Can someone explain why the abused women have not named those involved and criminal charges laid
Surely there has to be criminal trials
I would just say I have little knowledge of US laws
That's to assume that they didn't name any names. As for charges, we have the example of Epstein himself, who was complicit in everything that went on, being given a massively lending plea deal. Wealthy people on the US can delay justice for a very long time, and of course in this case both local and national political influence is involved.
On the former point, there are numerous allegations out there; they just never got much reporting or credence. As an example, this was posted today.
You might recall the allegations against Trump in the latest Epstein files released yesterday. They were made by a woman who was 16 at the time. She claimed that three brothers, Oren, Alan and Tal (two of which were twins) raped her and her friends at Epstein's estate and that Trump and Clinton partook in orgies with underaged women, including herself.
This is where things get really interesting though. Three brothers, Oren, Alon and Tal Alexander (two of which are twins) are literally on trial right now in Florida for sex trafficking, and one of the key witnesses in their case was 16 at the time she was allegedly sexually assaulted by them.
What's even more interesting, is that there is literally a photo of Oren Alexander in the Epstein files, standing with two women whose faces have been redacted.
So why would this victim tell such an elaborate story that now, years later seems true (given the trial) but make up the fact that Clinton and Trump were involved?.. https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2017623157822124400
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Indeed.
I am trying to think of a Democrat ticket that I wouldn’t have instantly voted for over Trump/Vance.
AOC/Bernie - no hesitation.
Can anyone come up with a ticket that wouldn’t obviously have been better than Trump?
So you would consider World ending fascism is preferable to Blairite Socialism.
I think he's saying he would voted for AOC/Bernie without hesitation.
Trump is wrathful, vengeful, grandiose, capricious, impressively venal, and as a world statesman, toe-curlingly embarrassing. He is also, in my opinion, 100% better than having a Democrat President - for America and the for rest of the world.
Personally I wouldn’t go quite that far, and would probably have been 3rd party in the US last time out, but I would say that if Harris had won in 2024 the backlash next time would be a lot worse than Trump is now.
The 2025 mob couldn’t get elected. Which is why they needed Trump.
Vaguely Sane Democrat vs Vance, Miller etc = big Democrat Win
Instead they came up with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Yes, but this is all just virtue signalling. Lots of likes blah blah blah.
People voted for Trump because they thought that's the only way they'd get the policies they really wanted. The fact they did so, despite his despicable character, speaks volumes.
That's what people should be focussing and reflecting upon, because it's the truly material factor here.
"Just virtue signalling" blah blah blah.
You in turn should perhaps be reflecting on what Trump's opponents predicted, and how those predictions (which I believed you treated with considerable scepticism at the time ?) have turned out so far.
Musk has been spamming crap about SpaceX and Grok all day but now every single reply to any of his posts is someone calling him a pedophile. the stage has been set for something historic
Is this really how some people choose to spend their free time?
It takes a few seconds, hardly much of their time, so I've always found that to be a rather silly complaint to frivilous or petty trolling. Is it still silly to do it? Sure, but as a complaint about their 'free time' it falls apart because of how little time it takes.
Musk, on the other hand, spends an inordinate amount of time online being an edgelord, even if we assume he is doing a lot of it inbetween important businessman stuff and billionaire pursuits.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
I finished a trial yesterday where a Romanian claimed to have consensual sex with a 14 year girl he had offered a lift home to when she was drunk. He was unanimously convicted of rape and rightly so. People who think like this are simply beyond my comprehension. They are monsters, dangerous monsters. I try not to get emotionally invested in my cases but this was one which turned my stomach. I frankly don't give a damn whether he has done some good or not.
Hopefully you get to wind down with a tax evasion case or something next after that.
Some drugs in fact. Starts a week tomorrow.
Its hard to feel the same about that. This trial involves the seizure of £450k of cocaine. Which is roughly £3 for every man, woman and child in Dundee (where the drugs were found). Would this have changed the street price? No chance. Would it have caused some local shortages? Briefly, if at all. We have what economists call a superabundance of supply and our seizures, however large, barely scratch the surface.
Don't get me wrong, these people deserve to be punished. Their supply will have helped destroy lives. The desperation of those whose lives are being destroyed will cause further damage in terms of shoplifting, burglary and robbery as they try to fund their addiction. But, as I have said before, if we are fighting a war on drugs its time we admitted we lost and try something else.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Indeed.
I am trying to think of a Democrat ticket that I wouldn’t have instantly voted for over Trump/Vance.
AOC/Bernie - no hesitation.
Can anyone come up with a ticket that wouldn’t obviously have been better than Trump?
So you would consider World ending fascism is preferable to Blairite Socialism.
I think he's saying he would voted for AOC/Bernie without hesitation.
Trump is wrathful, vengeful, grandiose, capricious, impressively venal, and as a world statesman, toe-curlingly embarrassing. He is also, in my opinion, 100% better than having a Democrat President - for America and the for rest of the world.
Personally I wouldn’t go quite that far, and would probably have been 3rd party in the US last time out, but I would say that if Harris had won in 2024 the backlash next time would be a lot worse than Trump is now.
I mean the Democrats now. I am not talking about any theoretical leader designated as a Democrat - I'm not bothered about political labels.
The UK is not the US. However, there are some commonalities, and I believe that progressivism in both countries weakens everything around it like deathwatch beetle. The UK is a gentler and more polite society, and our reversal of progressive politics and its hold over our institutions will not be the same as the US, but it must be equally thorough.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
I finished a trial yesterday where a Romanian claimed to have consensual sex with a 14 year girl he had offered a lift home to when she was drunk. He was unanimously convicted of rape and rightly so. People who think like this are simply beyond my comprehension. They are monsters, dangerous monsters. I try not to get emotionally invested in my cases but this was one which turned my stomach. I frankly don't give a damn whether he has done some good or not.
Hopefully you get to wind down with a tax evasion case or something next after that.
Some drugs in fact. Starts a week tomorrow.
Its hard to feel the same about that. This trial involves the seizure of £450k of cocaine. Which is roughly £3 for every man, woman and child in Dundee (where the drugs were found). Would this have changed the street price? No chance. Would it have caused some local shortages? Briefly, if at all. We have what economists call a superabundance of supply and our seizures, however large, barely scratch the surface.
Don't get me wrong, these people deserve to be punished. Their supply will have helped destroy lives. The desperation of those whose lives are being destroyed will cause further damage in terms of shoplifting, burglary and robbery as they try to fund their addiction. But, as I have said before, if we are fighting a war on drugs its time we admitted we lost and try something else.
Legalise the whole supply chain. Grow and process it in the UK. Tax and regulate it.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Indeed.
I am trying to think of a Democrat ticket that I wouldn’t have instantly voted for over Trump/Vance.
AOC/Bernie - no hesitation.
Can anyone come up with a ticket that wouldn’t obviously have been better than Trump?
So you would consider World ending fascism is preferable to Blairite Socialism.
I think he's saying he would voted for AOC/Bernie without hesitation.
Trump is wrathful, vengeful, grandiose, capricious, impressively venal, and as a world statesman, toe-curlingly embarrassing. He is also, in my opinion, 100% better than having a Democrat President - for America and the for rest of the world.
Personally I wouldn’t go quite that far, and would probably have been 3rd party in the US last time out, but I would say that if Harris had won in 2024 the backlash next time would be a lot worse than Trump is now.
The 2025 mob couldn’t get elected. Which is why they needed Trump.
Vaguely Sane Democrat vs Vance, Miller etc = big Democrat Win
Instead they came up with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
I don't believe Kamala was as weak a candidate as Fox News and News Max would have had us believe.
The border narrative would have been too much for any Dem to win.
Although being a woman of colour perhaps didn't help.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
I finished a trial yesterday where a Romanian claimed to have consensual sex with a 14 year girl he had offered a lift home to when she was drunk. He was unanimously convicted of rape and rightly so. People who think like this are simply beyond my comprehension. They are monsters, dangerous monsters. I try not to get emotionally invested in my cases but this was one which turned my stomach. I frankly don't give a damn whether he has done some good or not.
