his service.
Beat that Boris!
He's going to Make Wales Great Again, isn't he, the little tinker.
Coincidentally Mwgach is Welsh for lying little shit.
Great seeing so many young Irish on the Cote d'azur working and speaking fluent French. I can't imagine it'll take long before those in the North want some of it if they don't already have it.
They're already entitled to take Irish citizenship if they want it. So I'm not sure what your point is.
I'm not sure what the rules are. I see a lot of Irish in the South of France working. I don't know if they're from the North or South and I didn't know that those in the North had free movement. Lucky them!
I believe they have to apply for and receive an Irish passport to qualify. Coincidentally a disproportionate number of Unionist pols seem to have done this very thing.
I think the bigger problem may be persuading those south of the border that they want it.
Specifically persuading them that they want to *pay* for it
Yep, the Germans very willingly took on the task of rebuilding east Germany but they were able to do so from a position of great economic strength. Not sure Eire is quite in that boat.
They do have the giant economic powerhouse of the EU behind them.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
What I’ve realised is that many Conservative MP’s and apparatchiks don’t think more than 6-12 months ahead, and will clutch at any short term solution.
This party has to be put out of its misery.
That's been true for a not inconsiderable period of time, though.
Conservatives have always better understood that you have to win and keep power before you can do anything. That's why they have been so successful for so long.
If I had to guess at what went wrong, it's that the Party got so good at the technique of winning elections, it stopped bothering about the unified version of why. Bought-in electoral gimmicks were all they had left.
That, and the left and right of the party got to a point where they couldn't abide being in the same room.
The response to RoboJenrick, casual shoplifting etc etc is to reduce police numbers so they can bail themselves out of pensioner polling predicaments. They are making 2017 to 2024 look a golden age of governance
Employment data this morning grim, 109,000 fewer in work in May and 55,000 fewer revised in April. Reeves job taxes hitting hone hard, employment falling off a cliff. 274,000 fewer in work than July. She's a genius.
Absolutely catastrophic. This is why my Whole Foods has been automated. Jobs being heaped on a funeral pyre
The tragic tale of Rhianan Rudd, the UK’s youngest female terror suspect A British schoolgirl was groomed and radicalised by an American white supremacist – and failed by those who were supposed to protect her
In the autumn of 2020, Rhianan Rudd gouged a swastika into her forehead in a declaration of her love for Adolf Hitler.
She had just turned 15. A little more than a year later, she killed herself in a children’s home in Nottinghamshire while in the care of her local authority.
... Hers was a disturbing and disturbed life; a life which presents a chilling insight into the ease with which a teenager can be sucked into the hate-filled world of white supremacists.
By the time of her death at the age of 16, Rhianan was an adherent of two far-Right terror groups: the Atomwaffen Division and the Order of Nine Angles, a bizarre neo-Nazi satanist cult. The youngest girl in the UK ever to be charged with terrorist offences, she had planned to build a bomb and blow up a synagogue. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/25/rhianan-rudd-british-female-terror-suspect/ (£££)
See also the grooming of Shemima Begum, a less sympathetic figure, and also the Prevent guidelines on the far right that some have been railing against in the last day or two.
From that synopsis, I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the authorities 'failed' her: in reality there was probably little they could do to someone who was evidently rather broken quite early in life. I'm guessing the family and upbringing are much more responsible? (*)
I can't read the article: what would the article's writers have done differently?
(*) This might well be wrong...
The authorities eg Prevent intervened quickly. The genesis was in a broken marriage, then her mother getting into a "prison penfriend" scheme with a neo-Nazi in a US prison, and him or an associate eventually ended up coming to the UK and groomed her daughter. There are a couple of neo-Nazis involved, and other aspects. Social media involved. One of the blokes from the USA has taken up with one of mum's friends who was contributing to the care for the daughter, and is now abroad with him - defending him to the Telegraph.
(AFAICS it was in Bolsover and Chesterfield - so Derby CC as service provider, and only the referral children's home was Notts - so strange geography from the Telegraph.)
So mum was naive, it's about unwise contact with prisoners, consequences / bounce back from broken relationships, social media, complexity of cases, and perhaps availability of resources for services to catch things early.
It's a bizarre story.
My son has a friend the same age (10/11). His mum is a single parent, and the kid has two much older siblings, both out of school. The friend is often absent from school, because, apparently, he sleeps in. The mother evidently finds it hard to cope; the school had to fill in the application form for her son to go to secondary school, and she often phones me asking (e.g.) what day school starts for the new term. He was riding a mile to school, including over what passes for a hill in this area, on a bike that was far too small for him, and which had half a seat and non-working brakes (*).
He's a lovely kid, but very shy and sensitive; about as far from being a tearaway as you can imagine. His mum absolutely adores him, and she's a pleasant, friendly lady to chat to.
I obviously don't see everything, but I see the school doing a lot to try and help him. AFAIAA no-one in the household works.
I feel very sorry for the kid, and if he succeeds in life, as I hope he does, it will say much positive about his character. If he was to end up being a criminal or worse, I wouldn't see it as being the state's fault. He's having a very poor start in life due to his family situation. I don't particularly blame his mother, and I have no idea where his father is (who apparently left when the kid was a baby).
The whole situation seems messed up, and I don't know what anyone can do to really help. I can only hope that mess does not continue into the next generation.
In case anyone thinks otherwise, they're British WWC.
(*) I tried fixing the bike, but it was utterly borken. It needed nuking from orbit. A few weeks ago I bought him a small adult second-hand bike that should see him through for a few years - I had to take the handlebars and seat down to their minimum. He still refuses to wear a helmet, though...
Can we go back to the Trump vs States Rights issue for a minute. Several people on the last thread arguing Trump is ok to do this because Eisenhower and Johnson did it.
There is a significant difference.
Those two presidents sent in troops over the heads of the state to protect people against the illegal racism in those states. To protect people against racist law enforcement beating them and worse.
In California Trump is sending in the racists to abduct and terrorise and beat them up and worse. He’s trying to claim that his ICE thugs are the law - but the courts keep ruling they are not.
If people want to support black-shirted SA cosplay thugs riding into town abducting people at random off the streets and now commuting violence against people’s first amendment rights then man up and say so openly.
I am not for one moment suggesting what Trump is doing is right or moral. I was merely pointing out that the argument for State rights was determined somewhat bloodily in 1865 and that there is nothing new in a President using Federal power to uphold the law in a State as they see it.
What's the legal basis for his action then, David ?
His position, AIUI, is that California is deliberately impeding the work of ICE agents seeking to enforce Federal immigration laws there by creating "sanctuaries". The historical analogy most apposite was the use of Federal power to recover escaped slaves and the infamous Dred Scott decision which did much to trigger the Civil war, possibly the last time the US Supreme Court was so out of control.
In the present another frankly mad SC decision on May 30th let Trump's administration revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States. The court put on hold U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's order halting the administration's move to end the immigration "parole" granted to 532,000 of these migrants by Trump's predecessor Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal, while a legal challenge plays out in lower courts.
It was an appalling decision allowing people to be extradited before their rights are determined by the courts but many in the southern States felt the same about Brown v Board of Education which led to the Little Rock crisis. The ICE officers are seeking to enforce the law as determined by the SC.
I was asking about the legal basis for the deployment of federal troops.
Trump has not invoked the Chapter 15, Title 10 of the federal code insurrection clauses, so is in clear breach of the Posse Commitatus Act.
If this is not stopped, it sets a precedent for him to deploy the military at will in pursuit of pretty well any political aim.
Why on earth did Biden not clarify all this and get the all this old insurrection laws off the books or at least clarified and modernised? He has just left them all lying around for Trump. Dems knew this was coming.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
He needs to make some BIG promises to overcome the Faragedozer.
Farage getting quite an outing here in Wales for reopening all the Welsh superpits and both Port Talbot blast furnaces yesterday.
It was a busy day and the Welsh broadcast media are grateful for his service.
Beat that Boris!
He's going to Make Wales Great Again, isn't he, the little tinker.
Harvest the votes first and then best to sideline the impossible stuff like blast furnaces and mines. Planning and engineering requirements would take years to resolve anyway.
All about the vibes. It will collapse under scrutiny (obvs) but let's hope that happens before GE29 rather than after.
In Wales (and Scotland?) it needs to happen before next May. He was campaigning for the Senedd elections yesterday.
You can't deny his spirit, even if his campaign message is impossible dreamcasting for the downtrodden citizens of Port Talbot.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
He needs to make some BIG promises to overcome the Faragedozer.
Farage getting quite an outing here in Wales for reopening all the Welsh superpits and both Port Talbot blast furnaces yesterday.
It was a busy day and the Welsh broadcast media are grateful for his service.
Beat that Boris!
He's going to Make Wales Great Again, isn't he, the little tinker.
Harvest the votes first and then best to sideline the impossible stuff like blast furnaces and mines. Planning and engineering requirements would take years to resolve anyway.
All about the vibes. It will collapse under scrutiny (obvs) but let's hope that happens before GE29 rather than after.
Of course it's all about the vibes. We are a multi party democracy, including all the outfits like Reform that I am not going to vote for.
The Farage zigzag has gone in stages. These include a sort of reputation for the politics of low tax, low spend, flog NHS to highest bidder, billionaires paradise, Singapore, Global free trade buccaneer, weakest to the wall, a bit of racism, a slight fondness for Mr Tough guy like Trump and Putin.
You can gain attention from all this, but once you have spoken to the zimmers, waiting lists, blokes in the bookies on the way to the pub, minimum wage people, bunions, moaners, WFA receivers, joint pain sufferers, daytime telly watchers of Clacton you realise that this is not an election winning formula. Nor can it be done in the actual world. If it could the Tories would have done it.
Farage is moving to the centre - high spend, high tax (sotto voce), welfare, NHS, regulated free market.
He cannot break the iron rules. The post 1945 world is social democrat welfarism. Elections are won from the centre. He intends to win. This is what proves it. let's hope he doesn't.
Employment data this morning grim, 109,000 fewer in work in May and 55,000 fewer revised in April. Reeves job taxes hitting hone hard, employment falling off a cliff. 274,000 fewer in work than July. She's a genius.
Absolutely catastrophic. This is why my Whole Foods has been automated. Jobs being heaped on a funeral pyre
The worst chancellor ever?
I think her congratulating herself yesterday on the u turn might just be the final straw with her colleagues
Can we go back to the Trump vs States Rights issue for a minute. Several people on the last thread arguing Trump is ok to do this because Eisenhower and Johnson did it.
There is a significant difference.
Those two presidents sent in troops over the heads of the state to protect people against the illegal racism in those states. To protect people against racist law enforcement beating them and worse.
In California Trump is sending in the racists to abduct and terrorise and beat them up and worse. He’s trying to claim that his ICE thugs are the law - but the courts keep ruling they are not.
If people want to support black-shirted SA cosplay thugs riding into town abducting people at random off the streets and now commuting violence against people’s first amendment rights then man up and say so openly.
I am not for one moment suggesting what Trump is doing is right or moral. I was merely pointing out that the argument for State rights was determined somewhat bloodily in 1865 and that there is nothing new in a President using Federal power to uphold the law in a State as they see it.
What's the legal basis for his action then, David ?
His position, AIUI, is that California is deliberately impeding the work of ICE agents seeking to enforce Federal immigration laws there by creating "sanctuaries". The historical analogy most apposite was the use of Federal power to recover escaped slaves and the infamous Dred Scott decision which did much to trigger the Civil war, possibly the last time the US Supreme Court was so out of control.
In the present another frankly mad SC decision on May 30th let Trump's administration revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States. The court put on hold U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's order halting the administration's move to end the immigration "parole" granted to 532,000 of these migrants by Trump's predecessor Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal, while a legal challenge plays out in lower courts.
It was an appalling decision allowing people to be extradited before their rights are determined by the courts but many in the southern States felt the same about Brown v Board of Education which led to the Little Rock crisis. The ICE officers are seeking to enforce the law as determined by the SC.
I was asking about the legal basis for the deployment of federal troops.
Trump has not invoked the Chapter 15, Title 10 of the federal code insurrection clauses, so is in clear breach of the Posse Commitatus Act.
