Remember that dodgy ‘tanker’ that was going from Iran to Venezuela, before making an about turn and heading for Russia before the Americans headed her off.
Well of course she was full of loot. Cash and weapons.
Apart from the website you have have linked to I cant find reference to that anywhere. Where do you find these sites? Are the BBC being remiss?
You clearly aren't following the war on Twitter, I get all sorts of snippets like that. War Monitor seems to be quite a sensible well-sourced guy.
Of course Twitter is largely unverified, but yes I think one of the jobs of major news organisations should be to follow sources like Twitter and Telegram and research, analyse, publish the results. It might stop the BBC mindlessly regurgitating Russian propaganda in the interests of "balance".
I know we are a grassroots kind of organisation but we will need a well established local good party infrastructure to drive change.
We will see.
The Green wave will depend heavily on younger female voters, which is where much of their support it.
There's certainly a scenario where the oft-predicted youth wave fails to materialise.
On the other hand, I remember driving through London on GE day 2017 and seeing the crowds of young Corbynites in every street, and it isn't impossible to imagine such a scenario for the Greens at the next GE, fuelled also by social media, remembering also that by the next GE we're supposed to have votes at 16 - evidence is, the first time people get the vote at least, turnout and enthusiasm to participate is relatively high.
I wonder if Labour are looking at that rise in the Greens - and thinking "maybe not voting at 16 just yet..."
Reflecting on Nadhim Zahawi's defection to Reform, I'm really struggling to conclude that it will add a single vote for them. Is anybody really going to think: "Oh, now Nadhim has crossed over, I'm definitely going to vote Reform". Given his background, however, it may lose them a few.
Totally clueless. And when all of the opposition protestors are in body bags, she can rest easy in knowing that the Imperialists stood by and watched.
Tbf I can think of a recent and ongoing situation where the 'imperialists' stood by and watched (or even helped) as tens of thousands were killed, though in that case you'd have been lucky to have a body bag in which to shovel the dismembered remains of your toddler.
Reflecting on Nadhim Zahawi's defection to Reform, I'm really struggling to conclude that it will add a single vote for them. Is anybody really going to think: "Oh, now Nadhim has crossed over, I'm definitely going to vote Reform". Given his background, however, it may lose them a few.
Couple of things.
One is that Reform can't just be the Nigel show if they want to project as the next government in waiting. Thoughtful Reform-curious types here have noted that. Zahawi might be defecting for all the wrong reasons, but Nigel needs people like him. Even if it boosts the 'Reform are all the worst bits of the Tories' message a bit.
Another is that it gives a few 'Tories down, Reform up' headlines and an excuse for a press conference.
It's all incoherent, natch, right up to Mr 'was it even a proper vaccine?' welcoming the Minister for Vaccines into his party. But part of Farage's success has always been that coherence is overrated.
I know we are a grassroots kind of organisation but we will need a well established local good party infrastructure to drive change.
We will see.
Assuming the impossibility of a big transfer from left of centre to right of centre, or vice versa, the voting in the next GE is likely to split fairly evenly between the two poles. The potential Green vote has to go somewhere unless it stays at home. It is likely that by 2029 the this government will have fewer rather than greater green and socialist credentials than it does now, so that a large majority of voters, left and right, of all types are voting on the basis of 'Not Labour'. This will be joined by the overlapping 'Not Reform' majority. On the left the Greens are best placed to gain from this. Overall, it's the open goal for the Tories to aim at.
This is a route to the Tories doing far better than is thinkable at this moment. Less so for Greens. But if Greens and LDs fight each other for vote share to a standstill taking 30% between them, leaving only about 20% for the rest of the left, it's catastrophic for Labour, great for the Tories.
Staying at home is always a key factor. Swing between left and right is often an illusion, resulting from the differential turnout between the two blocs differing from the differential turnout last time.
Agree. However trying to predict things - especially about the future - in the current climate needs some big picture axioms. One of mine (until it isn't) is that it looks fairly easy to split the left of centre voter pool (about half the votes) into seat losing small % numbers - there being Lab, LD, Green, Sultanas, Islamic Indies, SNP and PC all to fit into a 50% pot + the main party being very unpopular both with the left and with the mainstream. And it looks easier, though not easy, for the right of centre 50% to sort themselves out into a winning position, with only two parties and no prospect of any more.
That is not a fair summary of what Sultana said. Her tweet begins:
"The images of body bags leave no doubt about the brutality of Iran’s repression, and a communications blackout is indefensible."
Indeed.
And it's right to be cautious about the effect of Western intervention. Done badly it could end up bolstering the regime by giving them the ability to portray the protestors as traitors, or else result in a destructive power vacuum if the regime is brought down without a proper plan. If the West is going to intervene in Iran, that intervention needs to be decisive and properly thought through, otherwise it may well be worse than doing nothing.
The BBC are to seek dismissal of Trump's defamation claim on the basis of lack of jurisdiction, lack of any relevant averments of loss and misstatements on where the documentary was shown. I would have thought that the first is most likely to succeed at this stage. It really is not clear on what basis Florida has jurisdiction over a program shown in the UK by an organisation which has no footprint there.
That is not a fair summary of what Sultana said. Her tweet begins:
"The images of body bags leave no doubt about the brutality of Iran’s repression, and a communications blackout is indefensible."
It is a complete misrepresentation but that is what we have come to expecrt. If you only read Sandpit's posts Ukraine would have won their war with Russia two years ago and Netanyahu would be well on the way to the Nobel Peace Prize
Totally clueless. And when all of the opposition protestors are in body bags, she can rest easy in knowing that the Imperialists stood by and watched.
Tbf I can think of a recent and ongoing situation where the 'imperialists' stood by and watched (or even helped) as tens of thousands were killed, though in that case you'd have been lucky to have a body bag in which to shovel the dismembered remains of your toddler.
Out of curiosity (genuinely) did she ever criticise Iran and Russia for launching an imperialist war against Israel via one of their proxies?
Reflecting on Nadhim Zahawi's defection to Reform, I'm really struggling to conclude that it will add a single vote for them. Is anybody really going to think: "Oh, now Nadhim has crossed over, I'm definitely going to vote Reform". Given his background, however, it may lose them a few.
Tim Stanley* on R4 said this was not for the consumption of the political chattering classes, but rather to give the voter the idea that Reform is a serious government in waiting.
Reflecting on Nadhim Zahawi's defection to Reform, I'm really struggling to conclude that it will add a single vote for them. Is anybody really going to think: "Oh, now Nadhim has crossed over, I'm definitely going to vote Reform". Given his background, however, it may lose them a few.
Tim Stanley* on R4 said this was not for the consumption of the polital chattering classes, but rather to give the voter the idea that Reform is a serious government in waiting.
*a member of the polital chattering classes.
Vote for Nadhim Zahawi’s party, because we are much better at tax evasion than Labour?
Reflecting on Nadhim Zahawi's defection to Reform, I'm really struggling to conclude that it will add a single vote for them. Is anybody really going to think: "Oh, now Nadhim has crossed over, I'm definitely going to vote Reform". Given his background, however, it may lose them a few.
Couple of things.
One is that Reform can't just be the Nigel show if they want to project as the next government in waiting. Thoughtful Reform-curious types here have noted that. Zahawi might be defecting for all the wrong reasons, but Nigel needs people like him. Even if it boosts the 'Reform are all the worst bits of the Tories' message a bit.
Another is that it gives a few 'Tories down, Reform up' headlines and an excuse for a press conference.
It's all incoherent, natch, right up to Mr 'was it even a proper vaccine?' welcoming the Minister for Vaccines into his party. But part of Farage's success has always been that coherence is overrated.
Yes, Reform needs a couple of thousand very high calibre people. See Tim Shipman this week in the Spectator, also to be found on Speccie TV. He is right.
Zahawi isn't one of them. The sort of careless oversight you make about tax matters leading to £100 penalty and the payment of £1000 tax owed is one thing. Carelessness leading to a £5,000,000 payment to HMRC is of a different order.
Reflecting on Nadhim Zahawi's defection to Reform, I'm really struggling to conclude that it will add a single vote for them. Is anybody really going to think: "Oh, now Nadhim has crossed over, I'm definitely going to vote Reform". Given his background, however, it may lose them a few.
Couple of things.
One is that Reform can't just be the Nigel show if they want to project as the next government in waiting. Thoughtful Reform-curious types here have noted that. Zahawi might be defecting for all the wrong reasons, but Nigel needs people like him. Even if it boosts the 'Reform are all the worst bits of the Tories' message a bit.
Another is that it gives a few 'Tories down, Reform up' headlines and an excuse for a press conference.