Hopefully you get to wind down with a tax evasion case or something next after that.
Some drugs in fact. Starts a week tomorrow.
Its hard to feel the same about that. This trial involves the seizure of £450k of cocaine. Which is roughly £3 for every man, woman and child in Dundee (where the drugs were found). Would this have changed the street price? No chance. Would it have caused some local shortages? Briefly, if at all. We have what economists call a superabundance of supply and our seizures, however large, barely scratch the surface.
Don't get me wrong, these people deserve to be punished. Their supply will have helped destroy lives. The desperation of those whose lives are being destroyed will cause further damage in terms of shoplifting, burglary and robbery as they try to fund their addiction. But, as I have said before, if we are fighting a war on drugs its time we admitted we lost and try something else.
I’ve long thought that the drugs approach is wrong in most of the West.
You either need to be Singapore/Dubai/Bangkok, with actual life sentences for small amounts, or you need to be totally liberal and sell the stuff in pharmacies, produced by companies with proper facilities and standards.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
I finished a trial yesterday where a Romanian claimed to have consensual sex with a 14 year girl he had offered a lift home to when she was drunk. He was unanimously convicted of rape and rightly so. People who think like this are simply beyond my comprehension. They are monsters, dangerous monsters. I try not to get emotionally invested in my cases but this was one which turned my stomach. I frankly don't give a damn whether he has done some good or not.
Hopefully you get to wind down with a tax evasion case or something next after that.
Some drugs in fact. Starts a week tomorrow.
Its hard to feel the same about that. This trial involves the seizure of £450k of cocaine. Which is roughly £3 for every man, woman and child in Dundee (where the drugs were found). Would this have changed the street price? No chance. Would it have caused some local shortages? Briefly, if at all. We have what economists call a superabundance of supply and our seizures, however large, barely scratch the surface.
Don't get me wrong, these people deserve to be punished. Their supply will have helped destroy lives. The desperation of those whose lives are being destroyed will cause further damage in terms of shoplifting, burglary and robbery as they try to fund their addiction. But, as I have said before, if we are fighting a war on drugs its time we admitted we lost and try something else.
Legalise the whole supply chain. Grow and process it in the UK. Tax and regulate it.
Or the opposite. Police the consumption and dealing of drugs to kill demand. No demand, no supply.
Can someone explain why the abused women have not named those involved and criminal charges laid
Surely there has to be criminal trials
I would just say I have little knowledge of US laws
That's to assume that they didn't name any names. As for charges, we have the example of Epstein himself, who was complicit in everything that went on, being given a massively lending plea deal. Wealthy people on the US can delay justice for a very long time, and of course in this case both local and national political influence is involved.
On the former point, there are numerous allegations out there; they just never got much reporting or credence. As an example, this was posted today.
You might recall the allegations against Trump in the latest Epstein files released yesterday. They were made by a woman who was 16 at the time. She claimed that three brothers, Oren, Alan and Tal (two of which were twins) raped her and her friends at Epstein's estate and that Trump and Clinton partook in orgies with underaged women, including herself.
This is where things get really interesting though. Three brothers, Oren, Alon and Tal Alexander (two of which are twins) are literally on trial right now in Florida for sex trafficking, and one of the key witnesses in their case was 16 at the time she was allegedly sexually assaulted by them.
What's even more interesting, is that there is literally a photo of Oren Alexander in the Epstein files, standing with two women whose faces have been redacted.
So why would this victim tell such an elaborate story that now, years later seems true (given the trial) but make up the fact that Clinton and Trump were involved?.. https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2017623157822124400
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
I finished a trial yesterday where a Romanian claimed to have consensual sex with a 14 year girl he had offered a lift home to when she was drunk. He was unanimously convicted of rape and rightly so. People who think like this are simply beyond my comprehension. They are monsters, dangerous monsters. I try not to get emotionally invested in my cases but this was one which turned my stomach. I frankly don't give a damn whether he has done some good or not.
Hopefully you get to wind down with a tax evasion case or something next after that.
Some drugs in fact. Starts a week tomorrow.
Its hard to feel the same about that. This trial involves the seizure of £450k of cocaine. Which is roughly £3 for every man, woman and child in Dundee (where the drugs were found). Would this have changed the street price? No chance. Would it have caused some local shortages? Briefly, if at all. We have what economists call a superabundance of supply and our seizures, however large, barely scratch the surface.
Don't get me wrong, these people deserve to be punished. Their supply will have helped destroy lives. The desperation of those whose lives are being destroyed will cause further damage in terms of shoplifting, burglary and robbery as they try to fund their addiction. But, as I have said before, if we are fighting a war on drugs its time we admitted we lost and try something else.
Legalise the whole supply chain. Grow and process it in the UK. Tax and regulate it.
Or the opposite. Police the consumption and dealing of drugs to kill demand. No demand, no supply.
That’s been tried for decades. And failed.
In the USSR, the KGB failed to stamp out drugs. That is, one of the largest and most unconstrained secret police organisations in human history barely made a dent. With courts that rubber stamped arrests…
Bold comment, and an odd time to make it you'd think, when Trump is working hard to get some kind of deal Putin can live with (even if it is far below his initial expectations) and so declare it a success.
The situation inside Russia is finally beginning to change. The Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, is on his deathbed and with him will pass a significant element of the Power Vertical. The Russian Army has been taking an absolute pasting- an estimated 40,000 dead in the past month alone (for context only 25,000 Soviet troops died in nine years of the Afghan war). Equipment failures and intelligence mistakes on the front line have allowed the Ukrainian armed forces to improve their situation quite dramatically. The Russian economy is being squeezed even further as the shadow fleet is being slowly rounded up and the oil and gas infrastructure is failing under repeated military attacks from Ukrainian missiles and drones. The regime of the Mullahs in Iran is under severe pressure, and Russia has no means to defend it. Even Beijing is now far less reliable as Xi Jinping is trying to face down a rebellion from inside the PLA which could see him removed from office.
The growing sense in Russia is that the war has been a disastrous failure and that possibly the only reason it continues is that Putin would fall immediately it stops- and that Trump still offers Putin a chance to recoup something from the calamity. However, as Trump faces illness and the growing political pressure on multiple fronts: Minnesota massacre, Epstein and a growing outrage even in the GOP over the Greenland "deal", the high water mark of Trumpism may already have passed. The darkness is gathering around the Kremlin and no one knows what come next- but change, maybe even revolutionary change, may now not be far off.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Yes, but this is all just virtue signalling. Lots of likes blah blah blah.
People voted for Trump because they thought that's the only way they'd get the policies they really wanted. The fact they did so, despite his despicable character, speaks volumes.
That's what people should be focussing and reflecting upon, because it's the truly material factor here.
It was quite a close result and therefore many things can be argued to have made a decisive difference. This makes it fertile ground for people to proclaim that what 'did it' was something that plays into their own political brain chemistry.
So, people who hate Woke say it was the Dems obsession with that. People who can't stand Harris say it was because the Dems chose a dud candidate. Leftists say it was because the Dems were too timid and centrist. Anti-immigrationers say it was because of Trump's tough stance on borders. Etc.
Fwiw I'd say the inflation and the (gullible but genuine) view of Donald Trump as a financially savvy operator who'd be good with the economy was the biggest single factor. But whatever, they fucked up and it's for them to rectify it, starting with the midterms. 🤞
Bold comment, and an odd time to make it you'd think, when Trump is working hard to get some kind of deal Putin can live with (even if it is far below his initial expectations) and so declare it a success.
The situation inside Russia is finally beginning to change. The Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, is on his deathbed and with him will pass a significant element of the Power Vertical. The Russian Army has been taking an absolute pasting- an estimated 40,000 dead in the past month alone (for context only 25,000 Soviet troops died in nine years of the Afghan war). Equipment failures and intelligence mistakes on the front line have allowed the Ukrainian armed forces to improve their situation quite dramatically. The Russian economy is being squeezed even further as the shadow fleet is being slowly rounded up and the oil and gas infrastructure is failing under repeated military attacks from Ukrainian missiles and drones. The regime of the Mullahs in Iran is under severe pressure, and Russia has no means to defend it. Even Beijing is now far less reliable as Xi Jinping is trying to face down a rebellion from inside the PLA which could see him removed from office.
