In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
That's actually not a bad rule of thumb. It'll go wrong just very occasionally but not too often.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
Well, the advice to the very-online right would be to STFU about lanyards then. Even if they specify civil-service-rainbow-lanyards-in-an-out-of-office-environment they just come across as a bunch of obsessive homophobes. The woke-right.
Maybe go on something like taxes, the economy, defence?
A good way to test someone's politics is to ask them to name someone they think is a centrist commentator.
If anyone disagrees with "Ian Dunt" as an answer, they are clearly divorced from reality.
The funny thing is my guess is you probably actually believe that. A man who describes himself on bluesky as a liberal extremist.
He's a man who repeatedly describes himself as a centrist. Have you read/listened to anything he's written/said?
He wrote a book called "How to be a liberal". Not "How to be a centrist".
Can one be a liberal centrist?
Political labels are often useful shorthand, but they have their limitations.
Most liberals are centrists but there are also some very right wing ones. The right wing ones that have gone off the rails are neoconservatives.
A further thought. I don't think you can be a liberal without accepting the concept of social contract, where you constrain certain behaviours in order to establish your natural rights. Which implies a necessary compromise. Compromise is surely the centrist position? On that basis Right Wing liberals are probably actually libertarians.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
If an insult needs glossing like that, it's a bad insult. Especially if you are an electoral politician and it causes people who might give you half the time of day to think that you hate them on general principles.
Yep. It is the PB fintech-bros equivalent of "Basket of deplorables".
Its not a good idea to insult your potential voters. As @NickPalmer has mentioned in the past most voters choose a party by vibe rather than by spreadsheet of policies.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
Lol, I genuinely think you need help. You're so liberal to the point that when the nice Islamic terrorist decides to behead you that you'll be pleased that you weren't "islamophobic".
Don't forget (but I think I'm right in saying) he doesn't believe the disproportionate attention devoted globally to the Israel Palestine conflict has anything to do with antisemitism.
Me? No, I think that part of the reason for the disproportionate attention devoted globally to the Israel/Palestine conflict is indeed antisemitism.
Well I may be wrong but I seem to remember when you wrote a long 'explanation' for it you didn't actually mention antisemitism, something pretty central to the world's two biggest religions.
So, I offer you a choice between my direct statement above, or your vague memory of some past conversation. Feel free to pick which one you would rather go with.
I'll trust my memory thanks. And the real test is whether you would have mentioned antisemitism unprompted. I suspect not.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
If an insult needs glossing like that, it's a bad insult. Especially if you are an electoral politician and it causes people who might give you half the time of day to think that you hate them on general principles.
"Oh, we don't mean you people who wear lanyards! We mean the bad people who wear them"
Some things can be generally understood even if they are somewhat difficult to precisely define, and that difficulty doesn't mean it doesn't exist - what is art, to take a very cliche example - and I think we can get a sense of what is meant by the lanyard classes, a certain attitude is presumed to go along with it, not literally the wearing of a lanyard.
But it is still not useful in this case, given it is easily undermined by a tongue in cheek literalism about who might use a lanyard.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
If an insult needs glossing like that, it's a bad insult. Especially if you are an electoral politician and it causes people who might give you half the time of day to think that you hate them on general principles.
Yep. It is the PB fintech-bros equivalent of "Basket of deplorables".
Its not a good idea to insult your potential voters. As NickPalmer has mentioned in the past most voters choose a party by vibe rather than by spreadsheet of policies.
Careful, you'll alienate the fintech-bros demographic!
No. It’s not. I despise Khan. I think he’s useless and incompetent and a horrible mayor.
But he’s not vicious or disgusting, words which speak to him as a person rather than his performance as an elected official
He is incredibly bland.
Central casting for the role of “London Mayor” with one line in the movie.
Hating him is like hating a stack of printer paper.
Well, I must admit, I find it difficult to think of anything (positive or negative) to say about Khan because he is (as you say) incredibly bland.
I mean, what's he done? I can think of no big projects, no significant improvements to infrastucture that he can lay claim too. On the other hand, London has definitely improved since the post-Covid lows: in the last six months, the area around my apartment in Covent Garden has been cleaned up enornmously (which I appreciate it). But then again, it was under his watch in the previous five years that it got a lot worse.
Not everything is his fault, of course. A lot of the problems with endemic petty crime are because of the cuts to the criminal justice system during the coalition years that we're all paying for.
I'd rate him a 4/10. But I don't think the words "horrible", "vicious" or "disgusting" are in any way appropriate for what is -at heart- nothing more than unbridled mediocrity.
Have forgotten the time Sadiq Khan forced out Cressida Dick?
If I were editing PB that night I would have used the headline 'Sadiq Khan gets Dick out!'
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
What message are people who wear rainbow lanyards trying to signify? People who have taken to using the phrase 'lanyard wearing class' never seem to actually say it.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
l
If an insult needs glossing like that, it's a bad insult. Especially if you are an electoral politician and it causes people who might give you half the time of day to think that you hate them on general principles.