It's all incoherent, natch, right up to Mr 'was it even a proper vaccine?' welcoming the Minister for Vaccines into his party. But part of Farage's success has always been that coherence is overrated.
Yes, Reform needs a couple of thousand very high calibre people. See Tim Shipman this week in the Spectator, also to be found on Speccie TV. He is right.
Zahawi isn't one of them. The sort of careless oversight you make about tax matters leading to £100 penalty and the payment of £1000 tax owed is one thing. Carelessness leading to a £5,000,000 payment to HMRC is of a different order.
That’s not entirely fair. I think Zahawi is very capable. He’s just totally untrustworthy in financial matters.
Reflecting on Nadhim Zahawi's defection to Reform, I'm really struggling to conclude that it will add a single vote for them. Is anybody really going to think: "Oh, now Nadhim has crossed over, I'm definitely going to vote Reform". Given his background, however, it may lose them a few.
Tim Stanley* on R4 said this was not for the consumption of the political chattering classes, but rather to give the voter the idea that Reform is a serious government in waiting.
*a member of the political chattering classes.
Either Stanley or the chap from Unherd claimed that Zahawi is a master fund-raiser which was a driver for why Reform were happy to have him join. It’s the only reason that vaguely makes sense.
Reflecting on Nadhim Zahawi's defection to Reform, I'm really struggling to conclude that it will add a single vote for them. Is anybody really going to think: "Oh, now Nadhim has crossed over, I'm definitely going to vote Reform". Given his background, however, it may lose them a few.
No-one except Reform leadership appears over the moon for this one, even if he was once Chancellor. Plenty of other Reform supporters see the negatives in his past dealings as an MP and businessman.
Remember that dodgy ‘tanker’ that was going from Iran to Venezuela, before making an about turn and heading for Russia before the Americans headed her off.
Well of course she was full of loot. Cash and weapons.
I think we need more than one unsourced source to say that, but it seems possible. It certainly wasn't carrying oil.
If it was carrying cash and weapons, will it finally cause Trump to realise he's being had and stop dancing to Moscow's tune on Ukraine? Or will he continue to be used because Witkoff, Miller and Vance are all ultimately at best Putin's useful idiots?
The original post says drones, rather than weapons, and you'd think Russia would have a pressing demand for the drones nearer to home, rather than having Iran ship them all the way over to Venezuela?
All very weird. Putin needed to keep Maduro in place - because oil. Maybe he thought Venezuela having a few thousand drones would be useful in deterring the Americans? Bit far fetched. What were they for? Even if they'd sent Russian surface to air missiles, they seem a bit crap, so unlikely to change anything. Not that they have them to spare - because they have a tendency to blow up in proximity to Ukraine.
Then there was the risk of the Americans finding out - and Trump going batshit crazy with Putin. Though their relationship does seem to be a bit less cosy than it was.
Reflecting on Nadhim Zahawi's defection to Reform, I'm really struggling to conclude that it will add a single vote for them. Is anybody really going to think: "Oh, now Nadhim has crossed over, I'm definitely going to vote Reform". Given his background, however, it may lose them a few.
Couple of things.
One is that Reform can't just be the Nigel show if they want to project as the next government in waiting. Thoughtful Reform-curious types here have noted that. Zahawi might be defecting for all the wrong reasons, but Nigel needs people like him. Even if it boosts the 'Reform are all the worst bits of the Tories' message a bit.
Another is that it gives a few 'Tories down, Reform up' headlines and an excuse for a press conference.
It's all incoherent, natch, right up to Mr 'was it even a proper vaccine?' welcoming the Minister for Vaccines into his party. But part of Farage's success has always been that coherence is overrated.
Yes, Reform needs a couple of thousand very high calibre people. See Tim Shipman this week in the Spectator, also to be found on Speccie TV. He is right.
Zahawi isn't one of them. The sort of careless oversight you make about tax matters leading to £100 penalty and the payment of £1000 tax owed is one thing. Carelessness leading to a £5,000,000 payment to HMRC is of a different order.
Yup. Reform need serious people, but serious people won't touch Reform with a bargepole. For some reason.
Zahawi, Yusuf, Jenkins et al are not serious people, but they are the nearest off-brand approximation that Reform can get.
Reflecting on Nadhim Zahawi's defection to Reform, I'm really struggling to conclude that it will add a single vote for them. Is anybody really going to think: "Oh, now Nadhim has crossed over, I'm definitely going to vote Reform". Given his background, however, it may lose them a few.
Tim Stanley* on R4 said this was not for the consumption of the polital chattering classes, but rather to give the voter the idea that Reform is a serious government in waiting.
*a member of the polital chattering classes.
Vote for Nadhim Zahawi’s party, because we are much better at tax evasion than Labour?
Daily Express: Blow for Nigel Farage as Reform hits nine-month low in polls
The real story is the inability of varying pollsters to tell the same story, MoE notwithstanding
Interesting. Unusually the meta-data seems more interesting than the data. Two questions seem central - assuming you can properly exclude the question of conscious or unconscious bias. One is: how is the raw data collected. The other: how and why is it amended to give a final score.
IANAE and I doubt if I would understand an analysis of this. Any answers I might understand?
With the exception of Yougov, every poll this month has Reform on 30%+.
Yougov is the one pollster that has the centre left/left parties ahead of the centre right/right. The rest show the reverse.
Remember that dodgy ‘tanker’ that was going from Iran to Venezuela, before making an about turn and heading for Russia before the Americans headed her off.
Well of course she was full of loot. Cash and weapons.
I think we need more than one unsourced source to say that, but it seems possible. It certainly wasn't carrying oil.
If it was carrying cash and weapons, will it finally cause Trump to realise he's being had and stop dancing to Moscow's tune on Ukraine? Or will he continue to be used because Witkoff, Miller and Vance are all ultimately at best Putin's useful idiots?
The original post says drones, rather than weapons, and you'd think Russia would have a pressing demand for the drones nearer to home, rather than having Iran ship them all the way over to Venezuela?
All very weird. Putin needed to keep Maduro in place - because oil. Maybe he thought Venezuela having a few thousand drones would be useful in deterring the Americans? Bit far fetched. What were they for? Even if they'd sent Russian surface to air missiles, they seem a bit crap, so unlikely to change anything. Not that they have them to spare - because they have a tendency to blow up in proximity to Ukraine.
Then there was the risk of the Americans finding out - and Trump going batshit crazy with Putin. Though their relationship does seem to be a bit less cosy than it was.
Perhaps it was a way of storing them in relative safety until they were needed for the summer push? The Uranians are getting good at blowing up remote bits of Russia, but they might have thought twice before sinking a third party ship.
Remember that dodgy ‘tanker’ that was going from Iran to Venezuela, before making an about turn and heading for Russia before the Americans headed her off.
Well of course she was full of loot. Cash and weapons.
Apart from the website you have have linked to I cant find reference to that anywhere. Where do you find these sites? Are the BBC being remiss?
You clearly aren't following the war on Twitter, I get all sorts of snippets like that. War Monitor seems to be quite a sensible well-sourced guy.
Of course Twitter is largely unverified, but yes I think one of the jobs of major news organisations should be to follow sources like Twitter and Telegram and research, analyse, publish the results. It might stop the BBC mindlessly regurgitating Russian propaganda in the interests of "balance".
Wasn't there some suspicion that these 'shadow tankers' had been responsible for launching drones over Denmark (and elsewhere)?
Wouldn't be a surprise if they were gun running, although maybe it was just a stash for causing annoyance.
The BBC are to seek dismissal of Trump's defamation claim on the basis of lack of jurisdiction, lack of any relevant averments of loss and misstatements on where the documentary was shown. I would have thought that the first is most likely to succeed at this stage. It really is not clear on what basis Florida has jurisdiction over a program shown in the UK by an organisation which has no footprint there.
Is that jurisdiction argument there not awfully similar to those used by Americans to sue for libel in London previously?
Trump won’t sue in London, of course, because of limited damages the court could award.
So it’s going nowhere, but should be a massively embarrassing episode for a Corporation that used to pride itself on journalistic integrity, has cost two senior executives their jobs, and should be a wake-up call for the BBC in future.
Pollster note that the 24% - pre Zahawi defection - is the lowest for Reform since April. All usual caveats apply - it's one poll, wait to see if it's picked up elsewhere etc, this may just be an outlier. However, it is part of a broad downwards trend in Reform support since what appears to have been their peak around October. That coincides with the Conservative ratings starting some sort of recovery from rock bottom, and the salience of immigration starting to gradually decline on most important issue. https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/2010957530479129035
Just 10% between top and bottom of 5 different parties is going to test FPTP to its limits.