The growing sense in Russia is that the war has been a disastrous failure and that possibly the only reason it continues is that Putin would fall immediately it stops- and that Trump still offers Putin a chance to recoup something from the calamity. However, as Trump faces illness and the growing political pressure on multiple fronts: Minnesota massacre, Epstein and a growing outrage even in the GOP over the Greenland "deal", the high water mark of Trumpism may already have passed. The darkness is gathering around the Kremlin and no one knows what come next- but change, maybe even revolutionary change, may now not be far off.
Kadyrov is dying? That would presumably cause some issues, I assume his children are still too young to easily step into his shoes a la Baby Doc.
Iranian opposition channels have confirmed up to 9 explosions in 6-7 different cities and districts. Unofficial reports claim upwards of 14 separate explosions within the space of 90 minutes.
Bold comment, and an odd time to make it you'd think, when Trump is working hard to get some kind of deal Putin can live with (even if it is far below his initial expectations) and so declare it a success.
The situation inside Russia is finally beginning to change. The Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, is on his deathbed and with him will pass a significant element of the Power Vertical. The Russian Army has been taking an absolute pasting- an estimated 40,000 dead in the past month alone (for context only 25,000 Soviet troops died in nine years of the Afghan war). Equipment failures and intelligence mistakes on the front line have allowed the Ukrainian armed forces to improve their situation quite dramatically. The Russian economy is being squeezed even further as the shadow fleet is being slowly rounded up and the oil and gas infrastructure is failing under repeated military attacks from Ukrainian missiles and drones. The regime of the Mullahs in Iran is under severe pressure, and Russia has no means to defend it. Even Beijing is now far less reliable as Xi Jinping is trying to face down a rebellion from inside the PLA which could see him removed from office.
The growing sense in Russia is that the war has been a disastrous failure and that possibly the only reason it continues is that Putin would fall immediately it stops- and that Trump still offers Putin a chance to recoup something from the calamity. However, as Trump faces illness and the growing political pressure on multiple fronts: Minnesota massacre, Epstein and a growing outrage even in the GOP over the Greenland "deal", the high water mark of Trumpism may already have passed. The darkness is gathering around the Kremlin and no one knows what come next- but change, maybe even revolutionary change, may now not be far off.
Where's your Kadyrov information from?
I've long been of the view that Ukraine ends when Russia has to deal with a second simultaneous crisis.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
I finished a trial yesterday where a Romanian claimed to have consensual sex with a 14 year girl he had offered a lift home to when she was drunk. He was unanimously convicted of rape and rightly so. People who think like this are simply beyond my comprehension. They are monsters, dangerous monsters. I try not to get emotionally invested in my cases but this was one which turned my stomach. I frankly don't give a damn whether he has done some good or not.
Hopefully you get to wind down with a tax evasion case or something next after that.
Some drugs in fact. Starts a week tomorrow.
Its hard to feel the same about that. This trial involves the seizure of £450k of cocaine. Which is roughly £3 for every man, woman and child in Dundee (where the drugs were found). Would this have changed the street price? No chance. Would it have caused some local shortages? Briefly, if at all. We have what economists call a superabundance of supply and our seizures, however large, barely scratch the surface.
Don't get me wrong, these people deserve to be punished. Their supply will have helped destroy lives. The desperation of those whose lives are being destroyed will cause further damage in terms of shoplifting, burglary and robbery as they try to fund their addiction. But, as I have said before, if we are fighting a war on drugs its time we admitted we lost and try something else.
Legalise the whole supply chain. Grow and process it in the UK. Tax and regulate it.
Or the opposite. Police the consumption and dealing of drugs to kill demand. No demand, no supply.
That’s been tried for decades. And failed.
In the USSR, the KGB failed to stamp out drugs. That is, one of the largest and most unconstrained secret police organisations in human history barely made a dent. With courts that rubber stamped arrests…
I don't know about the USSR, but zero tolerance policing in the UK is always a success, wherever and whenever it is tried. It is never fashionable (except with the public) and the general approach in the UK has been to do 'big drug busts' like the above, but tolerate low level dealing, and virtually decriminalise drug use. Like the approach of 'smashing the gangs', where there is demand, there will always be supply.
Bold comment, and an odd time to make it you'd think, when Trump is working hard to get some kind of deal Putin can live with (even if it is far below his initial expectations) and so declare it a success.
The situation inside Russia is finally beginning to change. The Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, is on his deathbed and with him will pass a significant element of the Power Vertical. The Russian Army has been taking an absolute pasting- an estimated 40,000 dead in the past month alone (for context only 25,000 Soviet troops died in nine years of the Afghan war). Equipment failures and intelligence mistakes on the front line have allowed the Ukrainian armed forces to improve their situation quite dramatically. The Russian economy is being squeezed even further as the shadow fleet is being slowly rounded up and the oil and gas infrastructure is failing under repeated military attacks from Ukrainian missiles and drones. The regime of the Mullahs in Iran is under severe pressure, and Russia has no means to defend it. Even Beijing is now far less reliable as Xi Jinping is trying to face down a rebellion from inside the PLA which could see him removed from office.
The growing sense in Russia is that the war has been a disastrous failure and that possibly the only reason it continues is that Putin would fall immediately it stops- and that Trump still offers Putin a chance to recoup something from the calamity. However, as Trump faces illness and the growing political pressure on multiple fronts: Minnesota massacre, Epstein and a growing outrage even in the GOP over the Greenland "deal", the high water mark of Trumpism may already have passed. The darkness is gathering around the Kremlin and no one knows what come next- but change, maybe even revolutionary change, may now not be far off.
So we have a possible civil war in China, we have utter chaos and total incompetence in the US and we have possible coups in Russia, all at the same time?
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Yes, but this is all just virtue signalling. Lots of likes blah blah blah.
People voted for Trump because they thought that's the only way they'd get the policies they really wanted. The fact they did so, despite his despicable character, speaks volumes.
That's what people should be focussing and reflecting upon, because it's the truly material factor here.
It was quite a close result and therefore many things can be argued to have made a decisive difference. This makes it fertile ground for people to proclaim that what 'did it' was something that plays into their own political brain chemistry.
So, people who hate Woke say it was the Dems obsession with that. People who can't stand Harris say it was because the Dems chose a dud candidate. Leftists say it was because the Dems were too timid and centrist. Anti-immigrationers say it was because of Trump's tough stance on borders. Etc.
Fwiw I'd say the inflation and the (gullible but genuine) view of Donald Trump as a financially savvy operator who'd be good with the economy was the biggest single factor. But whatever, they fucked up and it's for them to rectify it, starting with the midterms. 🤞
Harris was an objectively less than stellar candidate launched from a terrible position.
Absolutely nothing confirmed and currently zero on the mainstream TV channels. But news of multiple bombings targeting IRGC strongholds is flooding in on the Telegram channels. At the risk of sounding like Gillette soccer Saturday, these are the cities:
Bandar Abbas Ahvaz Khorramshahr Abadan Qasr-e Shirin Parand Qeshm Dezful Reports of explosions in places like Qeshm and at the Qom Governor's Office building.
Just to cover my tracks currently waiting for Chris Kamara to verify.
"Power with responsibility Britain has built a governing system in which officials exercise immense power yet face no consequences. Could that be about to change?
Vance’s benefactor Peter Thiel, Epstein, and Russia’s ambassador Vitaly Churkin having an “important lunch” 1 month before the 2016 election — right before the Podesta emails were released by Wikileaks
"Power with responsibility Britain has built a governing system in which officials exercise immense power yet face no consequences. Could that be about to change?
Instead, our state is quietly bringing Islamic State “wives and children” to this country. In due course this will allow their husbands to apply to enter on the grounds of protecting their ECHR Article 8 (family life) rights. Unbelievably, there is precedent here. In 2021 the Special Immigration Appeals Commission found that an Iraqi with links to Iranian intelligence services should be allowed to enter the UK in order to challenge the removal of his citizenship because his wife and children acted as a “jurisdictional peg”.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
I finished a trial yesterday where a Romanian claimed to have consensual sex with a 14 year girl he had offered a lift home to when she was drunk. He was unanimously convicted of rape and rightly so. People who think like this are simply beyond my comprehension. They are monsters, dangerous monsters. I try not to get emotionally invested in my cases but this was one which turned my stomach. I frankly don't give a damn whether he has done some good or not.
