There aren't many books open for the Scottish Parliament elections next year but there are some taking bets for which party gets the most seats in the 'runners up' battle
The best odds I could find were on the Conservatives at 25/1, and the Lib Dems 16/1 with both Ladbrokes and Hills (the LD bet with Hills was 50/1 last night)
Whilst unlikely, the latter is not as silly a bet as it sounds, the most recent poll had the LDs on 14% in the regional vote, 2% behind Lab/Reform in second place
Despite the recent defections, the Tories are still the second largest MSP grouping in Holyrood. It's not inconceivable they recover enough votes from Reform and the other parties to put them within reach of second place. If my memory is right, in 2011 there was a significant shift away from Lab towards the SNP in the later stages of the campaign. If Starmer's government doesn't get its act together, there's every chance Slab could remain on the slide.
Labour at 1/2 for runners up looks short to me, even considering a potential unwind in Reform polling.
Good post. From a base line (second placers) of 16,16,14,12 then second is within reach of any of them. Very unlikely for the Tories but not 25/1 unlikely Similarly the LDs probably have the highest constituency potential (in this ballpark of VI) and thus 16/1 is too long Another factor to consider in terms of seats is the number of contenders for the lists.if the SNP do a virtual sweep of constituencies then the 12 to 16 four will likely get st least one seat per list area with the vote order determining (after Greens etc maybe also get one) determining who picks up a second seat. If these parties are this close in any order going in to the election the longest shot in betting will be excellent value
Yep, exactly right. A few posters have picked up on the clustering of the parties between 14-16% of the vote. There's a long way to go in this race and a lot can happen. As much as I can't see the Tories taking 2nd place 3 elections in a row, it's not a 25/1 shot.
The nightmare scenario for Anas Sarwar is:
* Lab miss out on a slew of constituencies in central Scotland, coming runner up in almost every seat bar say Ed Southern, Dumbarton and East Lothian in a reverse of what they did to the SNP last year * They are squeezed hard on this list, with younger, liberal voters opting for the Greens (or SNP) in urban Scotland * In rural areas, Lib Dems come back onto the scene, taking a few list seats * Reform hoover up the working class vote and disaffected/regular non voters
It's not beyond reality for a party to gain the second highest number of votes but come third or fourth in seat count
It'll be interesting to see what constituency seats the Lib Dems target. Other than the ones they currently hold, Skye and Lochaber and Caithness are probables.
There aren't many books open for the Scottish Parliament elections next year but there are some taking bets for which party gets the most seats in the 'runners up' battle
The best odds I could find were on the Conservatives at 25/1, and the Lib Dems 16/1 with both Ladbrokes and Hills (the LD bet with Hills was 50/1 last night)
Whilst unlikely, the latter is not as silly a bet as it sounds, the most recent poll had the LDs on 14% in the regional vote, 2% behind Lab/Reform in second place
Despite the recent defections, the Tories are still the second largest MSP grouping in Holyrood. It's not inconceivable they recover enough votes from Reform and the other parties to put them within reach of second place. If my memory is right, in 2011 there was a significant shift away from Lab towards the SNP in the later stages of the campaign. If Starmer's government doesn't get its act together, there's every chance Slab could remain on the slide.
Labour at 1/2 for runners up looks short to me, even considering a potential unwind in Reform polling.
Good post. From a base line (second placers) of 16,16,14,12 then second is within reach of any of them. Very unlikely for the Tories but not 25/1 unlikely Similarly the LDs probably have the highest constituency potential (in this ballpark of VI) and thus 16/1 is too long Another factor to consider in terms of seats is the number of contenders for the lists.if the SNP do a virtual sweep of constituencies then the 12 to 16 four will likely get st least one seat per list area with the vote order determining (after Greens etc maybe also get one) determining who picks up a second seat. If these parties are this close in any order going in to the election the longest shot in betting will be excellent value
Yep, exactly right. A few posters have picked up on the clustering of the parties between 14-16% of the vote. There's a long way to go in this race and a lot can happen. As much as I can't see the Tories taking 2nd place 3 elections in a row, it's not a 25/1 shot.
The nightmare scenario for Anas Sarwar is:
* Lab miss out on a slew of constituencies in central Scotland, coming runner up in almost every seat bar say Ed Southern, Dumbarton and East Lothian in a reverse of what they did to the SNP last year * They are squeezed hard on this list, with younger, liberal voters opting for the Greens (or SNP) in urban Scotland * In rural areas, Lib Dems come back onto the scene, taking a few list seats * Reform hoover up the working class vote and disaffected/regular non voters
It's not beyond reality for a party to gain the second highest number of votes but come third or fourth in seat count
It'll be interesting to see what constituency seats the Lib Dems target. Other than the ones they currently hold, Skye and Lochaber and Caithness are probables.
This sort of thing is why I could never be a catholic.
I saw a set of documentaries about the catholic church in Ireland a few years back that put me off. They followed some priests on one of the remoter islands for a couple of years.
I think I saw that. Fathers Crilley, McGuire and Hackett ISTR.
[Father Sunil peeks out from his He-Man bedspread] What's that then, Ted?
"The Black Farmer: If you think rural Britain is racist, you’re wrong My experiences in Devon show the countryside is far more welcoming than the latest report on ‘normalised’ abuse would have you believe
IIRC if you look at the comparative surveys that ask questions like: “would you be happy with a family with a different skin colour moving in next door?” or “Would you react negatively to your daughter marrying someone of a different race?” the UK is one of the least racist countries in Europe, possibly on the planet.
Which doesn’t make us a pure, prefect land of colour blind plenty, but it is food for thought.
While that is true, it's not inevitable that the data moves one way, towards us being even less racist.
There are worrying signs that racism towards certain groups is becoming more 'respectable' again, fuelled by the current dehumanising attitudes towards asylum seekers and the call in some quarters for 'mass deportations'.
Yes, it’s quite possible that two decades of identity politics and multiculturalism, seeing race and gender in everything, has the potential to reverse the trend towards a less-racist country.
Yes, I agree - I'd argue the UK of 2005 or thereabouts was as unracist as its possible for a society to be. The identity politics we've had since then has got us to the rather less harmonioua state we are in now.
What absolute rubbish. The idea that 2005 was "as unracist as its possible for a society to be" is absolutely ludicrous.
Or from 2007: "Black people were almost seven times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched by police last year, according to official figures." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7069791.stm
Maybe the zenith was slightly earlier. I didn't say there was no racism. Just that I don't think you'll ever find a society doing much better.
A Spanish friend, with a Ghanaian wife, categorises the areas of Spain by those where they regularly face abuse.
Nothing in London, so far. I presume that’s a function of how common multi-racial couples are. If you shouted abuse at each, you’d lose your voice in about an hour.
A gasoline crisis has begun in Russia. There is no fuel at gas stations in a number of regions, including occupied Crimea and Transbaikal (East Siberia). In the Far East, there have been serious problems with fuel availability since August 20.
Ukraine’s “kinetic sanctions” on russia are definitely starting to work.
I was initially sceptical about the stories of long queues at petrol stations across russia, but it’s definitely happening.
Russian O&G production is 20% down competed to a couple of months ago, with refineries, storage, and pumping stations, specifically targeted.
They also managed to put two Flamingos either side of the Kerch Bridge last night, that’s now again on the target list.
Interestingly (but unsurprisingly once I think about it), the shortages tend to be in certain products in some cases. Hence complaints of there being diesel but no petrol, or of the 'wrong' octane of petrol.
Yeah - due to the way refineries and various types/grades of crude oil are matched to each other, that’s what you expect.