Ref UK have a single USP which is disappearing fast. Apart from that all they are known for is disliking forreigners and more recently taking on the detritus of discredited Tory Parties past. I'm struggling to see where their momentum comes from in the next few years.
If Farage is thinking the same, he may decide to leg it to the States to cash in - whilst he still has the chance. Is he going to have the same value in a post-Trump America? Distinctly devalued would be my assessment.
Totally clueless. And when all of the opposition protestors are in body bags, she can rest easy in knowing that the Imperialists stood by and watched.
Tbf I can think of a recent and ongoing situation where the 'imperialists' stood by and watched (or even helped) as tens of thousands were killed, though in that case you'd have been lucky to have a body bag in which to shovel the dismembered remains of your toddler.
Remember that dodgy ‘tanker’ that was going from Iran to Venezuela, before making an about turn and heading for Russia before the Americans headed her off.
Well of course she was full of loot. Cash and weapons.
I think we need more than one unsourced source to say that, but it seems possible. It certainly wasn't carrying oil.
If it was carrying cash and weapons, will it finally cause Trump to realise he's being had and stop dancing to Moscow's tune on Ukraine? Or will he continue to be used because Witkoff, Miller and Vance are all ultimately at best Putin's useful idiots?
The original post says drones, rather than weapons, and you'd think Russia would have a pressing demand for the drones nearer to home, rather than having Iran ship them all the way over to Venezuela?
All very weird. Putin needed to keep Maduro in place - because oil. Maybe he thought Venezuela having a few thousand drones would be useful in deterring the Americans? Bit far fetched. What were they for? Even if they'd sent Russian surface to air missiles, they seem a bit crap, so unlikely to change anything. Not that they have them to spare - because they have a tendency to blow up in proximity to Ukraine.
Then there was the risk of the Americans finding out - and Trump going batshit crazy with Putin. Though their relationship does seem to be a bit less cosy than it was.
Perhaps it was a way of storing them in relative safety until they were needed for the summer push? The Uranians are getting good at blowing up remote bits of Russia, but they might have thought twice before sinking a third party ship.
A third party ship that turns out to be Russian all along?
Nah. If they knew it held Shaheed drones, then bring on the Sea Babies...
Reflecting on Nadhim Zahawi's defection to Reform, I'm really struggling to conclude that it will add a single vote for them. Is anybody really going to think: "Oh, now Nadhim has crossed over, I'm definitely going to vote Reform". Given his background, however, it may lose them a few.
Couple of things.
One is that Reform can't just be the Nigel show if they want to project as the next government in waiting. Thoughtful Reform-curious types here have noted that. Zahawi might be defecting for all the wrong reasons, but Nigel needs people like him. Even if it boosts the 'Reform are all the worst bits of the Tories' message a bit.
Another is that it gives a few 'Tories down, Reform up' headlines and an excuse for a press conference.
It's all incoherent, natch, right up to Mr 'was it even a proper vaccine?' welcoming the Minister for Vaccines into his party. But part of Farage's success has always been that coherence is overrated.
Yes, Reform needs a couple of thousand very high calibre people. See Tim Shipman this week in the Spectator, also to be found on Speccie TV. He is right.
Zahawi isn't one of them. The sort of careless oversight you make about tax matters leading to £100 penalty and the payment of £1000 tax owed is one thing. Carelessness leading to a £5,000,000 payment to HMRC is of a different order.
That’s not entirely fair. I think Zahawi is very capable. He’s just totally untrustworthy in financial matters.
The impact of Johnson was that standards and morality within the Tory party - things that all parties struggle with to some extent, given human nature and type of people attracted to politics - took a very significant slide, given that the leader himself set such a tragically bad example. Zahawi is one of those who exemplifies that, in the same way that the guy with the duck house came to represent the expenses scandal, a political generation earlier. Hence why the Tories didn't want the grief that would have accompanied gifting him a seat in the Lords.
That is not a fair summary of what Sultana said. Her tweet begins:
"The images of body bags leave no doubt about the brutality of Iran’s repression, and a communications blackout is indefensible."
It is a complete misrepresentation but that is what we have come to expecrt. If you only read Sandpit's posts Ukraine would have won their war with Russia two years ago and Netanyahu would be well on the way to the Nobel Peace Prize
And if we only read your posts then Hamas are the good guys, their propoganda taken at face value.
Totally clueless. And when all of the opposition protestors are in body bags, she can rest easy in knowing that the Imperialists stood by and watched.
Tbf I can think of a recent and ongoing situation where the 'imperialists' stood by and watched (or even helped) as tens of thousands were killed, though in that case you'd have been lucky to have a body bag in which to shovel the dismembered remains of your toddler.
Out of curiosity (genuinely) did she ever criticise Iran and Russia for launching an imperialist war against Israel via one of their proxies?
The Corbyn/Sultana argument boils down to - of course Russia/Iran/Hamas do bad things, but the West is worse.
Cloudflare CEO threatens to make the Winter Olympics a political football after Italy slugs it with a fine Labels Rome's comms regulator ‘a quasi-judicial body’ that works on behalf of ‘shadowy, European media cabal’ https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/cloudflare_vs_italy/
Worth a read because it covers the same issues that affect Britain and other countries (iirc TwiX has recently been blocked by some Asian countries).
Italy wants piracy of Serie A football matches stopped. The Italian regulator has threatened to fine Cloudflare for not blocking them. Cloudflare threatened to pull services to the Italian Winter Olympics. The Italian government is trying to cool things down. There are also important technical reasons why doing what the Italians want in the way the Italians want it would critically impact innocent parties.
And if you want to read across to Britain and TwiX...
Daily Express: Blow for Nigel Farage as Reform hits nine-month low in polls
The real story is the inability of varying pollsters to tell the same story, MoE notwithstanding
Interesting. Unusually the meta-data seems more interesting than the data. Two questions seem central - assuming you can properly exclude the question of conscious or unconscious bias. One is: how is the raw data collected. The other: how and why is it amended to give a final score.
IANAE and I doubt if I would understand an analysis of this. Any answers I might understand?
With the exception of Yougov, every poll this month has Reform on 30%+.
Yougov is the one pollster that has the centre left/left parties ahead of the centre right/right. The rest show the reverse.
There's also the differing trends, however - YouGov has Reform dropping, right at the outer margin of MoE, whereas the other poll published recently had them rising by the same amount
That is not a fair summary of what Sultana said. Her tweet begins:
"The images of body bags leave no doubt about the brutality of Iran’s repression, and a communications blackout is indefensible."
It is a complete misrepresentation but that is what we have come to expecrt. If you only read Sandpit's posts Ukraine would have won their war with Russia two years ago and Netanyahu would be well on the way to the Nobel Peace Prize
And if we only read your posts then Hamas are the good guys, their propoganda taken at face value.
So you're equating yourself to a propagandist? Fair enough, good, honest self awareness.
Statistically, the minimum vote threshold in D'Hondt elections is 75%/(N+1) =75%/7 = 10.7%.
If you plug in a range of realistic polls into one of the prediction models ( I like the Jac Larner one), the lowest succesful vote is indeed 10.7% and the highest unsuccesful vote is 10.4%.
Realistically, even in a worst case scenario for Labour they should finish with 6-10 seats. Conservatives should be slightly behind that with say 4-8 seats Lib Dems will struggle to reach 1-3 seats Green will do slightly better with 2-5 seats
Plaid and Reform are way ahead of the others with both on 28-33 seats - still very close to call but I expect Plaid to pull ahead.
There is another Senedd poll out tomorrow which should show the direction of travel.
Reflecting on Nadhim Zahawi's defection to Reform, I'm really struggling to conclude that it will add a single vote for them. Is anybody really going to think: "Oh, now Nadhim has crossed over, I'm definitely going to vote Reform". Given his background, however, it may lose them a few.
Couple of things.
One is that Reform can't just be the Nigel show if they want to project as the next government in waiting. Thoughtful Reform-curious types here have noted that. Zahawi might be defecting for all the wrong reasons, but Nigel needs people like him. Even if it boosts the 'Reform are all the worst bits of the Tories' message a bit.
Another is that it gives a few 'Tories down, Reform up' headlines and an excuse for a press conference.
It's all incoherent, natch, right up to Mr 'was it even a proper vaccine?' welcoming the Minister for Vaccines into his party. But part of Farage's success has always been that coherence is overrated.
Yes, Reform needs a couple of thousand very high calibre people. See Tim Shipman this week in the Spectator, also to be found on Speccie TV. He is right.
Zahawi isn't one of them. The sort of careless oversight you make about tax matters leading to £100 penalty and the payment of £1000 tax owed is one thing. Carelessness leading to a £5,000,000 payment to HMRC is of a different order.