Hopefully you get to wind down with a tax evasion case or something next after that.
Some drugs in fact. Starts a week tomorrow.
Its hard to feel the same about that. This trial involves the seizure of £450k of cocaine. Which is roughly £3 for every man, woman and child in Dundee (where the drugs were found). Would this have changed the street price? No chance. Would it have caused some local shortages? Briefly, if at all. We have what economists call a superabundance of supply and our seizures, however large, barely scratch the surface.
Don't get me wrong, these people deserve to be punished. Their supply will have helped destroy lives. The desperation of those whose lives are being destroyed will cause further damage in terms of shoplifting, burglary and robbery as they try to fund their addiction. But, as I have said before, if we are fighting a war on drugs its time we admitted we lost and try something else.
Legalise the whole supply chain. Grow and process it in the UK. Tax and regulate it.
Or the opposite. Police the consumption and dealing of drugs to kill demand. No demand, no supply.
That’s been tried for decades. And failed.
In the USSR, the KGB failed to stamp out drugs. That is, one of the largest and most unconstrained secret police organisations in human history barely made a dent. With courts that rubber stamped arrests…
I don't know about the USSR, but zero tolerance policing in the UK is always a success, wherever and whenever it is tried. It is never fashionable (except with the public) and the general approach in the UK has been to do 'big drug busts' like the above, but tolerate low level dealing, and virtually decriminalise drug use. Like the approach of 'smashing the gangs', where there is demand, there will always be supply.
“…zero tolerance policing is always a success…”???? The absolute state of what you reactionaries come out with.
Let’s demolish yet another piece of LuckyGuy bullshit shall we?
An example..Ray Mallon's "zero tolerance" approach in Hartlepool during the 1990s was initially celebrated, with crime reportedly falling 35% and leading to comparisons with New York's William Bratton, the initiative collapsed when Mallon was suspended in December 1997 as one of sixty-one officers amid allegations of misconduct during Operation Lancet. Claims against officers included tipping off suspects and exchanging drugs for confessions, with hisnkwn chief constable describing Mallon as "a liar at the centre of an empire of evil"
“In general, the evidence suggests that zero-tolerance policing has not had a statistically significant effect on crime. Most studies found no significant impact on crime rates, with a few showing mixed results.”
But, hey, don’t let “evidence” get in the way of your jackboot dreams.
Thank you TSE for posting up this competition reminder again.
I apologise that I have not been around much these past couple of weeks to give updates or reminders (house-build taking priority). I have been trawling through periodically to collect entries but plan to do a full sweep next week.
Just to clarify, if your entry doesn't have the #competition tag on it, it is not invalid but I don't guarantee to find it - it's your risk.
Once again: To enter you simply need to post your answers to the 12 questions in the header onto the site, or PM them to me, before the end of TODAY with the hashtag #competition somewhere in the post to help me find your entry.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Indeed.
I am trying to think of a Democrat ticket that I wouldn’t have instantly voted for over Trump/Vance.
AOC/Bernie - no hesitation.
Can anyone come up with a ticket that wouldn’t obviously have been better than Trump?
So you would consider World ending fascism is preferable to Blairite Socialism.
I think he's saying he would voted for AOC/Bernie without hesitation.
Trump is wrathful, vengeful, grandiose, capricious, impressively venal, and as a world statesman, toe-curlingly embarrassing. He is also, in my opinion, 100% better than having a Democrat President - for America and the for rest of the world.
Personally I wouldn’t go quite that far, and would probably have been 3rd party in the US last time out, but I would say that if Harris had won in 2024 the backlash next time would be a lot worse than Trump is now.
The 2025 mob couldn’t get elected. Which is why they needed Trump.
Vaguely Sane Democrat vs Vance, Miller etc = big Democrat Win
Instead they came up with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Though Trump would have probably beaten any Democrat in 2024 when he even won the popular vote.
By 2028 though on current polling any Democrat could probably beat Vance
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Indeed.
I am trying to think of a Democrat ticket that I wouldn’t have instantly voted for over Trump/Vance.
AOC/Bernie - no hesitation.
Can anyone come up with a ticket that wouldn’t obviously have been better than Trump?
So you would consider World ending fascism is preferable to Blairite Socialism.
I think he's saying he would voted for AOC/Bernie without hesitation.
Trump is wrathful, vengeful, grandiose, capricious, impressively venal, and as a world statesman, toe-curlingly embarrassing. He is also, in my opinion, 100% better than having a Democrat President - for America and the for rest of the world.
Personally I wouldn’t go quite that far, and would probably have been 3rd party in the US last time out, but I would say that if Harris had won in 2024 the backlash next time would be a lot worse than Trump is now.
The backlash against what? A recovering economy and the US remaining respected in the world? Meanwhile, with Trump a busted flush, the Republicans would have collapsed into infighting.
One Harris error I haven't seen mentioned: The Democratic Party did not provide for voters to have a say in her choice, through primaries and caucuses.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Indeed.
I am trying to think of a Democrat ticket that I wouldn’t have instantly voted for over Trump/Vance.
AOC/Bernie - no hesitation.
Can anyone come up with a ticket that wouldn’t obviously have been better than Trump?
So you would consider World ending fascism is preferable to Blairite Socialism.
I think he's saying he would voted for AOC/Bernie without hesitation.
Trump is wrathful, vengeful, grandiose, capricious, impressively venal, and as a world statesman, toe-curlingly embarrassing. He is also, in my opinion, 100% better than having a Democrat President - for America and the for rest of the world.
Personally I wouldn’t go quite that far, and would probably have been 3rd party in the US last time out, but I would say that if Harris had won in 2024 the backlash next time would be a lot worse than Trump is now.
The 2025 mob couldn’t get elected. Which is why they needed Trump.
Vaguely Sane Democrat vs Vance, Miller etc = big Democrat Win
Instead they came up with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Though Trump would have probably beaten any Democrat in 2024 when he even won the popular vote.
By 2028 though on current polling any Democrat could probably beat Vance
I think a proper Democratic primary season may well have found a good candidate. I still think this to be the case next time around in ‘28.
Their problem has always been the party Establishment stitchup.
Republican primary next time out is no more than a three-way with Vance, Rubio, and DeSantis.
One Harris error I haven't seen mentioned: The Democratic Party did not provide for voters to have a say in her choice, through primaries and caucuses.
Indeed, Harris was the candidate of the liberal elites and the woke rich.
As shown by the fact she was the first Democratic presidential nominee ever to win most voters earning over $100,000.
However she had zero connection with ordinary people, losing voters earning $30,000- $99,999 badly to Trump.
Indeed Harris won 52% of voters earning over $200,000 but even the poorest voters earning under $30,000 only voted 50% Harris.
On reflection even Bernie Sanders would have run Trump closer in the rustbelt swing states than Harris did, they also probably had the ticket the wrong way round. Minnesota Governor ex coach Walz would have been better at the top of the ticket and Harris stayed as the experienced VP pick
One Harris error I haven't seen mentioned: The Democratic Party did not provide for voters to have a say in her choice, through primaries and caucuses.
Timing was presumably the issue there. They did too good a job covering for Biden, and when it could not be denied any longer and she confirmed she wanted the nomination, understandably, it wasn't a surprise that they didn't think there was time to have even a brief contest and then reunify efforts.
Bold comment, and an odd time to make it you'd think, when Trump is working hard to get some kind of deal Putin can live with (even if it is far below his initial expectations) and so declare it a success.
Putin allegedly told Trump he would back off bombing Ukranian infrastructure for a few days, yet today the whole power grid in Kyiv was down for nearly six hours amid widespread failures from Russian bombings.
If you can't trust a former KGB agent, who can you trust?