Crude oil is very far from a uniform material and refineries are built to process oil from particular sources into particular products.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
“We are looking at the potential use of military and non-military sites for temporary accommodation for the people who come across on these small boats that may not have a right to be here or need to be processed rapidly before we can decide whether or not they should say or whether or not we deport them, like we have done in record numbers over the last year.”
The Aussies knocked these things up for COVID in no time. They are all prefab. Stick them on a disused airfield etc. If they are good enough for hairy arse Australian miners, they are surely good enough for the boat people.
IIRC prefab accommodation was ruled out on Human Rights grounds, in the U.K.
Despite, as you say, some of it being quite high grade. There are companies who will deliver a setup to whatever spec you need - offices accommodation etc.
There aren't many books open for the Scottish Parliament elections next year but there are some taking bets for which party gets the most seats in the 'runners up' battle
The best odds I could find were on the Conservatives at 25/1, and the Lib Dems 16/1 with both Ladbrokes and Hills (the LD bet with Hills was 50/1 last night)
Whilst unlikely, the latter is not as silly a bet as it sounds, the most recent poll had the LDs on 14% in the regional vote, 2% behind Lab/Reform in second place
Despite the recent defections, the Tories are still the second largest MSP grouping in Holyrood. It's not inconceivable they recover enough votes from Reform and the other parties to put them within reach of second place. If my memory is right, in 2011 there was a significant shift away from Lab towards the SNP in the later stages of the campaign. If Starmer's government doesn't get its act together, there's every chance Slab could remain on the slide.
Labour at 1/2 for runners up looks short to me, even considering a potential unwind in Reform polling.
Good post. From a base line (second placers) of 16,16,14,12 then second is within reach of any of them. Very unlikely for the Tories but not 25/1 unlikely Similarly the LDs probably have the highest constituency potential (in this ballpark of VI) and thus 16/1 is too long Another factor to consider in terms of seats is the number of contenders for the lists.if the SNP do a virtual sweep of constituencies then the 12 to 16 four will likely get st least one seat per list area with the vote order determining (after Greens etc maybe also get one) determining who picks up a second seat. If these parties are this close in any order going in to the election the longest shot in betting will be excellent value
Yep, exactly right. A few posters have picked up on the clustering of the parties between 14-16% of the vote. There's a long way to go in this race and a lot can happen. As much as I can't see the Tories taking 2nd place 3 elections in a row, it's not a 25/1 shot.
The nightmare scenario for Anas Sarwar is:
* Lab miss out on a slew of constituencies in central Scotland, coming runner up in almost every seat bar say Ed Southern, Dumbarton and East Lothian in a reverse of what they did to the SNP last year * They are squeezed hard on this list, with younger, liberal voters opting for the Greens (or SNP) in urban Scotland * In rural areas, Lib Dems come back onto the scene, taking a few list seats * Reform hoover up the working class vote and disaffected/regular non voters
It's not beyond reality for a party to gain the second highest number of votes but come third or fourth in seat count
It'll be interesting to see what constituency seats the Lib Dems target. Other than the ones they currently hold, Skye and Lochaber and Caithness are probables.
No Reform candidates selected yet in any constiuency!
I think it might be a very unpredictable night despite first being done and dusted already!
Edit to add - also wonder if we see ConRef split ticketing - Con constituency (esp Borders) Ref list?
The longer things go on, you wonder if the Reform strategy is simply to hoover up on the list and forget constituencies? The paper candidate races they have been winning mean the spotlight is shone on one individual
I think that would be risky too as they are currently polling well but clearly don't have the ground game. The Tories will have more presence (south, north east especially) but may lack cash.
My "likes" ratio is in the toilet today. I have a plan!
Boris Johnson is without doubt the United Kingdom's greatest Prime Minister and should be returned to Downing Street this afternoon to sort out the mess everyone else has created.
I think I have a winning strategy.
I have you a like and a troll because that’s exactly what you deserve…
“We are looking at the potential use of military and non-military sites for temporary accommodation for the people who come across on these small boats that may not have a right to be here or need to be processed rapidly before we can decide whether or not they should say or whether or not we deport them, like we have done in record numbers over the last year.”
The Aussies knocked these things up for COVID in no time. They are all prefab. Stick them on a disused airfield etc. If they are good enough for hairy arse Australian miners, they are surely good enough for the boat people.
IIRC prefab accommodation was ruled out on Human Rights grounds, in the U.K.
Despite, as you say, some of it being quite high grade. There are companies who will deliver a setup to whatever spec you need - offices accommodation etc.
They need to get on with it. Call them temporary structures and exempt them from planning permission.
Labour talking about reforming the ECHR, or HRA etc... but to what end? I assume to enable easier deportation but to which country? It's time for them to bite the bullet and restart the Rwanda scheme for all boat arrivals, immediate self deportation to their home country or a safe third country like Rwanda. There should be a literal zero percent chance of remaining in the UK or being granted status for anyone coming through an illegal route.
If they manage to do this, which I assume they won't, then the boats will stop and Reform will begin to fade and over a three year period they will need to win back the trust of the public on the subject of immigration so that when it comes to election day it is down to fourth or fifth on the list of concerns for voters.
Talk big and fail to deliver like the Tories and their fate will be the same as the Tories, left as a rump of a party fighting for survival.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
Luckyguy evidently believes that preserving some sort of subservient relationship to the Trump administration is more important than Europe's future security.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
Although being one of the three most senior posts, history suggests that progressing from there to PM is extremely uncommon. When the PM role becomes vacant, it's the Chancellor and FS who are best placed to pitch for the top job.
Which is why I think Cooper comes out well from the recent shuffle in terms of her prospects. Although she may have under-performed particularly from a media/comms perspective, she has avoided any of the major scandals, disasters or blunders that killed the careers of so many previous Home Secs, and now she's FS she could pitch for a future leadership having done two out of the three most senior roles.
Given that Reeves is already tarnished and Mahmood is brand new (and inherits the poisoned chalice), Cooper is effectively heir apparent. Yes, there's Streeting hanging about in the wings, but people underestimate how unpopular he is with many party members, making the young Blair look like a hero of socialism by comparison.
At present the question is will she retain her seat as is the same with Streeting ?
She won by 48% to 29% - Streeting by 33% to 32%.
And I'd doubt that even Streeting is seriously at risk - the Gaza Independent who ran him close last time came across as an energetic and charismatic young social media campaigner, who got as much out of the 'independent' tag with non-Labour voters as she did from the 'Gaza' tag with muslim voters (who were only 15% in the seat in 2011 - surely higher now but nowhere near a majority). Next time he'll face an opponent from Corbyn's outfit, who might be able to hang on to the Gaza vote (assuming the issue remains salient through to 2028/9) but will lose support because of its hard left orientation.
Yes the Greens and Your Party may split the anti Streeting vote in Ilford North next time with the Independent and Streeting would try and get Tory and LD tactical votes to beat the hard left
The independent is Your Party
In which case even more reason for Streeting to target Tory tactical votes to beat him
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
Luckyguy evidently believes that preserving some sort of subservient relationship to the Trump administration is more important than Europe's future security.
I think that's deeply misguided.
Utter rubbish. I do not favour a subservient relationship to any US administration - though I am clued up enough to know that's what we have at present, and that changing the relationship to one that's more equal is a difficult and very long term project.
All I say, which I might have hoped would be an obvious point, is that we should act and speak in defiance of the USA over matters that are absolutely pivotal to the UK's security or other national interests. Who ends up with bigger bits of Ukraine isn't that, however much some choose to see it that way.
