» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
Yes, they're doing it to make a point. It's civil disobedience, as championed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I don't think he does support people who support Palestine Action. I am sure he didn't say that. Happy to be proved wrong, but it seems very unlikely. It is the right to protest that is key without being arrested if behaving peacefully.
The IRA analogy is a good one by the way and I feel the same way about that as you, especially as I was around at the time of the bombings in the UK. The Guildford bombing was far too close to home. I was away at Uni at the time and had no idea if any friends were impacted. The only time I (and most other students) attended a political debate was on the topic of the IRA so we could express how we felt. But guess what nobody of either side was arrested for their views.
Communism when Jeremy Corbyn's Labour proposed the same thing. In America, it's investment.
They’ve got a point, when there’s tens of billions from various State and Federal schemes aimed at rural broadband, yet very few people appear to have been actually connected, the money mostly disappearing in the supply chain of politically-connected companies. Starlink delivers rural broadband for a fraction of the cost and the infrastructure is already in place.
Now there’s an argument to have about one company having a monopoly on satellite broadband, but they’ve built the network entirely with private funds.
It seems odd to talk about "politically-connected companies" without also describing Starlink as politically-connected. Indeed, it is one of the most politically-connected companies around.
The difference being that Starlink has already funded privately their network and has a working product they’re trying to sell, whereas the rural broadband money appears to have mostly disappeared without actually providing any rural broadband.
Yes but Elon Musk is not suggesting subsidies end, merely that they should flow to him instead.
On the wider point, a few years ago the then-boss of Verizon (the leading American phone company) told an EU committee that our rules requiring that comms companies share infrastructure) restrict investment compared to the American system where companies build their own monopolies (ironic since Verizon was born from the break up of Bell's monopoly).
It is a truth seldom acknowledged that capitalism advances not through competition but from de facto monopolies, which might at some point be broken up to further advance capitalism through competition.
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
He was supporting the right to protest.
And yes, saying that criminalising a bunch of middle class protestors for doing not very much (and they certainly weren't supporting "terrorism"), by using the act in this manner, is pretty well exactly the qualification he expressed.
But, as per Bondezegou’s quote, he’s describing them as innocent implying they’ve just been arrested for protesting. That’s not the case. They can protest all they like but when they support a proscribed terror group that crosses a line.
Plenty of people turn out every week to protest about Gaza. We’ve had them on Elvet Bridge in Durham. They manage to do so without professing support for a group that violently attacks people and police officers, putting one in hospital, or damages defence assets.
Consequently they don’t get arrested.
If this was ISIS. The IRA or National Action being supported by the usual suspects no one would care.
But it’s Palestine Action being supported by middle class retired Home Counties types.
This is the stuff that will help Reform sink themselves - basic, lazy, ignorant abusive behaviour. Labour Councillor granted one year non-personal-attendance at meetings; RefUK Councillor commenting. This is one I had not seen.
The excuse was roughly "but nobody told me it was cancer, so my actions were OK":
Carol Hyatt has non-Hodgkin lymphoma and due to her illness City of Wolverhampton Council has given her a dispensation to carry out her duties from home.
At the meeting on Wednesday, councillor Anita Stanley said she did not feel Hyatt's arrangement was "very fair on the residents".
"I'm immunocompromised, I can do everything, but I can't go out because then I'll get sepsis and could die, but I've done my very best still represent my ward," Hyatt told the BBC.
During a full council discussion about a proposed extension of Hyatt's dispensation to work from home, Stanley stood up and said: "I do not feel it is very fair on the residents not to have a political representative being able to speak up for them for the period of effectively one whole year.
"It's not fair on taxpayers."
Hyatt said: "The situation is not a party political thing so why would you treat any human being like that when they're fighting cancer and going through treatment?
Because there are a lot of selfish nasty shits out there with a vote, and Reform want to be their best mates.
+1
(Good ev channel btw. I dont have a tesla though)
Thanks! I'm also working on branching out: Launched a politics show with an old mate called "Emergency Podcast". A few false starts, but we're now into a flow with reels being clipped which are doing well. I'm then dumping those reels onto TikTok which is also gaining traction. I've then done a couple of test reels of me solo doing politics. Trying to get a feel for how / what to produce to go out on all platforms for my coming Holyrood run Our toys business ("Milibricks") has a few test reels on YT/TT which are starting to get views - just gone through 1k on YT
As well as two day jobs in the food industry...
Not my area (I do have a podcast but it's very much a side thing) but I've heard that YouTube shorts can be surprisingly effective for driving up interest in the algorithm. Probably something you already know but thought I'd mention it.
Edited: it's this kind of flawless self-promotion that may explain why I don't have a hundred thousand listeners...
Ahem, it's on F1, called Undercutters, and you can find it many places, including here:
Clipping into reels has worked well for getting us going. I would do the same for the Tesla channel if I had time. Perhaps next year as the next phase of expansion!
This is the stuff that will help Reform sink themselves - basic, lazy, ignorant abusive behaviour. Labour Councillor granted one year non-personal-attendance at meetings; RefUK Councillor commenting. This is one I had not seen.
The excuse was roughly "but nobody told me it was cancer, so my actions were OK":
Carol Hyatt has non-Hodgkin lymphoma and due to her illness City of Wolverhampton Council has given her a dispensation to carry out her duties from home.
At the meeting on Wednesday, councillor Anita Stanley said she did not feel Hyatt's arrangement was "very fair on the residents".
"I'm immunocompromised, I can do everything, but I can't go out because then I'll get sepsis and could die, but I've done my very best still represent my ward," Hyatt told the BBC.
During a full council discussion about a proposed extension of Hyatt's dispensation to work from home, Stanley stood up and said: "I do not feel it is very fair on the residents not to have a political representative being able to speak up for them for the period of effectively one whole year.
"It's not fair on taxpayers."
Hyatt said: "The situation is not a party political thing so why would you treat any human being like that when they're fighting cancer and going through treatment?
Because there are a lot of selfish nasty shits out there with a vote, and Reform want to be their best mates.
+1
(Good ev channel btw. I dont have a tesla though)
Thanks! I'm also working on branching out: Launched a politics show with an old mate called "Emergency Podcast". A few false starts, but we're now into a flow with reels being clipped which are doing well. I'm then dumping those reels onto TikTok which is also gaining traction. I've then done a couple of test reels of me solo doing politics. Trying to get a feel for how / what to produce to go out on all platforms for my coming Holyrood run Our toys business ("Milibricks") has a few test reels on YT/TT which are starting to get views - just gone through 1k on YT
As well as two day jobs in the food industry...
Two day jobs? That's greedy!
I have a just purchased a non Tesla ev and am investigating tesla superchargers as they seem incredibly cheap compared to other cpos.
I will seek out the podcasts you mentioned.
I'm a consultant. One bigger client, one smaller client. One big new project (mine, not a client).
I've just been catching up on the past thread. Congratulations to @HYUFD
I always assumed old mate was in his early 80s so a bit of a surprise. Like when we found out Morris Dancer isn't actually in his 70s I nearly fell off my fucking "Gamer" chair.
I missed this, what happened (congrats to HYUFD in any case!)
A few years ago HYUFD and his sweetheart got married. She is expecting a child. Estimated birth date is November. It's the first for both of them.
Good morning
And @HYUFD's wife sings in Ely Cathedral choir, which I think is wonderful
Certainly one of the least deft political operators to inhabit the role in recent times.
She cannot sell an economic vision or plan because she doesn’t have one. It’s rather painful to watch this all unfold in slow motion. At least Kwarteng was gone quickly.
No-one in this government appears to have any concrete 'vision'. At best, any vision is a nebulous cloud that varies from minister to minister.
And it is led by someone who cannot sell a vision if they had one.
(I might tentatively suggest that that is the problem: Starmer cannot sell the vision they have. But I see no other ministers trying, either, so I fear they don't have one.)
The killer point. We don't know where we're going - and we haven't done since Boris was removed. Boris had vision - no plan to actually deliver it, but the vision was clearly there.
As usual with policy, neat slogans to sell helps. And I honestly think the one Labour should adopt is Build Back Better. An awful lot of people wistfully looking to the past. A huge amount of stuff needed. A society - cultural and infrastructure - needing improvements.
Boris the great showman rightly identified this and had the pithy slogan, just without the policies. Starmer lacks the vision but gives the impression of being a technocrat. So come up with the polices to actually do it.
IMV Boris did have a plan. As with all plans, it was flawed, and may (or would) not have worked. Covid struck within a few months of his getting his stonking majority, and any plans he had were utterly derailed.
What we really need is a PM with Boris' vision and ability to sell things to the electorate; Starmer's technocracy, and someone else's (May's ?) morality.
I agree with most of the rest of your post.
Boris *sold* a plan, but it wasn't real. He got desperate councils to bid for BBB funding. Which cost them money they didn't have. To apply for money that largely didn't exist.
Everyone can point to general decay and rot. On local streets, in their communities, in town centres. In the tatty schools and hospitals and public buildings. Maintenance budgets cut because "we can't afford it" which creates more mess and a bigger bill than the cut. Water and electricity infrastructure not invested in for foreign owner profits hence running out of water and Heathrow's substation burning down.
We need to spend money to save money. Every pound we save fixing things up saves more than a pound fixing the mess caused by not fixing them. Of making commercial centres buzz again. Of making people proud of their community again. Will have to spend more in the short term to save in the medium to long term. Better to do that than to keep throwing more money onto the bonfire to only get ashes.
THAT is the vision thing.
When I spend on long term maintenance and capital improvement I modify my current spending to balance it.
How much is the government and people of this country willing to reduce their current spending for long term benefit.
Reducing crisis management *is* reducing current spending.
Accounting rules in local government do stupid things. Maintaining drains costs money, so the budget is cut and the money is saved. Huzzah!
But a blocked drain creates a flood which means the council need to spend money in year to clean up - including clearing the drain.
The current spending they need to save to pay to maintain the drains is the money spent clearing up the mess not maintaining the drains. But as the budget needs to balance - and crisis spending isn't firmly costed as its by exception - we end up paying more and getting less.
Don't you get it? We can't afford not to maintain drains and roads and other things. Today the schools have gone back, and Fraserburgh North primary school has the heating jammed on full 24/7. We can't afford to repair the heating because the school is due to be replaced, but we can't afford to replace the school either.
But in-year heating? If it runs over budget then what can you do. So the heating stays on. And students and teachers get sick. Which means high cost supply teachers.
You think cuts save money? No, they cost money.
Cut spending on welfare to invest in maintenance and capital improvements.
That requires a government big enough to tell people that they need to make some sacrifices in living standards for medium term gains in quality of life.
And a people big enough to accept it.
If though you want to increase spending on maintenance and capital improvements without cutting welfare spending then you need to convince the bond markets not me.
OK, so the direct example I gave was a council. Who got lumbered with Adult Social Care but not the money to pay for Adult Social Care. You don't want to make a personal sacrifice in your living standards, just other people.
We get that. Why do you think the Tories got demolished in the election?
We don't need to cut welfare, we need to cut waste. The poorest in our society not only spend that money quickly, they do so locally. Cut their money, they spend less, local businesses go bust and more people are out of work.
Cut the waste. Welfare is an absurd mess with endless bureaucracy and petty assessments contracted out. Simplify to save. Same with Education or Health - stop tipping money onto the admin bonfire and buy a hosepipe.
Please stop projecting your views about others onto me.
I've been advocating:
Increasing income tax Increasing fuel duty Increasing council tax
All of these would affect me.
I've also been advocating:
Increasing the state retirement age Ending the triple lock Ending wfa
All of these would affect me assuming I live long enough.