If this is not stopped, it sets a precedent for him to deploy the military at will in pursuit of pretty well any political aim.
Why on earth did Biden not clarify all this and get the all this old insurrection laws off the books or at least clarified and modernised? He has just left them all lying around for Trump. Dems knew this was coming.
Dems have been rabbits in the headlights for last decade
Can we go back to the Trump vs States Rights issue for a minute. Several people on the last thread arguing Trump is ok to do this because Eisenhower and Johnson did it.
There is a significant difference.
Those two presidents sent in troops over the heads of the state to protect people against the illegal racism in those states. To protect people against racist law enforcement beating them and worse.
In California Trump is sending in the racists to abduct and terrorise and beat them up and worse. He’s trying to claim that his ICE thugs are the law - but the courts keep ruling they are not.
If people want to support black-shirted SA cosplay thugs riding into town abducting people at random off the streets and now commuting violence against people’s first amendment rights then man up and say so openly.
I am not for one moment suggesting what Trump is doing is right or moral. I was merely pointing out that the argument for State rights was determined somewhat bloodily in 1865 and that there is nothing new in a President using Federal power to uphold the law in a State as they see it.
What's the legal basis for his action then, David ?
His position, AIUI, is that California is deliberately impeding the work of ICE agents seeking to enforce Federal immigration laws there by creating "sanctuaries". The historical analogy most apposite was the use of Federal power to recover escaped slaves and the infamous Dred Scott decision which did much to trigger the Civil war, possibly the last time the US Supreme Court was so out of control.
In the present another frankly mad SC decision on May 30th let Trump's administration revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States. The court put on hold U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's order halting the administration's move to end the immigration "parole" granted to 532,000 of these migrants by Trump's predecessor Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal, while a legal challenge plays out in lower courts.
It was an appalling decision allowing people to be extradited before their rights are determined by the courts but many in the southern States felt the same about Brown v Board of Education which led to the Little Rock crisis. The ICE officers are seeking to enforce the law as determined by the SC.
I was asking about the legal basis for the deployment of federal troops.
Trump has not invoked the Chapter 15, Title 10 of the federal code insurrection clauses, so is in clear breach of the Posse Commitatus Act.
If this is not stopped, it sets a precedent for him to deploy the military at will in pursuit of pretty well any political aim.
The military will become difficult to deploy. Do Marines really want to shoot unarmed civilians on the streets of American cities? Trump Guardians though - I'm sure there are plenty or patriotic Americans with small dicks who would love the opportunity to fire their AR15 in anger.
Looking on the bright side, we might have loads to talk about tomorrow.... a Cooper resignation, the collapse of the spending review under the microscope and a looming bond crisis. Oh, and Dr David Bull as the New Yusuf
Looking on the bright side, we might have loads to talk about tomorrow.... a Cooper resignation, the collapse of the spending review under the microscope and a looming bond crisis. Oh, and Dr David Bull as the New Yusuf
Also, there will have been the lowest full moon in the sky for 20 years.
Right, that's me done with this right wing echo chamber for the morning. If I return before the sun reaches over the yardarm remind me of my folly with a "flag".
Employment data this morning grim, 109,000 fewer in work in May and 55,000 fewer revised in April. Reeves job taxes hitting hone hard, employment falling off a cliff. 274,000 fewer in work than July. She's a genius.
Absolutely catastrophic. This is why my Whole Foods has been automated. Jobs being heaped on a funeral pyre
The worst chancellor ever?
What automation have they brought in? Checkouts I get. Maybe an AI assistant screen? I assume that physically pulling stock off the truck into the warehouse and then putting it out on the shop floor involves humans?
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
"Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government."
Defending Boris slightly, I think that's unfair. He won the GE in December 2019, and had only three months before the Covid nightmare derailed his government - as it derailed every government. He definitely had a plan; we will never know whether that plan would have worked, as he had virtually no time to deliver it.
He had some slogans. Less sure about a plan.
You could say the same about Starmer's government, after a year - not three months - in power. An awful lot of hot air and very few positive actions towards whatever 'vision' he has.
The tragic tale of Rhianan Rudd, the UK’s youngest female terror suspect A British schoolgirl was groomed and radicalised by an American white supremacist – and failed by those who were supposed to protect her
In the autumn of 2020, Rhianan Rudd gouged a swastika into her forehead in a declaration of her love for Adolf Hitler.
She had just turned 15. A little more than a year later, she killed herself in a children’s home in Nottinghamshire while in the care of her local authority.
... Hers was a disturbing and disturbed life; a life which presents a chilling insight into the ease with which a teenager can be sucked into the hate-filled world of white supremacists.
By the time of her death at the age of 16, Rhianan was an adherent of two far-Right terror groups: the Atomwaffen Division and the Order of Nine Angles, a bizarre neo-Nazi satanist cult. The youngest girl in the UK ever to be charged with terrorist offences, she had planned to build a bomb and blow up a synagogue. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/25/rhianan-rudd-british-female-terror-suspect/ (£££)
See also the grooming of Shemima Begum, a less sympathetic figure, and also the Prevent guidelines on the far right that some have been railing against in the last day or two.
From that synopsis, I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the authorities 'failed' her: in reality there was probably little they could do to someone who was evidently rather broken quite early in life. I'm guessing the family and upbringing are much more responsible? (*)
I can't read the article: what would the article's writers have done differently?
(*) This might well be wrong...
The authorities eg Prevent intervened quickly. The genesis was in a broken marriage, then her mother getting into a "prison penfriend" scheme with a neo-Nazi in a US prison, and him or an associate eventually ended up coming to the UK and groomed her daughter. There are a couple of neo-Nazis involved, and other aspects. Social media involved. One of the blokes from the USA has taken up with one of mum's friends who was contributing to the care for the daughter, and is now abroad with him - defending him to the Telegraph.
(AFAICS it was in Bolsover and Chesterfield - so Derby CC as service provider, and only the referral children's home was Notts - so strange geography from the Telegraph.)
So mum was naive, it's about unwise contact with prisoners, consequences / bounce back from broken relationships, social media, complexity of cases, and perhaps availability of resources for services to catch things early.
It's a bizarre story.
My son has a friend the same age (10/11). His mum is a single parent, and the kid has two much older siblings, both out of school. The friend is often absent from school, because, apparently, he sleeps in. The mother evidently finds it hard to cope; the school had to fill in the application form for her son to go to secondary school, and she often phones me asking (e.g.) what day school starts for the new term. He was riding a mile to school, including over what passes for a hill in this area, on a bike that was far too small for him, and which had half a seat and non-working brakes (*).
He's a lovely kid, but very shy and sensitive; about as far from being a tearaway as you can imagine. His mum absolutely adores him, and she's a pleasant, friendly lady to chat to.
I obviously don't see everything, but I see the school doing a lot to try and help him. AFAIAA no-one in the household works.
I feel very sorry for the kid, and if he succeeds in life, as I hope he does, it will say much positive about his character. If he was to end up being a criminal or worse, I wouldn't see it as being the state's fault. He's having a very poor start in life due to his family situation. I don't particularly blame his mother, and I have no idea where his father is (who apparently left when the kid was a baby).
The whole situation seems messed up, and I don't know what anyone can do to really help. I can only hope that mess does not continue into the next generation.
In case anyone thinks otherwise, they're British WWC.
(*) I tried fixing the bike, but it was utterly borken. It needed nuking from orbit. A few weeks ago I bought him a small adult second-hand bike that should see him through for a few years - I had to take the handlebars and seat down to their minimum. He still refuses to wear a helmet, though...
Sad. But there is a key mistake in your analysis. You say that no-one in the household works, and that they are WWC.
The white working class work. They are the backbone of everything that works. They work harder than I ever have. Up early, all hours. Disrespect for them is a terrible mistake. I am firmly middle class. I have lived in a WWC community for 35 years. Within that community is a small disfunctional community also. Their lives would be much worse but for WWC solidarity with the community as whole.
Right, that's me done with this right wing echo chamber for the morning. If I return before the sun reaches over the yardarm remind me of my folly with a "flag".
PB has become a little more like that of late. It always does when there's less big news of the day to talk about, usually.
Nice example from the BBC about how for decades there has been worry about the human population. The worry has always been about either too many, or too few, and has gone from one to the other with amazing speed.
This is how news works, but it is impossible to believe there isn't also a middle ground of 'this is OK' which is completely unmentioned.
Because modern human societies act outside the normal constraints and feedbacks that control natural populations it's very hard to get a stable population.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
"Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government."
Defending Boris slightly, I think that's unfair. He won the GE in December 2019, and had only three months before the Covid nightmare derailed his government - as it derailed every government. He definitely had a plan; we will never know whether that plan would have worked, as he had virtually no time to deliver it.
He was writing a book on Shakespeare that he had already been paid for instead of being Prime Minister when COVID hit.
Plan A was to write that book.
I'll query that. MPs; even PMs, need downtime and hobbies. Johnson is, by previous profession, a writer. I've zero problem with leaders having some downtime, and indeed it is probably healthy for them, and the country, for them to do so. If he was writing that book when he should have been working, then that's bad. If he was working on it in free time, then cool.
In the same way, I don't think it's in any way bad for Trump to play golf occasionally. If he plays it when he should be working, then that's bad.
Actually, scratch that. If he's playing golf instead of working, he's probably doing less damage...
The tragic tale of Rhianan Rudd, the UK’s youngest female terror suspect A British schoolgirl was groomed and radicalised by an American white supremacist – and failed by those who were supposed to protect her
In the autumn of 2020, Rhianan Rudd gouged a swastika into her forehead in a declaration of her love for Adolf Hitler.
She had just turned 15. A little more than a year later, she killed herself in a children’s home in Nottinghamshire while in the care of her local authority.
... Hers was a disturbing and disturbed life; a life which presents a chilling insight into the ease with which a teenager can be sucked into the hate-filled world of white supremacists.
By the time of her death at the age of 16, Rhianan was an adherent of two far-Right terror groups: the Atomwaffen Division and the Order of Nine Angles, a bizarre neo-Nazi satanist cult. The youngest girl in the UK ever to be charged with terrorist offences, she had planned to build a bomb and blow up a synagogue. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/25/rhianan-rudd-british-female-terror-suspect/ (£££)
See also the grooming of Shemima Begum, a less sympathetic figure, and also the Prevent guidelines on the far right that some have been railing against in the last day or two.
From that synopsis, I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the authorities 'failed' her: in reality there was probably little they could do to someone who was evidently rather broken quite early in life. I'm guessing the family and upbringing are much more responsible? (*)
I can't read the article: what would the article's writers have done differently?
(*) This might well be wrong...
The authorities eg Prevent intervened quickly. The genesis was in a broken marriage, then her mother getting into a "prison penfriend" scheme with a neo-Nazi in a US prison, and him or an associate eventually ended up coming to the UK and groomed her daughter. There are a couple of neo-Nazis involved, and other aspects. Social media involved. One of the blokes from the USA has taken up with one of mum's friends who was contributing to the care for the daughter, and is now abroad with him - defending him to the Telegraph.
(AFAICS it was in Bolsover and Chesterfield - so Derby CC as service provider, and only the referral children's home was Notts - so strange geography from the Telegraph.)
So mum was naive, it's about unwise contact with prisoners, consequences / bounce back from broken relationships, social media, complexity of cases, and perhaps availability of resources for services to catch things early.
It's a bizarre story.
My son has a friend the same age (10/11). His mum is a single parent, and the kid has two much older siblings, both out of school. The friend is often absent from school, because, apparently, he sleeps in. The mother evidently finds it hard to cope; the school had to fill in the application form for her son to go to secondary school, and she often phones me asking (e.g.) what day school starts for the new term. He was riding a mile to school, including over what passes for a hill in this area, on a bike that was far too small for him, and which had half a seat and non-working brakes (*).
He's a lovely kid, but very shy and sensitive; about as far from being a tearaway as you can imagine. His mum absolutely adores him, and she's a pleasant, friendly lady to chat to.
I obviously don't see everything, but I see the school doing a lot to try and help him. AFAIAA no-one in the household works.