Vacuous. Mandelson proposes nothing concrete. So far UK-US tech cooperation has consisted of Britain paying American companies for hosting and services, even putting national security at risk, and there is no sign that will change. Oh, and we let them buy the world-leading Deep Mind AI outfit.
Why the hell would we want to become more dependent on US technology? More entangled with a country that at Trump's whim could "turn the lights off"? We need alternatives from countries we can trust.
Interestingly when it comes to defence procurement there are clear signs that we are looking more for non-US options.
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Weakening Putin via Ukraine is strengthening China.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Weakening Putin via Ukraine is strengthening China.
Why? Putin and Xi are close allies, witness Putin's attendance at Xi's military parade last week.
If Ukraine fell that would also encourage Xi to attack Taiwan
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Weakening Putin via Ukraine is strengthening China.
Why? Putin and Xi are close allies, witness Putin's attendance at Xi's military parade last week.
If Ukraine fell that would also encourage Xi to attack Taiwan
Because it makes Russia growingly dependent on China, bringing its resources under their control.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Weakening Putin via Ukraine is strengthening China.
Why? Putin and Xi are close allies, witness Putin's attendance at Xi's military parade last week.
If Ukraine fell that would also encourage Xi to attack Taiwan
Because it makes Russia growingly dependent on China, bringing its resources under their control.
Keeping Ukraine free from Russia therefore weakens China by keeping its resources out of their control.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Weakening Putin via Ukraine is strengthening China.
Why? Putin and Xi are close allies, witness Putin's attendance at Xi's military parade last week.
If Ukraine fell that would also encourage Xi to attack Taiwan
Because it makes Russia growingly dependent on China, bringing its resources under their control.
Whether Russia is independently malevolent, or a Chinese vassal, anything that weakens them is good news, from the POV of the West.
Interesting article. I hope you are doing well Cyclefree
Not sure if this is strictly true: "Tory Muslim Home Secretary 7 years ago". Javid is of Muslim heritage but has said he is non-practicing and is married to a Christian.
He was brought up a Muslim and does not practice now. He did say he was proud to be at the first "iftar" at the Home Office while he was Home Secretary.
I just find the rush to declare people unacceptable because of their religion to be utterly distasteful.
Anyway given the way large parts of the US right have cosied up to Putin who is a murderous fascist and clearly a danger to the West, I really could not give a toss about their views about our Home Secretary. What evidence do they have that she is a danger - other than pure prejudice?
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Weakening Putin via Ukraine is strengthening China.
Why? Putin and Xi are close allies, witness Putin's attendance at Xi's military parade last week.
If Ukraine fell that would also encourage Xi to attack Taiwan
Because it makes Russia growingly dependent on China, bringing its resources under their control.
Keeping Ukraine free from Russia therefore weakens China by keeping its resources out of their control.
You're screwed by your own logic here Putinguy.
Russia today is like Libya under Gadaffi (but more dangerous). It's not quite at war with the West, but constantly fomenting trouble.
My "likes" ratio is in the toilet today. I have a plan!
Boris Johnson is without doubt the United Kingdom's greatest Prime Minister and should be returned to Downing Street this afternoon to sort out the mess everyone else has created.
I think I have a winning strategy.
I have you a like and a troll because that’s exactly what you deserve…
It was a joke That's two trolls in one post. It didn't deserve a like or a troll so take your like back.
Anyway I thought private accounts were no longer allowed so you can troll me for dobbing you in on this post.
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
"The Black Farmer: If you think rural Britain is racist, you’re wrong My experiences in Devon show the countryside is far more welcoming than the latest report on ‘normalised’ abuse would have you believe
IIRC if you look at the comparative surveys that ask questions like: “would you be happy with a family with a different skin colour moving in next door?” or “Would you react negatively to your daughter marrying someone of a different race?” the UK is one of the least racist countries in Europe, possibly on the planet.
Which doesn’t make us a pure, prefect land of colour blind plenty, but it is food for thought.
While that is true, it's not inevitable that the data moves one way, towards us being even less racist.
There are worrying signs that racism towards certain groups is becoming more 'respectable' again, fuelled by the current dehumanising attitudes towards asylum seekers and the call in some quarters for 'mass deportations'.
Yes, it’s quite possible that two decades of identity politics and multiculturalism, seeing race and gender in everything, has the potential to reverse the trend towards a less-racist country.
Yes, I agree - I'd argue the UK of 2005 or thereabouts was as unracist as its possible for a society to be. The identity politics we've had since then has got us to the rather less harmonioua state we are in now.
What absolute rubbish. The idea that 2005 was "as unracist as its possible for a society to be" is absolutely ludicrous.
Or from 2007: "Black people were almost seven times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched by police last year, according to official figures." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7069791.stm
Maybe the zenith was slightly earlier. I didn't say there was no racism. Just that I don't think you'll ever find a society doing much better.
A Spanish friend, with a Ghanaian wife, categorises the areas of Spain by those where they regularly face abuse.
Nothing in London, so far. I presume that’s a function of how common multi-racial couples are. If you shouted abuse at each, you’d lose your voice in about an hour.
Yes, it's similar in Greece and Italy, much as I love them. London and some other British cities, rather than rural or small town Britain, is a different world for these things.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
Luckyguy evidently believes that preserving some sort of subservient relationship to the Trump administration is more important than Europe's future security.
I think that's deeply misguided.
Utter rubbish. I do not favour a subservient relationship to any US administration - though I am clued up enough to know that's what we have at present, and that changing the relationship to one that's more equal is a difficult and very long term project.
All I say, which I might have hoped would be an obvious point, is that we should act and speak in defiance of the USA over matters that are absolutely pivotal to the UK's security or other national interests. Who ends up with bigger bits of Ukraine isn't that, however much some choose to see it that way.
The blunt truth is that we have intertwined our national defence so closely with the US that we have to maintain a relationship with them no matter how much it sticks in the craw. As the junior partner, that relationship will be as subservient as the US administration wishes it to be.
We depend utterly on US co-operation for the functioning of our nuclear deterrent in the near future, our international intelligence gathering depends on them (we finally have a tiny constellation of surveillance satellites of our own at least) & much of our conventional forces depend on support from the US in some form or another: e.g. We have precisely one refuelling aircraft, so depend on US support for missions that require its presence elsewhere, or when it’s undergoing maintenance.
Preserving our relationship with the US is a matter of national security & we will therefore bend the knee & do whatever is required of us unless & until we can maintain a credible deterrent without US support. It sucks, but it is what it is. Anyone who doesn’t recognise this reality is being foolish imo.
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
"The Black Farmer: If you think rural Britain is racist, you’re wrong My experiences in Devon show the countryside is far more welcoming than the latest report on ‘normalised’ abuse would have you believe
IIRC if you look at the comparative surveys that ask questions like: “would you be happy with a family with a different skin colour moving in next door?” or “Would you react negatively to your daughter marrying someone of a different race?” the UK is one of the least racist countries in Europe, possibly on the planet.
Which doesn’t make us a pure, prefect land of colour blind plenty, but it is food for thought.
While that is true, it's not inevitable that the data moves one way, towards us being even less racist.
There are worrying signs that racism towards certain groups is becoming more 'respectable' again, fuelled by the current dehumanising attitudes towards asylum seekers and the call in some quarters for 'mass deportations'.
Yes, it’s quite possible that two decades of identity politics and multiculturalism, seeing race and gender in everything, has the potential to reverse the trend towards a less-racist country.
Yes, I agree - I'd argue the UK of 2005 or thereabouts was as unracist as its possible for a society to be. The identity politics we've had since then has got us to the rather less harmonioua state we are in now.