Now if you want to cut waste and make public services more efficient then go ahead but it will be far harder to do in practice than to talk about it here.
And it still wont change the fundamental fact that this country has been living beyond its means for decades and that road is finally drawing to and end, so falls in living standards are going to happen.
If I am being judgemental then you have my apologies.
But there is a comparison. Paying more income tax. Fuel duty. Council tax. Annoying. A squeeze, but largely manageable for most people. You and I can likely cope.
Cutting welfare so tell people to "make some sacrifices" is largely unmanageable. If welfare was luxury largesse then maybe. Performative cuts on the poorest make their lives practically unliveable. Cuts to disability so that the disabled can't work, can't travel, can't get up. That is what "make some sacrifices" always means to the poorest and sickest.
You ignore the large amount who don't want to work and live well on the state with no worries and never a care about getting up and doing a day's work.System is far too lax on all fronts
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
Yes, they're doing it to make a point. It's civil disobedience, as championed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
Communism when Jeremy Corbyn's Labour proposed the same thing. In America, it's investment.
They’ve got a point, when there’s tens of billions from various State and Federal schemes aimed at rural broadband, yet very few people appear to have been actually connected, the money mostly disappearing in the supply chain of politically-connected companies. Starlink delivers rural broadband for a fraction of the cost and the infrastructure is already in place.
Now there’s an argument to have about one company having a monopoly on satellite broadband, but they’ve built the network entirely with private funds.
It seems odd to talk about "politically-connected companies" without also describing Starlink as politically-connected. Indeed, it is one of the most politically-connected companies around.
The difference being that Starlink has already funded privately their network and has a working product they’re trying to sell, whereas the rural broadband money appears to have mostly disappeared without actually providing any rural broadband.
Some time ago, many African countries were expected to eventually invest in wired phone systems. Cable plants were expecting a boom. Some even built/planned more plants in expectation. And then Africa discovered mobile phones. Same happened in the former UUSR states.
The rural broadband example shows what a basket case the US is. They are even more hampered by vested interests than Europe. A kleptocracy in all but name with other countries paying for it through US debt.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
They are doing it deliberately to make a point. That is the whole point. If you watch some of the interviews a number of them aren't interested in the original specific protest. They are protesting about not being allowed to protest (I know that is an oxymoron). They are protesting that the Government has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route.
I have no beef with locking people up for doing criminal stuff, but I don't want people stopped from protesting (by making it also criminal).
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
People are not being arrested for excercising their freedom of speech.
They’re being arrested for supporting, openly supporting, a proscribed terrorist group. That’s not wrong and as to their innocence or otherwise that’s for a court to decide.
The odd case where an innocent person has been arrested, like the Plasticene action guy, then clearly that’s fine.
We will have to disagree on this.
It's certainly the effect of the law - and the Home Secretary's proscription of the group - that there is a prima facie case for their arrest. What Davey was saying very clearly, and I agree with him, is that the Home Secretary simply hasn't made a convincing case for proscribing Palestine Action in this manner.
The law in question is an exceedingly blunt instrument, which effectively gives the HS the power to criminalise legitimate protest. Quite which side of legitimate/illegitimate this particular case falls is very much a matter of debate. But that, surely is the point ?
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
People are not being arrested for excercising their freedom of speech.
They’re being arrested for supporting, openly supporting, a proscribed terrorist group. That’s not wrong and as to their innocence or otherwise that’s for a court to decide.
The odd case where an innocent person has been arrested, like the Plasticene action guy, then clearly that’s fine.
Yes, we know what the law is. People supporting Palestine Action are breaking the law. The people protesting are protesting the law, they think the law is wrong, that we should not use terrorism legislation in this manner.
People have been arrested for their speech. They were not arrested for sabotage or vandalism or violence. They were arrested for expressing an opinion.
Davey notes serious concerns with Palestine Action, but also feels that criminalising peaceful support for them is the wrong way to go and contrary to traditions around freedom of speech.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
He was supporting the right to protest.
And yes, saying that criminalising a bunch of middle class protestors for doing not very much (and they certainly weren't supporting "terrorism"), by using the act in this manner, is pretty well exactly the qualification he expressed.
But, as per Bondezegou’s quote, he’s describing them as innocent implying they’ve just been arrested for protesting. That’s not the case. They can protest all they like but when they support a proscribed terror group that crosses a line.
Plenty of people turn out every week to protest about Gaza. We’ve had them on Elvet Bridge in Durham. They manage to do so without professing support for a group that violently attacks people and police officers, putting one in hospital, or damages defence assets.
Consequently they don’t get arrested.
If this was ISIS. The IRA or National Action being supported by the usual suspects no one would care.
But it’s Palestine Action being supported by middle class retired Home Counties types.
We have freedom of speech in this country, within reason. But there are always limits and this discussion on PB exemplifies that people have that limit in different places.
Take Covid - we had antivaxxers protesting in Warminster high street several times back in the pandemic, using highly dubious statistics for vaccine harm (the yellow card system). Now I totally disagreed with them, and indeed called them fucking idiots who didn't understand science or statistics, but I didn't believe that they didn't have the right to protest it. They were probably at risk of causing harm (someone persuaded not to get vaccinated then dying, for example.*)
*As happened to the elderly husband of the chief gobby old biddy, sadly, as he was a nice old boy. Covid took him - I don't know if he was vaccinated, but given her stance, I doubt it.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
Yes, they're doing it to make a point. It's civil disobedience, as championed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
So they are not innocent then?
They plainly aren't guilty of terrorism or supporting terrorism. If they do get arrested then whose fault is that? There's? The police? or the proscribing act. The government could easily have thrown the book at the perpetrators of the damage, treason maybe, and the point would have hit home more effectively. Now we have 60/70/80 year olds dragged off by plod.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
They are doing it deliberately to make a point. That is the whole point. If you watch some of the interviews a number of them aren't interested in the original specific protest. They are protesting about not being allowed to protest (I know that is an oxymoron). They are protesting that the Government has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route.
I have no beef with locking people up for doing criminal stuff, but I don't want people stopped from protesting (by making it also criminal).
So protest about that, but without supporting a banned terrorist organisation. We are at risk of angels on a pin head here.
A placard saying I believe that the government has used anti terror laws incorrectly is entirely legal. Use that.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
People are not being arrested for excercising their freedom of speech.
They’re being arrested for supporting, openly supporting, a proscribed terrorist group. That’s not wrong and as to their innocence or otherwise that’s for a court to decide.
The odd case where an innocent person has been arrested, like the Plasticene action guy, then clearly that’s fine.
Its funny as we're now seeing a reversal from the normal splitters stereotype.
The Judean People's Front has been proscribed following their repeated engagement in terrorism, as defined by our laws passed by Tony Blair.
That means, under Tony Blair's laws, that supporting them is illegal.
There's nothing illegal about supporting the People's Front of Judea.
Which means that all of a sudden, the supporters of the People's Front of Judea seem to all be supporting the Judean People's Front and reacting in mock horror when they get arrested for breaking the law.
Like most of Tony Blair's laws I'd like to see this law repealed, however people who want to protest lawfully quite easily can do.
But she needs the money and has made a lot of silly promises.
Cut spending. £50bn out of the budget from payrolls, international aid and other welfare. Get the IMF in as cover to implement it if necessary.
If you’re cutting welfare and entitlements, there’s one very obvious pot of gold where you can start: pensions.
What would be your plan on pensions? Yes, we can remove the Triple Lock but presumably you are looking at raising the age when th state pension is paid - to what. 70, 75?
We discussed yesterday the area of care and the role of carers and I mentioned the role of unpaid carers. If you remove or reduce pensions, that simply means more people in the care system with little or nothing so the State ends up supporting them.
Cut public sector pensions. Cut the current contributions and cut the existing entitlements for DB schemes and cut the triple lock. Oh and make pension income subject to NI. It's time for the cosseted public sector fatcats to make their contribution.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
People are not being arrested for excercising their freedom of speech.
They’re being arrested for supporting, openly supporting, a proscribed terrorist group. That’s not wrong and as to their innocence or otherwise that’s for a court to decide.
The odd case where an innocent person has been arrested, like the Plasticene action guy, then clearly that’s fine.
Yes, we know what the law is. People supporting Palestine Action are breaking the law. The people protesting are protesting the law, they think the law is wrong, that we should not use terrorism legislation in this manner.
People have been arrested for their speech. They were not arrested for sabotage or vandalism or violence. They were arrested for expressing an opinion.
Davey notes serious concerns with Palestine Action, but also feels that criminalising peaceful support for them is the wrong way to go and contrary to traditions around freedom of speech.
What would you say if they were supporting Al Quaida, or the IRA, or the Nazi party? All good for you? Because if it isn't then you are basically saying you don't think Palestine Action count as proper terrorists.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
People are not being arrested for excercising their freedom of speech.
They’re being arrested for supporting, openly supporting, a proscribed terrorist group. That’s not wrong and as to their innocence or otherwise that’s for a court to decide.
The odd case where an innocent person has been arrested, like the Plasticene action guy, then clearly that’s fine.
We will have to disagree on this.
It's certainly the effect of the law - and the Home Secretary's proscription of the group - that there is a prima facie case for their arrest. What Davey was saying very clearly, and I agree with him, is that the Home Secretary simply hasn't made a convincing case for proscribing Palestine Action in this manner.
The law in question is an exceedingly blunt instrument, which effectively gives the HS the power to criminalise legitimate protest. Quite which side of legitimate/illegitimate this particular case falls is very much a matter of debate. But that, surely is the point ?
I find is amusing that the following position on Begum (another culture war case) upsets nearly everyone.
1) she should be bought back to this country 2) and prosecuted for the war crimes that she has stated, in multiple TV interviews she committed.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
Yes, they're doing it to make a point. It's civil disobedience, as championed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
So they are not innocent then?
They plainly aren't guilty of terrorism or supporting terrorism. If they do get arrested then whose fault is that? There's? The police? or the proscribing act. The government could easily have thrown the book at the perpetrators of the damage, treason maybe, and the point would have hit home more effectively. Now we have 60/70/80 year olds dragged off by plod.
Ridiculous.
Yes they are. "I support Palestine Action" is an admission that they support terrorists. As defined by our government.
I have worked out the NHS can save a fortune in paper towels if it stopped pearl-clutching.
The scene: a scan. Radiographer – remove your shirt, lower your trousers and pants to below your knees, then lie down on this couch. Comfortable? Here's a paper towel you can hold over your gentleman's sausage that has been on display for the last five minutes. What's the bleeding point?
Presumably the point is that in the past, a patient complained of exposure, or a nurse complained of being flashed, and both got lots of lovely compo so now we have to pretend the students are giggling at something other than my misshapen parts.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
People are not being arrested for excercising their freedom of speech.
They’re being arrested for supporting, openly supporting, a proscribed terrorist group. That’s not wrong and as to their innocence or otherwise that’s for a court to decide.
The odd case where an innocent person has been arrested, like the Plasticene action guy, then clearly that’s fine.
We will have to disagree on this.
It's certainly the effect of the law - and the Home Secretary's proscription of the group - that there is a prima facie case for their arrest. What Davey was saying very clearly, and I agree with him, is that the Home Secretary simply hasn't made a convincing case for proscribing Palestine Action in this manner.
The law in question is an exceedingly blunt instrument, which effectively gives the HS the power to criminalise legitimate protest. Quite which side of legitimate/illegitimate this particular case falls is very much a matter of debate. But that, surely is the point ?
Causing hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage to military equipment is not legitimate protest. Those supporting them are being stupid.