Yup. Reform need serious people, but serious people won't touch Reform with a bargepole. For some reason.
Zahawi, Yusuf, Jenkins et al are not serious people, but they are the nearest off-brand approximation that Reform can get.
They are very short of high calibre and excellent track record people - again Zahawi is not one such. It seems to me they are also short of people with the public persona of - for want of a better word - likeability or fundamental OKness. Mel Stride; Darren Jones; Alex Burghart; Angela Eagle; Laura Trott and (to be fair for one moment) a few hundred other MPs.
Cloudflare CEO threatens to make the Winter Olympics a political football after Italy slugs it with a fine Labels Rome's comms regulator ‘a quasi-judicial body’ that works on behalf of ‘shadowy, European media cabal’ https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/cloudflare_vs_italy/
Worth a read because it covers the same issues that affect Britain and other countries (iirc TwiX has recently been blocked by some Asian countries).
Italy wants piracy of Serie A football matches stopped. The Italian regulator has threatened to fine Cloudflare for not blocking them. Cloudflare threatened to pull services to the Italian Winter Olympics. The Italian government is trying to cool things down. There are also important technical reasons why doing what the Italians want in the way the Italians want it would critically impact innocent parties.
And if you want to read across to Britain and TwiX...
This has been happening in Spain recently as well.
Football broadcast rights holders have been demanding ISPs block significant IP ranges from Cloudflare and AWS in real time, in an attempt to take out pirate match broadcasts, but mostly cause unintended consequences for thousands of legitimate sites.
There’s a running social media joke in Spain, that you know when the match is on because half the internet goes down.
That is not a fair summary of what Sultana said. Her tweet begins:
"The images of body bags leave no doubt about the brutality of Iran’s repression, and a communications blackout is indefensible."
It is a complete misrepresentation but that is what we have come to expecrt. If you only read Sandpit's posts Ukraine would have won their war with Russia two years ago and Netanyahu would be well on the way to the Nobel Peace Prize
And if we only read your posts then Hamas are the good guys, their propoganda taken at face value.
So you're equating yourself to a propagandist? Fair enough, good, honest self awareness.
It’s both accurate to say that Russia started the war with Ukraine, and that Hamas started the war with Israel.
Pollster note that the 24% - pre Zahawi defection - is the lowest for Reform since April. All usual caveats apply - it's one poll, wait to see if it's picked up elsewhere etc, this may just be an outlier. However, it is part of a broad downwards trend in Reform support since what appears to have been their peak around October. That coincides with the Conservative ratings starting some sort of recovery from rock bottom, and the salience of immigration starting to gradually decline on most important issue. https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/2010957530479129035
Just 10% between top and bottom of 5 different parties is going to test FPTP to its limits.
Ref UK have a single USP which is disappearing fast. Apart from that all they are known for is disliking forreigners and more recently taking on the detritus of discredited Tory Parties past. I'm struggling to see where their momentum comes from in the next few years.
It's simply (a) not being a party that's been tried in government (b) having a vigorous, dynamioc leader and (c) not being preoccupied with internal disputes. Those factors are sufficient to get you over 25%, mostly from people not that interested in the details. Your Party has failed (so far anyway) on (c) and partly on (b). Reform currently fulfills all 3 rather nicely, though if you imagine Farage dropping out (age?) or some internal quarrel you can see them dropping quickly.
The man who came last in Stratford-Upon-Avon in 2024 was called Neil O’Neil
He didn't stand there or anywhere in 2024. No doubt 2024 was a good election to miss, but it's not a great sign if you want to stay in politics and in the public eye but stand down at the very election when the going is getting very tough. Shades of Cameron's resignation, the one thing essential to avoid and which was going to damage the country, after the referendum.
Some good news at last. The BBC are going to defend their case against Trump
More accurately, they're going to try and get it dismissed so that they don't have to defend it.
Filing for a dismissal is the first step in a defence against a bogus lawsuit. You still have to present at least a partial case against the claim to show why it should be dismissed.
The man who came last in Stratford-Upon-Avon in 2024 was called Neil O’Neil
Zahawi himself didn't stand in that GE
I'd imagine that having been party chairman, a success in pulling in lots of ££££££ for the Tories, and risen - if briefly - as high as being the Chancellor, he assumed he'd be guaranteed a comfy spot on the red benches, and his defection is very largely down to Kemi preferring to try and sweep the stable clean (or, at least, not go out of her way to remind voters how dirty it was). Isn't it only recently that Labour indicated it was prepared to let the Tories have a few more peerages, hence the timing?
That is not a fair summary of what Sultana said. Her tweet begins:
"The images of body bags leave no doubt about the brutality of Iran’s repression, and a communications blackout is indefensible."
It is a complete misrepresentation but that is what we have come to expecrt. If you only read Sandpit's posts Ukraine would have won their war with Russia two years ago and Netanyahu would be well on the way to the Nobel Peace Prize
And if we only read your posts then Hamas are the good guys, their propoganda taken at face value.
So you're equating yourself to a propagandist? Fair enough, good, honest self awareness.
It’s both accurate to say that Russia started the war with Ukraine, and that Hamas started the war with Israel.
Shocking that Hamas started a war after decades of peace. Who started the war in the West Bank?
That is not a fair summary of what Sultana said. Her tweet begins:
"The images of body bags leave no doubt about the brutality of Iran’s repression, and a communications blackout is indefensible."
It is a complete misrepresentation but that is what we have come to expecrt. If you only read Sandpit's posts Ukraine would have won their war with Russia two years ago and Netanyahu would be well on the way to the Nobel Peace Prize
And if we only read your posts then Hamas are the good guys, their propoganda taken at face value.
So you're equating yourself to a propagandist? Fair enough, good, honest self awareness.
It’s both accurate to say that Russia started the war with Ukraine, and that Hamas started the war with Israel.
Shocking that Hamas started a war after decades of peace. Who started the war in the West Bank?
That is not a fair summary of what Sultana said. Her tweet begins:
"The images of body bags leave no doubt about the brutality of Iran’s repression, and a communications blackout is indefensible."
It is a complete misrepresentation but that is what we have come to expecrt. If you only read Sandpit's posts Ukraine would have won their war with Russia two years ago and Netanyahu would be well on the way to the Nobel Peace Prize
And if we only read your posts then Hamas are the good guys, their propoganda taken at face value.
So you're equating yourself to a propagandist? Fair enough, good, honest self awareness.
It’s both accurate to say that Russia started the war with Ukraine, and that Hamas started the war with Israel.
Shocking that Hamas started a war after decades of peace. Who started the war in the West Bank?
Jordan?
Silly mare should stick to plastic surgery and breast enhancement.
The internal weapons bay doesn't carry anti-ship missiles. If it was carrying those, they'd be on external hard points, which doesn't look very civilian.
But without reading the story, it's hard to tell whether there's anything at all in it. Do they go into specifics ?
Cloudflare CEO threatens to make the Winter Olympics a political football after Italy slugs it with a fine Labels Rome's comms regulator ‘a quasi-judicial body’ that works on behalf of ‘shadowy, European media cabal’ https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/cloudflare_vs_italy/
Worth a read because it covers the same issues that affect Britain and other countries (iirc TwiX has recently been blocked by some Asian countries).
Italy wants piracy of Serie A football matches stopped. The Italian regulator has threatened to fine Cloudflare for not blocking them. Cloudflare threatened to pull services to the Italian Winter Olympics. The Italian government is trying to cool things down. There are also important technical reasons why doing what the Italians want in the way the Italians want it would critically impact innocent parties.
And if you want to read across to Britain and TwiX...
This has been happening in Spain recently as well.
Football broadcast rights holders have been demanding ISPs block significant IP ranges from Cloudflare and AWS in real time, in an attempt to take out pirate match broadcasts, but mostly cause unintended consequences for thousands of legitimate sites.
There’s a running social media joke in Spain, that you know when the match is on because half the internet goes down.
Ten or so years back, I solved the mystery of why our Italian client's media streams went down occasionally. Long story short: redundant routing through Amsterdam triggered geolocation-based blocking because they'd only got the Italian rights. One Europe? No, not really.
Cloudflare CEO threatens to make the Winter Olympics a political football after Italy slugs it with a fine Labels Rome's comms regulator ‘a quasi-judicial body’ that works on behalf of ‘shadowy, European media cabal’ https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/cloudflare_vs_italy/
Worth a read because it covers the same issues that affect Britain and other countries (iirc TwiX has recently been blocked by some Asian countries).