I feel very sorry for the kid, and if he succeeds in life, as I hope he does, it will say much positive about his character. If he was to end up being a criminal or worse, I wouldn't see it as being the state's fault. He's having a very poor start in life due to his family situation. I don't particularly blame his mother, and I have no idea where his father is (who apparently left when the kid was a baby).
The whole situation seems messed up, and I don't know what anyone can do to really help. I can only hope that mess does not continue into the next generation.
In case anyone thinks otherwise, they're British WWC.
(*) I tried fixing the bike, but it was utterly borken. It needed nuking from orbit. A few weeks ago I bought him a small adult second-hand bike that should see him through for a few years - I had to take the handlebars and seat down to their minimum. He still refuses to wear a helmet, though...
Great seeing so many young Irish on the Cote d'azur working and speaking fluent French. I can't imagine it'll take long before those in the North want some of it if they don't already have it.
They're already entitled to take Irish citizenship if they want it. So I'm not sure what your point is.
I'm not sure what the rules are. I see a lot of Irish in the South of France working. I don't know if they're from the North or South and I didn't know that those in the North had free movement. Lucky them!
The Good Friday Agreement allows people born in NI to identify as Irish. This includes the right to an Irish passport, should they wish.
Can we go back to the Trump vs States Rights issue for a minute. Several people on the last thread arguing Trump is ok to do this because Eisenhower and Johnson did it.
There is a significant difference.
Those two presidents sent in troops over the heads of the state to protect people against the illegal racism in those states. To protect people against racist law enforcement beating them and worse.
In California Trump is sending in the racists to abduct and terrorise and beat them up and worse. He’s trying to claim that his ICE thugs are the law - but the courts keep ruling they are not.
If people want to support black-shirted SA cosplay thugs riding into town abducting people at random off the streets and now commuting violence against people’s first amendment rights then man up and say so openly.
I am not for one moment suggesting what Trump is doing is right or moral. I was merely pointing out that the argument for State rights was determined somewhat bloodily in 1865 and that there is nothing new in a President using Federal power to uphold the law in a State as they see it.
What's the legal basis for his action then, David ?
His position, AIUI, is that California is deliberately impeding the work of ICE agents seeking to enforce Federal immigration laws there by creating "sanctuaries". The historical analogy most apposite was the use of Federal power to recover escaped slaves and the infamous Dred Scott decision which did much to trigger the Civil war, possibly the last time the US Supreme Court was so out of control.
In the present another frankly mad SC decision on May 30th let Trump's administration revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States. The court put on hold U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's order halting the administration's move to end the immigration "parole" granted to 532,000 of these migrants by Trump's predecessor Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal, while a legal challenge plays out in lower courts.
It was an appalling decision allowing people to be extradited before their rights are determined by the courts but many in the southern States felt the same about Brown v Board of Education which led to the Little Rock crisis. The ICE officers are seeking to enforce the law as determined by the SC.
I was asking about the legal basis for the deployment of federal troops.
Trump has not invoked the Chapter 15, Title 10 of the federal code insurrection clauses, so is in clear breach of the Posse Commitatus Act.
If this is not stopped, it sets a precedent for him to deploy the military at will in pursuit of pretty well any political aim.
Why on earth did Biden not clarify all this and get the all this old insurrection laws off the books or at least clarified and modernised? He has just left them all lying around for Trump. Dems knew this was coming.
Mr Biden was in no position to have such foresight and all those around him would have been too busy keeping things going & covering for him to do so.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
He needs to make some BIG promises to overcome the Faragedozer.
Farage getting quite an outing here in Wales for reopening all the Welsh superpits and both Port Talbot blast furnaces yesterday.
It was a busy day and the Welsh broadcast media are grateful for his service.
Beat that Boris!
He's going to Make Wales Great Again, isn't he, the little tinker.
Harvest the votes first and then best to sideline the impossible stuff like blast furnaces and mines. Planning and engineering requirements would take years to resolve anyway.
All about the vibes. It will collapse under scrutiny (obvs) but let's hope that happens before GE29 rather than after.
Of course it's all about the vibes. We are a multi party democracy, including all the outfits like Reform that I am not going to vote for.
The Farage zigzag has gone in stages. These include a sort of reputation for the politics of low tax, low spend, flog NHS to highest bidder, billionaires paradise, Singapore, Global free trade buccaneer, weakest to the wall, a bit of racism, a slight fondness for Mr Tough guy like Trump and Putin.
You can gain attention from all this, but once you have spoken to the zimmers, waiting lists, blokes in the bookies on the way to the pub, minimum wage people, bunions, moaners, WFA receivers, joint pain sufferers, daytime telly watchers of Clacton you realise that this is not an election winning formula. Nor can it be done in the actual world. If it could the Tories would have done it.
Farage is moving to the centre - high spend, high tax (sotto voce), welfare, NHS, regulated free market.
He cannot break the iron rules. The post 1945 world is social democrat welfarism. Elections are won from the centre. He intends to win. This is what proves it. let's hope he doesn't.
That's right. If he gets elected it will be on the basis of 'generally pissed off, let's give him a whirl' sentiment. He has to get most of that vote and this means not scaring them off.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
He needs to make some BIG promises to overcome the Faragedozer.
Farage getting quite an outing here in Wales for reopening all the Welsh superpits and both Port Talbot blast furnaces yesterday.
It was a busy day and the Welsh broadcast media are grateful for his service.
Beat that Boris!
He's going to Make Wales Great Again, isn't he, the little tinker.
Harvest the votes first and then best to sideline the impossible stuff like blast furnaces and mines. Planning and engineering requirements would take years to resolve anyway.
All about the vibes. It will collapse under scrutiny (obvs) but let's hope that happens before GE29 rather than after.
In Wales (and Scotland?) it needs to happen before next May. He was campaigning for the Senedd elections yesterday.
You can't deny his spirit, even if his campaign message is impossible dreamcasting for the downtrodden citizens of Port Talbot.
Ah yes. Sorry, I was being a bit (E)nglocentric there.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
"Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government."
Defending Boris slightly, I think that's unfair. He won the GE in December 2019, and had only three months before the Covid nightmare derailed his government - as it derailed every government. He definitely had a plan; we will never know whether that plan would have worked, as he had virtually no time to deliver it.
He was writing a book on Shakespeare that he had already been paid for instead of being Prime Minister when COVID hit.
Plan A was to write that book.
I'll query that. MPs; even PMs, need downtime and hobbies. Johnson is, by previous profession, a writer. I've zero problem with leaders having some downtime, and indeed it is probably healthy for them, and the country, for them to do so. If he was writing that book when he should have been working, then that's bad. If he was working on it in free time, then cool.
In the same way, I don't think it's in any way bad for Trump to play golf occasionally. If he plays it when he should be working, then that's bad.
Actually, scratch that. If he's playing golf instead of working, he's probably doing less damage...
The thing with Trump and golf (besides the fact that his fragile ego means he cheats blatantly when playing) is the hypocrisy. He and the GOP made a great play of how many times Obama played golf, and then Trump proceeds to play golf much more often.
Hypocrisy is pretty much the only mortal sin of our age. (Which is one reason why bringing back STAY AT HOME party-time Boris to lead the Tories would be a disaster.)
Can we go back to the Trump vs States Rights issue for a minute. Several people on the last thread arguing Trump is ok to do this because Eisenhower and Johnson did it.
There is a significant difference.
Those two presidents sent in troops over the heads of the state to protect people against the illegal racism in those states. To protect people against racist law enforcement beating them and worse.
In California Trump is sending in the racists to abduct and terrorise and beat them up and worse. He’s trying to claim that his ICE thugs are the law - but the courts keep ruling they are not.
If people want to support black-shirted SA cosplay thugs riding into town abducting people at random off the streets and now commuting violence against people’s first amendment rights then man up and say so openly.
I am not for one moment suggesting what Trump is doing is right or moral. I was merely pointing out that the argument for State rights was determined somewhat bloodily in 1865 and that there is nothing new in a President using Federal power to uphold the law in a State as they see it.
What's the legal basis for his action then, David ?
His position, AIUI, is that California is deliberately impeding the work of ICE agents seeking to enforce Federal immigration laws there by creating "sanctuaries". The historical analogy most apposite was the use of Federal power to recover escaped slaves and the infamous Dred Scott decision which did much to trigger the Civil war, possibly the last time the US Supreme Court was so out of control.
In the present another frankly mad SC decision on May 30th let Trump's administration revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States. The court put on hold U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's order halting the administration's move to end the immigration "parole" granted to 532,000 of these migrants by Trump's predecessor Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal, while a legal challenge plays out in lower courts.
It was an appalling decision allowing people to be extradited before their rights are determined by the courts but many in the southern States felt the same about Brown v Board of Education which led to the Little Rock crisis. The ICE officers are seeking to enforce the law as determined by the SC.
Enforcing the law using the federal military goes the law, except for very limited exceptions.
Little Rock was covered by one of those exceptions. The law said that the military could be used to enforce civil rights laws and Little Rock was covered by that.
If the Insurrection Act is invoked, then its covered too.
The problem is that Trump isn't following the law, unlike Eisenhower.
There's a short interview covering his stance with Governor Gavin Newsom of Cali by Brian Taylor Cohen, here. Just under 15 minutes.
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
Nearly. Had a plan about levelling up, you name it, then COVID. So everything changed. We can speculate about what he would have been like under BAU conditions, but he was manifestly unfit to be a crisis leader. But crisis and fiscal near-extinction event there most certainly was. Under Lab and the LDs I think we would still be locked down. Just in case and to save the NHS.
Levelling up was a slogan, not a plan. What did Levelling Up mean in practice? Local authority - financially broken thanks to the budget cuts and policy changes imposed on it by the Tory government - is offered a lifeline. Why not competitively tender for this shiny sixpence of Levelling Up money?
If you spend millions that you don't have to pull together a "why I should get the money and not the neighbouring LAs also bidding for it" bid then you can create all kinds of exciting plans! Which your newly elected Tory MP can then parade about as Proof that Levelling Up is real! And then you don't win the cash, find that you are poorer than ever, and your Tory MP is out at the next election.
Had levelling up actually delivered what the slogan and the grand plans announced then the Tories would still be in office. Covid had nothing to do with it - the money was never there. Towns competitively pitched against each other as to who was the most worthy / in need was a sick joke.
"Covid had nothing to do with it" must be one of the most asinine statements I have read on PB. That it came from a would-be politician is yet more extraordinary.
Can we go back to the Trump vs States Rights issue for a minute. Several people on the last thread arguing Trump is ok to do this because Eisenhower and Johnson did it.
There is a significant difference.
Those two presidents sent in troops over the heads of the state to protect people against the illegal racism in those states. To protect people against racist law enforcement beating them and worse.
In California Trump is sending in the racists to abduct and terrorise and beat them up and worse. He’s trying to claim that his ICE thugs are the law - but the courts keep ruling they are not.
If people want to support black-shirted SA cosplay thugs riding into town abducting people at random off the streets and now commuting violence against people’s first amendment rights then man up and say so openly.
I am not for one moment suggesting what Trump is doing is right or moral. I was merely pointing out that the argument for State rights was determined somewhat bloodily in 1865 and that there is nothing new in a President using Federal power to uphold the law in a State as they see it.
What's the legal basis for his action then, David ?
His position, AIUI, is that California is deliberately impeding the work of ICE agents seeking to enforce Federal immigration laws there by creating "sanctuaries". The historical analogy most apposite was the use of Federal power to recover escaped slaves and the infamous Dred Scott decision which did much to trigger the Civil war, possibly the last time the US Supreme Court was so out of control.
In the present another frankly mad SC decision on May 30th let Trump's administration revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States. The court put on hold U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's order halting the administration's move to end the immigration "parole" granted to 532,000 of these migrants by Trump's predecessor Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal, while a legal challenge plays out in lower courts.
It was an appalling decision allowing people to be extradited before their rights are determined by the courts but many in the southern States felt the same about Brown v Board of Education which led to the Little Rock crisis. The ICE officers are seeking to enforce the law as determined by the SC.
I was asking about the legal basis for the deployment of federal troops.
Trump has not invoked the Chapter 15, Title 10 of the federal code insurrection clauses, so is in clear breach of the Posse Commitatus Act.