Communism when Jeremy Corbyn's Labour proposed the same thing. In America, it's investment.
They’ve got a point, when there’s tens of billions from various State and Federal schemes aimed at rural broadband, yet very few people appear to have been actually connected, the money mostly disappearing in the supply chain of politically-connected companies. Starlink delivers rural broadband for a fraction of the cost and the infrastructure is already in place.
Now there’s an argument to have about one company having a monopoly on satellite broadband, but they’ve built the network entirely with private funds.
Yes. So let's have it. The argument in full is
GIVING A MONOPOLY ON A STRATEGIC ASSET TO A PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL IS STUPID AND WE SHOULD NOT DO IT
There y'go.
So the way to do it, if your’e the US government, is to incentivise competitors in the satellite broadband industry, not to keep throwing good money after bad trying to run old-tech fibre to houses miles apart from each other.
Comcast’s and Verizon’s lobbyists would be furious though, as would all the Congressional recipients of their donations.
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
NW of SF you have Point Reyes, where the lighthouse featured in Carpenters "The Fog".
I've just been catching up on the past thread. Congratulations to @HYUFD
I always assumed old mate was in his early 80s so a bit of a surprise. Like when we found out Morris Dancer isn't actually in his 70s I nearly fell off my fucking "Gamer" chair.
I missed this, what happened (congrats to HYUFD in any case!)
Expecting a happy event in November 👍
Kemi given the boot and Mel Stride elected leader on a wave of one nation enthusiasm?
In any case congrats HYUFD on the actual happy event.
Is Mel Stride still One Nation?
I think he's pivoted towards Jenrick / Philp. He was 2nd in the last Con Home poll, and they are hardly what is left of the One Nation wing.
Stride backed Remain in 2016 and Sunak in 2022 twice and Cleverly last year once he was knocked out, he is clearly on the more moderate wing of today's Conservative Party.
He is also an economic heavyweight, hence he is now the joint second most popular Shadow Cabinet Minister with party members after Jenrick
Family in fear after Tommy Robinson shares video of black man with white granddaughters
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/20/family-in-fear-after-tommy-robinson-shares-video-of-black-man-with-white-granddaughters ..Ayeni and his wife have been scared to leave their house because of threats. “We haven’t gone outside at home, we just can’t,” Natalie said. “Just after it started to go viral, someone in the local pub recognised Olajuwon immediately; we couldn’t believe how quick it had spread. We were walking home from shops just streets from our house, and two lads passed us, spun round and said ‘I hope you’re not them off that video or we’re coming back to slash you up’. It’s just horrendous.
“Someone was shouting ‘paedophile’ outside the house the other night, so I rang the police again but they say there’s little they can do. It feels a matter of time before something bad happens. We tried to go out yesterday and had to come home.”
The impact on Ayeni has been particularly severe. “I feel I have to sleep with one eye open,” he said. “I feel unsafe, scared and sad, as mine and my brother’s lives have been threatened. Someone said they will seek revenge and I’ll never walk again, all for just being in the park with the kids I love on a family day out...
Disappointingly unsurprising story.
Those of a liberal persuasion might believe we've made enormous strides in the past 50 years around tolerance and eliminating racism - the truth is, we haven't and particularly among some young men, racism and homophobia remain as strong as ever and we know the role social media plays in this.
For those who defend "the right to offend", this is where I part company with you. This is pure intolerant hate speech which needs to be dealt with. The way is through education so how do we bring tolerance to the intolerant and the prejudiced?
Like all freedoms, freedom of speech isn't an absolute - you can't compromise other people's freedoms by exercising your own. Freedom of speech can't simply be limited or defined by legislation - it has to exist within the cultural and social mores of society. In fact, if it did, we wouldn't need legislation.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
They are doing it deliberately to make a point. That is the whole point. If you watch some of the interviews a number of them aren't interested in the original specific protest. They are protesting about not being allowed to protest (I know that is an oxymoron). They are protesting that the Government has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route.
I have no beef with locking people up for doing criminal stuff, but I don't want people stopped from protesting (by making it also criminal).
So protest about that, but without supporting a banned terrorist organisation. We are at risk of angels on a pin head here.
A placard saying I believe that the government has used anti terror laws incorrectly is entirely legal. Use that.
I think that would be too subtle for our police.
Didn't someone get arrested for supporting plasticene action on a placard with a picture of Wallace and Gromit?
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
Yes, they're doing it to make a point. It's civil disobedience, as championed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
So they are not innocent then?
They plainly aren't guilty of terrorism or supporting terrorism. If they do get arrested then whose fault is that? There's? The police? or the proscribing act. The government could easily have thrown the book at the perpetrators of the damage, treason maybe, and the point would have hit home more effectively. Now we have 60/70/80 year olds dragged off by plod.
Ridiculous.
Yes they are. "I support Palestine Action" is an admission that they support terrorists. As defined by our government.
The obvious rejoinder to that is that "terrorism" as defined by the Home Secretary, in this particular case, really isn't "terrorism" as understood by a very large constituency among the British electorate.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
People are not being arrested for excercising their freedom of speech.
They’re being arrested for supporting, openly supporting, a proscribed terrorist group. That’s not wrong and as to their innocence or otherwise that’s for a court to decide.
The odd case where an innocent person has been arrested, like the Plasticene action guy, then clearly that’s fine.
Yes, we know what the law is. People supporting Palestine Action are breaking the law. The people protesting are protesting the law, they think the law is wrong, that we should not use terrorism legislation in this manner.
People have been arrested for their speech. They were not arrested for sabotage or vandalism or violence. They were arrested for expressing an opinion.
Davey notes serious concerns with Palestine Action, but also feels that criminalising peaceful support for them is the wrong way to go and contrary to traditions around freedom of speech.
If people have been arrested incorrectly that’s bad, obvs, like the Plasticene action dude.
However people have been arrested, on the whole, not for protesting the law (I heartily endorse their right to do that) but for expressing support for Palestine Action specifically, and many have done so knowing the consequences. They are not being arrested for expressing an opinion any more than Lucy Connolly is a political prisoner.
Would peaceful support for ISIS or National Action be acceptable. I’d say not.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
He was supporting the right to protest.
And yes, saying that criminalising a bunch of middle class protestors for doing not very much (and they certainly weren't supporting "terrorism"), by using the act in this manner, is pretty well exactly the qualification he expressed.
But, as per Bondezegou’s quote, he’s describing them as innocent implying they’ve just been arrested for protesting. That’s not the case. They can protest all they like but when they support a proscribed terror group that crosses a line.
Plenty of people turn out every week to protest about Gaza. We’ve had them on Elvet Bridge in Durham. They manage to do so without professing support for a group that violently attacks people and police officers, putting one in hospital, or damages defence assets.
Consequently they don’t get arrested.
If this was ISIS. The IRA or National Action being supported by the usual suspects no one would care.
But it’s Palestine Action being supported by middle class retired Home Counties types.
I think he is aware under what law they have been arrested. I take his use of the adjective "innocent" to be within his contention that the law is wrong. That is, they are morally innocent and, ergo, should be innocent in law too.
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
NW of SF you have Point Reyes, where the lighthouse featured in Carpenters "The Fog".
Ta
I literally know nothing about this coast. Eg Oregon. What do I see in Oregon?! I’ve always thought it sounds pleasant but in reality I have no idea
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
Yes, they're doing it to make a point. It's civil disobedience, as championed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
People are not being arrested for excercising their freedom of speech.
They’re being arrested for supporting, openly supporting, a proscribed terrorist group. That’s not wrong and as to their innocence or otherwise that’s for a court to decide.
The odd case where an innocent person has been arrested, like the Plasticene action guy, then clearly that’s fine.
We will have to disagree on this.
It's certainly the effect of the law - and the Home Secretary's proscription of the group - that there is a prima facie case for their arrest. What Davey was saying very clearly, and I agree with him, is that the Home Secretary simply hasn't made a convincing case for proscribing Palestine Action in this manner.
The law in question is an exceedingly blunt instrument, which effectively gives the HS the power to criminalise legitimate protest. Quite which side of legitimate/illegitimate this particular case falls is very much a matter of debate. But that, surely is the point ?
Causing hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage to military equipment is not legitimate protest. Those supporting them are being stupid.
Again, you are entirely misrepresenting the argument. Very few people indeed are arguing that committing serious criminal damage is a legitimate form of protest.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
They are doing it deliberately to make a point. That is the whole point. If you watch some of the interviews a number of them aren't interested in the original specific protest. They are protesting about not being allowed to protest (I know that is an oxymoron). They are protesting that the Government has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route.
I have no beef with locking people up for doing criminal stuff, but I don't want people stopped from protesting (by making it also criminal).
So protest about that, but without supporting a banned terrorist organisation. We are at risk of angels on a pin head here.
A placard saying I believe that the government has used anti terror laws incorrectly is entirely legal. Use that.
I think that would be too subtle for our police.
Didn't someone get arrested for supporting plasticene action on a placard with a picture of Wallace and Gromit?
I hope that was fake news for our police's sake..
They did, incorrectly and were released with an apology. Police make mistakes. We all do.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
They are doing it deliberately to make a point. That is the whole point. If you watch some of the interviews a number of them aren't interested in the original specific protest. They are protesting about not being allowed to protest (I know that is an oxymoron). They are protesting that the Government has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route.
I have no beef with locking people up for doing criminal stuff, but I don't want people stopped from protesting (by making it also criminal).
So protest about that, but without supporting a banned terrorist organisation. We are at risk of angels on a pin head here.
A placard saying I believe that the government has used anti terror laws incorrectly is entirely legal. Use that.
That completely misses the point of this and historic protests. They are deliberately doing it to get arrested. Either there are no arrests so showing the law is stupid or hundreds are arrested for protesting quietly, again showing the law is useless. It gets a point over.
Civil rights in the USA would have been set back decades if people didn't break the law peacefully like they did and get arrested (or worse beaten up) to show the stupidity of the system.
If it gets violent then lock them up. if they cause obstruction then move them on or arrest if necessary, but if not leave them alone.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
People are not being arrested for excercising their freedom of speech.
They’re being arrested for supporting, openly supporting, a proscribed terrorist group. That’s not wrong and as to their innocence or otherwise that’s for a court to decide.
The odd case where an innocent person has been arrested, like the Plasticene action guy, then clearly that’s fine.
We will have to disagree on this.
It's certainly the effect of the law - and the Home Secretary's proscription of the group - that there is a prima facie case for their arrest. What Davey was saying very clearly, and I agree with him, is that the Home Secretary simply hasn't made a convincing case for proscribing Palestine Action in this manner.
The law in question is an exceedingly blunt instrument, which effectively gives the HS the power to criminalise legitimate protest. Quite which side of legitimate/illegitimate this particular case falls is very much a matter of debate. But that, surely is the point ?
Causing hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage to military equipment is not legitimate protest. Those supporting them are being stupid.
Again, you are entirely misrepresenting the argument. Very few people indeed are arguing that committing serious criminal damage is a legitimate form of protest.
Davey certainly wasn't, and said so.
And the point is that those claiming that the right to protest has been abolished because they are not allowed to support Palestine Action are WRONG.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
He was supporting the right to protest.
And yes, saying that criminalising a bunch of middle class protestors for doing not very much (and they certainly weren't supporting "terrorism"), by using the act in this manner, is pretty well exactly the qualification he expressed.
But, as per Bondezegou’s quote, he’s describing them as innocent implying they’ve just been arrested for protesting. That’s not the case. They can protest all they like but when they support a proscribed terror group that crosses a line.