What absolute rubbish. The idea that 2005 was "as unracist as its possible for a society to be" is absolutely ludicrous.
Or from 2007: "Black people were almost seven times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched by police last year, according to official figures." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7069791.stm
Maybe the zenith was slightly earlier. I didn't say there was no racism. Just that I don't think you'll ever find a society doing much better.
A Spanish friend, with a Ghanaian wife, categorises the areas of Spain by those where they regularly face abuse.
Nothing in London, so far. I presume that’s a function of how common multi-racial couples are. If you shouted abuse at each, you’d lose your voice in about an hour.
Yes, it's similar in Greece and Italy, much as I love them. London and some other British cities, rather than rural or small town Britain, is a different world for these things.
Yes. I don’t want to paint the UK as some nirvana where racism is unknown - that would obviously be a complete falsehood - but we have plenty to be proud of regardless & we should be cherishing that & building on it positively.
A robust liberal democracy that lets people live their lives however they want to is something to be proud of. It’s also something that needs drumming into those people who come here by choice - if you take advantage of this liberalism to enforce control inside your own communities then you need to be firmly shown the error of your ways.
Muscular liberalism is the greatest achievement of British democracy & we can & should be proud of it.
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
You do know Roger is Jewish too?
So?
A Jewish anti-Semite would be an unusual likely oxymoron.
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
Luckyguy evidently believes that preserving some sort of subservient relationship to the Trump administration is more important than Europe's future security.
I think that's deeply misguided.
Utter rubbish. I do not favour a subservient relationship to any US administration - though I am clued up enough to know that's what we have at present, and that changing the relationship to one that's more equal is a difficult and very long term project.
All I say, which I might have hoped would be an obvious point, is that we should act and speak in defiance of the USA over matters that are absolutely pivotal to the UK's security or other national interests. Who ends up with bigger bits of Ukraine isn't that, however much some choose to see it that way.
In the past, you have repeatedly shilled a pro-Russian line on here. From MH17 to biolabs, you have regurgitated lines useful to Putin. Lines which are not only wrong to the point of being evil; but which also show you as being highly stupid. I don't think you are highly stupid, and therefore there has to be other reasons for your shilling.
In this case, Europe is facing an expansionist, imperialist and fascist Russia. I know we are no longer politically a part of Europe, but we are geographically. I have yet to see any explanation about why a Ukraine, or Baltics, or Poland, under Putin's thumb would be good for us.
Our security interests are opposing Russia. Our national interests are opposing Russia. In both cases, until such time as Russia deigns to not be imperialist and fascist.
As much as anything else, what Putin is doing in Russia is wrong. I don't want us to utterly ignore, or enable, what is wrong just because it is geographically convenient - for the moment, at least.
The big news here is the killing of Venezuelan narco-gangsters on the high seas. Vance has tweeted that he “doesn’t give a shit” about due process concerns.
Meanwhile, the Koreans don’t seem to be taking the ICE-raid on the Hyundai plant very well. Nor Chicagoans the threat from Trump to set the new Department of War on them (in the guise of federal troops and/or ICE).
It’s going to be interesting watching things escalate between Mamdani and Trump as the New York mayoral election gets closer (November 5).
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
You do know Roger is Jewish too?
So?
A Jewish anti-Semite would be an unusual likely oxymoron.
Self hating Jew is a term all too common on one section of social media.
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
You do know Roger is Jewish too?
So?
A Jewish anti-Semite would be an unusual likely oxymoron.
I have not accused him of that. Rather he regularly downplays anti-semitism and criticises those who express concern about it.
I simply do not understand what point he thought he was trying to make in response to my comment in the header about Shabana Mahmood's support for Palestine and her opposition to anti-semitism. Then he decided to drag Greville Janner in .....
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Weakening Putin via Ukraine is strengthening China.
Why? Putin and Xi are close allies, witness Putin's attendance at Xi's military parade last week.
If Ukraine fell that would also encourage Xi to attack Taiwan
Because it makes Russia growingly dependent on China, bringing its resources under their control.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
Luckyguy evidently believes that preserving some sort of subservient relationship to the Trump administration is more important than Europe's future security.
I think that's deeply misguided.
Utter rubbish. I do not favour a subservient relationship to any US administration - though I am clued up enough to know that's what we have at present, and that changing the relationship to one that's more equal is a difficult and very long term project.
All I say, which I might have hoped would be an obvious point, is that we should act and speak in defiance of the USA over matters that are absolutely pivotal to the UK's security or other national interests. Who ends up with bigger bits of Ukraine isn't that, however much some choose to see it that way.
The blunt truth is that we have intertwined our national defence so closely with the US that we have to maintain a relationship with them no matter how much it sticks in the craw. As the junior partner, that relationship will be as subservient as the US administration wishes it to be.
We depend utterly on US co-operation for the functioning of our nuclear deterrent in the near future, our international intelligence gathering depends on them (we finally have a tiny constellation of surveillance satellites of our own at least) & much of our conventional forces depend on support from the US in some form or another: e.g. We have precisely one refuelling aircraft, so depend on US support for missions that require its presence elsewhere, or when it’s undergoing maintenance.
Preserving our relationship with the US is a matter of national security & we will therefore bend the knee & do whatever is required of us unless & until we can maintain a credible deterrent without US support. It sucks, but it is what it is. Anyone who doesn’t recognise this reality is being foolish imo.
100% agree but the UK ought to be making proactive steps toward intelligence and defence independence. Even sotto voce.
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
You do know Roger is Jewish too?
So?
A Jewish anti-Semite would be an unusual likely oxymoron.
'Jewish' is an identity that people put on you according to the situation of your birth. I, technically, am Christian, but I don't practice, and am critical of both the CofE and Catholic churches. (I have also been known to praise them...)
As being Jewish is not a personal choice but a situation of birth, it is perfectly possible to be Jewish, but not agree, or be critical of, a Jewish position and Judaism. In the same way it is possible to be baptised and dislike the Catholic church or CofE.
I have no idea if Roger attends Synagogue, or sees himself as an observant Jew.
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
You do know Roger is Jewish too?
So?
A Jewish anti-Semite would be an unusual likely oxymoron.
Jewish anti-Semites have been documented through the ages.
And I don’t mean the anti-Zionist types. I’m talking about full on fans for pogroms in Russia etc.
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
You do know Roger is Jewish too?
So?
A Jewish anti-Semite would be an unusual likely oxymoron.
Jewish anti-Semites have been documented through the ages.
And I don’t mean the anti-Zionist types. I’m talking about full on fans for pogroms in Russia etc.
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
You do know Roger is Jewish too?
So?
A Jewish anti-Semite would be an unusual likely oxymoron.
Jewish anti-Semites have been documented through the ages.
And I don’t mean the anti-Zionist types. I’m talking about full on fans for pogroms in Russia etc.
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
You do know Roger is Jewish too?
So?
A Jewish anti-Semite would be an unusual likely oxymoron.
Jewish anti-Semites have been documented through the ages.
And I don’t mean the anti-Zionist types. I’m talking about full on fans for pogroms in Russia etc.
This time last week I was driving through Co. Tyrone.
You could always tell on whose turf you were ; Union flags with the occasional Israeli chucked in, Palestinian flags mixed with RoI flags.
It was a bit like driving through South Birmingham.
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Also, does she own property elsewhere, for example France or Belgium. The second home supplement still applies if primary residence is abroad, as indeed does the foreign owner supplement.
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
You do know Roger is Jewish too?
So?
A Jewish anti-Semite would be an unusual likely oxymoron.