If this is not stopped, it sets a precedent for him to deploy the military at will in pursuit of pretty well any political aim.
Why on earth did Biden not clarify all this and get the all this old insurrection laws off the books or at least clarified and modernised? He has just left them all lying around for Trump. Dems knew this was coming.
Because he didn't have control of Congress. Presidents can't pass legislation at will - even when, like Trump does currently - their party controls both branches of the legislature.
And in any event, the merit of the old legislation is that it's commanded public support through two centuries. Trump overturning Biden era legislation is a much lower bar.
As it stands, Trump is in very clear breach of the constitution If Congress and the Courts are not prepared to challenge that, then the precise detail of the law ceases to matter at all. Except insofar as Trump will use it to exercise power.
That's right. If he gets elected it will be on the basis of 'generally pissed off, let's give him a whirl' sentiment. He has to get most of that vote and this means not scaring them off.
The RefUK vote is almost entirely the 'fed up with the status quo'
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
He needs to make some BIG promises to overcome the Faragedozer.
Farage getting quite an outing here in Wales for reopening all the Welsh superpits and both Port Talbot blast furnaces yesterday.
It was a busy day and the Welsh broadcast media are grateful for his service.
Beat that Boris!
He's going to Make Wales Great Again, isn't he, the little tinker.
Harvest the votes first and then best to sideline the impossible stuff like blast furnaces and mines. Planning and engineering requirements would take years to resolve anyway.
All about the vibes. It will collapse under scrutiny (obvs) but let's hope that happens before GE29 rather than after.
Of course it's all about the vibes. We are a multi party democracy, including all the outfits like Reform that I am not going to vote for.
The Farage zigzag has gone in stages. These include a sort of reputation for the politics of low tax, low spend, flog NHS to highest bidder, billionaires paradise, Singapore, Global free trade buccaneer, weakest to the wall, a bit of racism, a slight fondness for Mr Tough guy like Trump and Putin.
You can gain attention from all this, but once you have spoken to the zimmers, waiting lists, blokes in the bookies on the way to the pub, minimum wage people, bunions, moaners, WFA receivers, joint pain sufferers, daytime telly watchers of Clacton you realise that this is not an election winning formula. Nor can it be done in the actual world. If it could the Tories would have done it.
Farage is moving to the centre - high spend, high tax (sotto voce), welfare, NHS, regulated free market.
He cannot break the iron rules. The post 1945 world is social democrat welfarism. Elections are won from the centre. He intends to win. This is what proves it. let's hope he doesn't.
Thatcher didn't win on social democrat welfarism nor did Cameron
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
Is UDI something that DUP and TUV politicians talk about much?
The only place I've heard it mentioned is from you on here, but if other people are talking about it and I've missed it I'd be interested in seeing links.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
"Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government."
Defending Boris slightly, I think that's unfair. He won the GE in December 2019, and had only three months before the Covid nightmare derailed his government - as it derailed every government. He definitely had a plan; we will never know whether that plan would have worked, as he had virtually no time to deliver it.
He was writing a book on Shakespeare that he had already been paid for instead of being Prime Minister when COVID hit.
Employment data this morning grim, 109,000 fewer in work in May and 55,000 fewer revised in April. Reeves job taxes hitting hone hard, employment falling off a cliff. 274,000 fewer in work than July. She's a genius.
What it also shows is that government drives to get people off benefits and back into work are misguided. There aren't enough jobs to go round and for employers, it is surely better to have well-motivated employees than borderline mentally ill or disabled victims of the JobCentre press gangs. By all means improve training and end perverse disincentives around losing benefits, but this should not be an expensive moral crusade.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
"Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government."
Defending Boris slightly, I think that's unfair. He won the GE in December 2019, and had only three months before the Covid nightmare derailed his government - as it derailed every government. He definitely had a plan; we will never know whether that plan would have worked, as he had virtually no time to deliver it.
He had some slogans. Less sure about a plan.
You could say the same about Starmer's government, after a year - not three months - in power. An awful lot of hot air and very few positive actions towards whatever 'vision' he has.
A fair enough comment. I'd say much of it is bad comms though. Johnson otoh was good at that (until he wasn't). But as you say, we will never know how things would have turned out for him without the pandy.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
He needs to make some BIG promises to overcome the Faragedozer.
Farage getting quite an outing here in Wales for reopening all the Welsh superpits and both Port Talbot blast furnaces yesterday.
It was a busy day and the Welsh broadcast media are grateful for his service.
Beat that Boris!
He's going to Make Wales Great Again, isn't he, the little tinker.
Harvest the votes first and then best to sideline the impossible stuff like blast furnaces and mines. Planning and engineering requirements would take years to resolve anyway.
All about the vibes. It will collapse under scrutiny (obvs) but let's hope that happens before GE29 rather than after.
Of course it's all about the vibes. We are a multi party democracy, including all the outfits like Reform that I am not going to vote for.
The Farage zigzag has gone in stages. These include a sort of reputation for the politics of low tax, low spend, flog NHS to highest bidder, billionaires paradise, Singapore, Global free trade buccaneer, weakest to the wall, a bit of racism, a slight fondness for Mr Tough guy like Trump and Putin.
You can gain attention from all this, but once you have spoken to the zimmers, waiting lists, blokes in the bookies on the way to the pub, minimum wage people, bunions, moaners, WFA receivers, joint pain sufferers, daytime telly watchers of Clacton you realise that this is not an election winning formula. Nor can it be done in the actual world. If it could the Tories would have done it.
Farage is moving to the centre - high spend, high tax (sotto voce), welfare, NHS, regulated free market.
He cannot break the iron rules. The post 1945 world is social democrat welfarism. Elections are won from the centre. He intends to win. This is what proves it. let's hope he doesn't.
Thatcher didn't win on social democrat welfarism nor did Cameron
That needs unpacking. In what respects did Thatcher or Cameron derogate from the post WWII social democracy of: welfare state, NHS, regulated free trade, benefit safety net, NATO, sound defence, free education to 18, state pensions, high spend, high tax?
Like everyone they tinkered and had priorities, some spend a bit more than others, some a bit less. Rhetoric shifted all over the place. But the basic fabric and substance has never changed.
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
Nearly. Had a plan about levelling up, you name it, then COVID. So everything changed. We can speculate about what he would have been like under BAU conditions, but he was manifestly unfit to be a crisis leader. But crisis and fiscal near-extinction event there most certainly was. Under Lab and the LDs I think we would still be locked down. Just in case and to save the NHS.
Levelling up was a slogan, not a plan. What did Levelling Up mean in practice? Local authority - financially broken thanks to the budget cuts and policy changes imposed on it by the Tory government - is offered a lifeline. Why not competitively tender for this shiny sixpence of Levelling Up money?
If you spend millions that you don't have to pull together a "why I should get the money and not the neighbouring LAs also bidding for it" bid then you can create all kinds of exciting plans! Which your newly elected Tory MP can then parade about as Proof that Levelling Up is real! And then you don't win the cash, find that you are poorer than ever, and your Tory MP is out at the next election.
Had levelling up actually delivered what the slogan and the grand plans announced then the Tories would still be in office. Covid had nothing to do with it - the money was never there. Towns competitively pitched against each other as to who was the most worthy / in need was a sick joke.
"Covid had nothing to do with it" must be one of the most asinine statements I have read on PB. That it came from a would-be politician is yet more extraordinary.
You don't get it. The money was never made available They increased costs on councils They were centralising power and control to Whitehall, not devolving it They promised much and delivered practically nothing They got booted out
Sure, blame Covid. Easier than accepting the Tories lied to the public and had no intention of spending money up north when the Real Need was in the Home Counties. As Sunak told the real electorate - Tory members.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
What I’ve realised is that many Conservative MP’s and apparatchiks don’t think more than 6-12 months ahead, and will clutch at any short term solution.
This party has to be put out of its misery.
I am a Tory, Reform are too right for me and the LDs too Liberal left for me and I would never vote Labour.
Hence I back PR as I refuse to be forced to tactically vote for parties none of whom I support because FPTP can't cope with more than two parties winning many seats
That's right. If he gets elected it will be on the basis of 'generally pissed off, let's give him a whirl' sentiment. He has to get most of that vote and this means not scaring them off.
The RefUK vote is almost entirely the 'fed up with the status quo'
On topic, the support of the DUP for Brexit looks ever more self-destructive. The originating tweet looks at changes since 2010, but the trend since 2016 is rather more marked - pretty flat in the six years prior.
Can we go back to the Trump vs States Rights issue for a minute. Several people on the last thread arguing Trump is ok to do this because Eisenhower and Johnson did it.
There is a significant difference.
Those two presidents sent in troops over the heads of the state to protect people against the illegal racism in those states. To protect people against racist law enforcement beating them and worse.
In California Trump is sending in the racists to abduct and terrorise and beat them up and worse. He’s trying to claim that his ICE thugs are the law - but the courts keep ruling they are not.
If people want to support black-shirted SA cosplay thugs riding into town abducting people at random off the streets and now commuting violence against people’s first amendment rights then man up and say so openly.
I am not for one moment suggesting what Trump is doing is right or moral. I was merely pointing out that the argument for State rights was determined somewhat bloodily in 1865 and that there is nothing new in a President using Federal power to uphold the law in a State as they see it.
Yup. As some put it, “These United States” became “The United States” - rather than a collection of States, a centralised, closely bound federation
In the Rock, Paper, Scissors game, Federal Power beats States Rights.
The tragic tale of Rhianan Rudd, the UK’s youngest female terror suspect A British schoolgirl was groomed and radicalised by an American white supremacist – and failed by those who were supposed to protect her
In the autumn of 2020, Rhianan Rudd gouged a swastika into her forehead in a declaration of her love for Adolf Hitler.
She had just turned 15. A little more than a year later, she killed herself in a children’s home in Nottinghamshire while in the care of her local authority.
... Hers was a disturbing and disturbed life; a life which presents a chilling insight into the ease with which a teenager can be sucked into the hate-filled world of white supremacists.
By the time of her death at the age of 16, Rhianan was an adherent of two far-Right terror groups: the Atomwaffen Division and the Order of Nine Angles, a bizarre neo-Nazi satanist cult. The youngest girl in the UK ever to be charged with terrorist offences, she had planned to build a bomb and blow up a synagogue. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/25/rhianan-rudd-british-female-terror-suspect/ (£££)
See also the grooming of Shemima Begum, a less sympathetic figure, and also the Prevent guidelines on the far right that some have been railing against in the last day or two.
From that synopsis, I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the authorities 'failed' her: in reality there was probably little they could do to someone who was evidently rather broken quite early in life. I'm guessing the family and upbringing are much more responsible? (*)
I can't read the article: what would the article's writers have done differently?
(*) This might well be wrong...
The authorities eg Prevent intervened quickly. The genesis was in a broken marriage, then her mother getting into a "prison penfriend" scheme with a neo-Nazi in a US prison, and him or an associate eventually ended up coming to the UK and groomed her daughter. There are a couple of neo-Nazis involved, and other aspects. Social media involved. One of the blokes from the USA has taken up with one of mum's friends who was contributing to the care for the daughter, and is now abroad with him - defending him to the Telegraph.
(AFAICS it was in Bolsover and Chesterfield - so Derby CC as service provider, and only the referral children's home was Notts - so strange geography from the Telegraph.)
So mum was naive, it's about unwise contact with prisoners, consequences / bounce back from broken relationships, social media, complexity of cases, and perhaps availability of resources for services to catch things early.
It's a bizarre story.
My son has a friend the same age (10/11). His mum is a single parent, and the kid has two much older siblings, both out of school. The friend is often absent from school, because, apparently, he sleeps in. The mother evidently finds it hard to cope; the school had to fill in the application form for her son to go to secondary school, and she often phones me asking (e.g.) what day school starts for the new term. He was riding a mile to school, including over what passes for a hill in this area, on a bike that was far too small for him, and which had half a seat and non-working brakes (*).
He's a lovely kid, but very shy and sensitive; about as far from being a tearaway as you can imagine. His mum absolutely adores him, and she's a pleasant, friendly lady to chat to.