Plenty of people turn out every week to protest about Gaza. We’ve had them on Elvet Bridge in Durham. They manage to do so without professing support for a group that violently attacks people and police officers, putting one in hospital, or damages defence assets.
Consequently they don’t get arrested.
If this was ISIS. The IRA or National Action being supported by the usual suspects no one would care.
But it’s Palestine Action being supported by middle class retired Home Counties types.
I think he is aware under what law they have been arrested. I take his use of the adjective "innocent" to be within his contention that the law is wrong. That is, they are morally innocent and, ergo, should be innocent in law too.
They are not morally innocent. Morally they've deliberately broken the law, therefore they're guilty.
The law is a bad law that should be repealed, but they're not innocent. It was a conscious choice to break the law on purpose.
Funny how 'rule of law' supporters get all bent out of shape when the law is an ass about an issue they care about.
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
NW of SF you have Point Reyes, where the lighthouse featured in Carpenters "The Fog".
Ta
I literally know nothing about this coast. Eg Oregon. What do I see in Oregon?! I’ve always thought it sounds pleasant but in reality I have no idea
I presume you've done the wine country north of SF ?
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
They are doing it deliberately to make a point. That is the whole point. If you watch some of the interviews a number of them aren't interested in the original specific protest. They are protesting about not being allowed to protest (I know that is an oxymoron). They are protesting that the Government has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route.
I have no beef with locking people up for doing criminal stuff, but I don't want people stopped from protesting (by making it also criminal).
But they can protest.. every week we had people on one of the bridges in Durham protesting about Gaza/Palestine. We’ve had them by the Grey monument in the toon too as well as loitering around Barclays Bank. Fine. No issue. They protest and no one bothers them and people who want to engage with them do, people who don’t walk on by.
They can protest the govt has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route without doing it by supporting a proscribed terrorist group that has used violence in pursuit of its aims..
But she needs the money and has made a lot of silly promises.
Cut spending. £50bn out of the budget from payrolls, international aid and other welfare. Get the IMF in as cover to implement it if necessary.
If you’re cutting welfare and entitlements, there’s one very obvious pot of gold where you can start: pensions.
What would be your plan on pensions? Yes, we can remove the Triple Lock but presumably you are looking at raising the age when th state pension is paid - to what. 70, 75?
We discussed yesterday the area of care and the role of carers and I mentioned the role of unpaid carers. If you remove or reduce pensions, that simply means more people in the care system with little or nothing so the State ends up supporting them.
My wife and I are 75 and in fairly good health, and know numerous people of similar age with just minor ailments, which clearly wasn't the case 40 years ago (one crucial improvement that barely gets mentioned). Clearly that's not always the case, but arguably the pension should be means-tested. It'd be difficult to do that in retrospect as pension contributions were labelled as savings., but for most people, the crucial question is whether they go into prolonged care towards the end. If they do (10% of all pensioners, I saw somewhere), then many savings are wiped out. If they don't, then a large chunk goes to the next generation, extending wealth disparity for no obvious society benefit, much though individuals like it. Subsidising care and removing the tax-exempt sum might be a fair balance which would target people who need it.
I had very different experiences with my parents. My mother died of colon cancer at the age of 70 - her last year wasn't nice. My Dad took care of her at home which couldn't have been easy. As for him, he was hale and hearty until 88 - would meet his friends every Friday for lunch (he was a big fan of bream if done properly) but deteriorated very quickly after a fall such that the only option was residential care for which he had planned and was in a very nice home within a few weeks. Unfortunately, he was gone within the year.
Had he gone into residential care at 85, he'd have enjoyed three years of a very nice life (if not longer) but he steadsfastly refused to leave the bungalow ("this is my home and I want to stay here"). until the fall. Financially, the short duration of his stay worked out well for me and my brother and we both got a small inheritance which helped.
That's the thing - you need systems and processes which are flexible as everyone is different, their expectations and aspirations are different. We need a quality fo residential care where I think we fall short currently (but if you bring the profit motive into it, as with everything else, it becomes about the cost of everything and the value of nothing).
We probably need to rethink our relationship with ageing and death.
I agree, sticking my neck out and not wanting to cause offence, and having watched both my parents go in a not dissimilar way. Mum was in hospital for a month at the end at 82, and dad was due to asbestosis at home at 72, I'd suggest that "gone within the year" was perhaps a thing with a big upside to it - as long as there was time for goodbyes, maybe implicitly re-establishing impaired relationships even if undiscussed, and so on.
On the rethinking, much of it is recovering insights our culture has lost - and which we can relearn from other human culture (don't tell Nigel or Lee). It's a subject we are frightened of, partly enabled by our warehousing elderly and dying people in residential homes and hospitals, and having a process in place that lets us step back from the reality - that is unhealthy psychologically and papers over too many cracks.
Compare, for example, the "lay out the body in the front room and all the neighbours some to pay their respects and say goodbye" tradition that existed 100 years ago, or more recently in eg Roman Catholic Irish communities.
I was chatting to the wife of a friend who I mentioned who died 6 months before his retirement date, whose Celebration is tomorrow, and we were comparing the event to punctuation marks in his life and our lives. Is it a full stop, a semicolon, an ellipsis, or something else? As he was a musician, I was comparing it to a "pause" in our lives - we stop and mark the point, then move on and remember.
Personally (and admittedly being a little narcssistic-pompous), I've been viewing the bodies of dead relatives since 1991 (death of grandma 2). No one seems seems do so in my circles, and it's squeamish and silly. I had read a couple of books about the importance of attitudes to death to resist dehumanisation in a society which wants to make people into cogs in a machine, which I found persuasive, and this personal ritual is one way to fight back.
One provocative text is Jessica Mitford "The American Way of Death" (1963), which is about how even death has been commercialised, when it needs to be personalised.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
He was supporting the right to protest.
And yes, saying that criminalising a bunch of middle class protestors for doing not very much (and they certainly weren't supporting "terrorism"), by using the act in this manner, is pretty well exactly the qualification he expressed.
But, as per Bondezegou’s quote, he’s describing them as innocent implying they’ve just been arrested for protesting. That’s not the case. They can protest all they like but when they support a proscribed terror group that crosses a line.
Plenty of people turn out every week to protest about Gaza. We’ve had them on Elvet Bridge in Durham. They manage to do so without professing support for a group that violently attacks people and police officers, putting one in hospital, or damages defence assets.
Consequently they don’t get arrested.
If this was ISIS. The IRA or National Action being supported by the usual suspects no one would care.
But it’s Palestine Action being supported by middle class retired Home Counties types.
I think he is aware under what law they have been arrested. I take his use of the adjective "innocent" to be within his contention that the law is wrong. That is, they are morally innocent and, ergo, should be innocent in law too.
They are not terrorists, that's fair. But they ARE supporting terrorists, needlessly.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
They are doing it deliberately to make a point. That is the whole point. If you watch some of the interviews a number of them aren't interested in the original specific protest. They are protesting about not being allowed to protest (I know that is an oxymoron). They are protesting that the Government has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route.
I have no beef with locking people up for doing criminal stuff, but I don't want people stopped from protesting (by making it also criminal).
So protest about that, but without supporting a banned terrorist organisation. We are at risk of angels on a pin head here.
A placard saying I believe that the government has used anti terror laws incorrectly is entirely legal. Use that.
That's the difference between holding a placard saying black people shouldn't be segregated on buses and refusing to move from your seat as a black person on a bus. The latter is more effective as a campaigning method. (I'm not equating the two causes here, just discussing campaigning tactics.)
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
NW of SF you have Point Reyes, where the lighthouse featured in Carpenters "The Fog".
Ta
I literally know nothing about this coast. Eg Oregon. What do I see in Oregon?! I’ve always thought it sounds pleasant but in reality I have no idea
I presume you've done the wine country north of SF ?
No. Never! Is that a must? For some reason I’ve got the idea it’s a bit dull. Wine countries can be dull. And if you’re solo driving you can’t even do fun tastings
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
People are not being arrested for excercising their freedom of speech.
They’re being arrested for supporting, openly supporting, a proscribed terrorist group. That’s not wrong and as to their innocence or otherwise that’s for a court to decide.
The odd case where an innocent person has been arrested, like the Plasticene action guy, then clearly that’s fine.
Yes, we know what the law is. People supporting Palestine Action are breaking the law. The people protesting are protesting the law, they think the law is wrong, that we should not use terrorism legislation in this manner.
People have been arrested for their speech. They were not arrested for sabotage or vandalism or violence. They were arrested for expressing an opinion.
Davey notes serious concerns with Palestine Action, but also feels that criminalising peaceful support for them is the wrong way to go and contrary to traditions around freedom of speech.
What would you say if they were supporting Al Quaida, or the IRA, or the Nazi party? All good for you? Because if it isn't then you are basically saying you don't think Palestine Action count as proper terrorists.
I might be going out on a limb here, but yes if it is peaceful. Of course it usually isn't. I have no issue with Tommy Robinson's protests if they were peaceful. He has a right to his appalling opinions. They never are of course and so people are rightfully arrested and everyone gets to see what thugs they are.
Communism when Jeremy Corbyn's Labour proposed the same thing. In America, it's investment.
They’ve got a point, when there’s tens of billions from various State and Federal schemes aimed at rural broadband, yet very few people appear to have been actually connected, the money mostly disappearing in the supply chain of politically-connected companies. Starlink delivers rural broadband for a fraction of the cost and the infrastructure is already in place.
Now there’s an argument to have about one company having a monopoly on satellite broadband, but they’ve built the network entirely with private funds.
Yes. So let's have it. The argument in full is
GIVING A MONOPOLY ON A STRATEGIC ASSET TO A PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL IS STUPID AND WE SHOULD NOT DO IT
There y'go.
So the way to do it, if your’e the US government, is to incentivise competitors in the satellite broadband industry, not to keep throwing good money after bad trying to run old-tech fibre to houses miles apart from each other.
Comcast’s and Verizon’s lobbyists would be furious though, as would all the Congressional recipients of their donations.
Make all subsidies by government for broadband delivery subject to actual connection at required speed and reliability. Rather than giving them money for stuff that never happens.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
Yes, they're doing it to make a point. It's civil disobedience, as championed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
So they are not innocent then?
They plainly aren't guilty of terrorism or supporting terrorism. If they do get arrested then whose fault is that? There's? The police? or the proscribing act. The government could easily have thrown the book at the perpetrators of the damage, treason maybe, and the point would have hit home more effectively. Now we have 60/70/80 year olds dragged off by plod.
Ridiculous.
Yes they are. "I support Palestine Action" is an admission that they support terrorists. As defined by our government.
The obvious rejoinder to that is that "terrorism" as defined by the Home Secretary, in this particular case, really isn't "terrorism" as understood by a very large constituency among the British electorate.
That is wrong, terrorism is defined by statute, not the Home Secretary, and the actions of Palestine Action fell under the definition of terrorism as defined by statute.
They're proscribed because of the Home Secretary and Parliament voting to proscribe them, but that action followed their terrorism as defined by statute, it did not precede it.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
Yes, they're doing it to make a point. It's civil disobedience, as championed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
So they are not innocent then?
They plainly aren't guilty of terrorism or supporting terrorism. If they do get arrested then whose fault is that? There's? The police? or the proscribing act. The government could easily have thrown the book at the perpetrators of the damage, treason maybe, and the point would have hit home more effectively. Now we have 60/70/80 year olds dragged off by plod.
Ridiculous.
Yes they are. "I support Palestine Action" is an admission that they support terrorists. As defined by our government.
The obvious rejoinder to that is that "terrorism" as defined by the Home Secretary, in this particular case, really isn't "terrorism" as understood by a very large constituency among the British electorate.