I have not accused him of that. Rather he regularly downplays anti-semitism and criticises those who express concern about it.
I simply do not understand what point he thought he was trying to make in response to my comment in the header about Shabana Mahmood's support for Palestine and her opposition to anti-semitism. Then he decided to drag Greville Janner in .....
I wouldn't dream of downplaying anti-Semitism. I wouldn't dream of downplaying Hamas evil. However I am very uncomfortable with Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben Gvir's activities in Gaza which are justified on a number of occasions by representatives of the Board of Deputies.
Roger got flagged for his post on a day when PB has more flags than an M42 bridge parapet.
As for Greville Janner, the guilty (of which there are many organisations) would probably over and above any other include the Labour Party.
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
Wonder if the Daily Telegraph is crawling all over those? Sauce for the goose, etc.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Weakening Putin via Ukraine is strengthening China.
Why? Putin and Xi are close allies, witness Putin's attendance at Xi's military parade last week.
If Ukraine fell that would also encourage Xi to attack Taiwan
In 2022 Ukraine defeated the Russian armed forces. It then through a long slog has more or less defeated the legacy Soviet armed forces. It is utterly unrealistic to think they can now defeat the Chinese. And I say Chinese given the money and materiel support they are providing, and even troops via its puppet proxy in North Korea.
So while what you say might not be untrue, what is your plan? To throw what probably numbers thousands of Ukrainian lives a month in a never-ending grind against a much larger enemy? But it would not be never ending would it, because eventually as the smaller country, Ukraine would have exhausted itself, and what then?
The original plan of routing the Russian army was taken off the table in autumn 2022, when they were allowed to retreat from Kherson. And we now know why. According to Bob Woodwood, the CIA increased the risk of “imminent nuclear exchange” to 50%, based upon “exquisite intelligence”. Which explains why successive US administrations and Europe at large has gulped at giving Ukraine the means to go full throttle. It’s easy to sit here and call world leaders fearty and come out with glib platitudes that Putin is just bluffing. But none of us have seen the “exquisite intelligence” nor know its source.
So it seems to me the only viable plan is something very far short of total victory for Ukraine but one that ensures national survival. The first steps to this outcome were taken last month but it will be very hard to get done, because Putin is a patient man who thinks he will live forever and is slowly winning. The maximalist defence arrangement from the West that Ukraine requires, also more or less rules out further westwards conquest for him. A very tight Meereenese Knot to untie indeed.
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
He won’t be releasing his tax returns before the next general election and I expect the Maga UK crowd will be just fine with that !
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
He won’t be releasing his tax returns before the next general election and I expect the Maga UK crowd will be just fine with that !
Personally I find the release of tax returns a bit unseemly. An unfortunate import from America.
However, Farage is extremely well-off for someone who has spent his life in “public service”.
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
I hope she was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar.
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
You do know Roger is Jewish too?
So?
A Jewish anti-Semite would be an unusual likely oxymoron.
However, antisemitic behaviour from groups who claim to represent Jewish people is not unknown, and they do sometimes comprise Jewish people themselves.
We had examples in the Corbyn-leadership period of Labour politics.
This depends on conflations or non-conflations of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish, but we have an officially recognised definition of antusemitism *.
Which makes the whining of certain pols about a similar move for islamophobia a bit baffling, if we are in a rational world (we are not !).
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Weakening Putin via Ukraine is strengthening China.
Why? Putin and Xi are close allies, witness Putin's attendance at Xi's military parade last week.
If Ukraine fell that would also encourage Xi to attack Taiwan
In 2022 Ukraine defeated the Russian armed forces. It then through a long slog has more or less defeated the legacy Soviet armed forces. It is utterly unrealistic to think they can now defeat the Chinese. And I say Chinese given the money and materiel support they are providing, and even troops via its puppet proxy in North Korea.
So while what you say might not be untrue, what is your plan? To throw what probably numbers thousands of Ukrainian lives a month in a never-ending grind against a much larger enemy? But it would not be never ending would it, because eventually as the smaller country, Ukraine would have exhausted itself, and what then?
The original plan of routing the Russian army was taken off the table in autumn 2022, when they were allowed to retreat from Kherson. And we now know why. According to Bob Woodwood, the CIA increased the risk of “imminent nuclear exchange” to 50%, based upon “exquisite intelligence”. Which explains why successive US administrations and Europe at large has gulped at giving Ukraine the means to go full throttle. It’s easy to sit here and call world leaders fearty and come out with glib platitudes that Putin is just bluffing. But none of us have seen the “exquisite intelligence” nor know its source.
So it seems to me the only viable plan is something very far short of total victory for Ukraine but one that ensures national survival. The first steps to this outcome were taken last month but it will be very hard to get done, because Putin is a patient man who thinks he will live forever and is slowly winning. The maximalist defence arrangement from the West that Ukraine requires, also more or less rules out further westwards conquest for him. A very tight Meereenese Knot to untie indeed.
You are expecting the Chinese to deploy to Ukraine?
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
Luckyguy evidently believes that preserving some sort of subservient relationship to the Trump administration is more important than Europe's future security.
I think that's deeply misguided.
Utter rubbish. I do not favour a subservient relationship to any US administration - though I am clued up enough to know that's what we have at present, and that changing the relationship to one that's more equal is a difficult and very long term project.
All I say, which I might have hoped would be an obvious point, is that we should act and speak in defiance of the USA over matters that are absolutely pivotal to the UK's security or other national interests. Who ends up with bigger bits of Ukraine isn't that, however much some choose to see it that way.
The blunt truth is that we have intertwined our national defence so closely with the US that we have to maintain a relationship with them no matter how much it sticks in the craw. As the junior partner, that relationship will be as subservient as the US administration wishes it to be.
We depend utterly on US co-operation for the functioning of our nuclear deterrent in the near future, our international intelligence gathering depends on them (we finally have a tiny constellation of surveillance satellites of our own at least) & much of our conventional forces depend on support from the US in some form or another: e.g. We have precisely one refuelling aircraft, so depend on US support for missions that require its presence elsewhere, or when it’s undergoing maintenance.
Preserving our relationship with the US is a matter of national security & we will therefore bend the knee & do whatever is required of us unless & until we can maintain a credible deterrent without US support. It sucks, but it is what it is. Anyone who doesn’t recognise this reality is being foolish imo.
100% agree but the UK ought to be making proactive steps toward intelligence and defence independence. Even sotto voce.
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
Wonder if the Daily Telegraph is crawling all over those? Sauce for the goose, etc.
I'll just tip Chris Mason off. I'm sure he'll be on the case.
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
He won’t be releasing his tax returns before the next general election and I expect the Maga UK crowd will be just fine with that !
Personally I find the release of tax returns a bit unseemly. An unfortunate import from America.
However, Farage is extremely well-off for someone who has spent his life in “public service”.
You must have missed when he became a missionary . He doesn’t like to talk about that as he’s a bit shy . And then of course dear Nige worked in the local soup kitchen when he came back to the UK . Bless him ! I think the greater mystery is how he’s managed to cultivate this “ man of the people “ tripe .
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
Luckyguy evidently believes that preserving some sort of subservient relationship to the Trump administration is more important than Europe's future security.
I think that's deeply misguided.
Utter rubbish. I do not favour a subservient relationship to any US administration - though I am clued up enough to know that's what we have at present, and that changing the relationship to one that's more equal is a difficult and very long term project.
All I say, which I might have hoped would be an obvious point, is that we should act and speak in defiance of the USA over matters that are absolutely pivotal to the UK's security or other national interests. Who ends up with bigger bits of Ukraine isn't that, however much some choose to see it that way.