I obviously don't see everything, but I see the school doing a lot to try and help him. AFAIAA no-one in the household works.
I feel very sorry for the kid, and if he succeeds in life, as I hope he does, it will say much positive about his character. If he was to end up being a criminal or worse, I wouldn't see it as being the state's fault. He's having a very poor start in life due to his family situation. I don't particularly blame his mother, and I have no idea where his father is (who apparently left when the kid was a baby).
The whole situation seems messed up, and I don't know what anyone can do to really help. I can only hope that mess does not continue into the next generation.
In case anyone thinks otherwise, they're British WWC.
(*) I tried fixing the bike, but it was utterly borken. It needed nuking from orbit. A few weeks ago I bought him a small adult second-hand bike that should see him through for a few years - I had to take the handlebars and seat down to their minimum. He still refuses to wear a helmet, though...
Thank you for helping him where you could.
Thanks. Actually, I think the regular playdates help him more. He's been coming here since well before Covid (*), and he was so shy and sensitive that, until he was seven or eight, when it came time for him to leave and I'd ask him if he'd have a nice time, he'd burst out crying and say "No!". Then when I'd ask him if he'd like to come around again, he'd say "Yes!". Aside from his much older brother, I fear I'm the only adult male he has regular contact with - all his class teachers have been female.
I really like the kid (if I didn't, I wouldn't have him around). But I do fear for him. But there's not much else I feel able to do, and I'm unsure what more the state can do. His mum is waiting on an ADHD test or somesuch for him, and I would not be surprised if the kid was ADHD. But I'm also unsure what *good* any such diagnosis will do given his mum is, from my viewpoint, finding the basics difficult. It'd be an answer to some of the kids problems, but perhaps only the smaller problems.
I'm firmly and happily middle class, but that kid is giving me tiny glimpses into a very different type of life.
And I have zero answers as how to 'fix' their situation. Even if it was my job to interfere to try to 'fix' it. Or even if they want it 'fixing'...
(I don't want to appear a do-gooder, or make his mum and siblings out to be bad people. AFAIAA they are not. It's obvious something has gone majorly wrong, though, and the kid is suffering, if only by regularly missing school.)
(*) Their teacher in year 1 actually asked me if we could have him around for a playdate. He has been the only kid who has been in the same class as my son for the entirety of primary. We suspect the school have kept them together. If so, good on them.
Great seeing so many young Irish on the Cote d'azur working and speaking fluent French. I can't imagine it'll take long before those in the North want some of it if they don't already have it.
They're already entitled to take Irish citizenship if they want it. So I'm not sure what your point is.
I'm not sure what the rules are. I see a lot of Irish in the South of France working. I don't know if they're from the North or South and I didn't know that those in the North had free movement. Lucky them!
If you are born in Northern Ireland, you can get an Irish passport. Nothing more required.
Quite a lot of people from the South get a British passport, if they can, to access benefits and services in the North, incidentally.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
Crap. Boris is the only Tory leader option who beats Reform and Labour in the recent MoreinCommon poll.
When Thatcher or Blair left neither the Conservatives or Labour were polling in third place
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
What about North Down and East Belfast?
At one time, many years ago, I employed an Ulster Protestant. Nice chap; told me once his father had signed the Ulster Covenant in his own blood. Quite enthusiastic about NOT being 'ruled by Catholics', some of these folk.
What difference it will make that the Irish Republic doesn't seem to be 'ruled by Catholics' either I'm not sure.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
He needs to make some BIG promises to overcome the Faragedozer.
Farage getting quite an outing here in Wales for reopening all the Welsh superpits and both Port Talbot blast furnaces yesterday.
It was a busy day and the Welsh broadcast media are grateful for his service.
Beat that Boris!
He's going to Make Wales Great Again, isn't he, the little tinker.
Harvest the votes first and then best to sideline the impossible stuff like blast furnaces and mines. Planning and engineering requirements would take years to resolve anyway.
All about the vibes. It will collapse under scrutiny (obvs) but let's hope that happens before GE29 rather than after.
Of course it's all about the vibes. We are a multi party democracy, including all the outfits like Reform that I am not going to vote for.
The Farage zigzag has gone in stages. These include a sort of reputation for the politics of low tax, low spend, flog NHS to highest bidder, billionaires paradise, Singapore, Global free trade buccaneer, weakest to the wall, a bit of racism, a slight fondness for Mr Tough guy like Trump and Putin.
You can gain attention from all this, but once you have spoken to the zimmers, waiting lists, blokes in the bookies on the way to the pub, minimum wage people, bunions, moaners, WFA receivers, joint pain sufferers, daytime telly watchers of Clacton you realise that this is not an election winning formula. Nor can it be done in the actual world. If it could the Tories would have done it.
Farage is moving to the centre - high spend, high tax (sotto voce), welfare, NHS, regulated free market.
He cannot break the iron rules. The post 1945 world is social democrat welfarism. Elections are won from the centre. He intends to win. This is what proves it. let's hope he doesn't.
Thatcher didn't win on social democrat welfarism nor did Cameron
That needs unpacking. In what respects did Thatcher or Cameron derogate from the post WWII social democracy of: welfare state, NHS, regulated free trade, benefit safety net, NATO, sound defence, free education to 18, state pensions, high spend, high tax?
Like everyone they tinkered and had priorities, some spend a bit more than others, some a bit less. Rhetoric shifted all over the place. But the basic fabric and substance has never changed.
I think it was Tony Blair who said that UK mainstream politics was about a difference in spending 5% of GDP.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
He needs to make some BIG promises to overcome the Faragedozer.
Farage getting quite an outing here in Wales for reopening all the Welsh superpits and both Port Talbot blast furnaces yesterday.
It was a busy day and the Welsh broadcast media are grateful for his service.
Beat that Boris!
He's going to Make Wales Great Again, isn't he, the little tinker.
Harvest the votes first and then best to sideline the impossible stuff like blast furnaces and mines. Planning and engineering requirements would take years to resolve anyway.
All about the vibes. It will collapse under scrutiny (obvs) but let's hope that happens before GE29 rather than after.
Of course it's all about the vibes. We are a multi party democracy, including all the outfits like Reform that I am not going to vote for.
The Farage zigzag has gone in stages. These include a sort of reputation for the politics of low tax, low spend, flog NHS to highest bidder, billionaires paradise, Singapore, Global free trade buccaneer, weakest to the wall, a bit of racism, a slight fondness for Mr Tough guy like Trump and Putin.
You can gain attention from all this, but once you have spoken to the zimmers, waiting lists, blokes in the bookies on the way to the pub, minimum wage people, bunions, moaners, WFA receivers, joint pain sufferers, daytime telly watchers of Clacton you realise that this is not an election winning formula. Nor can it be done in the actual world. If it could the Tories would have done it.
Farage is moving to the centre - high spend, high tax (sotto voce), welfare, NHS, regulated free market.
He cannot break the iron rules. The post 1945 world is social democrat welfarism. Elections are won from the centre. He intends to win. This is what proves it. let's hope he doesn't.
Thatcher didn't win on social democrat welfarism nor did Cameron
Some news on SMR too this morning. I wonder what MaxPB makes of it.
Yes, excellent news. £2.5bn with matched investment from RR will unlock SMRs for the UK. We need to put in an order for 10 and maximise domestic supply chains and manufacturing for it so the UK has the expertise to do this independently rather than import from France, China or Korea.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
What I’ve realised is that many Conservative MP’s and apparatchiks don’t think more than 6-12 months ahead, and will clutch at any short term solution.
This party has to be put out of its misery.
I am a Tory, Reform are too right for me and the LDs too Liberal left for me and I would never vote Labour.
Hence I back PR as I refuse to be forced to tactically vote for parties none of whom I support because FPTP can't cope with more than two parties winning many seats
I don't get it. "Tory" is not a fixed point on the political compass. It moves left and right. Was not a significant reason for the rise of Reform that the administrations of 2019-2024 were not remotely conservative?
You say you're Tory because of how the other parties sit in relation to you, but how about how today's Tory party sits in comparison with the Conservative and Unionist Party? You are a long long way to the left of conservatism.
Disorder in Ballymena following a protest over an alleged sexual assault in the town has been described as "unwanted and unwarranted" by the area's MP.
People wearing masks threw masonry and other missiles at police, while houses were set on fire.
Police officers blocked off Clonavon Terrace as they tried to tackle the unrest, while a police car appeared to have its windows smashed.
Jim Allister, leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice, said the violence was "very distressing".
The North Antrim MP said the "context" for the demonstration was that there had been "significant demographic change in the area" because of "unfettered immigration".
Earlier on Monday, two teenage boys appeared before Coleraine Magistrates' Court accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Ballymena.
They spoke through an interpreter in Romanian to confirm their names and ages.
Their solicitor said they would be denying the charges.
Employment data this morning grim, 109,000 fewer in work in May and 55,000 fewer revised in April. Reeves job taxes hitting hone hard, employment falling off a cliff. 274,000 fewer in work than July. She's a genius.
What it also shows is that government drives to get people off benefits and back into work are misguided. There aren't enough jobs to go round and for employers, it is surely better to have well-motivated employees than borderline mentally ill or disabled victims of the JobCentre press gangs. By all means improve training and end perverse disincentives around losing benefits, but this should not be an expensive moral crusade.
How on earth is any government of any political colour going to solve that conundrum? Not enough jobs to go round requiring a constant stream of immigration which makes a lot of people restless.
Those who are borderline mentally ill or disabled or merely ill-motivated to work - seems to me it would require massive investment to create a programme for enabling or motivating them to do whatever they're capable of. And then providing the work.
Good morning. Some good news to start the day. BBC:
"World fertility rates in 'unprecedented decline', UN says"
Well my wife and I are doing our bit, third kid on the way. Somewhat unexpected but definitely very happy about it.
Congratulations! One of the comedy bits of yesterday was my 50-year old wife having to get tested for pregnancy before they proceeded with surgery. At 50? Bloody hope not...
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
What about North Down and East Belfast?
At one time, many years ago, I employed an Ulster Protestant. Nice chap; told me once his father had signed the Ulster Covenant in his own blood. Quite enthusiastic about NOT being 'ruled by Catholics', some of these folk.
What difference it will make that the Irish Republic doesn't seem to be 'ruled by Catholics' either I'm not sure.
I think your post is missing the words 'any more'. My understanding is that, as you say, Northern Irish unionism was significantly driven by fear of the influence of the Catholic church in the functioning of any independent Ireland - and also that for the majority of its history, the Catholic church was indeed very influential: unionist fears were quite justified. As (I think) you imply, it's different nowadays, and we have yet to see the difference this will make to unionism. I suspect given the experience of the last 50 years in NI, what the unionist fears now is being ruled by triumphant nationalists.
The tragic tale of Rhianan Rudd, the UK’s youngest female terror suspect A British schoolgirl was groomed and radicalised by an American white supremacist – and failed by those who were supposed to protect her
In the autumn of 2020, Rhianan Rudd gouged a swastika into her forehead in a declaration of her love for Adolf Hitler.
She had just turned 15. A little more than a year later, she killed herself in a children’s home in Nottinghamshire while in the care of her local authority.
... Hers was a disturbing and disturbed life; a life which presents a chilling insight into the ease with which a teenager can be sucked into the hate-filled world of white supremacists.
By the time of her death at the age of 16, Rhianan was an adherent of two far-Right terror groups: the Atomwaffen Division and the Order of Nine Angles, a bizarre neo-Nazi satanist cult. The youngest girl in the UK ever to be charged with terrorist offences, she had planned to build a bomb and blow up a synagogue. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/25/rhianan-rudd-british-female-terror-suspect/ (£££)
See also the grooming of Shemima Begum, a less sympathetic figure, and also the Prevent guidelines on the far right that some have been railing against in the last day or two.
From that synopsis, I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the authorities 'failed' her: in reality there was probably little they could do to someone who was evidently rather broken quite early in life. I'm guessing the family and upbringing are much more responsible? (*)
I can't read the article: what would the article's writers have done differently?
(*) This might well be wrong...