This is fair and might be true. However, government action to ban organisations can be and will be challenged under the law, and can be lawfully campaigned about. When told to by the courts the government will obey the law.
Supporters of Palestine Action are people, let us assume, who support the rights of Palestinians and who believe that overlooking the rule of law by Israel is one of the many injustices they have suffered. It is a bad move to overlook the rule of law in the UK in your zeal for the rule of law elsewhere.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
But she needs the money and has made a lot of silly promises.
Cut spending. £50bn out of the budget from payrolls, international aid and other welfare. Get the IMF in as cover to implement it if necessary.
If you’re cutting welfare and entitlements, there’s one very obvious pot of gold where you can start: pensions.
What would be your plan on pensions? Yes, we can remove the Triple Lock but presumably you are looking at raising the age when th state pension is paid - to what. 70, 75?
We discussed yesterday the area of care and the role of carers and I mentioned the role of unpaid carers. If you remove or reduce pensions, that simply means more people in the care system with little or nothing so the State ends up supporting them.
Cut public sector pensions. Cut the current contributions and cut the existing entitlements for DB schemes and cut the triple lock. Oh and make pension income subject to NI. It's time for the cosseted public sector fatcats to make their contribution.
It's impossible to get a solid working majority with that flamboyant sadism as an electoral platform so might as well say you'll pull the money out of your hog's eye because it's about as likely.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
He was supporting the right to protest.
And yes, saying that criminalising a bunch of middle class protestors for doing not very much (and they certainly weren't supporting "terrorism"), by using the act in this manner, is pretty well exactly the qualification he expressed.
But, as per Bondezegou’s quote, he’s describing them as innocent implying they’ve just been arrested for protesting. That’s not the case. They can protest all they like but when they support a proscribed terror group that crosses a line.
Plenty of people turn out every week to protest about Gaza. We’ve had them on Elvet Bridge in Durham. They manage to do so without professing support for a group that violently attacks people and police officers, putting one in hospital, or damages defence assets.
Consequently they don’t get arrested.
If this was ISIS. The IRA or National Action being supported by the usual suspects no one would care.
But it’s Palestine Action being supported by middle class retired Home Counties types.
I think he is aware under what law they have been arrested. I take his use of the adjective "innocent" to be within his contention that the law is wrong. That is, they are morally innocent and, ergo, should be innocent in law too.
Interesting take that expressing support for a terrorist group makes you morally innocent irrespective of the law.
There are plenty of ways to oppose what Israel is doing in Gaza without supporting a group that attacks people and puts officers in hospital and damages military assets including those meant for Ukraine.
Communism when Jeremy Corbyn's Labour proposed the same thing. In America, it's investment.
They’ve got a point, when there’s tens of billions from various State and Federal schemes aimed at rural broadband, yet very few people appear to have been actually connected, the money mostly disappearing in the supply chain of politically-connected companies. Starlink delivers rural broadband for a fraction of the cost and the infrastructure is already in place.
Now there’s an argument to have about one company having a monopoly on satellite broadband, but they’ve built the network entirely with private funds.
It seems odd to talk about "politically-connected companies" without also describing Starlink as politically-connected. Indeed, it is one of the most politically-connected companies around.
The difference being that Starlink has already funded privately their network and has a working product they’re trying to sell, whereas the rural broadband money appears to have mostly disappeared without actually providing any rural broadband.
Yes but Elon Musk is not suggesting subsidies end, merely that they should flow to him instead.
On the wider point, a few years ago the then-boss of Verizon (the leading American phone company) told an EU committee that our rules requiring that comms companies share infrastructure) restrict investment compared to the American system where companies build their own monopolies (ironic since Verizon was born from the break up of Bell's monopoly).
It is a truth seldom acknowledged that capitalism advances not through competition but from de facto monopolies, which might at some point be broken up to further advance capitalism through competition.
I think Elon is pointing out that his company can achieve the same end goal (of getting rural America on high-speed internet) for a fraction of the cost of what they are currently spending without much success.
The other option would be to break the Starlink monopoly by allowing other providers to use the Starlink infrastructure via their own base stations, the more European approach you outlined.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
They are doing it deliberately to make a point. That is the whole point. If you watch some of the interviews a number of them aren't interested in the original specific protest. They are protesting about not being allowed to protest (I know that is an oxymoron). They are protesting that the Government has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route.
I have no beef with locking people up for doing criminal stuff, but I don't want people stopped from protesting (by making it also criminal).
But they can protest.. every week we had people on one of the bridges in Durham protesting about Gaza/Palestine. We’ve had them by the Grey monument in the toon too as well as loitering around Barclays Bank. Fine. No issue. They protest and no one bothers them and people who want to engage with them do, people who don’t walk on by.
They can protest the govt has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route without doing it by supporting a proscribed terrorist group that has used violence in pursuit of its aims..
"Government approved protest only!"
I think you're missing the point somewhat. We're in a situation where people wearing t-shirts get arrested under the Terrorism Act, while people trying to set fire to migrant hotels are not. I can understand why people are making a bit of a fuss and I'm hardly the loudest free speech advocate on PB.
I think the pisstake with the "plasticine action" is the best course of action though. Humiliate the authorities.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
They are doing it deliberately to make a point. That is the whole point. If you watch some of the interviews a number of them aren't interested in the original specific protest. They are protesting about not being allowed to protest (I know that is an oxymoron). They are protesting that the Government has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route.
I have no beef with locking people up for doing criminal stuff, but I don't want people stopped from protesting (by making it also criminal).
But they can protest.. every week we had people on one of the bridges in Durham protesting about Gaza/Palestine. We’ve had them by the Grey monument in the toon too as well as loitering around Barclays Bank. Fine. No issue. They protest and no one bothers them and people who want to engage with them do, people who don’t walk on by.
They can protest the govt has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route without doing it by supporting a proscribed terrorist group that has used violence in pursuit of its aims..
You are correct, but it is a tactic to show the stupidity of the law. See my other post on this and the one by @bondegezou on the campaign by blacks and segregated buses. I made a similar point re civil rights in the US. Some of the most effective ways to demonstrate a stupid law is to break that law peacefully so the law enforcers have to use force to break a peaceful protest hence showing the stupidity of the law.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
Palestine Action are without doubt, a terrorist organisation, serving the interests of powers that are hostile to this country.
Whether stupid people who support their terrorism should be prosecuted for expressing that support, is a separate issue, but that is the current state of the law.
Communism when Jeremy Corbyn's Labour proposed the same thing. In America, it's investment.
They’ve got a point, when there’s tens of billions from various State and Federal schemes aimed at rural broadband, yet very few people appear to have been actually connected, the money mostly disappearing in the supply chain of politically-connected companies. Starlink delivers rural broadband for a fraction of the cost and the infrastructure is already in place.
Now there’s an argument to have about one company having a monopoly on satellite broadband, but they’ve built the network entirely with private funds.
Yes. So let's have it. The argument in full is
GIVING A MONOPOLY ON A STRATEGIC ASSET TO A PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL IS STUPID AND WE SHOULD NOT DO IT
There y'go.
So the way to do it, if your’e the US government, is to incentivise competitors in the satellite broadband industry, not to keep throwing good money after bad trying to run old-tech fibre to houses miles apart from each other.
Comcast’s and Verizon’s lobbyists would be furious though, as would all the Congressional recipients of their donations.
Make all subsidies by government for broadband delivery subject to actual connection at required speed and reliability. Rather than giving them money for stuff that never happens.
The ISPs have these stats already.
They couldn’t possibly do that, it would mean these multi-billion-dollar companies having to put their hand in their pocket first.
IIRC yours was the original proposal, but the telcos preferred the other option so there were no bids for doing it the right way. The scheme as-is was basically written by the lobbyists, as most of Washington seems to work.
I'm reminded that the barbarians outside Batley Grammar School weren't subject to arrest. But there we are.
Or the people protesting against Charlie Hebdo after they were massacred. There are examples on both sides, with the far right's political physical violence after Southport not treated as terrorism either.
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
NW of SF you have Point Reyes, where the lighthouse featured in Carpenters "The Fog".
Ta
I literally know nothing about this coast. Eg Oregon. What do I see in Oregon?! I’ve always thought it sounds pleasant but in reality I have no idea
I presume you've done the wine country north of SF ?
No. Never! Is that a must? For some reason I’ve got the idea it’s a bit dull. Wine countries can be dull. And if you’re solo driving you can’t even do fun tastings
Have I got it all wrong? Advice welcome
We visited Sonoma back when we lived in the States. It was very nice but a bit sterile in the way that wealthy parts of the US tend to be. Some of this may be the Europan bias against anywhere that feels too recently constructed, equating new with fake, which is an unfair yardstick in the New World I guess.
Palestine Action are without doubt, a terrorist organisation, serving the interests of powers that are hostile to this country.
Whether stupid people who support their terrorism should be prosecuted for expressing that support, is a separate issue, but that is the current state of the law.
That would be treason, not terrorism, and they should be prosecuted as such. The useful idiot defence would probably be quite effective though.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
I thought he did qualify what he said. I quote: "Palestine Action has committed criminal acts and need to be prosecuted for them. They are a very worrying organisation. What we and many others found troubling was that innocent people exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest in a peaceful way in Parliament Square were arrested en masse. [...] Anyone who believes in the traditional British values of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest should be very worried and I hope will get behind the Liberal Democrat call."
Protesting about Palestine isn't banned. Nor is protesting about the application of terrorist laws to Palestine action isn't banned. Supporting Palestine action is currently illegal. All those arrested are either idiots or doing it deliberately to get arrested to make a point.
They are doing it deliberately to make a point. That is the whole point. If you watch some of the interviews a number of them aren't interested in the original specific protest. They are protesting about not being allowed to protest (I know that is an oxymoron). They are protesting that the Government has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route.
I have no beef with locking people up for doing criminal stuff, but I don't want people stopped from protesting (by making it also criminal).
But they can protest.. every week we had people on one of the bridges in Durham protesting about Gaza/Palestine. We’ve had them by the Grey monument in the toon too as well as loitering around Barclays Bank. Fine. No issue. They protest and no one bothers them and people who want to engage with them do, people who don’t walk on by.
They can protest the govt has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route without doing it by supporting a proscribed terrorist group that has used violence in pursuit of its aims..
"Government approved protest only!"
I think you're missing the point somewhat. We're in a situation where people wearing t-shirts get arrested under the Terrorism Act, while people trying to set fire to migrant hotels are not. I can understand why people are making a bit of a fuss and I'm hardly the loudest free speech advocate on PB.
I think the pisstake with the "plasticine action" is the best course of action though. Humiliate the authorities.
I’m sure they’re still struggling to get over such a humiliation 😂😂😂😂
I’m really not missing the point. You’re just siding with them as you agree with them. It is the expression of support that is the issue. How it manifests is irrelevant.
People are arrested based on the law they break. This guy was sent down for what his T shirt said
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
Oh indeed, but it’s probably not too difficult to convince a couple of wavering jurors that it’s not fair to lock people up for a long time for what’s “little more than spraying graffitti”.
Palestine Action are without doubt, a terrorist organisation, serving the interests of powers that are hostile to this country.
Whether stupid people who support their terrorism should be prosecuted for expressing that support, is a separate issue, but that is the current state of the law.
That would be treason, not terrorism, and they should be prosecuted as such. The useful idiot defence would probably be quite effective though.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
There is a philosophy thought-experiment which could be applied to your scenario:
Man A shoves a knife into a man's leg and severs an artery and the man dies Man B With equivalent force and intent shoves a knife into a man's leg and misses an artery and the man is just injured
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
I suspect the defence will be based on that used by the Colston protestors in Bristol i.e. they did it but it was justified.