We seemed to be getting mixed messages. Some polls have Reform down and their lead not that large over Labour. Others have Reform up and still very significant lead over the 2nd party.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Indeed.
I am trying to think of a Democrat ticket that I wouldn’t have instantly voted for over Trump/Vance.
AOC/Bernie - no hesitation.
Can anyone come up with a ticket that wouldn’t obviously have been better than Trump?
So you would consider World ending fascism is preferable to Blairite Socialism.
I think he's saying he would voted for AOC/Bernie without hesitation.
Trump is wrathful, vengeful, grandiose, capricious, impressively venal, and as a world statesman, toe-curlingly embarrassing. He is also, in my opinion, 100% better than having a Democrat President - for America and the for rest of the world.
Personally I wouldn’t go quite that far, and would probably have been 3rd party in the US last time out, but I would say that if Harris had won in 2024 the backlash next time would be a lot worse than Trump is now.
The 2025 mob couldn’t get elected. Which is why they needed Trump.
Vaguely Sane Democrat vs Vance, Miller etc = big Democrat Win
Instead they came up with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Though Trump would have probably beaten any Democrat in 2024 when he even won the popular vote.
By 2028 though on current polling any Democrat could probably beat Vance
I don’t understand the logic of your first sentence. With a different opponent, the voting would’ve been different.
We seemed to be getting mixed messages. Some polls have Reform down and their lead not that large over Labour. Others have Reform up and still very significant lead over the 2nd party.
In my best OGH voice, don't get overexcited by MOE noise in the polls.
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 0 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 0 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 44 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 22 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 14% 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 16% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 12 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Sir Keir Starmer 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £165bn 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 0.3% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. Spain.
One Harris error I haven't seen mentioned: The Democratic Party did not provide for voters to have a say in her choice, through primaries and caucuses.
That wasn't her fault, that was Biden's. I personally think she was a reasonably good candidate, not Bill Clinton or Obama level, but way better than Hilary. She was sunk because Biden held on for far too long. If she had had a year to 18 months as President before the election she would have won in my view. But she was left spending most of the campaign trying to get people to know her and trying to explain why she had played a part in someone so obviously senile being President. It was like starting 3 goals down, even against a monster like Trump.
One Harris error I haven't seen mentioned: The Democratic Party did not provide for voters to have a say in her choice, through primaries and caucuses.
Indeed, Harris was the candidate of the liberal elites and the woke rich.
As shown by the fact she was the first Democratic presidential nominee ever to win most voters earning over $100,000.
However she had zero connection with ordinary people, losing voters earning $30,000- $99,999 badly to Trump.
Indeed Harris won 52% of voters earning over $200,000 but even the poorest voters earning under $30,000 only voted 50% Harris.
On reflection even Bernie Sanders would have run Trump closer in the rustbelt swing states than Harris did, they also probably had the ticket the wrong way round. Minnesota Governor ex coach Walz would have been better at the top of the ticket and Harris stayed as the experienced VP pick
One Harris error I haven't seen mentioned: The Democratic Party did not provide for voters to have a say in her choice, through primaries and caucuses.
On Biden and his inner circle. By the time they were forced to see sense it was too late for anything except go with Harris. Who fought hard and well from a handicapped position IMO but did not have sufficient charisma or separation from the incumbent to beat Trump.
"Power with responsibility Britain has built a governing system in which officials exercise immense power yet face no consequences. Could that be about to change?
At the top level, a good idea to increase accountability in public officials, but the specific proposal depressingly narrow and one-sided in scope. One of the thoughts I had for a Labour government with little cash to spare to increase the numerical generosity of the welfare state was a chartered status for those public officials who were front facing to the general public - a lot of my thinking was around fairness in benefits and disability determinations, a fairness in the individuals interaction with the state, a thinking that clearly had a left leaning hat on, but recklessness with public funds and public safety could certainly be a part of the remit - though I feel Reform's exact proposal could be used for a specific kind of Trumpist targeting of officials.
Chartered systems and the bodies that run them are not, by any means, perfect - both the BMA and the SRA have got things wrong, but they are better than nothing and I feel could be applied to governance.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Indeed.
I am trying to think of a Democrat ticket that I wouldn’t have instantly voted for over Trump/Vance.
AOC/Bernie - no hesitation.
Can anyone come up with a ticket that wouldn’t obviously have been better than Trump?
So you would consider World ending fascism is preferable to Blairite Socialism.
I think he's saying he would voted for AOC/Bernie without hesitation.
Trump is wrathful, vengeful, grandiose, capricious, impressively venal, and as a world statesman, toe-curlingly embarrassing. He is also, in my opinion, 100% better than having a Democrat President - for America and the for rest of the world.
Personally I wouldn’t go quite that far, and would probably have been 3rd party in the US last time out, but I would say that if Harris had won in 2024 the backlash next time would be a lot worse than Trump is now.
The 2025 mob couldn’t get elected. Which is why they needed Trump.
Vaguely Sane Democrat vs Vance, Miller etc = big Democrat Win
Instead they came up with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Though Trump would have probably beaten any Democrat in 2024 when he even won the popular vote.
By 2028 though on current polling any Democrat could probably beat Vance
I don’t understand the logic of your first sentence. With a different opponent, the voting would’ve been different.
I doubt it, the cost of living was high, the Biden administration was unpopular and no Democrat could change that
One Harris error I haven't seen mentioned: The Democratic Party did not provide for voters to have a say in her choice, through primaries and caucuses.
Indeed, Harris was the candidate of the liberal elites and the woke rich.
As shown by the fact she was the first Democratic presidential nominee ever to win most voters earning over $100,000.
However she had zero connection with ordinary people, losing voters earning $30,000- $99,999 badly to Trump.
Indeed Harris won 52% of voters earning over $200,000 but even the poorest voters earning under $30,000 only voted 50% Harris.
On reflection even Bernie Sanders would have run Trump closer in the rustbelt swing states than Harris did, they also probably had the ticket the wrong way round. Minnesota Governor ex coach Walz would have been better at the top of the ticket and Harris stayed as the experienced VP pick
You’re making a big thing out of small differences
I am not.
Compare Harris v Trump to say Bill Clinton v Dole in 1996, the Harris vote looks much like the Dole vote ie wealthy and graduate rich while the Trump vote was much like the Clinton vote, average middle class and blue collar voters.
The GOP under Trump are the party of most of the white working class and lower middle class who often used to vote Democrat and the Democrats are the party of rich suburban elites many of whom used to be Republican even more than they are the party of the welfare dependent poorest voters. Trump also did well with Hispanic and African American men on average incomes relative to most Republicans https://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/elections/natl.exit.poll/index1.html
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 0 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 0 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 44 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 22 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 14% 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 16% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 12 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Sir Keir Starmer 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £165bn 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 0.3% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. Spain.
One Harris error I haven't seen mentioned: The Democratic Party did not provide for voters to have a say in her choice, through primaries and caucuses.
On Biden and his inner circle. By the time they were forced to see sense it was too late for anything except go with Harris. Who fought hard and well from a handicapped position IMO but did not have the charisma or the separation from the incumbent required to win
Plus she was a black woman in racist misogynistic America.
Given they elected Obama, misogyny probably the bigger driver.
Plus Trump made hay with inflation. Which of course, he was going to cure overnight. Hmmm.
We seemed to be getting mixed messages. Some polls have Reform down and their lead not that large over Labour. Others have Reform up and still very significant lead over the 2nd party.
Not sure it is of anything other than academic (and betting) interest. We are still over 3 years out from an election, there is real uncertainty about who will be leading the main parties at the time of the next election and in a few months we will get some real data in the locals.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
I finished a trial yesterday where a Romanian claimed to have consensual sex with a 14 year girl he had offered a lift home to when she was drunk. He was unanimously convicted of rape and rightly so. People who think like this are simply beyond my comprehension. They are monsters, dangerous monsters. I try not to get emotionally invested in my cases but this was one which turned my stomach. I frankly don't give a damn whether he has done some good or not.
Hopefully you get to wind down with a tax evasion case or something next after that.
Some drugs in fact. Starts a week tomorrow.