The blunt truth is that we have intertwined our national defence so closely with the US that we have to maintain a relationship with them no matter how much it sticks in the craw. As the junior partner, that relationship will be as subservient as the US administration wishes it to be.
We depend utterly on US co-operation for the functioning of our nuclear deterrent in the near future, our international intelligence gathering depends on them (we finally have a tiny constellation of surveillance satellites of our own at least) & much of our conventional forces depend on support from the US in some form or another: e.g. We have precisely one refuelling aircraft, so depend on US support for missions that require its presence elsewhere, or when it’s undergoing maintenance.
Preserving our relationship with the US is a matter of national security & we will therefore bend the knee & do whatever is required of us unless & until we can maintain a credible deterrent without US support. It sucks, but it is what it is. Anyone who doesn’t recognise this reality is being foolish imo.
I am the one who is recognising that reality - though it is one that I feel should and can change.
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
Probably why he didn’t call for Rayner to be sacked because of her tax affairs, and doesn’t do so for anyone else. The difference is he’s not going to be sacked if it turns out he has ducked & dived
Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
You do know Roger is Jewish too?
So?
A Jewish anti-Semite would be an unusual likely oxymoron.
However, antisemitic behaviour from groups who claim to represent Jewish people is not unknown, and they do sometimes comprise Jewish people themselves.
We had examples in the Corbyn-leadership period of Labour politics.
In the light of Bibi's behaviour in Gaza I am disturbed that Roger has been cancelled for his opinion. Although the Greville Janner comment was a little left field.
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
He won’t be releasing his tax returns before the next general election and I expect the Maga UK crowd will be just fine with that !
It’s such a simple thing behind an anonymous account to libel that a national political figure who has never held power, is a traitor. The strange thing is that the same is so rarely said about the leaders we have actually endured so far this century. Continuous self inflicted damage to weaken our economy, armed forces and societal cohesion. Such comprehensive damage that it’s hard to conceive how you might have done a better job if you were trying.
You quickly see how silly this game becomes. If intel had good evidence that Farage was a Russian agent, don’t you think by now they might have acted against him?
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Weakening Putin via Ukraine is strengthening China.
Why? Putin and Xi are close allies, witness Putin's attendance at Xi's military parade last week.
If Ukraine fell that would also encourage Xi to attack Taiwan
Because it makes Russia growingly dependent on China, bringing its resources under their control.
Yes, China is, to paraphrase Sir Humphrey, providing every assistance to Russia short of actual help. Buying oil at huge discounts might ease the Kremlin's cash flow but not its wealth. More cynically, China might have adopted the suspected Bidenesque position of allowing Russia to bleed out. To go full conspiracist, China might have its eyes on Siberia, much of which used to be Chinese anyway. Siberia provides oil and mineral wealth that Taiwan, for all its symbolic value, does not.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
Luckyguy evidently believes that preserving some sort of subservient relationship to the Trump administration is more important than Europe's future security.
I think that's deeply misguided.
Utter rubbish. I do not favour a subservient relationship to any US administration - though I am clued up enough to know that's what we have at present, and that changing the relationship to one that's more equal is a difficult and very long term project.
All I say, which I might have hoped would be an obvious point, is that we should act and speak in defiance of the USA over matters that are absolutely pivotal to the UK's security or other national interests. Who ends up with bigger bits of Ukraine isn't that, however much some choose to see it that way.
The blunt truth is that we have intertwined our national defence so closely with the US that we have to maintain a relationship with them no matter how much it sticks in the craw. As the junior partner, that relationship will be as subservient as the US administration wishes it to be.
We depend utterly on US co-operation for the functioning of our nuclear deterrent in the near future, our international intelligence gathering depends on them (we finally have a tiny constellation of surveillance satellites of our own at least) & much of our conventional forces depend on support from the US in some form or another: e.g. We have precisely one refuelling aircraft, so depend on US support for missions that require its presence elsewhere, or when it’s undergoing maintenance.
Preserving our relationship with the US is a matter of national security & we will therefore bend the knee & do whatever is required of us unless & until we can maintain a credible deterrent without US support. It sucks, but it is what it is. Anyone who doesn’t recognise this reality is being foolish imo.
I am the one who is recognising that reality - though it is one that I feel should and can change.
Was aiming to provide more context rather than a counter-argument to your position there LuckyGuy.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Weakening Putin via Ukraine is strengthening China.
Why? Putin and Xi are close allies, witness Putin's attendance at Xi's military parade last week.
If Ukraine fell that would also encourage Xi to attack Taiwan
In 2022 Ukraine defeated the Russian armed forces. It then through a long slog has more or less defeated the legacy Soviet armed forces. It is utterly unrealistic to think they can now defeat the Chinese. And I say Chinese given the money and materiel support they are providing, and even troops via its puppet proxy in North Korea.
So while what you say might not be untrue, what is your plan? To throw what probably numbers thousands of Ukrainian lives a month in a never-ending grind against a much larger enemy? But it would not be never ending would it, because eventually as the smaller country, Ukraine would have exhausted itself, and what then?
The original plan of routing the Russian army was taken off the table in autumn 2022, when they were allowed to retreat from Kherson. And we now know why. According to Bob Woodwood, the CIA increased the risk of “imminent nuclear exchange” to 50%, based upon “exquisite intelligence”. Which explains why successive US administrations and Europe at large has gulped at giving Ukraine the means to go full throttle. It’s easy to sit here and call world leaders fearty and come out with glib platitudes that Putin is just bluffing. But none of us have seen the “exquisite intelligence” nor know its source.
So it seems to me the only viable plan is something very far short of total victory for Ukraine but one that ensures national survival. The first steps to this outcome were taken last month but it will be very hard to get done, because Putin is a patient man who thinks he will live forever and is slowly winning. The maximalist defence arrangement from the West that Ukraine requires, also more or less rules out further westwards conquest for him. A very tight Meereenese Knot to untie indeed.
You are expecting the Chinese to deploy to Ukraine?
It’s rather pointless engaging with you, because you lack basic reading comprehension, yet alone foresight or original thought. Re-read what I wrote again if you are struggling. No I do not think the Chinese will deploy to Ukraine.
Again, could anyone who managed to catch the Reform conference confirm whether Reform’s putative Home Affairs policy is to “set fire to the fucking hotels full of the bastards”?
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
He won’t be releasing his tax returns before the next general election and I expect the Maga UK crowd will be just fine with that !
Personally I find the release of tax returns a bit unseemly. An unfortunate import from America.
However, Farage is extremely well-off for someone who has spent his life in “public service”.
IIRC Farage got his start commodities trading. His transition to “public service” came much later.
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
Probably why he didn’t call for Rayner to be sacked because of her tax affairs, and doesn’t do so for anyone else. The difference is he’s not going to be sacked if it turns out he has ducked & dived
Surely when he becomes a Minister he will be measured on exactly the same metrics as Rayner. If he breaks the Ministerial code for irregularities on the flat purchase (I am sure he hasn't- sniggle) we would all demand his resignation. N'est pas?
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
He won’t be releasing his tax returns before the next general election and I expect the Maga UK crowd will be just fine with that !
It’s such a simple thing behind an anonymous account to libel that a national political figure who has never held power, is a traitor. The strange thing is that the same is so rarely said about the leaders we have actually endured so far this century. Continuous self inflicted damage to weaken our economy, armed forces and societal cohesion. Such comprehensive damage that it’s hard to conceive how you might have done a better job if you were trying.