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
NW of SF you have Point Reyes, where the lighthouse featured in Carpenters "The Fog".
Ta
I literally know nothing about this coast. Eg Oregon. What do I see in Oregon?! I’ve always thought it sounds pleasant but in reality I have no idea
I presume you've done the wine country north of SF ?
No. Never! Is that a must? For some reason I’ve got the idea it’s a bit dull. Wine countries can be dull. And if you’re solo driving you can’t even do fun tastings
Have I got it all wrong? Advice welcome
We visited Sonoma back when we lived in the States. It was very nice but a bit sterile in the way that wealthy parts of the US tend to be. Some of this may be the Europan bias against anywhere that feels too recently constructed, equating new with fake, which is an unfair yardstick in the New World I guess.
Yes that’s kinda my expectation. A viticultural version of Palm Springs or Sanibel
But maybe I’m wrong. I should probablyask @rcs1000 or @StillWaters - seeing as they actually live there
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
There is a philosophy thought-experiment which could be applied to your scenario:
Man A shoves a knife into a man's leg and severs an artery and the man dies Man B With equivalent force and intent shoves a knife into a man's leg and misses an artery and the man is just injured
Is there a difference in the two crimes?
See also every time someone drives in a dangerous manner but doesn't kill someone.
Palestine Action are without doubt, a terrorist organisation, serving the interests of powers that are hostile to this country.
Whether stupid people who support their terrorism should be prosecuted for expressing that support, is a separate issue, but that is the current state of the law.
Indeed, and it could be argued that the failure to prosecute these hundreds of supporters for terrorist offences is yet another example of “two-tier” justice.
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
I've done Seattle to Cali and back.
A lot of Oregon isn't actually that well to do on the coast. Places like Coos Bay are a bit abandoned although I think they are trying to big up the tourism. There's some monster sand dunes and, well, it is still the Pacific, so parts are reasonably scenic.
In California - there's the Coast Redwoods (not the Giant Redwoods of the Sierras). You might be able to blag a visit to the world's tallest known tree if you ask the right people, but if not, Tall Tree Grove nearby is seriously impressive and has plenty of noom (have camped there).
On the subject of big trees, the Olympic peninsula is also great if you like rain, moss and ferns and it might cause you to reassess the Sitka spruce. Unfortunately Forks is now overrun with Twilight fans these days (maybe you are one?).
For politics, Portland was of course an 'interesting' experiment...
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
you would need to do the obvious , Golden Gate bridge, Alcatraz. Further up but a bit inland Yosemite , Lake Tahoe.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
I suspect the defence will be based on that used by the Colston protestors in Bristol i.e. they did it but it was justified.
I sense that they would have less chance of success. The Colston four had widespread public support. While many if not most people are appalled by what is unfolding in Gaza, I don't think what Palestine Action did is comparable to toppling a statue of a racist that nobody really seemed to want to be there.
Palestine Action are without doubt, a terrorist organisation, serving the interests of powers that are hostile to this country.
Whether stupid people who support their terrorism should be prosecuted for expressing that support, is a separate issue, but that is the current state of the law.
That would be treason, not terrorism, and they should be prosecuted as such. The useful idiot defence would probably be quite effective though.
Under our laws its defined as terrorism.
Yes, that's what we are debating this morning. Well done you.
Communism when Jeremy Corbyn's Labour proposed the same thing. In America, it's investment.
They’ve got a point, when there’s tens of billions from various State and Federal schemes aimed at rural broadband, yet very few people appear to have been actually connected, the money mostly disappearing in the supply chain of politically-connected companies. Starlink delivers rural broadband for a fraction of the cost and the infrastructure is already in place.
Now there’s an argument to have about one company having a monopoly on satellite broadband, but they’ve built the network entirely with private funds.
It seems odd to talk about "politically-connected companies" without also describing Starlink as politically-connected. Indeed, it is one of the most politically-connected companies around.
The difference being that Starlink has already funded privately their network and has a working product they’re trying to sell, whereas the rural broadband money appears to have mostly disappeared without actually providing any rural broadband.
Yes but Elon Musk is not suggesting subsidies end, merely that they should flow to him instead.
On the wider point, a few years ago the then-boss of Verizon (the leading American phone company) told an EU committee that our rules requiring that comms companies share infrastructure) restrict investment compared to the American system where companies build their own monopolies (ironic since Verizon was born from the break up of Bell's monopoly).
It is a truth seldom acknowledged that capitalism advances not through competition but from de facto monopolies, which might at some point be broken up to further advance capitalism through competition.
I think Elon is pointing out that his company can achieve the same end goal (of getting rural America on high-speed internet) for a fraction of the cost of what they are currently spending without much success.
The other option would be to break the Starlink monopoly by allowing other providers to use the Starlink infrastructure via their own base stations, the more European approach you outlined.
The competitor to Starlink - the Amazon Kuiper constellation - is being launched at the moment.
Interestingly, some satellites are being launch by SpaceX. This is because Blue Origin (launch company owned by Bezos, *not* Amazon) was supposed to do all the launches.
But they were late (rocket is still in initial/acceptance testing and there are design changes ongoing) and Amazon responded by buying up all the spare launches on anything not Chinese or Russian to try and catch up.
Kuiper has a deadline for how many satellites need to be in orbit, to retain their frequency allocation. They will probably miss it, but have shown enough effort to get and extension, almost certainly.
I've just been catching up on the past thread. Congratulations to @HYUFD
I always assumed old mate was in his early 80s so a bit of a surprise. Like when we found out Morris Dancer isn't actually in his 70s I nearly fell off my fucking "Gamer" chair.
I missed this, what happened (congrats to HYUFD in any case!)
Expecting a happy event in November 👍
Kemi given the boot and Mel Stride elected leader on a wave of one nation enthusiasm?
In any case congrats HYUFD on the actual happy event.
Is Mel Stride still One Nation?
I think he's pivoted towards Jenrick / Philp. He was 2nd in the last Con Home poll, and they are hardly what is left of the One Nation wing.
Stride backed Remain in 2016 and Sunak in 2022 twice and Cleverly last year once he was knocked out, he is clearly on the more moderate wing of today's Conservative Party.
He is also an economic heavyweight, hence he is now the joint second most popular Shadow Cabinet Minister with party members after Jenrick
Thanks.
I note that Jenrick and Philp were also both remainers, but I'll not comment on all the machinations in the interim !
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
There is a philosophy thought-experiment which could be applied to your scenario:
Man A shoves a knife into a man's leg and severs an artery and the man dies Man B With equivalent force and intent shoves a knife into a man's leg and misses an artery and the man is just injured
Is there a difference in the two crimes?
Yes, because a crime has two elements; mens rea (guilty intent), and actus reus (guilty act). In the case of the former, the actus reus is worse than in the latter.
Palestine Action are without doubt, a terrorist organisation, serving the interests of powers that are hostile to this country.
Whether stupid people who support their terrorism should be prosecuted for expressing that support, is a separate issue, but that is the current state of the law.
That would be treason, not terrorism, and they should be prosecuted as such. The useful idiot defence would probably be quite effective though.
Under our laws its defined as terrorism.
Yes, that's what we are debating this morning. Well done you.
Yes, but you said they should be prosecuted for treason.
No, they should be prosecuted based on the law.
If you want to change the law there are procedures for that, but prosecutions should be based on the rule of law, not your imaginary hypothetical alternative laws that you'd prefer.
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
I've done Seattle to Cali and back.
A lot of Oregon isn't actually that well to do on the coast. Places like Coos Bay are a bit abandoned although I think they are trying to big up the tourism. There's some monster sand dunes and, well, it is still the Pacific, so parts are reasonably scenic.
In California - there's the Coast Redwoods (not the Giant Redwoods of the Sierras). You might be able to blag a visit to the world's tallest known tree if you ask the right people, but if not, Tall Tree Grove nearby is seriously impressive and has plenty of noom (have camped there).
On the subject of big trees, the Olympic peninsula is also great if you like rain, moss and ferns and it might cause you to reassess the Sitka spruce. Unfortunately Forks is now overrun with Twilight fans these days (maybe you are one?).
For politics, Portland was of course an 'interesting' experiment...
Interesting thanks. So I’m getting the impression there isn’t that much to see?
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
you would need to do the obvious , Golden Gate bridge, Alcatraz. Further up but a bit inland Yosemite , Lake Tahoe.
Trouble is I’ve done all those. Apart from Lake Tahoe
I’ve been to California a lot. I was hoping for something new and exciting north of Frisco but it sounds like there’s not that much
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
There is a philosophy thought-experiment which could be applied to your scenario:
Man A shoves a knife into a man's leg and severs an artery and the man dies Man B With equivalent force and intent shoves a knife into a man's leg and misses an artery and the man is just injured
Is there a difference in the two crimes?
There’s a difference on the outcome and that’s what matters to the law.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
I suspect the defence will be based on that used by the Colston protestors in Bristol i.e. they did it but it was justified.
I sense that they would have less chance of success. The Colston four had widespread public support. While many if not most people are appalled by what is unfolding in Gaza, I don't think what Palestine Action did is comparable to toppling a statue of a racist that nobody really seemed to want to be there.
I don't think you could get any jury to convict anyone for holding a cardboard sign. So I assume everyone will be charged with the section 13 offence of wearing, carrying, or displaying an article in a public place in a way that would lead a reasonable person to suspect that the individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation. That has a maximum penalty of 6 months in prison and would be dealt with in Magistrates Court.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
I suspect the defence will be based on that used by the Colston protestors in Bristol i.e. they did it but it was justified.
This defence was successfully used by the Shannon protestors in 2017 when they repainted a US 767 so hopefully it'll work here.
Palestine Action are without doubt, a terrorist organisation, serving the interests of powers that are hostile to this country.
Whether stupid people who support their terrorism should be prosecuted for expressing that support, is a separate issue, but that is the current state of the law.
That would be treason, not terrorism, and they should be prosecuted as such. The useful idiot defence would probably be quite effective though.
Under our laws its defined as terrorism.
Yes, that's what we are debating this morning. Well done you.
Yes, but you said they should be prosecuted for treason.
No, they should be prosecuted based on the law.
If you want to change the law there are procedures for that, but prosecutions should be based on the rule of law, not your imaginary hypothetical alternative laws that you'd prefer.
I agree and so does everyone else on PB.
You can't reconcile your thoughts on freedom of speech and your hatred of pro-Palestine protestors, so you've taken to fighting shadows instead.
Communism when Jeremy Corbyn's Labour proposed the same thing. In America, it's investment.
They’ve got a point, when there’s tens of billions from various State and Federal schemes aimed at rural broadband, yet very few people appear to have been actually connected, the money mostly disappearing in the supply chain of politically-connected companies. Starlink delivers rural broadband for a fraction of the cost and the infrastructure is already in place.
Now there’s an argument to have about one company having a monopoly on satellite broadband, but they’ve built the network entirely with private funds.
It seems odd to talk about "politically-connected companies" without also describing Starlink as politically-connected. Indeed, it is one of the most politically-connected companies around.
The difference being that Starlink has already funded privately their network and has a working product they’re trying to sell, whereas the rural broadband money appears to have mostly disappeared without actually providing any rural broadband.
Some time ago, many African countries were expected to eventually invest in wired phone systems. Cable plants were expecting a boom. Some even built/planned more plants in expectation. And then Africa discovered mobile phones. Same happened in the former UUSR states.
The rural broadband example shows what a basket case the US is. They are even more hampered by vested interests than Europe. A kleptocracy in all but name with other countries paying for it through US debt.