The authorities eg Prevent intervened quickly. The genesis was in a broken marriage, then her mother getting into a "prison penfriend" scheme with a neo-Nazi in a US prison, and him or an associate eventually ended up coming to the UK and groomed her daughter. There are a couple of neo-Nazis involved, and other aspects. Social media involved. One of the blokes from the USA has taken up with one of mum's friends who was contributing to the care for the daughter, and is now abroad with him - defending him to the Telegraph.
(AFAICS it was in Bolsover and Chesterfield - so Derby CC as service provider, and only the referral children's home was Notts - so strange geography from the Telegraph.)
So mum was naive, it's about unwise contact with prisoners, consequences / bounce back from broken relationships, social media, complexity of cases, and perhaps availability of resources for services to catch things early.
It's a bizarre story.
My son has a friend the same age (10/11). His mum is a single parent, and the kid has two much older siblings, both out of school. The friend is often absent from school, because, apparently, he sleeps in. The mother evidently finds it hard to cope; the school had to fill in the application form for her son to go to secondary school, and she often phones me asking (e.g.) what day school starts for the new term. He was riding a mile to school, including over what passes for a hill in this area, on a bike that was far too small for him, and which had half a seat and non-working brakes (*).
He's a lovely kid, but very shy and sensitive; about as far from being a tearaway as you can imagine. His mum absolutely adores him, and she's a pleasant, friendly lady to chat to.
I obviously don't see everything, but I see the school doing a lot to try and help him. AFAIAA no-one in the household works.
I feel very sorry for the kid, and if he succeeds in life, as I hope he does, it will say much positive about his character. If he was to end up being a criminal or worse, I wouldn't see it as being the state's fault. He's having a very poor start in life due to his family situation. I don't particularly blame his mother, and I have no idea where his father is (who apparently left when the kid was a baby).
The whole situation seems messed up, and I don't know what anyone can do to really help. I can only hope that mess does not continue into the next generation.
In case anyone thinks otherwise, they're British WWC.
(*) I tried fixing the bike, but it was utterly borken. It needed nuking from orbit. A few weeks ago I bought him a small adult second-hand bike that should see him through for a few years - I had to take the handlebars and seat down to their minimum. He still refuses to wear a helmet, though...
Sad. But there is a key mistake in your analysis. You say that no-one in the household works, and that they are WWC.
The white working class work. They are the backbone of everything that works. They work harder than I ever have. Up early, all hours. Disrespect for them is a terrible mistake. I am firmly middle class. I have lived in a WWC community for 35 years. Within that community is a small disfunctional community also. Their lives would be much worse but for WWC solidarity with the community as whole.
Yep, I agree with that. It was lazy shorthand on my part.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
Crap. Boris is the only Tory leader option who beats Reform and Labour in the recent MoreinCommon poll.
When Thatcher or Blair left neither the Conservatives or Labour were polling in third place
It's about more than polling. You have to be able to actually do the job - and Johnson is a lazy, narcissistic, corrupt liar. He is untrustworthy, divisive, vindictive, small-minded, short-sighted, cowardly and mean. He thinks, and his supporters think, he can get away with all that because he has a nice turn of phrase. It won't work for the same reason that it didn't work last time - plus there's now a lot of water under the bridge; people know him better. Of course, for some, blind eyes will always be turned but that's not a great basis on which to form strategy.
And he's 61 in a couple of weeks but looks older. His cheerful buffoon act was marginally tolerable in 2008 when he was just into his forties and a city mayor; it looks sad and desperate acting like a twenty-something when you're almost collecting your pension.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
He needs to make some BIG promises to overcome the Faragedozer.
Farage getting quite an outing here in Wales for reopening all the Welsh superpits and both Port Talbot blast furnaces yesterday.
It was a busy day and the Welsh broadcast media are grateful for his service.
Beat that Boris!
He's going to Make Wales Great Again, isn't he, the little tinker.
Harvest the votes first and then best to sideline the impossible stuff like blast furnaces and mines. Planning and engineering requirements would take years to resolve anyway.
All about the vibes. It will collapse under scrutiny (obvs) but let's hope that happens before GE29 rather than after.
Of course it's all about the vibes. We are a multi party democracy, including all the outfits like Reform that I am not going to vote for.
The Farage zigzag has gone in stages. These include a sort of reputation for the politics of low tax, low spend, flog NHS to highest bidder, billionaires paradise, Singapore, Global free trade buccaneer, weakest to the wall, a bit of racism, a slight fondness for Mr Tough guy like Trump and Putin.
You can gain attention from all this, but once you have spoken to the zimmers, waiting lists, blokes in the bookies on the way to the pub, minimum wage people, bunions, moaners, WFA receivers, joint pain sufferers, daytime telly watchers of Clacton you realise that this is not an election winning formula. Nor can it be done in the actual world. If it could the Tories would have done it.
Farage is moving to the centre - high spend, high tax (sotto voce), welfare, NHS, regulated free market.
He cannot break the iron rules. The post 1945 world is social democrat welfarism. Elections are won from the centre. He intends to win. This is what proves it. let's hope he doesn't.
Thatcher didn't win on social democrat welfarism nor did Cameron
Total nonsense. JRM wrongly conflates "middle" with a dithering fudge, he confuses things PMs did with their campaigning position, ignores any election that is inconvenient to his story, and conveniently forgets who the opposition were (e.g. Foot in 1983 and Corbyn in 2019).
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
He needs to make some BIG promises to overcome the Faragedozer.
Farage getting quite an outing here in Wales for reopening all the Welsh superpits and both Port Talbot blast furnaces yesterday.
It was a busy day and the Welsh broadcast media are grateful for his service.
Beat that Boris!
He's going to Make Wales Great Again, isn't he, the little tinker.
Harvest the votes first and then best to sideline the impossible stuff like blast furnaces and mines. Planning and engineering requirements would take years to resolve anyway.
All about the vibes. It will collapse under scrutiny (obvs) but let's hope that happens before GE29 rather than after.
Of course it's all about the vibes. We are a multi party democracy, including all the outfits like Reform that I am not going to vote for.
The Farage zigzag has gone in stages. These include a sort of reputation for the politics of low tax, low spend, flog NHS to highest bidder, billionaires paradise, Singapore, Global free trade buccaneer, weakest to the wall, a bit of racism, a slight fondness for Mr Tough guy like Trump and Putin.
You can gain attention from all this, but once you have spoken to the zimmers, waiting lists, blokes in the bookies on the way to the pub, minimum wage people, bunions, moaners, WFA receivers, joint pain sufferers, daytime telly watchers of Clacton you realise that this is not an election winning formula. Nor can it be done in the actual world. If it could the Tories would have done it.
Farage is moving to the centre - high spend, high tax (sotto voce), welfare, NHS, regulated free market.
He cannot break the iron rules. The post 1945 world is social democrat welfarism. Elections are won from the centre. He intends to win. This is what proves it. let's hope he doesn't.
Thatcher didn't win on social democrat welfarism nor did Cameron
Complete nonsense in 90 seconds. None of his examples overturned the post WWII social democratic consensus. They all tinkered with the margins and developed it, in a mixture of good and bad ways. JRM totally devalues here the central policy core which is an unaltered social democracy.
This central core is also the bit that spends all the money. Add up: pensions, benefits, education, NHS, defence.
No voice is ever raised, nor has been for years, to spend less on any of these social democrat ends. A thousand voices are raised daily to spend more.
Some news on SMR too this morning. I wonder what MaxPB makes of it.
Numbers on nuclear never add up. The cost of one nuclear power station (ca £40 billion) generating a steady 3GW is close to total planned investments in offshore wind providing up to 70GW intermittent.
The tragic tale of Rhianan Rudd, the UK’s youngest female terror suspect A British schoolgirl was groomed and radicalised by an American white supremacist – and failed by those who were supposed to protect her
In the autumn of 2020, Rhianan Rudd gouged a swastika into her forehead in a declaration of her love for Adolf Hitler.
She had just turned 15. A little more than a year later, she killed herself in a children’s home in Nottinghamshire while in the care of her local authority.
... Hers was a disturbing and disturbed life; a life which presents a chilling insight into the ease with which a teenager can be sucked into the hate-filled world of white supremacists.
By the time of her death at the age of 16, Rhianan was an adherent of two far-Right terror groups: the Atomwaffen Division and the Order of Nine Angles, a bizarre neo-Nazi satanist cult. The youngest girl in the UK ever to be charged with terrorist offences, she had planned to build a bomb and blow up a synagogue. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/25/rhianan-rudd-british-female-terror-suspect/ (£££)
See also the grooming of Shemima Begum, a less sympathetic figure, and also the Prevent guidelines on the far right that some have been railing against in the last day or two.
From that synopsis, I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the authorities 'failed' her: in reality there was probably little they could do to someone who was evidently rather broken quite early in life. I'm guessing the family and upbringing are much more responsible? (*)
I can't read the article: what would the article's writers have done differently?
(*) This might well be wrong...
The authorities eg Prevent intervened quickly. The genesis was in a broken marriage, then her mother getting into a "prison penfriend" scheme with a neo-Nazi in a US prison, and him or an associate eventually ended up coming to the UK and groomed her daughter. There are a couple of neo-Nazis involved, and other aspects. Social media involved. One of the blokes from the USA has taken up with one of mum's friends who was contributing to the care for the daughter, and is now abroad with him - defending him to the Telegraph.
(AFAICS it was in Bolsover and Chesterfield - so Derby CC as service provider, and only the referral children's home was Notts - so strange geography from the Telegraph.)
So mum was naive, it's about unwise contact with prisoners, consequences / bounce back from broken relationships, social media, complexity of cases, and perhaps availability of resources for services to catch things early.
It's a bizarre story.
My son has a friend the same age (10/11). His mum is a single parent, and the kid has two much older siblings, both out of school. The friend is often absent from school, because, apparently, he sleeps in. The mother evidently finds it hard to cope; the school had to fill in the application form for her son to go to secondary school, and she often phones me asking (e.g.) what day school starts for the new term. He was riding a mile to school, including over what passes for a hill in this area, on a bike that was far too small for him, and which had half a seat and non-working brakes (*).
He's a lovely kid, but very shy and sensitive; about as far from being a tearaway as you can imagine. His mum absolutely adores him, and she's a pleasant, friendly lady to chat to.
I obviously don't see everything, but I see the school doing a lot to try and help him. AFAIAA no-one in the household works.
I feel very sorry for the kid, and if he succeeds in life, as I hope he does, it will say much positive about his character. If he was to end up being a criminal or worse, I wouldn't see it as being the state's fault. He's having a very poor start in life due to his family situation. I don't particularly blame his mother, and I have no idea where his father is (who apparently left when the kid was a baby).
The whole situation seems messed up, and I don't know what anyone can do to really help. I can only hope that mess does not continue into the next generation.
In case anyone thinks otherwise, they're British WWC.
(*) I tried fixing the bike, but it was utterly borken. It needed nuking from orbit. A few weeks ago I bought him a small adult second-hand bike that should see him through for a few years - I had to take the handlebars and seat down to their minimum. He still refuses to wear a helmet, though...
Thank you for helping him where you could.
Thanks. Actually, I think the regular playdates help him more. He's been coming here since well before Covid (*), and he was so shy and sensitive that, until he was seven or eight, when it came time for him to leave and I'd ask him if he'd have a nice time, he'd burst out crying and say "No!". Then when I'd ask him if he'd like to come around again, he'd say "Yes!". Aside from his much older brother, I fear I'm the only adult male he has regular contact with - all his class teachers have been female.
I really like the kid (if I didn't, I wouldn't have him around). But I do fear for him. But there's not much else I feel able to do, and I'm unsure what more the state can do. His mum is waiting on an ADHD test or somesuch for him, and I would not be surprised if the kid was ADHD. But I'm also unsure what *good* any such diagnosis will do given his mum is, from my viewpoint, finding the basics difficult. It'd be an answer to some of the kids problems, but perhaps only the smaller problems.
I'm firmly and happily middle class, but that kid is giving me tiny glimpses into a very different type of life.
And I have zero answers as how to 'fix' their situation. Even if it was my job to interfere to try to 'fix' it. Or even if they want it 'fixing'...