You quickly see how silly this game becomes. If intel had good evidence that Farage was a Russian agent, don’t you think by now they might have acted against him?
Many asked the same question in the U.S. It seems to be a form of myopic self-harm characteristic of the “process state”.
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
He won’t be releasing his tax returns before the next general election and I expect the Maga UK crowd will be just fine with that !
It’s such a simple thing behind an anonymous account to libel that a national political figure who has never held power, is a traitor. The strange thing is that the same is so rarely said about the leaders we have actually endured so far this century. Continuous self inflicted damage to weaken our economy, armed forces and societal cohesion. Such comprehensive damage that it’s hard to conceive how you might have done a better job if you were trying.
You quickly see how silly this game becomes. If intel had good evidence that Farage was a Russian agent, don’t you think by now they might have acted against him?
You think leaders have never been called traitors? Where is this land of civilised genteel discourse in which you’ve been living for the last X years?
On the intel point, they seemed pretty shit at identifying what Savile was up to as he cosied up to royals and PMs.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Weakening Putin via Ukraine is strengthening China.
Why? Putin and Xi are close allies, witness Putin's attendance at Xi's military parade last week.
If Ukraine fell that would also encourage Xi to attack Taiwan
In 2022 Ukraine defeated the Russian armed forces. It then through a long slog has more or less defeated the legacy Soviet armed forces. It is utterly unrealistic to think they can now defeat the Chinese. And I say Chinese given the money and materiel support they are providing, and even troops via its puppet proxy in North Korea.
So while what you say might not be untrue, what is your plan? To throw what probably numbers thousands of Ukrainian lives a month in a never-ending grind against a much larger enemy? But it would not be never ending would it, because eventually as the smaller country, Ukraine would have exhausted itself, and what then?
The original plan of routing the Russian army was taken off the table in autumn 2022, when they were allowed to retreat from Kherson. And we now know why. According to Bob Woodwood, the CIA increased the risk of “imminent nuclear exchange” to 50%, based upon “exquisite intelligence”. Which explains why successive US administrations and Europe at large has gulped at giving Ukraine the means to go full throttle. It’s easy to sit here and call world leaders fearty and come out with glib platitudes that Putin is just bluffing. But none of us have seen the “exquisite intelligence” nor know its source.
So it seems to me the only viable plan is something very far short of total victory for Ukraine but one that ensures national survival. The first steps to this outcome were taken last month but it will be very hard to get done, because Putin is a patient man who thinks he will live forever and is slowly winning. The maximalist defence arrangement from the West that Ukraine requires, also more or less rules out further westwards conquest for him. A very tight Meereenese Knot to untie indeed.
You are expecting the Chinese to deploy to Ukraine?
It’s rather pointless engaging with you, because you lack basic reading comprehension, yet alone foresight or original thought. Re-read what I wrote again if you are struggling. No I do not think the Chinese will deploy to Ukraine.
I did read it, thanks. "It is utterly unrealistic to think they can now defeat the Chinese. And I say Chinese given the money and materiel support they are providing, and even troops via its puppet proxy in North Korea."
Ukraine evidently *can* defeat that, as they've been doing it for many months now. Therefore I took your post to mean that China was going to go further. Which Xi will be *very* hesitant to do; and as might Kim in NK.
You might want to wonder what China's (actually, Xi's) preferred end-game in all of this is.
Sadly I was not able to catch much of the Reform conference footage.
Was it established whether it is official policy that vaccines gave the King and Princess of Wales cancer?
I don’t know much at all about cellular mechanisms and mRNA so find it very hard to have an opinion beyond what we are told is the accepted view, which seems to be that the vaccines saved a lot of lives in the older age groups but should certainly not have been pushed out universally to children and younger adults.
But I have found it notable that more than one practicing doctor has wondered allowed to me at social events over the last couple of years whether there is a link to the mRNA vaccine tech and cancer.
Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.
Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Like I said.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace
Such is politics
COVID?
Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?
I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.
I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.
Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.
I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?
I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.
Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.
I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction
I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.
What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.
The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.
The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.
I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.
I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.
It isn't that it's interests are not aligned with ours, or even that I think containing Russian ambitions with strong buffer states is a bad idea. It's that its importance within the array of security threats we face has been exploded out of all proportion because of its cause celebre status. Ever more virile statements of support for Ukraine against Russia have always earned our politicians lovely pats on the head. Opposing the ambitions of India, China, Turkey, or the Gulf States earns little but a baffled uncomprehending silence. And autonomy from the US only exists as a concept because of how much people hate Trump, and will be forgotten as soon as he leaves office.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
China is sucking up to Putin as is Turkey and Modi and the Saudis and UAE are hardly very anti him either, so containing Putin in Ukraine is also interlinked with containing them and especially containing China and North Korea
Weakening Putin via Ukraine is strengthening China.
Why? Putin and Xi are close allies, witness Putin's attendance at Xi's military parade last week.
If Ukraine fell that would also encourage Xi to attack Taiwan
Because it makes Russia growingly dependent on China, bringing its resources under their control.
Yes, China is, to paraphrase Sir Humphrey, providing every assistance to Russia short of actual help. Buying oil at huge discounts might ease the Kremlin's cash flow but not its wealth. More cynically, China might have adopted the suspected Bidenesque position of allowing Russia to bleed out. To go full conspiracist, China might have its eyes on Siberia, much of which used to be Chinese anyway. Siberia provides oil and mineral wealth that Taiwan, for all its symbolic value, does not.
Quite. And impossible though it sounds impossible in today's world, the best thing for me would be to pull Russia back into stronger relationships with the EU and Japan, than have it basically join the Chinese bloc. The dragging on of the Ukraine conflict accelerates that.
I support both Ukraine joining the EU, and in the long term, some sort of associate status for Russia, with the EU benefitting from Russia's resources and space capabilities, and Russia being influenced to adopt a more civilised and democratic mien (I don't find the EU particularly democratic but it's all relative).
The only thing I wouldn’t support would be British membership.
Where did Farage’s girlfriend, Laure Ferrari, get enough money to buy an £850k flat outright?
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
He won’t be releasing his tax returns before the next general election and I expect the Maga UK crowd will be just fine with that !
It’s such a simple thing behind an anonymous account to libel that a national political figure who has never held power, is a traitor. The strange thing is that the same is so rarely said about the leaders we have actually endured so far this century. Continuous self inflicted damage to weaken our economy, armed forces and societal cohesion. Such comprehensive damage that it’s hard to conceive how you might have done a better job if you were trying.
You quickly see how silly this game becomes. If intel had good evidence that Farage was a Russian agent, don’t you think by now they might have acted against him?
I think you responded to the wrong post ! But yes in other posts I have called Farage a traitor because he wanted the US to inflict economic harm on the UK . And he’s a Putin stooge so that’s another tick in the traitor box . We’ve had admittedly some poor PMs in the past , bad decisions, poor economic management etc doesn’t make you a traitor. I loathed Bozo but would never call him a traitor .
Comments
Edit to add - also wonder if we see ConRef split ticketing - Con constituency (esp Borders) Ref list?
Nothing in London, so far. I presume that’s a function of how common multi-racial couples are. If you shouted abuse at each, you’d lose your voice in about an hour.
Crude oil is very far from a uniform material and refineries are built to process oil from particular sources into particular products.
Despite, as you say, some of it being quite high grade. There are companies who will deliver a setup to whatever spec you need - offices accommodation etc.
I think that would be risky too as they are currently polling well but clearly don't have the ground game. The Tories will have more presence (south, north east especially) but may lack cash.