Its hard to feel the same about that. This trial involves the seizure of £450k of cocaine. Which is roughly £3 for every man, woman and child in Dundee (where the drugs were found). Would this have changed the street price? No chance. Would it have caused some local shortages? Briefly, if at all. We have what economists call a superabundance of supply and our seizures, however large, barely scratch the surface.
Don't get me wrong, these people deserve to be punished. Their supply will have helped destroy lives. The desperation of those whose lives are being destroyed will cause further damage in terms of shoplifting, burglary and robbery as they try to fund their addiction. But, as I have said before, if we are fighting a war on drugs its time we admitted we lost and try something else.
Legalise the whole supply chain. Grow and process it in the UK. Tax and regulate it.
Or the opposite. Police the consumption and dealing of drugs to kill demand. No demand, no supply.
That’s been tried for decades. And failed.
In the USSR, the KGB failed to stamp out drugs. That is, one of the largest and most unconstrained secret police organisations in human history barely made a dent. With courts that rubber stamped arrests…
I don't know about the USSR, but zero tolerance policing in the UK is always a success, wherever and whenever it is tried. It is never fashionable (except with the public) and the general approach in the UK has been to do 'big drug busts' like the above, but tolerate low level dealing, and virtually decriminalise drug use. Like the approach of 'smashing the gangs', where there is demand, there will always be supply.
“…zero tolerance policing is always a success…”???? The absolute state of what you reactionaries come out with.
Let’s demolish yet another piece of LuckyGuy bullshit shall we?
An example..Ray Mallon's "zero tolerance" approach in Hartlepool during the 1990s was initially celebrated, with crime reportedly falling 35% and leading to comparisons with New York's William Bratton, the initiative collapsed when Mallon was suspended in December 1997 as one of sixty-one officers amid allegations of misconduct during Operation Lancet. Claims against officers included tipping off suspects and exchanging drugs for confessions, with hisnkwn chief constable describing Mallon as "a liar at the centre of an empire of evil"
“In general, the evidence suggests that zero-tolerance policing has not had a statistically significant effect on crime. Most studies found no significant impact on crime rates, with a few showing mixed results.”
But, hey, don’t let “evidence” get in the way of your jackboot dreams.
Not really sure where to start with this.
You acknowledge that the zero-tolerance policing initiative brought crime down by 35%. You then speak of Mallon's suspension as if this is some sort of counterargument - it isn't, and it's bizarre that you think it is. After his police career Mallon went on to be elected as Mayor of Middlesborough with 60% of the vote - making my point for me.
And as if your 'demolition' (sadly of your own argument) isn't enough, you then unironically cite an article (I cannot give it the title of analysis) by the College of Policing - an organisation that wants to 'decolonise' the training of police officers and urges forces to become 'Stonewall Champions': https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10771683/Whats-Britains-police-forces-urged-decolonise-training-material.html, and introduced the concept of 'Non Crime Hate Incidents' - what verdict on zero-tolerance policing would you expect them to deliver?
Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 18 Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 3 Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 57 Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 42 UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage (British Polling Council registered pollsters only)? Reform 13% Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 18% Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 10 The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Starmer Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025)? £127.4bn UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025)? 1.6% Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup? Brazil
One Harris error I haven't seen mentioned: The Democratic Party did not provide for voters to have a say in her choice, through primaries and caucuses.
On Biden and his inner circle. By the time they were forced to see sense it was too late for anything except go with Harris. Who fought hard and well from a handicapped position IMO but did not have the charisma or the separation from the incumbent required to win
Plus she was a black woman in racist misogynistic America.
Given they elected Obama, misogyny probably the bigger driver.
Plus Trump made hay with inflation. Which of course, he was going to cure overnight. Hmmm.
The 'woman' angle was in the mix, it's naive to think otherwise, but I think your last point was the biggest factor. Cost of living.
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 23 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 3 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 54 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 40 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 14% 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 18% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 11 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Sir Keir Starmer 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £140bn 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 1.5% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. Spain.
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 0 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 0 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 44 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 22 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 14% 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 16% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 12 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Sir Keir Starmer 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £165bn 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 0.3% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. Spain.
Sajid Javid @sajidjavid The original online headline on my Sunday Times interview last week was incorrect and attributed words to me that I did not say. The paper has now corrected this and added the clarification below. I’m grateful that the record has been set straight.
Mr Javid now wishes it to be known that he doesn't know whether he would let people like his parents into the country today.
I was actually quite impressed by that piece. His background was much tougher than I thought it'd been. And, unlike many others, he really didn't ever make that much of his personal backstory while in government.
As the grandson of humble immigrants to this country I find it a bit weird when people try and use their personal backstory to make it sound they had a rough time growing up.
The privately educated son of a doctor just doesn't elicit much sympathy.
Yeh, but were you allowed to but the shoes you wanted as a child?
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Indeed.
I am trying to think of a Democrat ticket that I wouldn’t have instantly voted for over Trump/Vance.
AOC/Bernie - no hesitation.
Can anyone come up with a ticket that wouldn’t obviously have been better than Trump?
So you would consider World ending fascism is preferable to Blairite Socialism.
I think he's saying he would voted for AOC/Bernie without hesitation.
Trump is wrathful, vengeful, grandiose, capricious, impressively venal, and as a world statesman, toe-curlingly embarrassing. He is also, in my opinion, 100% better than having a Democrat President - for America and the for rest of the world.
Personally I wouldn’t go quite that far, and would probably have been 3rd party in the US last time out, but I would say that if Harris had won in 2024 the backlash next time would be a lot worse than Trump is now.
The 2025 mob couldn’t get elected. Which is why they needed Trump.
Vaguely Sane Democrat vs Vance, Miller etc = big Democrat Win
Instead they came up with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Though Trump would have probably beaten any Democrat in 2024 when he even won the popular vote.
By 2028 though on current polling any Democrat could probably beat Vance
I don’t understand the logic of your first sentence. With a different opponent, the voting would’ve been different.
I doubt it, the cost of living was high, the Biden administration was unpopular and no Democrat could change that
Besides, compared with other incumbent governments worldwide in 2024 Harris did pretty well.
The more alarming question is why the Republican ecosystem couldn't stop Trump running again.
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 19 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 2 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 46 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 22 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 17% 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 17% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 12 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Emmanuel Macron 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £165bn 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 1.7% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. England!
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 19 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 2 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 46 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 22 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 17% 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 17% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 12 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Emmanuel Macron 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £165bn 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 1.7% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. England!
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 15 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 2 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 51 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 28 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 14% 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 16% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 14 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Starmer 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £170bn 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 0.7% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. Argentina
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 19 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 2 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 46 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 22 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 17% 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 17% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 12 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Emmanuel Macron 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £165bn 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 1.7% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. England!
I'd love to see your workings for Q8!
My entry which I will post on Monday has the PM as Mark Carney.
Basically my working is Trump continues to be a dickhead and the Anglo-Canadian Union is formed, Robert might be using the same logic and we have the Anglo-French Union.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Indeed.
I am trying to think of a Democrat ticket that I wouldn’t have instantly voted for over Trump/Vance.
AOC/Bernie - no hesitation.
Can anyone come up with a ticket that wouldn’t obviously have been better than Trump?
So you would consider World ending fascism is preferable to Blairite Socialism.
I think he's saying he would voted for AOC/Bernie without hesitation.
Trump is wrathful, vengeful, grandiose, capricious, impressively venal, and as a world statesman, toe-curlingly embarrassing. He is also, in my opinion, 100% better than having a Democrat President - for America and the for rest of the world.
Personally I wouldn’t go quite that far, and would probably have been 3rd party in the US last time out, but I would say that if Harris had won in 2024 the backlash next time would be a lot worse than Trump is now.
The 2025 mob couldn’t get elected. Which is why they needed Trump.
Vaguely Sane Democrat vs Vance, Miller etc = big Democrat Win
Instead they came up with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Though Trump would have probably beaten any Democrat in 2024 when he even won the popular vote.
By 2028 though on current polling any Democrat could probably beat Vance
I don’t understand the logic of your first sentence. With a different opponent, the voting would’ve been different.