Italy wants piracy of Serie A football matches stopped. The Italian regulator has threatened to fine Cloudflare for not blocking them. Cloudflare threatened to pull services to the Italian Winter Olympics. The Italian government is trying to cool things down. There are also important technical reasons why doing what the Italians want in the way the Italians want it would critically impact innocent parties.
And if you want to read across to Britain and TwiX...
This has been happening in Spain recently as well.
Football broadcast rights holders have been demanding ISPs block significant IP ranges from Cloudflare and AWS in real time, in an attempt to take out pirate match broadcasts, but mostly cause unintended consequences for thousands of legitimate sites.
There’s a running social media joke in Spain, that you know when the match is on because half the internet goes down.
It’s the same issue as Grok, you can’t apply 20th century laws in the 21st century because the world doesn’t work the way it used to.
Cloudflare should be blocking sites from using their services but because it’s a US firm there is nothing that can be done about it - hence the ISPs which are in Spain / Italy are forced to do stupid things to meet their legal requirements
My readings of Forester and O'Brien suggest that any ship flying a false flag (hi Sandpit!) was supposed to hoist its genuine ensign just before making an attack.
On-topic, the question for Plaid is whether they are still held back by their cultural baggage, or has the language issue faded now that road signs, schools and S4C speak Welsh?
It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy: The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender; The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness; The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts that are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and misinformation...
Cloudflare CEO threatens to make the Winter Olympics a political football after Italy slugs it with a fine Labels Rome's comms regulator ‘a quasi-judicial body’ that works on behalf of ‘shadowy, European media cabal’ https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/cloudflare_vs_italy/
Worth a read because it covers the same issues that affect Britain and other countries (iirc TwiX has recently been blocked by some Asian countries).
Italy wants piracy of Serie A football matches stopped. The Italian regulator has threatened to fine Cloudflare for not blocking them. Cloudflare threatened to pull services to the Italian Winter Olympics. The Italian government is trying to cool things down. There are also important technical reasons why doing what the Italians want in the way the Italians want it would critically impact innocent parties.
And if you want to read across to Britain and TwiX...
This has been happening in Spain recently as well.
Football broadcast rights holders have been demanding ISPs block significant IP ranges from Cloudflare and AWS in real time, in an attempt to take out pirate match broadcasts, but mostly cause unintended consequences for thousands of legitimate sites.
There’s a running social media joke in Spain, that you know when the match is on because half the internet goes down.
Ten or so years back, I solved the mystery of why our Italian client's media streams went down occasionally. Long story short: redundant routing through Amsterdam triggered geolocation-based blocking because they'd only got the Italian rights. One Europe? No, not really.
F1 fans have loads of problems with streaming TV in Europe, because every country has its own broadcaster, but every country also has F1 as a least a Tier 2 sport so they’re watching out for it.
Then as you say, it only needs a few interconnects that pass national boundaries inadvertently, and it really screws up for everyone.
Most countries now support F1TV’s own OTT product, which makes like much easier. Mostly Sky in UK and Italy that are the holdouts.
Cloudflare CEO threatens to make the Winter Olympics a political football after Italy slugs it with a fine Labels Rome's comms regulator ‘a quasi-judicial body’ that works on behalf of ‘shadowy, European media cabal’ https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/cloudflare_vs_italy/
Worth a read because it covers the same issues that affect Britain and other countries (iirc TwiX has recently been blocked by some Asian countries).
Italy wants piracy of Serie A football matches stopped. The Italian regulator has threatened to fine Cloudflare for not blocking them. Cloudflare threatened to pull services to the Italian Winter Olympics. The Italian government is trying to cool things down. There are also important technical reasons why doing what the Italians want in the way the Italians want it would critically impact innocent parties.
And if you want to read across to Britain and TwiX...
This has been happening in Spain recently as well.
Football broadcast rights holders have been demanding ISPs block significant IP ranges from Cloudflare and AWS in real time, in an attempt to take out pirate match broadcasts, but mostly cause unintended consequences for thousands of legitimate sites.
There’s a running social media joke in Spain, that you know when the match is on because half the internet goes down.
Ten or so years back, I solved the mystery of why our Italian client's media streams went down occasionally. Long story short: redundant routing through Amsterdam triggered geolocation-based blocking because they'd only got the Italian rights. One Europe? No, not really.
F1 fans have loads of problems with streaming TV in Europe, because every country has its own broadcaster, but every country also has F1 as a least a Tier 2 sport so they’re watching out for it.
Then as you say, it only needs a few interconnects that pass national boundaries inadvertently, and it really screws up for everyone.
Most countries now support F1TV’s own OTT product, which makes like much easier. Mostly Sky in UK and Italy that are the holdouts.
Got to say I’ve never had a problem getting F1TVs output,
They are happy to sell me a subscription via Amazon.co.uk and their blocking is embarrassingly easy to bypass
Given the overrepresentation of both Labour and effing idiots in the Commons, and the certainty that those two things are overlapping sets, surely it's inevitable ?
If you were a new Labour MP in what was once a safe heartland constituency seat that is now seriously threatened by Reform and you didn't want to see your career as an elected politician end after one term, surely it could certainly be tempting to defect early from this deeply unpopular Labour Government to sit on the Opposition benches in the Reform party? And with the added political polling bonus that you would be a very good bet to win a new mandate as a Reform candidate if you followed in the footsteps of Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless when they both defected from the Conservative party to UKIP and then triggered by-elections which they then went onto win..
You'd have to be more than usually cynical to switch from Lab to Ref as an MP. Even if you see your career as the most important consideration (ugh), switching to Greens probably makes more sense.
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2010776411942932828 FOX NEWS: The officer involved in the Minneapolis shooting -- does the president stand fully behind him? Does he think his action were justified?
LEAVITT: Absolutely. President Trump was right about this all along. This deranged lunatic woman was trying to ram him over with her vehicle.
On-topic, the question for Plaid is whether they are still held back by their cultural baggage, or has the language issue faded now that road signs, schools and S4C speak Welsh?
Based on current polling Plaid are expected to win at least one seat in each of the 16 polling disticts -they are still strongest in the 4 Fro Gymraeg seats, but they now represent all of Wales.
The idea that “hiding” weapons in a bomb bay is perfidious is interesting.
All US navy or air force planes are clearly marked as being military planes. If one was actually painted in the livery of a civilian airliner then that would be a different matter.
Cloudflare CEO threatens to make the Winter Olympics a political football after Italy slugs it with a fine Labels Rome's comms regulator ‘a quasi-judicial body’ that works on behalf of ‘shadowy, European media cabal’ https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/cloudflare_vs_italy/
Worth a read because it covers the same issues that affect Britain and other countries (iirc TwiX has recently been blocked by some Asian countries).
Italy wants piracy of Serie A football matches stopped. The Italian regulator has threatened to fine Cloudflare for not blocking them. Cloudflare threatened to pull services to the Italian Winter Olympics. The Italian government is trying to cool things down. There are also important technical reasons why doing what the Italians want in the way the Italians want it would critically impact innocent parties.
And if you want to read across to Britain and TwiX...
This has been happening in Spain recently as well.
Football broadcast rights holders have been demanding ISPs block significant IP ranges from Cloudflare and AWS in real time, in an attempt to take out pirate match broadcasts, but mostly cause unintended consequences for thousands of legitimate sites.
There’s a running social media joke in Spain, that you know when the match is on because half the internet goes down.
Ten or so years back, I solved the mystery of why our Italian client's media streams went down occasionally. Long story short: redundant routing through Amsterdam triggered geolocation-based blocking because they'd only got the Italian rights. One Europe? No, not really.
F1 fans have loads of problems with streaming TV in Europe, because every country has its own broadcaster, but every country also has F1 as a least a Tier 2 sport so they’re watching out for it.
Then as you say, it only needs a few interconnects that pass national boundaries inadvertently, and it really screws up for everyone.
Most countries now support F1TV’s own OTT product, which makes life much easier. Mostly Sky in UK and Italy that are the holdouts.
Got to say I’ve never had a problem getting F1TVs output,
They are happy to sell me a subscription via Amazon.co.uk and their blocking is embarrassingly easy to bypass
Yes they’re clearly doing the bare minimum they can get away without upsetting Sky too much.
Most of the widely available not-physical and not-public connections seem to work just fine.
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2010776411942932828 FOX NEWS: The officer involved in the Minneapolis shooting -- does the president stand fully behind him? Does he think his action were justified?
LEAVITT: Absolutely. President Trump was right about this all along. This deranged lunatic woman was trying to ram him over with her vehicle.
Why was Karoline Leavitt trying to ram an ICE officer over with her vehicle?
On-topic, the question for Plaid is whether they are still held back by their cultural baggage, or has the language issue faded now that road signs, schools and S4C speak Welsh?