"Oh, we don't mean you people who wear lanyards! We mean the bad people who wear them"
Some things can be generally understood even if they are somewhat difficult to precisely define, and that difficulty doesn't mean it doesn't exist - what is art, to take a very cliche example - and I think we can get a sense of what is meant by the lanyard classes, a certain attitude is presumed to go along with it, not literally the wearing of a lanyard.
But it is still not useful in this case, given it is easily undermined by a tongue in cheek literalism about who might use a lanyard.
Agreed, but there are a couple of catches.
One is that there is an art to the insult, and 'lanyard-wearing class' doesn't have sufficient art. There is too much collateral damage.
The other is that if you say 'people wearing rainbow lanyards are the source of our problems', you can't help sounding like a snowflake.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
That's actually not a bad rule of thumb. It'll go wrong just very occasionally but not too often.
John Bolton is the only counterexample I can think of.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
l
If an insult needs glossing like that, it's a bad insult. Especially if you are an electoral politician and it causes people who might give you half the time of day to think that you hate them on general principles.
"Oh, we don't mean you people who wear lanyards! We mean the bad people who wear them"
Some things can be generally understood even if they are somewhat difficult to precisely define, and that difficulty doesn't mean it doesn't exist - what is art, to take a very cliche example - and I think we can get a sense of what is meant by the lanyard classes, a certain attitude is presumed to go along with it, not literally the wearing of a lanyard.
But it is still not useful in this case, given it is easily undermined by a tongue in cheek literalism about who might use a lanyard.
Agreed, but there are a couple of catches.
One is that there is an art to the insult, and 'lanyard-wearing class' doesn't have sufficient art. There is too much collateral damage.
The other is that if you say 'people wearing rainbow lanyards are the source of our problems', you can't help sounding like a snowflake.
Like all the most stupid insults it is far more revealing about the people making it than about the intended targets.
No. It’s not. I despise Khan. I think he’s useless and incompetent and a horrible mayor.
But he’s not vicious or disgusting, words which speak to him as a person rather than his performance as an elected official
If you "despise" Sadiq Khan what word would you reach for to sum up your feelings about Donald Trump?
I’m flying to the US next week so I might plead the 5th.
(“Despise” may be a little strong but he’s redolent of a political class that is self interested, careerist and ineffective. We deserve better leaders. Unfortunately the voters don’t like people who tell them the truth.)
Khan took a brave stance on clean air - the ULEZ extension was unpopular and he faced concerted opposition but he did it because he thought it was the right thing and it has worked - the air in London now meets international health standards. I can't think of another recent UK politician who has taken that kind of brave, non-populist stance. Call him what you want, but he is neither ineffective nor some kind of shallow careerist.
The recent air quality improvements in London are more to do with the euro 6 engine, and, thats about it. Its the cleanest for hundreds of years and most of that improvement happened decades ago.
You don't think that a measure designed to incentivise the take up of cleaner engines might have played a role at all? The earlier ULEZ extension led me to sell my Euro 5 diesel and buy a Euro 6 diesel. The air quality improvement in London was significantly greater than outside London. Of course ULEZ was important. I find it staggering that people can't credit Khan for his success here.
Some people absolutely hate the idea of a government regulation actually working and having a positive impact. We're already seeing it with renewables - that the transition and all the good that is coming out of that would have happened anyway without meddling woke green-types. We also see it with road safety - claims that the number of fatalities would have fallen anyway without speed limits, EU regulations etc etc
It's not something to be overly worried about tbh - it's a sign that the argument has been won. ULEZ is a good example of a regulation that was announced early (Johnson, 2015), giving time for people to adjust, and a politician putting up with extreme levels of vitriol and criminality to cement the change in place (Khan, 2020). Good work from everyone.
Even Private Eye is being extremely positive about ULEZ.
Here is an image host of a graph of the various air pollutants in london over time: https://ibb.co/pr34v718
No source given. And suspiciously recent.
The joys of AI it can hunt out the information. But you need to have a bit of background on this kind of stuff to make sure it isnt hallucinating, and this trend tends to fit an older piece of data I have.
Air pollution in London, like many kinds of pollution has been quietly falling for years. This is a combination of ratcheting standards, and modern technology.
Lots of steps on the way, and it’s an ongoing process.
For example, the Boris Buses were about reducing pollution from buses, to meet increasing standards - some of the old buses were practically rolling coal.
Another was encouraging minicab drivers to switch from old bangers to Priuses - largely through enforcement on checks for MOT/Insurance/etc.
The minicab clean-up started with Ken imposing an age limit of six years.
No. It’s not. I despise Khan. I think he’s useless and incompetent and a horrible mayor.
But he’s not vicious or disgusting, words which speak to him as a person rather than his performance as an elected official
He is incredibly bland.
Central casting for the role of “London Mayor” with one line in the movie.
Hating him is like hating a stack of printer paper.
Well, I must admit, I find it difficult to think of anything (positive or negative) to say about Khan because he is (as you say) incredibly bland.