I doubt it, the cost of living was high, the Biden administration was unpopular and no Democrat could change that
Besides, compared with other incumbent governments worldwide in 2024 Harris did pretty well.
The more alarming question is why the Republican ecosystem couldn't stop Trump running again.
As most Republican primary voters wanted him to run again
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 0 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 0 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 44 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 22 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 14% 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 16% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 12 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Sir Keir Starmer 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £165bn 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 0.3% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. Spain.
You think the midterms are off?
I think the House could be a handful of seats either way, more likely to the Dems but everyone’s saying that already.
Unlikely that much changes in the Senate, plus or minus one.
"every epstein file drop underscores how elite power operates through shared socio-economic networks, regardless of people's ideological differences, populist posturing, or public feuds"
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 19 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 2 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 46 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 22 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 17% 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 17% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 12 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Emmanuel Macron 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £165bn 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 1.7% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. England!
I'd love to see your workings for Q8!
My entry which I will post on Monday has the PM as Mark Carney.
Basically my working is Trump continues to be a dickhead and the Anglo-Canadian Union is formed, Robert might be using the same logic and we have the Anglo-French Union.
I am sure Farage and indeed Le Pen and Bardella would love Macron becoming UK PM
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 0 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 0 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 44 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 22 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 14% 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 16% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 12 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Sir Keir Starmer 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £165bn 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 0.3% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. Spain.
You think the midterms are off?
I think the House could be a handful of seats either way, more likely to the Dems but everyone’s saying that already.
Unlikely that much changes in the Senate, plus or minus one.
Musk has been spamming crap about SpaceX and Grok all day but now every single reply to any of his posts is someone calling him a pedophile. the stage has been set for something historic
Is this really how some people choose to spend their free time?
It takes a few seconds, hardly much of their time, so I've always found that to be a rather silly complaint to frivilous or petty trolling. Is it still silly to do it? Sure, but as a complaint about their 'free time' it falls apart because of how little time it takes.
Musk, on the other hand, spends an inordinate amount of time online being an edgelord, even if we assume he is doing a lot of it inbetween important businessman stuff and billionaire pursuits.
How much time do you think is spent tapping out the response versus how much time they monitor it during their waking hours and it dominating their thoughts?
A falling out between NVidia and OpenAI, who have ordered a substantial amount of the world’s supply of chips this year, and might not have the cash to pay for them…
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 19 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 2 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 46 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 22 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 17% 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 17% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 12 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Emmanuel Macron 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £165bn 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 1.7% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. England!
I'd love to see your workings for Q8!
My entry which I will post on Monday has the PM as Mark Carney.
Basically my working is Trump continues to be a dickhead and the Anglo-Canadian Union is formed, Robert might be using the same logic and we have the Anglo-French Union.
By the year end ?
It's an interesting question. I recognise there's a very large component of normalcy bias in my (and most other) guesses, and I'm troubled by the.
OTOH, while I confidently expect to be WAY out on some predictions, it's far harder to say which way, by the year end.
One Harris error I haven't seen mentioned: The Democratic Party did not provide for voters to have a say in her choice, through primaries and caucuses.
It was her turn. She was entitled. They needed to shut up and suck it up.
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 19 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 2 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 46 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 22 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 17% 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 17% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 12 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Emmanuel Macron 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £165bn 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 1.7% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. England!
I'd love to see your workings for Q8!
My entry which I will post on Monday has the PM as Mark Carney.
Basically my working is Trump continues to be a dickhead and the Anglo-Canadian Union is formed, Robert might be using the same logic and we have the Anglo-French Union.
By the year end ?
It's an interesting question. I recognise there's a very large component of normalcy bias in my (and most other) guesses, and I'm troubled by the.
OTOH, while I confidently expect to be WAY out on some predictions, it's far harder to say which way, by the year end.
Yes, my view was Trump in a fit of pique ends up not supporting Ukraine/backing Russia (I mean how could we tell?) and before we know the Russia bear expands its tentacles much further across Europe, and Trump buggering NATO, we might end up like the Franco-British Union Churchill proposed in 1940.
Comments
As for charges, we have the example of Epstein himself, who was complicit in everything that went on, being given a massively lending plea deal. Wealthy people on the US can delay justice for a very long time, and of course in this case both local and national political influence is involved.
On the former point, there are numerous allegations out there; they just never got much reporting or credence.
As an example, this was posted today.
You might recall the allegations against Trump in the latest Epstein files released yesterday. They were made by a woman who was 16 at the time. She claimed that three brothers, Oren, Alan and Tal (two of which were twins) raped her and her friends at Epstein's estate and that Trump and Clinton partook in orgies with underaged women, including herself.
This is where things get really interesting though. Three brothers, Oren, Alon and Tal Alexander (two of which are twins) are literally on trial right now in Florida for sex trafficking, and one of the key witnesses in their case was 16 at the time she was allegedly sexually assaulted by them.
What's even more interesting, is that there is literally a photo of Oren Alexander in the Epstein files, standing with two women whose faces have been redacted.
So why would this victim tell such an elaborate story that now, years later seems true (given the trial) but make up the fact that Clinton and Trump were involved?..
https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2017623157822124400
You in turn should perhaps be reflecting on what Trump's opponents predicted, and how those predictions (which I believed you treated with considerable scepticism at the time ?) have turned out so far.
Musk, on the other hand, spends an inordinate amount of time online being an edgelord, even if we assume he is doing a lot of it inbetween important businessman stuff and billionaire pursuits.
Its hard to feel the same about that. This trial involves the seizure of £450k of cocaine. Which is roughly £3 for every man, woman and child in Dundee (where the drugs were found). Would this have changed the street price? No chance. Would it have caused some local shortages? Briefly, if at all. We have what economists call a superabundance of supply and our seizures, however large, barely scratch the surface.
Don't get me wrong, these people deserve to be punished. Their supply will have helped destroy lives. The desperation of those whose lives are being destroyed will cause further damage in terms of shoplifting, burglary and robbery as they try to fund their addiction. But, as I have said before, if we are fighting a war on drugs its time we admitted we lost and try something else.
The UK is not the US. However, there are some commonalities, and I believe that progressivism in both countries weakens everything around it like deathwatch beetle. The UK is a gentler and more polite society, and our reversal of progressive politics and its hold over our institutions will not be the same as the US, but it must be equally thorough.
The border narrative would have been too much for any Dem to win.
Although being a woman of colour perhaps didn't help.
You either need to be Singapore/Dubai/Bangkok, with actual life sentences for small amounts, or you need to be totally liberal and sell the stuff in pharmacies, produced by companies with proper facilities and standards.
Second prize: 60 days visa free travel in China.
https://bsky.app/profile/lowrhoufo.bsky.social/post/3mdq4xrxn7c2l
In the USSR, the KGB failed to stamp out drugs. That is, one of the largest and most unconstrained secret police organisations in human history barely made a dent. With courts that rubber stamped arrests…
The growing sense in Russia is that the war has been a disastrous failure and that possibly the only reason it continues is that Putin would fall immediately it stops- and that Trump still offers Putin a chance to recoup something from the calamity. However, as Trump faces illness and the growing political pressure on multiple fronts: Minnesota massacre, Epstein and a growing outrage even in the GOP over the Greenland "deal", the high water mark of Trumpism may already have passed. The darkness is gathering around the Kremlin and no one knows what come next- but change, maybe even revolutionary change, may now not be far off.
So, people who hate Woke say it was the Dems obsession with that. People who can't stand Harris say it was because the Dems chose a dud candidate. Leftists say it was because the Dems were too timid and centrist. Anti-immigrationers say it was because of Trump's tough stance on borders. Etc.
Fwiw I'd say the inflation and the (gullible but genuine) view of Donald Trump as a financially savvy operator who'd be good with the economy was the biggest single factor. But whatever, they fucked up and it's for them to rectify it, starting with the midterms. 🤞
https://x.com/chayasclan/status/2017593446597345289
Iranian opposition channels have confirmed up to 9 explosions in 6-7 different cities and districts. Unofficial reports claim upwards of 14 separate explosions within the space of 90 minutes.