Based on current polling Plaid are expected to win at least one seat in each of the 16 polling disticts -they are still strongest in the 4 Fro Gymraeg seats, but they now represent all of Wales.
Based on detailed observations over the last six months, I am genuinely surprised at the number of yummy mummies in suburban Cardiff coffee shops speaking Welsh.
On-topic, the question for Plaid is whether they are still held back by their cultural baggage, or has the language issue faded now that road signs, schools and S4C speak Welsh?
Based on current polling Plaid are expected to win at least one seat in each of the 16 polling disticts -they are still strongest in the 4 Fro Gymraeg seats, but they now represent all of Wales.
Based on detailed observations over the last six months, I am genuinely surprised at the number of yummy mummies in suburban Cardiff coffee shops speaking Welsh.
Did they stay hot when you shoved your oer in?
(This is an epically awesome pun but only about three people will get it.)
Cloudflare CEO threatens to make the Winter Olympics a political football after Italy slugs it with a fine Labels Rome's comms regulator ‘a quasi-judicial body’ that works on behalf of ‘shadowy, European media cabal’ https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/cloudflare_vs_italy/
Worth a read because it covers the same issues that affect Britain and other countries (iirc TwiX has recently been blocked by some Asian countries).
Italy wants piracy of Serie A football matches stopped. The Italian regulator has threatened to fine Cloudflare for not blocking them. Cloudflare threatened to pull services to the Italian Winter Olympics. The Italian government is trying to cool things down. There are also important technical reasons why doing what the Italians want in the way the Italians want it would critically impact innocent parties.
And if you want to read across to Britain and TwiX...
This has been happening in Spain recently as well.
Football broadcast rights holders have been demanding ISPs block significant IP ranges from Cloudflare and AWS in real time, in an attempt to take out pirate match broadcasts, but mostly cause unintended consequences for thousands of legitimate sites.
There’s a running social media joke in Spain, that you know when the match is on because half the internet goes down.
Ten or so years back, I solved the mystery of why our Italian client's media streams went down occasionally. Long story short: redundant routing through Amsterdam triggered geolocation-based blocking because they'd only got the Italian rights. One Europe? No, not really.
F1 fans have loads of problems with streaming TV in Europe, because every country has its own broadcaster, but every country also has F1 as a least a Tier 2 sport so they’re watching out for it.
Then as you say, it only needs a few interconnects that pass national boundaries inadvertently, and it really screws up for everyone.
Most countries now support F1TV’s own OTT product, which makes life much easier. Mostly Sky in UK and Italy that are the holdouts.
Got to say I’ve never had a problem getting F1TVs output,
They are happy to sell me a subscription via Amazon.co.uk and their blocking is embarrassingly easy to bypass
Yes they’re clearly doing the bare minimum they can get away without upsetting Sky too much.
Most of the widely available not-physical and not-public connections seem to work just fine.
The fact I can purchase a subscription via Amazon UK shows how half baked their protection is.
And the reality is I don’t mind spending £100 a year on off chance I’m around to watch a race but I didn’t want to give money to Murdoch and even less willing to give money to comcast
It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy: The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender; The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness; The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts that are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and misinformation...
In any event, the story sounds a bit thin.
The naval convention is that it is OK to sail under false colours but you would run up your true ones immediately before making an attack. In addition, you could say that Q-ships were acting defensively, as the idea was to lure the u-boat into making a surface attack. It has only been recently that merchantmen have generally been unarmed. So if you attack a ship and it turns out to be better armed than you expected, tough titty.
I have never understood why Q-ships have not been used against Somali pirates (and other modern pirates of different ethnicities, I would not want to be thought racist!)
It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy: The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender; The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness; The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts that are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and misinformation...
In any event, the story sounds a bit thin.
The naval convention is that it is OK to sail under false colours but you would run up your true ones immediately before making an attack. In addition, you could say that Q-ships were acting defensively, as the idea was to lure the u-boat into making a surface attack. It has only been recently that merchantmen have generally been unarmed. So if you attack a ship and it turns out to be better armed than you expected, tough titty.
I have never understood why Q-ships have not been used against Somali pirates (and other modern pirates of different ethnicities, I would not want to be thought racist!)
Don't you think access to the office blocks where FoxNews are based might be an issue?
That is not a fair summary of what Sultana said. Her tweet begins:
"The images of body bags leave no doubt about the brutality of Iran’s repression, and a communications blackout is indefensible."
Indeed.
And it's right to be cautious about the effect of Western intervention. Done badly it could end up bolstering the regime by giving them the ability to portray the protestors as traitors, or else result in a destructive power vacuum if the regime is brought down without a proper plan. If the West is going to intervene in Iran, that intervention needs to be decisive and properly thought through, otherwise it may well be worse than doing nothing.
I'm generally a sceptic of foreign interference - applying the medical principle of "first do no harm" - but in her tweet Sultana says that only the iranian people can decide their future, and the iranian protesters have been widely calling for US assistance. They've been changing street names to "Trump", they've been asking for the US to bomb the IRGC and other regime bulwarks.
Maybe the iranians are naive in their hope that US intervention will help them, but they get to make that mistake. We can hardly say that they should get to determine their own future and then insist that they do it the way we want them to.
On-topic, the question for Plaid is whether they are still held back by their cultural baggage, or has the language issue faded now that road signs, schools and S4C speak Welsh?
Based on current polling Plaid are expected to win at least one seat in each of the 16 polling disticts -they are still strongest in the 4 Fro Gymraeg seats, but they now represent all of Wales.
Based on detailed observations over the last six months, I am genuinely surprised at the number of yummy mummies in suburban Cardiff coffee shops speaking Welsh.
Did they stay hot when you shoved your oer in?
(This is an epically awesome pun but only about three people will get it.)
OT - Keir Hardie was an Ind Lab MP for West Ham South in 1892-5, when later elected for Merthyr Tydvil he was LRC/ILP.
Lab won't be wiped out in Wales - though under the old voting system they might have been. However, let's be honest, anything under 20 seats would be very poor and anything under 10 would be disastrous. Scotland won't be much better and London is difficult to call but sees Lab defending very good results and so highly vulnerable. The 2025 locals should have seen a total revamp of the Lab Govt's methods and priorities. The 2026 locals should be the end of Starmer if the results are anything like we suspect. Meanwhile, atttention on Starmer's future will probably save the bonfire of Kemi's vanities for a future date.
On-topic, the question for Plaid is whether they are still held back by their cultural baggage, or has the language issue faded now that road signs, schools and S4C speak Welsh?
Based on current polling Plaid are expected to win at least one seat in each of the 16 polling disticts -they are still strongest in the 4 Fro Gymraeg seats, but they now represent all of Wales.
Based on detailed observations over the last six months, I am genuinely surprised at the number of yummy mummies in suburban Cardiff coffee shops speaking Welsh.
Did they stay hot when you shoved your oer in?
(This is an epically awesome pun but only about three people will get it.)
(Unfortunately, I am not one of them!)
Let's say, if I said 'Mae'n oer iawn ar hyn o bryd' I would be commenting on the weather, and you would agree.
More good news on the transition away from fossil fuels.
Coal power generation fell in China and India for the first time since 1973.. electricity generated by coal plants fell by 1.6% in China and by 3% in India last year, after the boom in clean energy across both countries was more than enough to meet their rising demand for energy.
On-topic, the question for Plaid is whether they are still held back by their cultural baggage, or has the language issue faded now that road signs, schools and S4C speak Welsh?
Based on current polling Plaid are expected to win at least one seat in each of the 16 polling disticts -they are still strongest in the 4 Fro Gymraeg seats, but they now represent all of Wales.
Based on detailed observations over the last six months, I am genuinely surprised at the number of yummy mummies in suburban Cardiff coffee shops speaking Welsh.
Did they stay hot when you shoved your oer in?
(This is an epically awesome pun but only about three people will get it.)
(Unfortunately, I am not one of them!)
Let's say, if I said 'Mae'n oer iawn ar hyn o bryd' I would be commenting on the weather, and you would agree.
OK... well, maybe in 20 years my grandson will probably be able to explain it to me (assuming he isn't too freaked out by the Welsh language toddler group.)
That is not a fair summary of what Sultana said. Her tweet begins:
"The images of body bags leave no doubt about the brutality of Iran’s repression, and a communications blackout is indefensible."
Indeed.
And it's right to be cautious about the effect of Western intervention. Done badly it could end up bolstering the regime by giving them the ability to portray the protestors as traitors, or else result in a destructive power vacuum if the regime is brought down without a proper plan. If the West is going to intervene in Iran, that intervention needs to be decisive and properly thought through, otherwise it may well be worse than doing nothing.