I mean, what's he done? I can think of no big projects, no significant improvements to infrastucture that he can lay claim too. On the other hand, London has definitely improved since the post-Covid lows: in the last six months, the area around my apartment in Covent Garden has been cleaned up enornmously (which I appreciate it). But then again, it was under his watch in the previous five years that it got a lot worse.
Not everything is his fault, of course. A lot of the problems with endemic petty crime are because of the cuts to the criminal justice system during the coalition years that we're all paying for.
I'd rate him a 4/10. But I don't think the words "horrible", "vicious" or "disgusting" are in any way appropriate for what is -at heart- nothing more than unbridled mediocrity.
Have forgotten the time Sadiq Khan forced out Cressida Dick?
If I were editing PB that night I would have used the headline 'Sadiq Khan gets Dick out!'
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
Well, the advice to the very-online right would be to STFU about lanyards then. Even if they specify civil-service-rainbow-lanyards-in-an-out-of-office-environment they just come across as a bunch of obsessive homophobes. The woke-right.
Maybe go on something like taxes, the economy, defence?
We are specifically advised to remove lanyards on leaving the office in case someone who doesn't like the company decides to twat us.
Anyone wearing a lanyard on the train, or worse still in the pub, looks like a bit of a knob.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
Well, the advice to the very-online right would be to STFU about lanyards then. Even if they specify civil-service-rainbow-lanyards-in-an-out-of-office-environment they just come across as a bunch of obsessive homophobes. The woke-right.
Maybe go on something like taxes, the economy, defence?
We are specifically advised to remove lanyards on leaving the office in case someone who doesn't like the company decides to twat us.
Anyone wearing a lanyard on the train, or worse still in the pub, looks like a bit of a knob.
Our security guys collar us if it isn't safely tucked away when we leave. Not wearing one in the office is even worse than forgetting to Windows+L.
He doesn't blink - just stares at you from across his office and makes alarming short, sudden movements. I think he would use the heel of his hand to crush your windpipe.
No. It’s not. I despise Khan. I think he’s useless and incompetent and a horrible mayor.
But he’s not vicious or disgusting, words which speak to him as a person rather than his performance as an elected official
He is incredibly bland.
Central casting for the role of “London Mayor” with one line in the movie.
Hating him is like hating a stack of printer paper.
Well, I must admit, I find it difficult to think of anything (positive or negative) to say about Khan because he is (as you say) incredibly bland.
I mean, what's he done? I can think of no big projects, no significant improvements to infrastucture that he can lay claim too. On the other hand, London has definitely improved since the post-Covid lows: in the last six months, the area around my apartment in Covent Garden has been cleaned up enornmously (which I appreciate it). But then again, it was under his watch in the previous five years that it got a lot worse.
Not everything is his fault, of course. A lot of the problems with endemic petty crime are because of the cuts to the criminal justice system during the coalition years that we're all paying for.
I'd rate him a 4/10. But I don't think the words "horrible", "vicious" or "disgusting" are in any way appropriate for what is -at heart- nothing more than unbridled mediocrity.
Have forgotten the time Sadiq Khan forced out Cressida Dick?
If I were editing PB that night I would have used the headline 'Sadiq Khan gets Dick out!'
Is anyone who's ever criticised Trump on social media going to be banned from visiting the US?
That’s most of the world . Not sure how they’d have the resources to trawl through every social media post but regardless why would anyone risk a whole lot of drama to visit the US . There are many other countries to visit that aren’t turning into North Korea .
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
If an insult needs glossing like that, it's a bad insult. Especially if you are an electoral politician and it causes people who might give you half the time of day to think that you hate them on general principles.
Yep. It is the PB fintech-bros equivalent of "Basket of deplorables".
Its not a good idea to insult your potential voters. As @NickPalmer has mentioned in the past most voters choose a party by vibe rather than by spreadsheet of policies.
One rather hopes that sort of stupid vibe-based approach to elections is on the wane. It's a very early 2000s indulgent way of deciding who to vote for.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
Well, the advice to the very-online right would be to STFU about lanyards then. Even if they specify civil-service-rainbow-lanyards-in-an-out-of-office-environment they just come across as a bunch of obsessive homophobes. The woke-right.
Maybe go on something like taxes, the economy, defence?
We are specifically advised to remove lanyards on leaving the office in case someone who doesn't like the company decides to twat us.
Anyone wearing a lanyard on the train, or worse still in the pub, looks like a bit of a knob.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
If an insult needs glossing like that, it's a bad insult. Especially if you are an electoral politician and it causes people who might give you half the time of day to think that you hate them on general principles.
Yep. It is the PB fintech-bros equivalent of "Basket of deplorables".
Its not a good idea to insult your potential voters. As @NickPalmer has mentioned in the past most voters choose a party by vibe rather than by spreadsheet of policies.
One rather hopes that sort of stupid vibe-based approach to elections is on the wane. It's a very early 2000s indulgent way of deciding who to vote for.
I think it is more prevalent than ever, people are just as keen to excuse something they'd condemn in the other side if the 'right' person does it, or it upsets the 'right' people.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
If an insult needs glossing like that, it's a bad insult. Especially if you are an electoral politician and it causes people who might give you half the time of day to think that you hate them on general principles.