Those old gas pipes are a serious health hazard
I've long been of the view that Ukraine ends when Russia has to deal with a second simultaneous crisis.
Casey Wasserman being in the Epstein files is another scandal for #LA2028.
https://bsky.app/profile/sydney-bauer.com/post/3mdqabtdlns2c
Interesting times indeed.
Wow - yes, here it is. It looks like Putin was the one who reached out to Epstein, at least according to what he told Ehud Barak.
Given Barak’s intelligence background, it’s unlikely he’d lie to him
Wonder who was the Russian conduit to Epstein - there is one plausible one
https://x.com/peterjukes/status/2017574646313340961?s=20
https://x.com/omid9/status/2017631358030381188
Absolutely nothing confirmed and currently zero on the mainstream TV channels. But news of multiple bombings targeting IRGC strongholds is flooding in on the Telegram channels. At the risk of sounding like Gillette soccer Saturday, these are the cities:
Bandar Abbas
Ahvaz
Khorramshahr
Abadan
Qasr-e Shirin
Parand
Qeshm
Dezful
Reports of explosions in places like Qeshm and at the Qom Governor's Office building.
Just to cover my tracks currently waiting for Chris Kamara to verify.
Britain has built a governing system in which officials exercise immense power yet face no consequences. Could that be about to change?
David Shipley
31 January, 2026"
https://thecritic.co.uk/power-with-responsibility/
Vance’s benefactor Peter Thiel, Epstein, and Russia’s ambassador Vitaly Churkin having an “important lunch” 1 month before the 2016 election — right before the Podesta emails were released by Wikileaks
Probably nothing! 🙃🥶
https://x.com/TheTNHoller/status/2017634541997818040?s=20
Russians feel strain of Putin's war with mobile internet shutdowns
https://share.google/YxYQWjO0cOSr522YG
“…zero tolerance policing is always a success…”???? The absolute state of what you reactionaries come out with.
Let’s demolish yet another piece of LuckyGuy bullshit shall we?
An example..Ray Mallon's "zero tolerance" approach in Hartlepool during the 1990s was initially celebrated, with crime reportedly falling 35% and leading to comparisons with New York's William Bratton, the initiative collapsed when Mallon was suspended in December 1997 as one of sixty-one officers amid allegations of misconduct during Operation Lancet. Claims against officers included tipping off suspects and exchanging drugs for confessions, with hisnkwn chief constable describing Mallon as "a liar at the centre of an empire of evil"
If that’s not enough for you, check this out -
https://www.college.police.uk/research/crime-reduction-toolkit/zero-tolerance-policing
“In general, the evidence suggests that zero-tolerance policing has not had a statistically significant effect on crime. Most studies found no significant impact on crime rates, with a few showing mixed results.”
But, hey, don’t let “evidence” get in the way of your jackboot dreams.
I apologise that I have not been around much these past couple of weeks to give updates or reminders (house-build taking priority). I have been trawling through periodically to collect entries but plan to do a full sweep next week.
Just to clarify, if your entry doesn't have the #competition tag on it, it is not invalid but I don't guarantee to find it - it's your risk.
Once again:
To enter you simply need to post your answers to the 12 questions in the header onto the site, or PM them to me, before the end of TODAY with the hashtag #competition somewhere in the post to help me find your entry.
By 2028 though on current polling any Democrat could probably beat Vance
PROJECTION: GORTON AND DENTON
LAB HOLD
MAJ: 7.62%
https://x.com/PollingReportUK/status/2017618987761164387?s=20
Their problem has always been the party Establishment stitchup.
Republican primary next time out is no more than a three-way with Vance, Rubio, and DeSantis.
UK (GB), BMG poll:
REFORM 32% (+2)
LAB 20% (-2)
CON 17% (-3)
GREENS 13% (+1)
LDEM 11% (-1)
SNP 3% (+1)
+/- vs. 26-27 November 2025
Fieldwork: 28-29 January 2026
Sample size: 1,513"
https://x.com/EuropeElects/status/2017586301491425786
As shown by the fact she was the first Democratic presidential nominee ever to win most voters earning over $100,000.
However she had zero connection with ordinary people, losing voters earning $30,000- $99,999 badly to Trump.
Indeed Harris won 52% of voters earning over $200,000 but even the poorest voters earning under $30,000 only voted 50% Harris.
On reflection even Bernie Sanders would have run Trump closer in the rustbelt swing states than Harris did, they also probably had the ticket the wrong way round. Minnesota Governor ex coach Walz would have been better at the top of the ticket and Harris stayed as the experienced VP pick
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls
#competition @Benpointer
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 0
2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 0
3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 44
4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 22
5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 14%
6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 16%
7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 12
8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Sir Keir Starmer
9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No
10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £165bn
11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 0.3%
12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. Spain.
Chartered systems and the bodies that run them are not, by any means, perfect - both the BMA and the SRA have got things wrong, but they are better than nothing and I feel could be applied to governance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBP2ylzp1l8
BBC's Steve Rosenberg from Thursday.
Compare Harris v Trump to say Bill Clinton v Dole in 1996, the Harris vote looks much like the Dole vote ie wealthy and graduate rich while the Trump vote was much like the Clinton vote, average middle class and blue collar voters.
The GOP under Trump are the party of most of the white working class and lower middle class who often used to vote Democrat and the Democrats are the party of rich suburban elites many of whom used to be Republican even more than they are the party of the welfare dependent poorest voters. Trump also did well with Hispanic and African American men on average incomes relative to most Republicans
https://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/elections/natl.exit.poll/index1.html
Given they elected Obama, misogyny probably the bigger driver.
Plus Trump made hay with inflation. Which of course, he was going to cure overnight. Hmmm.
You acknowledge that the zero-tolerance policing initiative brought crime down by 35%.
You then speak of Mallon's suspension as if this is some sort of counterargument - it isn't, and it's bizarre that you think it is.
After his police career Mallon went on to be elected as Mayor of Middlesborough with 60% of the vote - making my point for me.
And as if your 'demolition' (sadly of your own argument) isn't enough, you then unironically cite an article (I cannot give it the title of analysis) by the College of Policing - an organisation that wants to 'decolonise' the training of police officers and urges forces to become 'Stonewall Champions': https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10771683/Whats-Britains-police-forces-urged-decolonise-training-material.html, and introduced the concept of 'Non Crime Hate Incidents' - what verdict on zero-tolerance policing would you expect them to deliver?
It's credible.
#competition @Benpointer
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 23
2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 3
3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 54
4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 40
5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 14%
6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 18%
7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 11
8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Sir Keir Starmer
9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No
10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £140bn
11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 1.5%
12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. Spain.
The more alarming question is why the Republican ecosystem couldn't stop Trump running again.
#competition @Benpointer
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 19
2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 2
3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 46
4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 22
5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 17%
6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 17%
7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 12
8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Emmanuel Macron
9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No
10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £165bn
11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 1.7%
12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. England!
(In this case a Ranger veteran.)
https://x.com/WUTangKids/status/2017448577589493892
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbdR-TctpEw
#competition @Benpointer
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 15
2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 2
3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 51
4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 28
5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform, 14%
6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 16%
7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 14
8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Starmer
9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No
10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £170bn
11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 0.7%
12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. Argentina
Basically my working is Trump continues to be a dickhead and the Anglo-Canadian Union is formed, Robert might be using the same logic and we have the Anglo-French Union.
Unlikely that much changes in the Senate, plus or minus one.
https://x.com/frenchresponse/status/2017603330478948745
Big congrats Angeliki! I know you will do a great job. I will be there for you whenever you need me.🤞🏻💪🏻'
https://x.com/AndyBurnhamGM/status/2017659405542597051?s=20
https://x.com/FrenchResponse/status/2010429570076594647
https://x.com/grummz/status/2017622804095713331
A falling out between NVidia and OpenAI, who have ordered a substantial amount of the world’s supply of chips this year, and might not have the cash to pay for them…
It's an interesting question. I recognise there's a very large component of normalcy bias in my (and most other) guesses, and I'm troubled by the.
OTOH, while I confidently expect to be WAY out on some predictions, it's far harder to say which way, by the year end.