I'm generally a sceptic of foreign interference - applying the medical principle of "first do no harm" - but in her tweet Sultana says that only the iranian people can decide their future, and the iranian protesters have been widely calling for US assistance. They've been changing street names to "Trump", they've been asking for the US to bomb the IRGC and other regime bulwarks.
Maybe the iranians are naive in their hope that US intervention will help them, but they get to make that mistake. We can hardly say that they should get to determine their own future and then insist that they do it the way we want them to.
If the American's do successfully intervene we may end up with a bunch of Iranian kids called Donaldtrump.
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2010776411942932828 FOX NEWS: The officer involved in the Minneapolis shooting -- does the president stand fully behind him? Does he think his action were justified?
LEAVITT: Absolutely. President Trump was right about this all along. This deranged lunatic woman was trying to ram him over with her vehicle.
Why was Karoline Leavitt trying to ram an ICE officer over with her vehicle?
MAGA needs a Horst Wessel, I am wondering when they will sacrifice someone. Upping the tension helps as it increases the likelihood of Ice being badly handled on the protest line
(If Charlie Kirk was their Heydrich, it was too soon)
There is a lot of discussion about why X and why Grok, when other AI and editing programmes allow user directed image generation.
Firstly and significantly, X and Grok are integrated. When a user prompts Grok to create an image, X can publish it for the world to see, with algorithms that can further amplify its reach to its half a billion users.
Second, most platforms would at least attempt to demonstrate that they have basic safeguards in place. Abuse imagery has been an accepted harm that no legitimate platform would want to be seen facilitating, let alone child abuse images. X, however responded by charging for the privilege.
This isn’t normal, and we shouldn’t accept that it is.
I would hope that X, and other platforms, step up and clean up their act because it’s self evidently the right thing to do, but the law must be willing to act where they fail.
I'd be pleased if I didn't suspect that they will make an utter horlicks of the way they try to make and/or enforce the law in this area. The poster here draw some useful distinctions, which I suspect the law won't.
It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy: The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender; The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness; The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts that are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and misinformation...
In any event, the story sounds a bit thin.
The naval convention is that it is OK to sail under false colours but you would run up your true ones immediately before making an attack. In addition, you could say that Q-ships were acting defensively, as the idea was to lure the u-boat into making a surface attack. It has only been recently that merchantmen have generally been unarmed. So if you attack a ship and it turns out to be better armed than you expected, tough titty.
I have never understood why Q-ships have not been used against Somali pirates (and other modern pirates of different ethnicities, I would not want to be thought racist!)
Don't you think access to the office blocks where FoxNews are based might be an issue?
Maybe a month in tropical sunshine has turned my brain to mush, but that went right over my head
It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy: The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender; The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness; The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts that are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and misinformation...
In any event, the story sounds a bit thin.
The naval convention is that it is OK to sail under false colours but you would run up your true ones immediately before making an attack. In addition, you could say that Q-ships were acting defensively, as the idea was to lure the u-boat into making a surface attack. It has only been recently that merchantmen have generally been unarmed. So if you attack a ship and it turns out to be better armed than you expected, tough titty.
I have never understood why Q-ships have not been used against Somali pirates (and other modern pirates of different ethnicities, I would not want to be thought racist!)
The point about Q ships was surely that they were in any event targets of war, otherwise there would be no point to them, and therefore their hidden weaponry amounted to a perfectly legal ruse of war.
Your flag thing is more questionable. Perfidious Albion ?
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2010776411942932828 FOX NEWS: The officer involved in the Minneapolis shooting -- does the president stand fully behind him? Does he think his action were justified?
LEAVITT: Absolutely. President Trump was right about this all along. This deranged lunatic woman was trying to ram him over with her vehicle.
Why was Karoline Leavitt trying to ram an ICE officer over with her vehicle?
MAGA needs a Horst Wessel, I am wondering when they will sacrifice someone. Upping the tension helps as it increases the likelihood of Ice being badly handled on the protest line
(If Charlie Kirk was their Heydrich, it was too soon)
On-topic, the question for Plaid is whether they are still held back by their cultural baggage, or has the language issue faded now that road signs, schools and S4C speak Welsh?
Based on current polling Plaid are expected to win at least one seat in each of the 16 polling disticts -they are still strongest in the 4 Fro Gymraeg seats, but they now represent all of Wales.
Based on detailed observations over the last six months, I am genuinely surprised at the number of yummy mummies in suburban Cardiff coffee shops speaking Welsh.
Did they stay hot when you shoved your oer in?
(This is an epically awesome pun but only about three people will get it.)
The Bella 1, seized by the US Coast Guard/DEA, was found to have contraband hidden in its structure. 1.5 tons of gold from Arco Minero, cash in euros, and electronic guidance components for drones were found.
In more 'we're definitely not Nazis' news, can anyone talk me through what message the plasticised dog killer is trying to send if she's not just happily adopting Nazi vibes?
Was thinking about it yesterday - I think she is far too stupid to know her history but the worrying thing is that there are people in the regime who chose that and were no doubt aware of where it came from which gives an indication of where some want the country to go.
In a way it would be more alarming if they came up with the slogan independently. At least if they knew the Nazi connotations you might be able to convince yourself it was a shitposting strategy, designed to provoke/direct opposition, rather than simply a reflection of them seeing the world in an uncomplicated Nazi way.
I expect a poor night for labour in Wales in May, and see Plaid being the winner with Reform underperforming expectations, not least because the Gill scandal was very much in Wales news bulletins
I do not expect a conservative recovery and it looks likely Plaid will govern as a minority government because being aided by labour in Wales would not be optimal for them
Kemi has improved, and certainly yesterday's YouGov (ironically) seeing her tie with Starmer as best PM and leave Farage trailing well behind her as well as Davey was unexpected
As a one nation conservative I am delighted she refused Zahawi peerage as reform are in danger of being associated with those blamed for the country's problems; all that is needed now is for Truss to join them
Maybe it is instinct, but I do detect a trend away from reform towards the conservatives and even labour though they have a real problem of their own with the Greens
Notwithstanding Mays results on balance I expect Starmer and Badenoch to survive not least because there are no obvious successors
As far as Iran is concerned the atrocities there are horrific and I wish the people of Iran success in their deadly fight against evil
Great analysis in the thread. Single figures in terms of seats seems nailed on for Labour in Wales, and Starmer won't survive that combined with horrible results in the rest of the UK.
And a reminder, you can still get odds of 4/5 that Starmer will be gone by the end of 2026. An absolute bargain. Basically a return of 80% for tying cash up for no more than 6-7 months.
Comments
Of course Twitter is largely unverified, but yes I think one of the jobs of major news organisations should be to follow sources like Twitter and Telegram and research, analyse, publish the results. It might stop the BBC mindlessly regurgitating Russian propaganda in the interests of "balance".
But beyond his, they may be struggling.
One is that Reform can't just be the Nigel show if they want to project as the next government in waiting. Thoughtful Reform-curious types here have noted that. Zahawi might be defecting for all the wrong reasons, but Nigel needs people like him. Even if it boosts the 'Reform are all the worst bits of the Tories' message a bit.
Another is that it gives a few 'Tories down, Reform up' headlines and an excuse for a press conference.
It's all incoherent, natch, right up to Mr 'was it even a proper vaccine?' welcoming the Minister for Vaccines into his party. But part of Farage's success has always been that coherence is overrated.
And it's right to be cautious about the effect of Western intervention. Done badly it could end up bolstering the regime by giving them the ability to portray the protestors as traitors, or else result in a destructive power vacuum if the regime is brought down without a proper plan. If the West is going to intervene in Iran, that intervention needs to be decisive and properly thought through, otherwise it may well be worse than doing nothing.
Scratch the surface and all lefties people seem to forgive anything for their own.
*a member of the political chattering classes.
Zahawi isn't one of them. The sort of careless oversight you make about tax matters leading to £100 penalty and the payment of £1000 tax owed is one thing. Carelessness leading to a £5,000,000 payment to HMRC is of a different order.
Then there was the risk of the Americans finding out - and Trump going batshit crazy with Putin. Though their relationship does seem to be a bit less cosy than it was.
Zahawi, Yusuf, Jenkins et al are not serious people, but they are the nearest off-brand approximation that Reform can get.
Yougov is the one pollster that has the centre left/left parties ahead of the centre right/right. The rest show the reverse.
Wouldn't be a surprise if they were gun running, although maybe it was just a stash for causing annoyance.
Trump won’t sue in London, of course, because of limited damages the court could award.