Yep. It is the PB fintech-bros equivalent of "Basket of deplorables".
Its not a good idea to insult your potential voters. As @NickPalmer has mentioned in the past most voters choose a party by vibe rather than by spreadsheet of policies.
One rather hopes that sort of stupid vibe-based approach to elections is on the wane. It's a very early 2000s indulgent way of deciding who to vote for.
No, it was and always has been the way.
Its why the old coalfields will vote for Farage despite him being a Thatcher fan who will strip away what little support that they get from the state because he likes a pint and hates the darkies and Jews.
The House on Wednesday advanced the National Defense Authorization Act for the next fiscal year, sending the massive defense policy bill to the Senate for final passage.
Both Democrats and Republicans voted overwhelmingly to approve the measure, which sets out the nation’s defense policy agenda and authorizes nearly $900 billion in funding for military programs, including a 3.8% pay raise for service members. [...]
The bill includes a provision that increases pressure on the Pentagon to provide Congress with videos of its strikes against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean. [...]
The specific provision would withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget unless the Pentagon complies with various oversight requirements, including providing the House and Senate Armed Services committees “video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility of the United States Southern Command.”
I don't know whether this sort of provision is a petty embarrassment or a stroke of genius!
I swear to goodness PB will hate any given group on command. How did this start? Was there a meeting where it went "What's the most unlikely group we can get people to hate?" "What about people who work in offices where you have to swipe in?" "Yep, let's get after them". I mean is there a switch in your backs or something? 1-Nice, 2-Grumpy, 3-Hang The Bastards?
Wear your lanyard when WFH to fool people on Teams calls into thinking you've gone in to the office.
In my old job, when two days in the office was required (but never actually effectively enforced) I did consider taking pic of my office and using it as the Zoom background. Never quite had the balls
In other news the DE is still flying the flag for Brexit .
With a headline that is hilarious as most think it’s a turd that should have been flushed away .
The DE proclaims .
“They Cannot Be Trusted With Brexit “.
I guess they know their readers... all three of them. Bearing in mind the DE won't even accept the weak self regulation tegime, m not even sure they qualify as a newspaper.
PB cooking update: crushed new potatoes with garlic anchovy butter and tuna
Family rating: 9/10
Then my first ever attempt at chocolate souffle, using a Swiss meringue base. Sadly I over whipped the base, which I will learn from.
Still everyone said it was delicious and all was eaten.
Personal rating: 6/10
Firstly I have to say Garlic anchovy butter, on its own, sounds amazing.
Secondly I’m the same. Ive had many disasters in the kitchen but I have learnt from them and been determined to master the meal, or at least make a good fist of it.
About that additional information required for entry to the US. Here's the details if you are one of the 14mn using the ESTA Mobile application and the 22 minutes of your life you will never get back.
No. It’s not. I despise Khan. I think he’s useless and incompetent and a horrible mayor.
But he’s not vicious or disgusting, words which speak to him as a person rather than his performance as an elected official
He is incredibly bland.
Central casting for the role of “London Mayor” with one line in the movie.
Hating him is like hating a stack of printer paper.
Well, I must admit, I find it difficult to think of anything (positive or negative) to say about Khan because he is (as you say) incredibly bland.
I mean, what's he done? I can think of no big projects, no significant improvements to infrastucture that he can lay claim too. On the other hand, London has definitely improved since the post-Covid lows: in the last six months, the area around my apartment in Covent Garden has been cleaned up enornmously (which I appreciate it). But then again, it was under his watch in the previous five years that it got a lot worse.
Not everything is his fault, of course. A lot of the problems with endemic petty crime are because of the cuts to the criminal justice system during the coalition years that we're all paying for.
I'd rate him a 4/10. But I don't think the words "horrible", "vicious" or "disgusting" are in any way appropriate for what is -at heart- nothing more than unbridled mediocrity.
Have forgotten the time Sadiq Khan forced out Cressida Dick?
If I were editing PB that night I would have used the headline 'Sadiq Khan gets Dick out!'
‘ Maritime risk company Vanguard Tech has identified the oil tanker as Skipper.
"The vessel is reported to be part of the dark fleet, and was sanctioned by the United States for carrying Venezuelan oil exports," it says.’
Shipping insurance -particularly for VLCCs- is about to get a whole lot more expensive, which will impact the price of oil everywhere.
I am really struggling to see any legal basis for this act. It is indeed piracy on the High Seas and yet another example of how lawless the US has become under this President. The rules based system that the US spent so many decades trying to develop is simply falling apart. They do this because they can. Simple as that. The only difference with Russia in Ukraine is one of scale (so far).
‘ Maritime risk company Vanguard Tech has identified the oil tanker as Skipper.
"The vessel is reported to be part of the dark fleet, and was sanctioned by the United States for carrying Venezuelan oil exports," it says.’
Shipping insurance -particularly for VLCCs- is about to get a whole lot more expensive, which will impact the price of oil everywhere.