(I don't want to appear a do-gooder, or make his mum and siblings out to be bad people. AFAIAA they are not. It's obvious something has gone majorly wrong, though, and the kid is suffering, if only by regularly missing school.)
(*) Their teacher in year 1 actually asked me if we could have him around for a playdate. He has been the only kid who has been in the same class as my son for the entirety of primary. We suspect the school have kept them together. If so, good on them.
Well done for stepping up. You may notably improve this kid’s chances in life. The right adult at the right time can be a profound blessing
Farage’s next bit of outrage has been created for him. Sorry but if you want your family you need to earn enough to cover costs. I can see contributions towards school costs being added to nhs costs
The Migration Advisory Committee has advised against the further planned rise in minimum salary level needed to bring a foreign partner to the UK to to £38,700, as it would “most likely” breach the right to family life under Art 8 ECHR
Good morning. Some good news to start the day. BBC:
"World fertility rates in 'unprecedented decline', UN says"
Well my wife and I are doing our bit, third kid on the way. Somewhat unexpected but definitely very happy about it.
Congratulations! One of the comedy bits of yesterday was my 50-year old wife having to get tested for pregnancy before they proceeded with surgery. At 50? Bloody hope not...
One of the more surreal aspects of my vasectomy was the section on the form which asked whether I was pregnant.
(There were actually several surreal aspects: there was the glorious moment when I was given a "Personal PIN Number"; there was the gentle reassurance that the surgeon was very experienced [good] and that "all he does is vasectomies" [slightly worrying if given too much thought]; there was the weird chat beforehand with others in for the same procedure - obviously conversation avoided the main topic and focused instead on the choices people had made for surfacing their drive - and to round it all off there was the experience of coming out of the clinic to a small crowd of fundamentalist Christian protesters haranguing my wife, because they were under the impression this was an abortion clinic and she'd been for an abortion: I came up with a suitable tirade which elegantly pointed out the error of their ways and made them feel suitably foolish, but by the time it was fully crafted my wife had ushered me into the car, driven me past them and we were half a mile away. So often the case...)
Good morning. Some good news to start the day. BBC:
"World fertility rates in 'unprecedented decline', UN says"
Well my wife and I are doing our bit, third kid on the way. Somewhat unexpected but definitely very happy about it.
Congratulations! One of the comedy bits of yesterday was my 50-year old wife having to get tested for pregnancy before they proceeded with surgery. At 50? Bloody hope not...
The oldest entirely unexpected unplanned pregnancy of people I know in recent years is at 47. Thankfully entirely welcomed into the world, hugely loved by much older brother and sister.
More than that - she had her back turned and was clearly not causing trouble and he deliberately aimed at her.
That's clearly a criminal action and I would hope the Australian authorities are treating it as such and demanding action - though they probably won't be.
But of course, if they'll treat foreign journalists like that, with governments who will (or may) back them up, what hope do local reporters have? The First Amendment was already pretty meaningless under Trump; this just tramples it further underfoot.
The tragic tale of Rhianan Rudd, the UK’s youngest female terror suspect A British schoolgirl was groomed and radicalised by an American white supremacist – and failed by those who were supposed to protect her
In the autumn of 2020, Rhianan Rudd gouged a swastika into her forehead in a declaration of her love for Adolf Hitler.
She had just turned 15. A little more than a year later, she killed herself in a children’s home in Nottinghamshire while in the care of her local authority.
... Hers was a disturbing and disturbed life; a life which presents a chilling insight into the ease with which a teenager can be sucked into the hate-filled world of white supremacists.
By the time of her death at the age of 16, Rhianan was an adherent of two far-Right terror groups: the Atomwaffen Division and the Order of Nine Angles, a bizarre neo-Nazi satanist cult. The youngest girl in the UK ever to be charged with terrorist offences, she had planned to build a bomb and blow up a synagogue. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/25/rhianan-rudd-british-female-terror-suspect/ (£££)
See also the grooming of Shemima Begum, a less sympathetic figure, and also the Prevent guidelines on the far right that some have been railing against in the last day or two.
From that synopsis, I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the authorities 'failed' her: in reality there was probably little they could do to someone who was evidently rather broken quite early in life. I'm guessing the family and upbringing are much more responsible? (*)
I can't read the article: what would the article's writers have done differently?
(*) This might well be wrong...
The authorities eg Prevent intervened quickly. The genesis was in a broken marriage, then her mother getting into a "prison penfriend" scheme with a neo-Nazi in a US prison, and him or an associate eventually ended up coming to the UK and groomed her daughter. There are a couple of neo-Nazis involved, and other aspects. Social media involved. One of the blokes from the USA has taken up with one of mum's friends who was contributing to the care for the daughter, and is now abroad with him - defending him to the Telegraph.
(AFAICS it was in Bolsover and Chesterfield - so Derby CC as service provider, and only the referral children's home was Notts - so strange geography from the Telegraph.)
So mum was naive, it's about unwise contact with prisoners, consequences / bounce back from broken relationships, social media, complexity of cases, and perhaps availability of resources for services to catch things early.
It's a bizarre story.
My son has a friend the same age (10/11). His mum is a single parent, and the kid has two much older siblings, both out of school. The friend is often absent from school, because, apparently, he sleeps in. The mother evidently finds it hard to cope; the school had to fill in the application form for her son to go to secondary school, and she often phones me asking (e.g.) what day school starts for the new term. He was riding a mile to school, including over what passes for a hill in this area, on a bike that was far too small for him, and which had half a seat and non-working brakes (*).
He's a lovely kid, but very shy and sensitive; about as far from being a tearaway as you can imagine. His mum absolutely adores him, and she's a pleasant, friendly lady to chat to.
I obviously don't see everything, but I see the school doing a lot to try and help him. AFAIAA no-one in the household works.
I feel very sorry for the kid, and if he succeeds in life, as I hope he does, it will say much positive about his character. If he was to end up being a criminal or worse, I wouldn't see it as being the state's fault. He's having a very poor start in life due to his family situation. I don't particularly blame his mother, and I have no idea where his father is (who apparently left when the kid was a baby).
The whole situation seems messed up, and I don't know what anyone can do to really help. I can only hope that mess does not continue into the next generation.
In case anyone thinks otherwise, they're British WWC.
(*) I tried fixing the bike, but it was utterly borken. It needed nuking from orbit. A few weeks ago I bought him a small adult second-hand bike that should see him through for a few years - I had to take the handlebars and seat down to their minimum. He still refuses to wear a helmet, though...
Thank you for helping him where you could.
Thanks. Actually, I think the regular playdates help him more. He's been coming here since well before Covid (*), and he was so shy and sensitive that, until he was seven or eight, when it came time for him to leave and I'd ask him if he'd have a nice time, he'd burst out crying and say "No!". Then when I'd ask him if he'd like to come around again, he'd say "Yes!". Aside from his much older brother, I fear I'm the only adult male he has regular contact with - all his class teachers have been female.
I really like the kid (if I didn't, I wouldn't have him around). But I do fear for him. But there's not much else I feel able to do, and I'm unsure what more the state can do. His mum is waiting on an ADHD test or somesuch for him, and I would not be surprised if the kid was ADHD. But I'm also unsure what *good* any such diagnosis will do given his mum is, from my viewpoint, finding the basics difficult. It'd be an answer to some of the kids problems, but perhaps only the smaller problems.
I'm firmly and happily middle class, but that kid is giving me tiny glimpses into a very different type of life.
And I have zero answers as how to 'fix' their situation. Even if it was my job to interfere to try to 'fix' it. Or even if they want it 'fixing'...
(I don't want to appear a do-gooder, or make his mum and siblings out to be bad people. AFAIAA they are not. It's obvious something has gone majorly wrong, though, and the kid is suffering, if only by regularly missing school.)
(*) Their teacher in year 1 actually asked me if we could have him around for a playdate. He has been the only kid who has been in the same class as my son for the entirety of primary. We suspect the school have kept them together. If so, good on them.
Sounds a bit similar to a friend of my eldest - nice lad, nice mum, there is a father around, but he works away most of the time and I think, again, it's just a bit too much going on. He does have an ADHD diagnosis and it's fairly obvious - he plays football for the team I coach and he just can't be still and listening. When he's in goal (which he's not bad at when focused) you look round when our team loses the ball and find he's dancing round the back of the goal behind the net! We help out in various ways, playdates, passing things on etc (he's smaller than my lad, most of his football stuff was ours before).
Also, with this particular lad, my own lad had a bit of a year 1 wobble after reception where he wasn't quite sure where he fitted in and didn't want to go into school for a while - he'd been friends with some girls from playgroup who were in his class, but they'd kind of peeled off into the girls' friendship group and he was a bit lost. The lad would always go in with my lad and hold his hand, which really helped and I appreciated that (those days seem a long time ago now - my lad now confident and happy with school, real change, but they still go in together most days).
Some news on SMR too this morning. I wonder what MaxPB makes of it.
Numbers on nuclear never add up. The cost of one nuclear power station (ca £40 billion) generating a steady 3GW is close to total planned investments in offshore wind providing up to 70GW intermittent.
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
What about North Down and East Belfast?
At one time, many years ago, I employed an Ulster Protestant. Nice chap; told me once his father had signed the Ulster Covenant in his own blood. Quite enthusiastic about NOT being 'ruled by Catholics', some of these folk.
What difference it will make that the Irish Republic doesn't seem to be 'ruled by Catholics' either I'm not sure.
I think your post is missing the words 'any more'. My understanding is that, as you say, Northern Irish unionism was significantly driven by fear of the influence of the Catholic church in the functioning of any independent Ireland - and also that for the majority of its history, the Catholic church was indeed very influential: unionist fears were quite justified. As (I think) you imply, it's different nowadays, and we have yet to see the difference this will make to unionism. I suspect given the experience of the last 50 years in NI, what the unionist fears now is being ruled by triumphant nationalists.
Fair points, @Cookie; memories in these matters are long, though, so I think it will take quite a while for traditional Unionist fears to become marginalised. It's a pity that Sinn Fein, with it's history, is the dominant anti-Unionist party, but, of course, it has the organisation. Alliance plus SDLP could be better.
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
Crap. Boris is the only Tory leader option who beats Reform and Labour in the recent MoreinCommon poll.
When Thatcher or Blair left neither the Conservatives or Labour were polling in third place
It's about more than polling. You have to be able to actually do the job - and Johnson is a lazy, narcissistic, corrupt liar. He is untrustworthy, divisive, vindictive, small-minded, short-sighted, cowardly and mean. He thinks, and his supporters think, he can get away with all that because he has a nice turn of phrase. It won't work for the same reason that it didn't work last time - plus there's now a lot of water under the bridge; people know him better. Of course, for some, blind eyes will always be turned but that's not a great basis on which to form strategy.
And he's 61 in a couple of weeks but looks older. His cheerful buffoon act was marginally tolerable in 2008 when he was just into his forties and a city mayor; it looks sad and desperate acting like a twenty-something when you're almost collecting your pension.
Your character analysis of Boris is absurdly spiteful. He’s a flawed man but also a gifted man. He can be generous funny kind and very clever; he is also narcissistic, foolish, silly, easily distracted, and overly libidinous. A libertine is probably the best word for him
He might have been a good or even great prime minister in the right circumstances. His response to Ukraine shows the potential. But he was exactly the wrong man for something like Covid, especially when he’d made so many lifelong enemies via Brexit - all determined to bring him down
This is the second time this Minister has been sent out to spin a load of nonsense, and he is terrible at it. Sophie Ridge basically calls him an outright liar
Sophy Ridge is right - the claim that the Winter Fuel payment is back because the economy is stronger does not stand up to scrutiny. As she shows here...
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
Crap. Boris is the only Tory leader option who beats Reform and Labour in the recent MoreinCommon poll.
When Thatcher or Blair left neither the Conservatives or Labour were polling in third place
It's about more than polling. You have to be able to actually do the job - and Johnson is a lazy, narcissistic, corrupt liar. He is untrustworthy, divisive, vindictive, small-minded, short-sighted, cowardly and mean. He thinks, and his supporters think, he can get away with all that because he has a nice turn of phrase. It won't work for the same reason that it didn't work last time - plus there's now a lot of water under the bridge; people know him better. Of course, for some, blind eyes will always be turned but that's not a great basis on which to form strategy.