So it’s going nowhere, but should be a massively embarrassing episode for a Corporation that used to pride itself on journalistic integrity, has cost two senior executives their jobs, and should be a wake-up call for the BBC in future.
Without Farage, whither Reform...
U.S. Attacked Boat With Aircraft That Looked Like a Civilian Plane
Even accepting the Trump administration’s claim that there is an armed conflict with suspected drug runners, the laws of war bar “perfidy.”
https://x.com/charlie_savage/status/2010860771144769955?s=20
Nah. If they knew it held Shaheed drones, then bring on the Sea Babies...
They were likely looking at a P-8 Poseidon, which bears something of a resemblance to a civvy 737.
https://x.com/tiedyeintel/status/2010886441052889491
Labels Rome's comms regulator ‘a quasi-judicial body’ that works on behalf of ‘shadowy, European media cabal’
https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/cloudflare_vs_italy/
Worth a read because it covers the same issues that affect Britain and other countries (iirc TwiX has recently been blocked by some Asian countries).
Italy wants piracy of Serie A football matches stopped. The Italian regulator has threatened to fine Cloudflare for not blocking them. Cloudflare threatened to pull services to the Italian Winter Olympics. The Italian government is trying to cool things down. There are also important technical reasons why doing what the Italians want in the way the Italians want it would critically impact innocent parties.
And if you want to read across to Britain and TwiX...
If you plug in a range of realistic polls into one of the prediction models ( I like the Jac Larner one), the lowest succesful vote is indeed 10.7% and the highest unsuccesful vote is 10.4%.
Realistically, even in a worst case scenario for Labour they should finish with 6-10 seats.
Conservatives should be slightly behind that with say 4-8 seats
Lib Dems will struggle to reach 1-3 seats
Green will do slightly better with 2-5 seats
Plaid and Reform are way ahead of the others with both on 28-33 seats - still very close to call but I expect Plaid to pull ahead.
There is another Senedd poll out tomorrow which should show the direction of travel.
Football broadcast rights holders have been demanding ISPs block significant IP ranges from Cloudflare and AWS in real time, in an attempt to take out pirate match broadcasts, but mostly cause unintended consequences for thousands of legitimate sites.
There’s a running social media joke in Spain, that you know when the match is on because half the internet goes down.
The man who came last in Stratford-Upon-Avon in 2024 was called Neil O’Neil
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-morality-limit-global-power/story?id=129033900
.."Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,” Trump reportedly said to The New York Times.
"I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people," Trump added.
Still, he conceded that his administration does need to adhere to international law.
"It depends what your definition of international law is," Trump said...
You still have to present at least a partial case against the claim to show why it should be dismissed.
I'd imagine that having been party chairman, a success in pulling in lots of ££££££ for the Tories, and risen - if briefly - as high as being the Chancellor, he assumed he'd be guaranteed a comfy spot on the red benches, and his defection is very largely down to Kemi preferring to try and sweep the stable clean (or, at least, not go out of her way to remind voters how dirty it was). Isn't it only recently that Labour indicated it was prepared to let the Tories have a few more peerages, hence the timing?
Who started the war in the West Bank?
If it was carrying those, they'd be on external hard points, which doesn't look very civilian.
But without reading the story, it's hard to tell whether there's anything at all in it.
Do they go into specifics ?
https://x.com/gavinesler/status/2011008786912497731?s=20
Nobody hates Trump more than me, but that's a very old tactic and I've never heard a suggestion it was illegal before.
Here's one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-ship
I don't know the details, that said.
Cloudflare should be blocking sites from using their services but because it’s a US firm there is nothing that can be done about it - hence the ISPs which are in Spain / Italy are forced to do stupid things to meet their legal requirements
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfidy
Article 37. – Prohibition of perfidy
It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy:
The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender;
The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness;
The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and
The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict.
Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts that are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and misinformation...
In any event, the story sounds a bit thin.
Oh dear, how sad, nevermind.
Then as you say, it only needs a few interconnects that pass national boundaries inadvertently, and it really screws up for everyone.
Most countries now support F1TV’s own OTT product, which makes like much easier. Mostly Sky in UK and Italy that are the holdouts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon
The idea that “hiding” weapons in a bomb bay is perfidious is interesting.
They are happy to sell me a subscription via Amazon.co.uk and their blocking is embarrassingly easy to bypass
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2010776411942932828
FOX NEWS: The officer involved in the Minneapolis shooting -- does the president stand fully behind him? Does he think his action were justified?
LEAVITT: Absolutely. President Trump was right about this all along. This deranged lunatic woman was trying to ram him over with her vehicle.
gianmarco
@GianmarcoSoresi
3h
Now America will be undressing kids before bombing them
https://x.com/GianmarcoSoresi/status/2010979224279269672?s=20
Most of the widely available not-physical and not-public connections seem to work just fine.
https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/2011022155149148591
Would be a real shame if they keep suffering from these unfortunate fires.
(This is an epically awesome pun but only about three people will get it.)
And the reality is I don’t mind spending £100 a year on off chance I’m around to watch a race but I didn’t want to give money to Murdoch and even less willing to give money to comcast
I have never understood why Q-ships have not been used against Somali pirates (and other modern pirates of different ethnicities, I would not want to be thought racist!)
Maybe the iranians are naive in their hope that US intervention will help them, but they get to make that mistake. We can hardly say that they should get to determine their own future and then insist that they do it the way we want them to.
@jaheale.bsky.social
Ed Davey says he’d take Donald Trump more seriously on murdering protesters in Iran if he stopped murdering protestors in Minnesota
Lab won't be wiped out in Wales - though under the old voting system they might have been. However, let's be honest, anything under 20 seats would be very poor and anything under 10 would be disastrous. Scotland won't be much better and London is difficult to call but sees Lab defending very good results and so highly vulnerable. The 2025 locals should have seen a total revamp of the Lab Govt's methods and priorities. The 2026 locals should be the end of Starmer if the results are anything like we suspect. Meanwhile, atttention on Starmer's future will probably save the bonfire of Kemi's vanities for a future date.
Coal power generation fell in China and India for the first time since 1973.. electricity generated by coal plants fell by 1.6% in China and by 3% in India last year, after the boom in clean energy across both countries was more than enough to meet their rising demand for energy.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jan/13/coal-power-generation-falls-china-india-since-1970s
Maybe it's a blip, but if renewables continue to come down in price and expand at a greater rate, then it's possible this could accelerate soon.
(If Charlie Kirk was their Heydrich, it was too soon)
Firstly and significantly, X and Grok are integrated. When a user prompts Grok to create an image, X can publish it for the world to see, with algorithms that can further amplify its reach to its half a billion users.
Second, most platforms would at least attempt to demonstrate that they have basic safeguards in place. Abuse imagery has been an accepted harm that no legitimate platform would want to be seen facilitating, let alone child abuse images. X, however responded by charging for the privilege.
This isn’t normal, and we shouldn’t accept that it is.
I would hope that X, and other platforms, step up and clean up their act because it’s self evidently the right thing to do, but the law must be willing to act where they fail.
I’m pleased Government is moving to address this.
https://x.com/JimfromOldham/status/2010996330538111294
I'd be pleased if I didn't suspect that they will make an utter horlicks of the way they try to make and/or enforce the law in this area.
The poster here draw some useful distinctions, which I suspect the law won't.
Your flag thing is more questionable. Perfidious Albion ?
https://x.com/heroiam_slava/status/2010991695182135692
The Bella 1, seized by the US Coast Guard/DEA, was found to have contraband hidden in its structure. 1.5 tons of gold from Arco Minero, cash in euros, and electronic guidance components for drones were found.
I expect a poor night for labour in Wales in May, and see Plaid being the winner with Reform underperforming expectations, not least because the Gill scandal was very much in Wales news bulletins
I do not expect a conservative recovery and it looks likely Plaid will govern as a minority government because being aided by labour in Wales would not be optimal for them
Kemi has improved, and certainly yesterday's YouGov (ironically) seeing her tie with Starmer as best PM and leave Farage trailing well behind her as well as Davey was unexpected
As a one nation conservative I am delighted she refused Zahawi peerage as reform are in danger of being associated with those blamed for the country's problems; all that is needed now is for Truss to join them
Maybe it is instinct, but I do detect a trend away from reform towards the conservatives and even labour though they have a real problem of their own with the Greens
Notwithstanding Mays results on balance I expect Starmer and Badenoch to survive not least because there are no obvious successors
As far as Iran is concerned the atrocities there are horrific and I wish the people of Iran success in their deadly fight against evil
And a reminder, you can still get odds of 4/5 that Starmer will be gone by the end of 2026. An absolute bargain. Basically a return of 80% for tying cash up for no more than 6-7 months.