I am really struggling to see any legal basis for this act. It is indeed piracy on the High Seas and yet another example of how lawless the US has become under this President. The rules based system that the US spent so many decades trying to develop is simply falling apart. They do this because they can. Simple as that. The only difference with Russia in Ukraine is one of scale (so far).
Once you start down the "more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules" road, where do you stop?
‘ Maritime risk company Vanguard Tech has identified the oil tanker as Skipper.
"The vessel is reported to be part of the dark fleet, and was sanctioned by the United States for carrying Venezuelan oil exports," it says.’
Shipping insurance -particularly for VLCCs- is about to get a whole lot more expensive, which will impact the price of oil everywhere.
I am really struggling to see any legal basis for this act. It is indeed piracy on the High Seas and yet another example of how lawless the US has become under this President. The rules based system that the US spent so many decades trying to develop is simply falling apart. They do this because they can. Simple as that. The only difference with Russia in Ukraine is one of scale (so far).
They claim it was carrying Iranian oil and flying a false flag
‘ Maritime risk company Vanguard Tech has identified the oil tanker as Skipper.
"The vessel is reported to be part of the dark fleet, and was sanctioned by the United States for carrying Venezuelan oil exports," it says.’
Shipping insurance -particularly for VLCCs- is about to get a whole lot more expensive, which will impact the price of oil everywhere.
I am really struggling to see any legal basis for this act. It is indeed piracy on the High Seas and yet another example of how lawless the US has become under this President. The rules based system that the US spent so many decades trying to develop is simply falling apart. They do this because they can. Simple as that. The only difference with Russia in Ukraine is one of scale (so far).
They claim it was carrying Iranian oil and flying a false flag
He also claimed he won the 2020 election, paid all his taxes and didn't bang Stormy Daniels.
‘ Maritime risk company Vanguard Tech has identified the oil tanker as Skipper.
"The vessel is reported to be part of the dark fleet, and was sanctioned by the United States for carrying Venezuelan oil exports," it says.’
Shipping insurance -particularly for VLCCs- is about to get a whole lot more expensive, which will impact the price of oil everywhere.
I am really struggling to see any legal basis for this act. It is indeed piracy on the High Seas and yet another example of how lawless the US has become under this President. The rules based system that the US spent so many decades trying to develop is simply falling apart. They do this because they can. Simple as that. The only difference with Russia in Ukraine is one of scale (so far).
They claim it was carrying Iranian oil and flying a false flag
‘ Maritime risk company Vanguard Tech has identified the oil tanker as Skipper.
"The vessel is reported to be part of the dark fleet, and was sanctioned by the United States for carrying Venezuelan oil exports," it says.’
Shipping insurance -particularly for VLCCs- is about to get a whole lot more expensive, which will impact the price of oil everywhere.
I am really struggling to see any legal basis for this act. It is indeed piracy on the High Seas and yet another example of how lawless the US has become under this President. The rules based system that the US spent so many decades trying to develop is simply falling apart. They do this because they can. Simple as that. The only difference with Russia in Ukraine is one of scale (so far).
They claim it was carrying Iranian oil and flying a false flag
I understand that it is alleged that it may have been used for that purpose in the past but here it was carrying Venezuelan oil. It was flying the Guyana flag but Guyana disputes that it is registered there. Are the US going to start seizing Russia's shadow fleet now? Or in this lawless world do you only pick on the weak?
‘ Maritime risk company Vanguard Tech has identified the oil tanker as Skipper.
"The vessel is reported to be part of the dark fleet, and was sanctioned by the United States for carrying Venezuelan oil exports," it says.’
Shipping insurance -particularly for VLCCs- is about to get a whole lot more expensive, which will impact the price of oil everywhere.
I am really struggling to see any legal basis for this act. It is indeed piracy on the High Seas and yet another example of how lawless the US has become under this President. The rules based system that the US spent so many decades trying to develop is simply falling apart. They do this because they can. Simple as that. The only difference with Russia in Ukraine is one of scale (so far).
They claim it was carrying Iranian oil and flying a false flag
I understand that it is alleged that it may have been used for that purpose in the past but here it was carrying Venezuelan oil. It was flying the Guyana flag but Guyana disputes that it is registered there. Are the US going to start seizing Russia's shadow fleet now? Or in this lawless world do you only pick on the weak?
Good morning, everyone.
Trump is anti-Maduro, not anti-Putin. The shadow fleet aspect could be true, Putin's a supporter of Maduro, but, if so, that's a helpful pretext, not a cause.
Edited: also, it's possible this plays into the spheres of influence bullshit Trump believes. As part of that, the Monroe (or 'Donroe') Doctrine makes the Americas the USA's playground.
No. It’s not. I despise Khan. I think he’s useless and incompetent and a horrible mayor.
But he’s not vicious or disgusting, words which speak to him as a person rather than his performance as an elected official
If you "despise" Sadiq Khan what word would you reach for to sum up your feelings about Donald Trump?
I’m flying to the US next week so I might plead the 5th.
(“Despise” may be a little strong but he’s redolent of a political class that is self interested, careerist and ineffective. We deserve better leaders. Unfortunately the voters don’t like people who tell them the truth.)