And he's 61 in a couple of weeks but looks older. His cheerful buffoon act was marginally tolerable in 2008 when he was just into his forties and a city mayor; it looks sad and desperate acting like a twenty-something when you're almost collecting your pension.
The other counterpoint is to look at January to February 2020, when Brexit was Done and COVID was still an unpleasant bit of foreign news. Johnson's government was a blooming shambles then as well.
Comments
If you spend millions that you don't have to pull together a "why I should get the money and not the neighbouring LAs also bidding for it" bid then you can create all kinds of exciting plans! Which your newly elected Tory MP can then parade about as Proof that Levelling Up is real! And then you don't win the cash, find that you are poorer than ever, and your Tory MP is out at the next election.
Had levelling up actually delivered what the slogan and the grand plans announced then the Tories would still be in office. Covid had nothing to do with it - the money was never there. Towns competitively pitched against each other as to who was the most worthy / in need was a sick joke.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/formula-1-reveals-calendar-for-2026-season.YctbMZWqBvrgyddrnauo8
Plan A was to write that book.
Reeves job taxes hitting hone hard, employment falling off a cliff.
274,000 fewer in work than July.
She's a genius.
Trump has not invoked the Chapter 15, Title 10 of the federal code insurrection clauses, so is in clear breach of the Posse Commitatus Act.
If this is not stopped, it sets a precedent for him to deploy the military at will in pursuit of pretty well any political aim.
Good morning, everybody.
Conservatives have always better understood that you have to win and keep power before you can do anything. That's why they have been so successful for so long.
If I had to guess at what went wrong, it's that the Party got so good at the technique of winning elections, it stopped bothering about the unified version of why. Bought-in electoral gimmicks were all they had left.
That, and the left and right of the party got to a point where they couldn't abide being in the same room.
They are making 2017 to 2024 look a golden age of governance
https://x.com/robertjenrick/status/1932343534335541375
The worst chancellor ever?
He's a lovely kid, but very shy and sensitive; about as far from being a tearaway as you can imagine. His mum absolutely adores him, and she's a pleasant, friendly lady to chat to.
I obviously don't see everything, but I see the school doing a lot to try and help him. AFAIAA no-one in the household works.
I feel very sorry for the kid, and if he succeeds in life, as I hope he does, it will say much positive about his character. If he was to end up being a criminal or worse, I wouldn't see it as being the state's fault. He's having a very poor start in life due to his family situation. I don't particularly blame his mother, and I have no idea where his father is (who apparently left when the kid was a baby).
The whole situation seems messed up, and I don't know what anyone can do to really help. I can only hope that mess does not continue into the next generation.
In case anyone thinks otherwise, they're British WWC.
(*) I tried fixing the bike, but it was utterly borken. It needed nuking from orbit. A few weeks ago I bought him a small adult second-hand bike that should see him through for a few years - I had to take the handlebars and seat down to their minimum. He still refuses to wear a helmet, though...
You can't deny his spirit, even if his campaign message is impossible dreamcasting for the downtrodden citizens of Port Talbot.
The Farage zigzag has gone in stages. These include a sort of reputation for the politics of low tax, low spend, flog NHS to highest bidder, billionaires paradise, Singapore, Global free trade buccaneer, weakest to the wall, a bit of racism, a slight fondness for Mr Tough guy like Trump and Putin.
You can gain attention from all this, but once you have spoken to the zimmers, waiting lists, blokes in the bookies on the way to the pub, minimum wage people, bunions, moaners, WFA receivers, joint pain sufferers, daytime telly watchers of Clacton you realise that this is not an election winning formula. Nor can it be done in the actual world. If it could the Tories would have done it.
Farage is moving to the centre - high spend, high tax (sotto voce), welfare, NHS, regulated free market.
He cannot break the iron rules. The post 1945 world is social democrat welfarism. Elections are won from the centre. He intends to win. This is what proves it. let's hope he doesn't.
Oh, and Dr David Bull as the New Yusuf
If the weather clears up, though.
The white working class work. They are the backbone of everything that works. They work harder than I ever have. Up early, all hours. Disrespect for them is a terrible mistake. I am firmly middle class. I have lived in a WWC community for 35 years. Within that community is a small disfunctional community also. Their lives would be much worse but for WWC solidarity with the community as whole.
In the same way, I don't think it's in any way bad for Trump to play golf occasionally. If he plays it when he should be working, then that's bad.
Actually, scratch that. If he's playing golf instead of working, he's probably doing less damage...
Not that many CoEs have been economists anyway.
Much appreciated.
Hypocrisy is pretty much the only mortal sin of our age. (Which is one reason why bringing back STAY AT HOME party-time Boris to lead the Tories would be a disaster.)
https://www.youtube.com/live/Q1MRX1IMSjo
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
Presidents can't pass legislation at will - even when, like Trump does currently - their party controls both branches of the legislature.
And in any event, the merit of the old legislation is that it's commanded public support through two centuries. Trump overturning Biden era legislation is a much lower bar.
As it stands, Trump is in very clear breach of the constitution
If Congress and the Courts are not prepared to challenge that, then the precise detail of the law ceases to matter at all. Except insofar as Trump will use it to exercise power.
https://x.com/edhodgsoned/status/1932102321796005937
The only place I've heard it mentioned is from you on here, but if other people are talking about it and I've missed it I'd be interested in seeing links.
Like everyone they tinkered and had priorities, some spend a bit more than others, some a bit less. Rhetoric shifted all over the place. But the basic fabric and substance has never changed.
The money was never made available
They increased costs on councils
They were centralising power and control to Whitehall, not devolving it
They promised much and delivered practically nothing
They got booted out
Sure, blame Covid. Easier than accepting the Tories lied to the public and had no intention of spending money up north when the Real Need was in the Home Counties. As Sunak told the real electorate - Tory members.
Hence I back PR as I refuse to be forced to tactically vote for parties none of whom I support because FPTP can't cope with more than two parties winning many seats
In the Rock, Paper, Scissors game, Federal Power beats States Rights.
"My own hunch is the 7% who favour Northern Irish independence would overwhelmingly back reunification in any actual plebiscite."
Not really, Ulster Third Way is an ideology backed by extreme Loyalists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Third_Way
I really like the kid (if I didn't, I wouldn't have him around). But I do fear for him. But there's not much else I feel able to do, and I'm unsure what more the state can do. His mum is waiting on an ADHD test or somesuch for him, and I would not be surprised if the kid was ADHD. But I'm also unsure what *good* any such diagnosis will do given his mum is, from my viewpoint, finding the basics difficult. It'd be an answer to some of the kids problems, but perhaps only the smaller problems.
I'm firmly and happily middle class, but that kid is giving me tiny glimpses into a very different type of life.
And I have zero answers as how to 'fix' their situation. Even if it was my job to interfere to try to 'fix' it. Or even if they want it 'fixing'...
(I don't want to appear a do-gooder, or make his mum and siblings out to be bad people. AFAIAA they are not. It's obvious something has gone majorly wrong, though, and the kid is suffering, if only by regularly missing school.)
(*) Their teacher in year 1 actually asked me if we could have him around for a playdate. He has been the only kid who has been in the same class as my son for the entirety of primary. We suspect the school have kept them together. If so, good on them.
Quite a lot of people from the South get a British passport, if they can, to access benefits and services in the North, incidentally.
When Thatcher or Blair left neither the Conservatives or Labour were polling in third place
Quite enthusiastic about NOT being 'ruled by Catholics', some of these folk.
What difference it will make that the Irish Republic doesn't seem to be 'ruled by Catholics' either I'm not sure.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NiSjXu-BVjM
Only one great-grandchild so far, though.
You say you're Tory because of how the other parties sit in relation to you, but how about how today's Tory party sits in comparison with the Conservative and Unionist Party? You are a long long way to the left of conservatism.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg4v04p008o
Disorder in Ballymena following a protest over an alleged sexual assault in the town has been described as "unwanted and unwarranted" by the area's MP.
People wearing masks threw masonry and other missiles at police, while houses were set on fire.
Police officers blocked off Clonavon Terrace as they tried to tackle the unrest, while a police car appeared to have its windows smashed.
Jim Allister, leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice, said the violence was "very distressing".
The North Antrim MP said the "context" for the demonstration was that there had been "significant demographic change in the area" because of "unfettered immigration".
Earlier on Monday, two teenage boys appeared before Coleraine Magistrates' Court accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Ballymena.
They spoke through an interpreter in Romanian to confirm their names and ages.
Their solicitor said they would be denying the charges.
Those who are borderline mentally ill or disabled or merely ill-motivated to work - seems to me it would require massive investment to create a programme for enabling or motivating them to do whatever they're capable of. And then providing the work.
My understanding is that, as you say, Northern Irish unionism was significantly driven by fear of the influence of the Catholic church in the functioning of any independent Ireland - and also that for the majority of its history, the Catholic church was indeed very influential: unionist fears were quite justified. As (I think) you imply, it's different nowadays, and we have yet to see the difference this will make to unionism.
I suspect given the experience of the last 50 years in NI, what the unionist fears now is being ruled by triumphant nationalists.
And he's 61 in a couple of weeks but looks older. His cheerful buffoon act was marginally tolerable in 2008 when he was just into his forties and a city mayor; it looks sad and desperate acting like a twenty-something when you're almost collecting your pension.
Whatever reservations you might have about Kemi she'll always be better than Jenrick
This central core is also the bit that spends all the money. Add up: pensions, benefits, education, NHS, defence.
No voice is ever raised, nor has been for years, to spend less on any of these social democrat ends. A thousand voices are raised daily to spend more.
It is also not true everywhere, in Africa for example birthrates are still growing
Numbers on nuclear never add up. The cost of one nuclear power station (ca £40 billion) generating a steady 3GW is close to total planned investments in offshore wind providing up to 70GW intermittent.
https://bsky.app/profile/nataliesedacca.bsky.social/post/3lradr37da22r
The Migration Advisory Committee has advised against the further planned rise in minimum salary level needed to bring a foreign partner to the UK to to £38,700, as it would “most likely” breach the right to family life under Art 8 ECHR
(There were actually several surreal aspects: there was the glorious moment when I was given a "Personal PIN Number"; there was the gentle reassurance that the surgeon was very experienced [good] and that "all he does is vasectomies" [slightly worrying if given too much thought]; there was the weird chat beforehand with others in for the same procedure - obviously conversation avoided the main topic and focused instead on the choices people had made for surfacing their drive - and to round it all off there was the experience of coming out of the clinic to a small crowd of fundamentalist Christian protesters haranguing my wife, because they were under the impression this was an abortion clinic and she'd been for an abortion: I came up with a suitable tirade which elegantly pointed out the error of their ways and made them feel suitably foolish, but by the time it was fully crafted my wife had ushered me into the car, driven me past them and we were half a mile away. So often the case...)
But of course, if they'll treat foreign journalists like that, with governments who will (or may) back them up, what hope do local reporters have? The First Amendment was already pretty meaningless under Trump; this just tramples it further underfoot.
Also, with this particular lad, my own lad had a bit of a year 1 wobble after reception where he wasn't quite sure where he fitted in and didn't want to go into school for a while - he'd been friends with some girls from playgroup who were in his class, but they'd kind of peeled off into the girls' friendship group and he was a bit lost. The lad would always go in with my lad and hold his hand, which really helped and I appreciated that (those days seem a long time ago now - my lad now confident and happy with school, real change, but they still go in together most days).
Czechs sign $18 billion nuclear power plant deal with KHNP after court injunction lifted
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/czech-court-rules-18-bln-nuclear-power-plant-deal-with-khnp-can-go-ahead-2025-06-04/
He might have been a good or even great prime minister in the right circumstances. His response to Ukraine shows the potential. But he was exactly the wrong man for something like Covid, especially when he’d made so many lifelong enemies via Brexit - all determined to bring him down
He needs to step away now, tho. I agree on that
Sophy Ridge is right - the claim that the Winter Fuel payment is back because the economy is stronger does not stand up to scrutiny. As she shows here...
https://x.com/frasernelson/status/1932316237683695675?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q