25/1 for Tories to come second looks a decent bet
If they manage to do this, which I assume they won't, then the boats will stop and Reform will begin to fade and over a three year period they will need to win back the trust of the public on the subject of immigration so that when it comes to election day it is down to fourth or fifth on the list of concerns for voters.
Talk big and fail to deliver like the Tories and their fate will be the same as the Tories, left as a rump of a party fighting for survival.
I think that's deeply misguided.
About so many aspects of public life, including defence, we're just not at the races.
All I say, which I might have hoped would be an obvious point, is that we should act and speak in defiance of the USA over matters that are absolutely pivotal to the UK's security or other national interests. Who ends up with bigger bits of Ukraine isn't that, however much some choose to see it that way.
Interestingly when it comes to defence procurement there are clear signs that we are looking more for non-US options.
There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.
The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.
Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.
If Ukraine fell that would also encourage Xi to attack Taiwan
You're screwed by your own logic here Putinguy.
I just find the rush to declare people unacceptable because of their religion to be utterly distasteful.
Anyway given the way large parts of the US right have cosied up to Putin who is a murderous fascist and clearly a danger to the West, I really could not give a toss about their views about our Home Secretary. What evidence do they have that she is a danger - other than pure prejudice?
Anyway I thought private accounts were no longer allowed so you can troll me for dobbing you in on this post.
We depend utterly on US co-operation for the functioning of our nuclear deterrent in the near future, our international intelligence gathering depends on them (we finally have a tiny constellation of surveillance satellites of our own at least) & much of our conventional forces depend on support from the US in some form or another: e.g. We have precisely one refuelling aircraft, so depend on US support for missions that require its presence elsewhere, or when it’s undergoing maintenance.
Preserving our relationship with the US is a matter of national security & we will therefore bend the knee & do whatever is required of us unless & until we can maintain a credible deterrent without US support. It sucks, but it is what it is. Anyone who doesn’t recognise this reality is being foolish imo.
A robust liberal democracy that lets people live their lives however they want to is something to be proud of. It’s also something that needs drumming into those people who come here by choice - if you take advantage of this liberalism to enforce control inside your own communities then you need to be firmly shown the error of your ways.
Muscular liberalism is the greatest achievement of British democracy & we can & should be proud of it.
In this case, Europe is facing an expansionist, imperialist and fascist Russia. I know we are no longer politically a part of Europe, but we are geographically. I have yet to see any explanation about why a Ukraine, or Baltics, or Poland, under Putin's thumb would be good for us.
Our security interests are opposing Russia. Our national interests are opposing Russia. In both cases, until such time as Russia deigns to not be imperialist and fascist.
As much as anything else, what Putin is doing in Russia is wrong. I don't want us to utterly ignore, or enable, what is wrong just because it is geographically convenient - for the moment, at least.
The big news here is the killing of Venezuelan narco-gangsters on the high seas. Vance has tweeted that he “doesn’t give a shit” about due process concerns.
Meanwhile, the Koreans don’t seem to be taking the ICE-raid on the Hyundai plant very well. Nor Chicagoans the threat from Trump to set the new Department of War on them (in the guise of federal troops and/or ICE).
It’s going to be interesting watching things escalate between Mamdani and Trump as the New York mayoral election gets closer (November 5).
I simply do not understand what point he thought he was trying to make in response to my comment in the header about Shabana Mahmood's support for Palestine and her opposition to anti-semitism. Then he decided to drag Greville Janner in .....
https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/russia-and-china-agree-major-new-gas-pipeline-at-beijing-talks/
Weirdly the alert sounded in our shop payment terminal as well as my phone.
Hopefully that’s happening.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/live/czd3zl51978t#LiveReporting
As being Jewish is not a personal choice but a situation of birth, it is perfectly possible to be Jewish, but not agree, or be critical of, a Jewish position and Judaism. In the same way it is possible to be baptised and dislike the Catholic church or CofE.
I have no idea if Roger attends Synagogue, or sees himself as an observant Jew.
Laws were changed after that infamous Aussie ODI.
And I don’t mean the anti-Zionist types. I’m talking about full on fans for pogroms in Russia etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_collaboration_with_Nazi_Germany
You could still bowl the equivalent of an under-armer by bowling the Sam Curran moonball with even less pace.
Then: 200 phones go off
When Farage met her she was a waitress, and she has spent such career as she’s had in the not-overly-remunerative world of think tanks, such as the Eurosceptic IDDE, where she diverted £400k of EU grant to UKIP in 2017.
Farage’s finances are extremely irregular.
You could always tell on whose turf you were ; Union flags with the occasional Israeli chucked in, Palestinian flags mixed with RoI flags.
It was a bit like driving through South Birmingham.
Roger got flagged for his post on a day when PB has more flags than an M42 bridge parapet.
As for Greville Janner, the guilty (of which there are many organisations) would probably over and above any other include the Labour Party.
I’ll just leave that there.
So while what you say might not be untrue, what is your plan? To throw what probably numbers thousands of Ukrainian lives a month in a never-ending grind against a much larger enemy? But it would not be never ending would it, because eventually as the smaller country, Ukraine would have exhausted itself, and what then?
The original plan of routing the Russian army was taken off the table in autumn 2022, when they were allowed to retreat from Kherson. And we now know why. According to Bob Woodwood, the CIA increased the risk of “imminent nuclear exchange” to 50%, based upon “exquisite intelligence”. Which explains why successive US administrations and Europe at large has gulped at giving Ukraine the means to go full throttle. It’s easy to sit here and call world leaders fearty and come out with glib platitudes that Putin is just bluffing. But none of us have seen the “exquisite intelligence” nor know its source.
So it seems to me the only viable plan is something very far short of total victory for Ukraine but one that ensures national survival. The first steps to this outcome were taken last month but it will be very hard to get done, because Putin is a patient man who thinks he will live forever and is slowly winning. The maximalist defence arrangement from the West that Ukraine requires, also more or less rules out further westwards conquest for him. A very tight Meereenese Knot to untie indeed.
However, Farage is extremely well-off for someone who has spent his life in “public service”.
We had examples in the Corbyn-leadership period of Labour politics.
This depends on conflations or non-conflations of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish, but we have an officially recognised definition of antusemitism *.
Which makes the whining of certain pols about a similar move for islamophobia a bit baffling, if we are in a rational world (we are not !).
Similarly, someone with MoD noticed that it had become affordable to launch our own surveillance satellites a few years ago & made it happen.
So progress is being made behind the scenes by the looks of things.
Was it established whether it is official policy that vaccines gave the King and Princess of Wales cancer?
You quickly see how silly this game becomes. If intel had good evidence that Farage was a Russian agent, don’t you think by now they might have acted against him?
I’m just curious.
It seems to be a form of myopic self-harm characteristic of the “process state”.
Where is this land of civilised genteel discourse in which you’ve been living for the last X years?
On the intel point, they seemed pretty shit at identifying what Savile was up to as he cosied up to royals and PMs.
Ukraine evidently *can* defeat that, as they've been doing it for many months now. Therefore I took your post to mean that China was going to go further. Which Xi will be *very* hesitant to do; and as might Kim in NK.
You might want to wonder what China's (actually, Xi's) preferred end-game in all of this is.
But I have found it notable that more than one practicing doctor has wondered allowed to me at social events over the last couple of years whether there is a link to the mRNA vaccine tech and cancer.
I support both Ukraine joining the EU, and in the long term, some sort of associate status for Russia, with the EU benefitting from Russia's resources and space capabilities, and Russia being influenced to adopt a more civilised and democratic mien (I don't find the EU particularly democratic but it's all relative).
The only thing I wouldn’t support would be British membership.