Khan took a brave stance on clean air - the ULEZ extension was unpopular and he faced concerted opposition but he did it because he thought it was the right thing and it has worked - the air in London now meets international health standards. I can't think of another recent UK politician who has taken that kind of brave, non-populist stance. Call him what you want, but he is neither ineffective nor some kind of shallow careerist.
The recent air quality improvements in London are more to do with the euro 6 engine, and, thats about it. Its the cleanest for hundreds of years and most of that improvement happened decades ago.
Exactly, his grifting scheme is just pick pocketing people, and the poorest ones who cannot afford new cars.
‘ Maritime risk company Vanguard Tech has identified the oil tanker as Skipper.
"The vessel is reported to be part of the dark fleet, and was sanctioned by the United States for carrying Venezuelan oil exports," it says.’
Shipping insurance -particularly for VLCCs- is about to get a whole lot more expensive, which will impact the price of oil everywhere.
I am really struggling to see any legal basis for this act. It is indeed piracy on the High Seas and yet another example of how lawless the US has become under this President. The rules based system that the US spent so many decades trying to develop is simply falling apart. They do this because they can. Simple as that. The only difference with Russia in Ukraine is one of scale (so far).
They claim it was carrying Iranian oil and flying a false flag
I think they claim that it had previously been carrying Iranian oil.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
Well, the advice to the very-online right would be to STFU about lanyards then. Even if they specify civil-service-rainbow-lanyards-in-an-out-of-office-environment they just come across as a bunch of obsessive homophobes. The woke-right.
Maybe go on something like taxes, the economy, defence?
We are specifically advised to remove lanyards on leaving the office in case someone who doesn't like the company decides to twat us.
Anyone wearing a lanyard on the train, or worse still in the pub, looks like a bit of a knob.
I swear to goodness PB will hate any given group on command. How did this start? Was there a meeting where it went "What's the most unlikely group we can get people to hate?" "What about people who work in offices where you have to swipe in?" "Yep, let's get after them". I mean is there a switch in your backs or something? 1-Nice, 2-Grumpy, 3-Hang The Bastards?
I suspect there's a sexist element at work here. I don't use a lanyard but my wife does. Why? I am a man and wear clothes with pockets. So lanyard wearers work in female dominated spaces like the public sector or charities. They don't do "proper" jobs. It's a very revealing choice of insult in lots of ways.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
What message are people who wear rainbow lanyards trying to signify? People who have taken to using the phrase 'lanyard wearing class' never seem to actually say it.
They are highlighting that they are stupid plonkers trying to be hip and swinging but just looking like the twats they really are.
See, this is where we keep going wrong. We invent controlled fire and then let everyone else use it with no economic advantage to us. See also blue skies research at our Universities.
I swear to goodness PB will hate any given group on command. How did this start? Was there a meeting where it went "What's the most unlikely group we can get people to hate?" "What about people who work in offices where you have to swipe in?" "Yep, let's get after them". I mean is there a switch in your backs or something? 1-Nice, 2-Grumpy, 3-Hang The Bastards?
I suspect there's a sexist element at work here. I don't use a lanyard but my wife does. Why? I am a man and wear clothes with pockets. So lanyard wearers work in female dominated spaces like the public sector or charities. They don't do "proper" jobs. It's a very revealing choice of insult in lots of ways.
Is this a wind-up? Lanyards are metaphorical shorthand for red tape, the tickbox culture, the process state. It is not literally the lanyard itself.
I swear to goodness PB will hate any given group on command. How did this start? Was there a meeting where it went "What's the most unlikely group we can get people to hate?" "What about people who work in offices where you have to swipe in?" "Yep, let's get after them". I mean is there a switch in your backs or something? 1-Nice, 2-Grumpy, 3-Hang The Bastards?
I suspect there's a sexist element at work here. I don't use a lanyard but my wife does. Why? I am a man and wear clothes with pockets. So lanyard wearers work in female dominated spaces like the public sector or charities. They don't do "proper" jobs. It's a very revealing choice of insult in lots of ways.
I'm surprised the Trump administration hasn't adopted Comic Sans.
I'm surprised the Trump administration has not commissioned a new typeface so it can call it Trumpfont (cf renaming the Kennedy arts centre and the Institute of Peace and the opera place and various lumps of White House).
Worrying news or more grift from America's military-industrial complex?
Just give Taiwan hypersonic missiles so they can sink Chinese vessels.
America has none, and China is not in the business of arming Taiwan, so that leaves Russia and it's a pound to a rouble theirs don't work as advertised.
See, this is where we keep going wrong. We invent controlled fire and then let everyone else use it with no economic advantage to us. See also blue skies research at our Universities.
See, this is where we keep going wrong. We invent controlled fire and then let everyone else use it with no economic advantage to us. See also blue skies research at our Universities.
See, this is where we keep going wrong. We invent controlled fire and then let everyone else use it with no economic advantage to us. See also blue skies research at our Universities.