Yes, it’s symptomatic of a much wider malaise in US politics. The fallout out between Elon Musk and Donald Trump was because of the inability of the GOP Congress to codify all of the spending cuts Musk had indentified, putting back in all the pork-barrel spending the lobbyists wanted.
Musk was (rightly IMHO) a little miffed that he’d spent a lot of time and effort, and put his personal reputation on the line, because he ‘doesn’t understand how Washington works’. To which he’d counter that he knows exactly how Washington ‘works’, and that Trump had been elected on a platform of serious reform of that system.
Palestine Action are without doubt, a terrorist organisation, serving the interests of powers that are hostile to this country.
Whether stupid people who support their terrorism should be prosecuted for expressing that support, is a separate issue, but that is the current state of the law.
That would be treason, not terrorism, and they should be prosecuted as such. The useful idiot defence would probably be quite effective though.
Under our laws its defined as terrorism.
Yes, that's what we are debating this morning. Well done you.
Yes, but you said they should be prosecuted for treason.
No, they should be prosecuted based on the law.
If you want to change the law there are procedures for that, but prosecutions should be based on the rule of law, not your imaginary hypothetical alternative laws that you'd prefer.
I agree and so does everyone else on PB.
You can't reconcile your thoughts on freedom of speech and your hatred of pro-Palestine protestors, so you've taken to fighting shadows instead.
I can reconcile them, they're terrorists under the law, but the law is a bad law that should be repealed.
I would like to see the law repealed precisely because I support free speech, even for these idiots that I vehemently disagree with.
Sorry if I misunderstood your line "That would be treason, not terrorism, and they should be prosecuted as such" but that seemed to be a claim they shouldn't be charged with the law they have broken. The law should be different, but its not currently, so any charges have to go under our existing laws.
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
NW of SF you have Point Reyes, where the lighthouse featured in Carpenters "The Fog".
Fort Lewis is near Tacoma. You can see the Military Museum there. I was disappointed it was named after but not founded by the Lewis and Clark guy. Tacoma was also where a quite remarkable number of serial killers hail from. Bundy and Gary Ridgway. Charles Manson lived there. See this book.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
I suspect the defence will be based on that used by the Colston protestors in Bristol i.e. they did it but it was justified.
I sense that they would have less chance of success. The Colston four had widespread public support. While many if not most people are appalled by what is unfolding in Gaza, I don't think what Palestine Action did is comparable to toppling a statue of a racist that nobody really seemed to want to be there.
I don't think you could get any jury to convict anyone for holding a cardboard sign. So I assume everyone will be charged with the section 13 offence of wearing, carrying, or displaying an article in a public place in a way that would lead a reasonable person to suspect that the individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation. That has a maximum penalty of 6 months in prison and would be dealt with in Magistrates Court.
I thought we were talking about the actual terrorists, not the protesters who I hope will all get off.
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
NW of SF you have Point Reyes, where the lighthouse featured in Carpenters "The Fog".
Fort Lewis is near Tacoma. You can see the Military Museum there. I was disappointed it was named after but not founded by the Lewis and Clark guy. Tacoma was also where a quite remarkable number of serial killers hail from. I was advised the best way to go between San Diego and Vancouver is. To SF by road. Fly to Sea-Tac. To Vancouver by road. Best of both worlds.
I’ve been to Tacoma. Famous for the “Tacoma aroma” - and not in a good way. Also that bridge collapsing - incredible video - when the wind hit the critical frequency IIRC
However on the same trip I stayed with friends (a wedding) in an idyllic seaside cabin on Puget Sound where you could eat oysters gathered from the beach and shucked there and then, and as you say back with your half dozen you could watch sea otters playing on the islets
Communism when Jeremy Corbyn's Labour proposed the same thing. In America, it's investment.
They’ve got a point, when there’s tens of billions from various State and Federal schemes aimed at rural broadband, yet very few people appear to have been actually connected, the money mostly disappearing in the supply chain of politically-connected companies. Starlink delivers rural broadband for a fraction of the cost and the infrastructure is already in place.
Now there’s an argument to have about one company having a monopoly on satellite broadband, but they’ve built the network entirely with private funds.
It seems odd to talk about "politically-connected companies" without also describing Starlink as politically-connected. Indeed, it is one of the most politically-connected companies around.
The difference being that Starlink has already funded privately their network and has a working product they’re trying to sell, whereas the rural broadband money appears to have mostly disappeared without actually providing any rural broadband.
Yes but Elon Musk is not suggesting subsidies end, merely that they should flow to him instead.
On the wider point, a few years ago the then-boss of Verizon (the leading American phone company) told an EU committee that our rules requiring that comms companies share infrastructure) restrict investment compared to the American system where companies build their own monopolies (ironic since Verizon was born from the break up of Bell's monopoly).
It is a truth seldom acknowledged that capitalism advances not through competition but from de facto monopolies, which might at some point be broken up to further advance capitalism through competition.
I think Elon is pointing out that his company can achieve the same end goal (of getting rural America on high-speed internet) for a fraction of the cost of what they are currently spending without much success.
The other option would be to break the Starlink monopoly by allowing other providers to use the Starlink infrastructure via their own base stations, the more European approach you outlined.
The competitor to Starlink - the Amazon Kuiper constellation - is being launched at the moment.
Interestingly, some satellites are being launch by SpaceX. This is because Blue Origin (launch company owned by Bezos, *not* Amazon) was supposed to do all the launches.
But they were late (rocket is still in initial/acceptance testing and there are design changes ongoing) and Amazon responded by buying up all the spare launches on anything not Chinese or Russian to try and catch up.
Kuiper has a deadline for how many satellites need to be in orbit, to retain their frequency allocation. They will probably miss it, but have shown enough effort to get and extension, almost certainly.
Yes that could be competition when they get it up and running, but they’re half a decade behind Starlink at the moment.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
I suspect the defence will be based on that used by the Colston protestors in Bristol i.e. they did it but it was justified.
I sense that they would have less chance of success. The Colston four had widespread public support. While many if not most people are appalled by what is unfolding in Gaza, I don't think what Palestine Action did is comparable to toppling a statue of a racist that nobody really seemed to want to be there.
I don't think you could get any jury to convict anyone for holding a cardboard sign. So I assume everyone will be charged with the section 13 offence of wearing, carrying, or displaying an article in a public place in a way that would lead a reasonable person to suspect that the individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation. That has a maximum penalty of 6 months in prison and would be dealt with in Magistrates Court.
I thought we were talking about the actual terrorists, not the protesters who I hope will all get off.
I wonder how many might accept a caution, then whether that could cause problems for them down the line if they go for a job that needs a DBS?
The law is an ass. The law has been an ass for decades, its only now that a right-on cause is falling foul of it that many people are realising that.
Palestine Action are without doubt, a terrorist organisation, serving the interests of powers that are hostile to this country.
Whether stupid people who support their terrorism should be prosecuted for expressing that support, is a separate issue, but that is the current state of the law.
I think treason charges and fair warning that any trespassing on military bases or sites will result in shoot first ask questions later so they will end up dead if they take any physical action against the interests of nation or attempt to sabotage critical defence infrastructure.
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
A pedant notes that ignorance is frequently a defence, as crimes usually require a guilty mind - some sort of unlawful intention - as well as a guilty act. So a lack of intent to cause really serious bodily harm caused by actual ignorance of the possible effects of a particular action is a runnable defence in law to the charge of murder. Whether the defence is believed by the jury is of course a separate matter.
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
NW of SF you have Point Reyes, where the lighthouse featured in Carpenters "The Fog".
Ta
I literally know nothing about this coast. Eg Oregon. What do I see in Oregon?! I’ve always thought it sounds pleasant but in reality I have no idea
I presume you've done the wine country north of SF ?
No. Never! Is that a must? For some reason I’ve got the idea it’s a bit dull. Wine countries can be dull. And if you’re solo driving you can’t even do fun tastings
Have I got it all wrong? Advice welcome
We visited Sonoma back when we lived in the States. It was very nice but a bit sterile in the way that wealthy parts of the US tend to be. Some of this may be the Europan bias against anywhere that feels too recently constructed, equating new with fake, which is an unfair yardstick in the New World I guess.
Yes that’s kinda my expectation. A viticultural version of Palm Springs or Sanibel
But maybe I’m wrong. I should probablyask @rcs1000 or @StillWaters - seeing as they actually live there
Yes, recent knowledge is essential. M experience of it is a couple of decades or more back, and I've little doubt it will have changed massively. Some of the old Victorian era towns were great - but a lot of historic stuff has burned since, I think.
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
you would need to do the obvious , Golden Gate bridge, Alcatraz. Further up but a bit inland Yosemite , Lake Tahoe.
Trouble is I’ve done all those. Apart from Lake Tahoe
I’ve been to California a lot. I was hoping for something new and exciting north of Frisco but it sounds like there’s not that much
What's your favourite place that you haven't visited since the 1990s?
» show previous quotes I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.
You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.
In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.
I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.
PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.
Note my "FWIW".
I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited. FWIW.
No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.
A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.
He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.
It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
"It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat."
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
The trial is going to be interesting to watch. I’m going to guess that the defence will be that they didn’t realise emptying a can of spray paint into an aircraft’s engine would cause up to £10m of damage, that they thought it would all be cleaned off the next day rather than having to totally strip down and rebuild the engines.
Ignorance is no defence. "I had no idea shoving a knife into his leg might sever an artery and see him bleed out in minutes in front of me, guv."
I suspect the defence will be based on that used by the Colston protestors in Bristol i.e. they did it but it was justified.
I sense that they would have less chance of success. The Colston four had widespread public support. While many if not most people are appalled by what is unfolding in Gaza, I don't think what Palestine Action did is comparable to toppling a statue of a racist that nobody really seemed to want to be there.
I don't think you could get any jury to convict anyone for holding a cardboard sign. So I assume everyone will be charged with the section 13 offence of wearing, carrying, or displaying an article in a public place in a way that would lead a reasonable person to suspect that the individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation. That has a maximum penalty of 6 months in prison and would be dealt with in Magistrates Court.
I thought we were talking about the actual terrorists, not the protesters who I hope will all get off.
Oh, I got my wires confused. Teaches me to read the whole thread next time.
Comments
The IRA analogy is a good one by the way and I feel the same way about that as you, especially as I was around at the time of the bombings in the UK. The Guildford bombing was far too close to home. I was away at Uni at the time and had no idea if any friends were impacted. The only time I (and most other students) attended a political debate was on the topic of the IRA so we could express how we felt. But guess what nobody of either side was arrested for their views.
On the wider point, a few years ago the then-boss of Verizon (the leading American phone company) told an EU committee that our rules requiring that comms companies share infrastructure) restrict investment compared to the American system where companies build their own monopolies (ironic since Verizon was born from the break up of Bell's monopoly).
It is a truth seldom acknowledged that capitalism advances not through competition but from de facto monopolies, which might at some point be broken up to further advance capitalism through competition.
FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*
However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?
Plenty of people turn out every week to protest about Gaza. We’ve had them on Elvet Bridge in Durham. They manage to do so without professing support for a group that violently attacks people and police officers, putting one in hospital, or damages defence assets.
Consequently they don’t get arrested.
If this was ISIS. The IRA or National Action being supported by the usual suspects no one would care.
But it’s Palestine Action being supported by middle class retired Home Counties types.
And @HYUFD's wife sings in Ely Cathedral choir, which I think is wonderful
The rural broadband example shows what a basket case the US is. They are even more hampered by vested interests than Europe. A kleptocracy in all but name with other countries paying for it through US debt.