I swear to goodness PB will hate any given group on command. How did this start? Was there a meeting where it went "What's the most unlikely group we can get people to hate?" "What about people who work in offices where you have to swipe in?" "Yep, let's get after them". I mean is there a switch in your backs or something? 1-Nice, 2-Grumpy, 3-Hang The Bastards?
I suspect there's a sexist element at work here. I don't use a lanyard but my wife does. Why? I am a man and wear clothes with pockets. So lanyard wearers work in female dominated spaces like the public sector or charities. They don't do "proper" jobs. It's a very revealing choice of insult in lots of ways.
I think you may be over thinking it…
Having been in an office for the past 2 days I don’t think he is. The ID cards are very much to record which company you work for / are visiting but a fair number of women have them on lanyards - for most men it’s left in their trouser pocket
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
Well, the advice to the very-online right would be to STFU about lanyards then. Even if they specify civil-service-rainbow-lanyards-in-an-out-of-office-environment they just come across as a bunch of obsessive homophobes. The woke-right.
Maybe go on something like taxes, the economy, defence?
Can we stipulate that the great PB lanyard debate is the most tedious topic to date ?
‘ Maritime risk company Vanguard Tech has identified the oil tanker as Skipper.
"The vessel is reported to be part of the dark fleet, and was sanctioned by the United States for carrying Venezuelan oil exports," it says.’
Shipping insurance -particularly for VLCCs- is about to get a whole lot more expensive, which will impact the price of oil everywhere.
The Ukranians have bombed another ‘dark fleet’ vessel heading up the Black Sea to take on Russian oil, and there’s also the curious case of an unflagged vessel towed by Turkey into Bulgarian waters.
It’s going to be pretty much impossible for these guys to get insurance, if there’s a fleet of Sea Babys waiting for them near Odessa.
For regularly-flagged tankers taking unsanctioned oil to the West, it should continue to be fine apart from the occasional Somali or Yemeni pirates.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
In which case can you give three examples where Sadiq has been vicious? As opposed to from a different political party.....
Anyone attacking Khan in such terms is simply outing themselves as a racist.
I live and work in London, and the main negative adjective I would use for him is being invisible. Not really doing anything of note. Which is obviously much better than a Mayor doing lots of harm, and not as good as a Mayor who delivers lots of positive initiatives.
People like Trump using overly strong adjectives about Khan are saying more about themselves than him.
Oh maaaaaaaate
Criticising Sadiq Khan - racism 😂
Come on, Taz, that's not what he said. It's calling Khan "vicious" and other "overly strong adjectives" that's racist.
Pretty sure his predecessor was called comparable names though.
Is it racism, or just petty and stupid political name-calling?
If it were only him being called names, then yes it would be, but his predecessor was called stuff life that too and so have many other politicians. Most famous politicians get called all sorts, and much of it not very polite.
Is it political name-calling or racism? Well, it was Trump, someone who has been obviously racist for decades, and has said multiple clearly explicitly racist comments in the last few weeks, so I'm guessing the latter.
Trump is racist, I agree, but he also is pathetically petty and calls anyone and everyone by stupid names.
Name-calling by Trump is hardly unique to minorities.
It's funny, I'd never normally vote for Khan.
But Trump's wildly over the top criticism suddenly makes me think quite kindly of him. If Trump hates him that much, he can't be all bad.
I feel like none of Khan's opponents have ever really had a handle on how to attack him. I don't live in London so I'd have no advice on what might resonate with the voters best, but IIRC at least twice the Tories have tried to paint him as an extremist, and it clearly hasn't been very persuasive.
The only way to win will be to draw Muslim voters away from Khan. That's his inbuilt demographic advantage, Jews and Hindus are far outnumbered by Muslims in London and any candidate that beats Khan next time if he runs will be Muslim.
I also think directly elected executive politicians should have term limits.
There are more atheists and more Christians in London than there are Muslims, which rather undermines your theory. We know you hate Muslims, but loving or hating Muslims is not the main determinant of how most people in London vote.
Don't put words in my mouth. I don't hate Muslims. I have a severe dislike of Islam, I think it is a barbaric religion that oppresses women and minorities wherever it exists as a majority. I know and like plenty of Muslim people and I went out and campaigned for plenty of Muslim Tory candidates across London and supported Sajid Javid as candidate for the leadership.
"I'm not an Islamophobe, I've got Muslim friends," appears to be the gist of your answer.
What is an Islamophobe exactly?
I might meet the definition of phobia for quite a few religious denominations.
People who insist on interpreting "Islamophobia" (or "homophobia") as having to be a phobia in the sense of, say, arachnophobia are like people saying that Arabs cannot be "anti-Semitic" because they are "Semites".
If it's silly to equate X-phobias with being like a phobia maybe we should come up with different labels for them.
That's like when people said Defund the Police didn't have to mean literally defunding the police, which if so made it very silly as a slogan.
Lots of words have silly etymologies. Don't become the person who starts tell using how "gay" used to mean "happy"...
And yet that over-literalism is precisely what you are doing in insisting that lanyard wearing class means anyone who has to wear a lanyard for work, as opposed to a more specific meaning eg those who choose to wear eg rainbow etc lanyards out of choice to signify messages.
Well, the advice to the very-online right would be to STFU about lanyards then. Even if they specify civil-service-rainbow-lanyards-in-an-out-of-office-environment they just come across as a bunch of obsessive homophobes. The woke-right.
Maybe go on something like taxes, the economy, defence?
Can we stipulate that the great PB lanyard debate is the most tedious topic to date ?
Comments
Maybe go on something like taxes, the economy, defence?
Its not a good idea to insult your potential voters. As @NickPalmer has mentioned in the past most voters choose a party by vibe rather than by spreadsheet of policies.
Current State of Parties:
Con 282
Lab 209
LD 75
Crossbench 177
Others 79 (inc 1 Ref)
Appointed today (see link):
Con 3
Lab 25
LD 5 (inc 2 current Hereditaries, so only 3 new joiners)
New State of Parties:
Con 285
Lab 234
LD 78
Crossbench 177
Others 79 (inc 1 Ref)
NB. Ignores fact Hereditaries will soon lose seats
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/political-peerages-december-2025
Some things can be generally understood even if they are somewhat difficult to precisely define, and that difficulty doesn't mean it doesn't exist - what is art, to take a very cliche example - and I think we can get a sense of what is meant by the lanyard classes, a certain attitude is presumed to go along with it, not literally the wearing of a lanyard.
But it is still not useful in this case, given it is easily undermined by a tongue in cheek literalism about who might use a lanyard.
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2025/november/mayor-of-london-and-tfl-set-out-bold-proposals-to-deliver-pedestrianisation-along-oxford-street
One is that there is an art to the insult, and 'lanyard-wearing class' doesn't have sufficient art. There is too much collateral damage.
The other is that if you say 'people wearing rainbow lanyards are the source of our problems', you can't help sounding like a snowflake.
And they have the nerve to lecture Europe about freedom speech of speech .
Trumps charm offensive is mostly offence rather than charm.
Why would anyone provide that level of info is beyond me .
I put my ID passes in my pocket.
Anyone wearing a lanyard on the train, or worse still in the pub, looks like a bit of a knob.
He doesn't blink - just stares at you from across his office and makes alarming short, sudden movements. I think he would use the heel of his hand to crush your windpipe.
It is a data farming scam by Palantir.
Its why the old coalfields will vote for Farage despite him being a Thatcher fan who will strip away what little support that they get from the state because he likes a pint and hates the darkies and Jews.
The House on Wednesday advanced the National Defense Authorization Act for the next fiscal year, sending the massive defense policy bill to the Senate for final passage.
Both Democrats and Republicans voted overwhelmingly to approve the measure, which sets out the nation’s defense policy agenda and authorizes nearly $900 billion in funding for military programs, including a 3.8% pay raise for service members. [...]
The bill includes a provision that increases pressure on the Pentagon to provide Congress with videos of its strikes against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean. [...]
The specific provision would withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget unless the Pentagon complies with various oversight requirements, including providing the House and Senate Armed Services committees “video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility of the United States Southern Command.”
I don't know whether this sort of provision is a petty embarrassment or a stroke of genius!
https://www.offshore-energy.biz/15-years-in-the-making-falkland-islands-sea-lion-ready-to-move-forward-to-first-oil/
Bearing in mind the DE won't even accept the weak self regulation tegime, m not even sure they qualify as a newspaper.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1w9lg11jw0o
"The vessel is reported to be part of the dark fleet, and was sanctioned by the United States for carrying Venezuelan oil exports," it says.’
Firstly I have to say Garlic anchovy butter, on its own, sounds amazing.
Secondly I’m the same. Ive had many disasters in the kitchen but I have learnt from them and been determined to master the meal, or at least make a good fist of it.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-22461.pdf
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:411444
Trump is anti-Maduro, not anti-Putin. The shadow fleet aspect could be true, Putin's a supporter of Maduro, but, if so, that's a helpful pretext, not a cause.
Edited: also, it's possible this plays into the spheres of influence bullshit Trump believes. As part of that, the Monroe (or 'Donroe') Doctrine makes the Americas the USA's playground.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-10/us-state-department-reverts-times-new-roman-font/106127732
BBC News - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-b9da7a6d-165b-492a-8785-235cd10e2e8e
The moment the earliest known man-made fire was uncovered - BBC News
https://thehill.com/homenews/5643341-what-to-know-trump-gold-card-visa-program/
Beijing’s hypersonic missiles ‘could sink US aircraft carriers within minutes’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/12/10/china-will-destroy-us-military-fight-over-taiwan/ (£££)
Worrying news or more grift from America's military-industrial complex?
NEW THREAD
(*I wish I could.)
Chloe Kelly
A womens rugby player
Luke Littler
Rory McIlory
Lando Norris
Hampton won’t win it, but would be very funny if she did.
It’s going to be pretty much impossible for these guys to get insurance, if there’s a fleet of Sea Babys waiting for them near Odessa.
For regularly-flagged tankers taking unsanctioned oil to the West, it should continue to be fine apart from the occasional Somali or Yemeni pirates.