I have no beef with locking people up for doing criminal stuff, but I don't want people stopped from protesting (by making it also criminal).
It's certainly the effect of the law - and the Home Secretary's proscription of the group - that there is a prima facie case for their arrest.
What Davey was saying very clearly, and I agree with him, is that the Home Secretary simply hasn't made a convincing case for proscribing Palestine Action in this manner.
The law in question is an exceedingly blunt instrument, which effectively gives the HS the power to criminalise legitimate protest.
Quite which side of legitimate/illegitimate this particular case falls is very much a matter of debate. But that, surely is the point ?
People have been arrested for their speech. They were not arrested for sabotage or vandalism or violence. They were arrested for expressing an opinion.
Davey notes serious concerns with Palestine Action, but also feels that criminalising peaceful support for them is the wrong way to go and contrary to traditions around freedom of speech.
Take Covid - we had antivaxxers protesting in Warminster high street several times back in the pandemic, using highly dubious statistics for vaccine harm (the yellow card system). Now I totally disagreed with them, and indeed called them fucking idiots who didn't understand science or statistics, but I didn't believe that they didn't have the right to protest it. They were probably at risk of causing harm (someone persuaded not to get vaccinated then dying, for example.*)
*As happened to the elderly husband of the chief gobby old biddy, sadly, as he was a nice old boy. Covid took him - I don't know if he was vaccinated, but given her stance, I doubt it.
Ridiculous.
A placard saying I believe that the government has used anti terror laws incorrectly is entirely legal. Use that.
The Judean People's Front has been proscribed following their repeated engagement in terrorism, as defined by our laws passed by Tony Blair.
That means, under Tony Blair's laws, that supporting them is illegal.
There's nothing illegal about supporting the People's Front of Judea.
Which means that all of a sudden, the supporters of the People's Front of Judea seem to all be supporting the Judean People's Front and reacting in mock horror when they get arrested for breaking the law.
Like most of Tony Blair's laws I'd like to see this law repealed, however people who want to protest lawfully quite easily can do.
1) she should be bought back to this country
2) and prosecuted for the war crimes that she has stated, in multiple TV interviews she committed.
I have worked out the NHS can save a fortune in paper towels if it stopped pearl-clutching.
The scene: a scan. Radiographer – remove your shirt, lower your trousers and pants to below your knees, then lie down on this couch. Comfortable? Here's a paper towel you can hold over your gentleman's sausage that has been on display for the last five minutes. What's the bleeding point?
Presumably the point is that in the past, a patient complained of exposure, or a nurse complained of being flashed, and both got lots of lovely compo so now we have to pretend the students are giggling at something other than my misshapen parts.
Comcast’s and Verizon’s lobbyists would be furious though, as would all the Congressional recipients of their donations.
He is also an economic heavyweight, hence he is now the joint second most popular Shadow Cabinet Minister with party members after Jenrick
Those of a liberal persuasion might believe we've made enormous strides in the past 50 years around tolerance and eliminating racism - the truth is, we haven't and particularly among some young men, racism and homophobia remain as strong as ever and we know the role social media plays in this.
For those who defend "the right to offend", this is where I part company with you. This is pure intolerant hate speech which needs to be dealt with. The way is through education so how do we bring tolerance to the intolerant and the prejudiced?
Like all freedoms, freedom of speech isn't an absolute - you can't compromise other people's freedoms by exercising your own. Freedom of speech can't simply be limited or defined by legislation - it has to exist within the cultural and social mores of society. In fact, if it did, we wouldn't need legislation.
Didn't someone get arrested for supporting plasticene action on a placard with a picture of Wallace and Gromit?
I hope that was fake news for our police's sake..
However people have been arrested, on the whole, not for protesting the law (I heartily endorse their right to do that) but for expressing support for Palestine Action specifically, and many have done so knowing the consequences. They are not being arrested for expressing an opinion any more than Lucy Connolly is a political prisoner.
Would peaceful support for ISIS or National Action be acceptable. I’d say not.
I literally know nothing about this coast. Eg Oregon. What do I see in Oregon?! I’ve always thought it sounds pleasant but in reality I have no idea
Very few people indeed are arguing that committing serious criminal damage is a legitimate form of protest.
Davey certainly wasn't, and said so.
Civil rights in the USA would have been set back decades if people didn't break the law peacefully like they did and get arrested (or worse beaten up) to show the stupidity of the system.
If it gets violent then lock them up. if they cause obstruction then move them on or arrest if necessary, but if not leave them alone.
The law is a bad law that should be repealed, but they're not innocent. It was a conscious choice to break the law on purpose.
Funny how 'rule of law' supporters get all bent out of shape when the law is an ass about an issue they care about.
They can protest the govt has taken one step too far down an authoritarian route without doing it by supporting a proscribed terrorist group that has used violence in pursuit of its aims..
On the rethinking, much of it is recovering insights our culture has lost - and which we can relearn from other human culture (don't tell Nigel or Lee). It's a subject we are frightened of, partly enabled by our warehousing elderly and dying people in residential homes and hospitals, and having a process in place that lets us step back from the reality - that is unhealthy psychologically and papers over too many cracks.
Compare, for example, the "lay out the body in the front room and all the neighbours some to pay their respects and say goodbye" tradition that existed 100 years ago, or more recently in eg Roman Catholic Irish communities.
I was chatting to the wife of a friend who I mentioned who died 6 months before his retirement date, whose Celebration is tomorrow, and we were comparing the event to punctuation marks in his life and our lives. Is it a full stop, a semicolon, an ellipsis, or something else? As he was a musician, I was comparing it to a "pause" in our lives - we stop and mark the point, then move on and remember.
Personally (and admittedly being a little narcssistic-pompous), I've been viewing the bodies of dead relatives since 1991 (death of grandma 2). No one seems seems do so in my circles, and it's squeamish and silly. I had read a couple of books about the importance of attitudes to death to resist dehumanisation in a society which wants to make people into cogs in a machine, which I found persuasive, and this personal ritual is one way to fight back.
One provocative text is Jessica Mitford "The American Way of Death" (1963), which is about how even death has been commercialised, when it needs to be personalised.
Just musings.
The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.
Have I got it all wrong? Advice welcome
The ISPs have these stats already.
They're proscribed because of the Home Secretary and Parliament voting to proscribe them, but that action followed their terrorism as defined by statute, it did not precede it.
Supporters of Palestine Action are people, let us assume, who support the rights of Palestinians and who believe that overlooking the rule of law by Israel is one of the many injustices they have suffered. It is a bad move to overlook the rule of law in the UK in your zeal for the rule of law elsewhere.
Nope - attacking military equipment is not political theatre. We could be at war tomorrow. That equipment isn't available.
There are plenty of ways to oppose what Israel is doing in Gaza without supporting a group that attacks people and puts officers in hospital and damages military assets including those meant for Ukraine.
The other option would be to break the Starlink monopoly by allowing other providers to use the Starlink infrastructure via their own base stations, the more European approach you outlined.
I think you're missing the point somewhat. We're in a situation where people wearing t-shirts get arrested under the Terrorism Act, while people trying to set fire to migrant hotels are not. I can understand why people are making a bit of a fuss and I'm hardly the loudest free speech advocate on PB.
I think the pisstake with the "plasticine action" is the best course of action though. Humiliate the authorities.
Whether stupid people who support their terrorism should be prosecuted for expressing that support, is a separate issue, but that is the current state of the law.
IIRC yours was the original proposal, but the telcos preferred the other option so there were no bids for doing it the right way. The scheme as-is was basically written by the lobbyists, as most of Washington seems to work.
I’m really not missing the point. You’re just siding with them as you agree with them. It is the expression of support that is the issue. How it manifests is irrelevant.
People are arrested based on the law they break. This guy was sent down for what his T shirt said
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/oct/11/manchester-man-jailed-tshirt-police
Man A shoves a knife into a man's leg and severs an artery and the man dies
Man B With equivalent force and intent shoves a knife into a man's leg and misses an artery and the man is just injured
Is there a difference in the two crimes?
But maybe I’m wrong. I should probablyask @rcs1000 or @StillWaters - seeing as they actually live there
A lot of Oregon isn't actually that well to do on the coast. Places like Coos Bay are a bit abandoned although I think they are trying to big up the tourism. There's some monster sand dunes and, well, it is still the Pacific, so parts are reasonably scenic.
In California - there's the Coast Redwoods (not the Giant Redwoods of the Sierras). You might be able to blag a visit to the world's tallest known tree if you ask the right people, but if not, Tall Tree Grove nearby is seriously impressive and has plenty of noom (have camped there).
On the subject of big trees, the Olympic peninsula is also great if you like rain, moss and ferns and it might cause you to reassess the Sitka spruce. Unfortunately Forks is now overrun with Twilight fans these days (maybe you are one?).
For politics, Portland was of course an 'interesting' experiment...
Interestingly, some satellites are being launch by SpaceX. This is because Blue Origin (launch company owned by Bezos, *not* Amazon) was supposed to do all the launches.
But they were late (rocket is still in initial/acceptance testing and there are design changes ongoing) and Amazon responded by buying up all the spare launches on anything not Chinese or Russian to try and catch up.
Kuiper has a deadline for how many satellites need to be in orbit, to retain their frequency allocation. They will probably miss it, but have shown enough effort to get and extension, almost certainly.
I note that Jenrick and Philp were also both remainers, but I'll not comment on all the machinations in the interim !
No, they should be prosecuted based on the law.
If you want to change the law there are procedures for that, but prosecutions should be based on the rule of law, not your imaginary hypothetical alternative laws that you'd prefer.
I’ve been to California a lot. I was hoping for something new and exciting north of Frisco but it sounds like there’s not that much
You can't reconcile your thoughts on freedom of speech and your hatred of pro-Palestine protestors, so you've taken to fighting shadows instead.
Musk was (rightly IMHO) a little miffed that he’d spent a lot of time and effort, and put his personal reputation on the line, because he ‘doesn’t understand how Washington works’. To which he’d counter that he knows exactly how Washington ‘works’, and that Trump had been elected on a platform of serious reform of that system.
I would like to see the law repealed precisely because I support free speech, even for these idiots that I vehemently disagree with.
Sorry if I misunderstood your line "That would be treason, not terrorism, and they should be prosecuted as such" but that seemed to be a claim they shouldn't be charged with the law they have broken. The law should be different, but its not currently, so any charges have to go under our existing laws.
Tacoma was also where a quite remarkable number of serial killers hail from.
Bundy and Gary Ridgway.
Charles Manson lived there. See this book.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/08/why-was-pacific-northwest-home-to-so-many-serial-killers/#:~:text=Ted Bundy, whose crimes and,has seeped into the soil.
I was advised the best way to go between San Diego and Vancouver is. To SF by road. Fly to Sea-Tac. To Vancouver by road.
Best of both worlds.
However on the same trip I stayed with friends (a wedding) in an idyllic seaside cabin on Puget Sound where you could eat oysters gathered from the beach and shucked there and then, and as you say back with your half dozen you could watch sea otters playing on the islets
Sublime part of the world when the sun shines
The law is an ass. The law has been an ass for decades, its only now that a right-on cause is falling foul of it that many people are realising that.
@ElectionMapsUK
Westminster Voting Intention:
RFM: 30% (=)
LAB: 21% (-1)
CON: 20% (-2)
LDM: 13% (=)
GRN: 8% (+2)
SNP: 3% (+1)
Via @Moreincommon_, 15-18 Aug.
Changes w/ 8-11 Aug.
https://x.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1958075300694093830
Some of the old Victorian era towns were great - but a lot of historic stuff has burned since, I think.