The Scouts charitable wording evolved over time to the young people of today.
From when it was founded it was "... development of boys ..." despite girls being excluded from a few years after its founding (they originally accepted girls until the Guides was founded).
From 1976 they started to accept girls, but the phrasing was still "... development of boys ..." despite accepting girls too.
It was only from 1991, 15 years after they started accepting girls, that the wording was changed to young people.
And in 1991 - no-one would give a damn, trying to change GG's objectives now - big row.
So its still their choice.
It was the Scouts choice to start accepting girls. It was the Scouts choice to change their wording.
It is the Guides choice not to accept boys. It is the Guides choice not to change the wording.
You're right they may not want a big row. That's public opinion, not law, though.
Not just a row. There is different motivation for girls needing a single-sex space and boys not.
And guiding provided that - but someone with a lot of money decided to make things awkward for guiding and that's triggered off a set of events that will (eventually) result in either Guiding closing down or guiding welcoming boys...
There is literally no other outcome from the WI / Guiding court cases as neither have the money to fight the other side in court...
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
And here you go again. It’s obvious to anyone with a pulse that the only long term way out is renewables and nuclear. Why can’t you see it!
He doesn't want to.
Just like he returns the "EVs burst into flames all the time" - someone posts the statistics on EV vs ICE fires. Then a little time later...
A proposal has been submitted for 150 houses in #TheydonBois on #GreenBelt. Green Belt protects the nature of our precious village. I will continue to do everything I can working with community groups & residents to oppose this development & to stand up for our community.
And this is why the Tories are not yet ready for government. They’re still as NIMBY as ever.
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
And here you go again. It’s obvious to anyone with a pulse that the only long term way out is renewables and nuclear. Why can’t you see it!
He doesn't want to.
Just like he returns the "EVs burst into flames all the time" - someone posts the statistics on EV vs ICE fires. Then a little time later...
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
And here you go again. It’s obvious to anyone with a pulse that the only long term way out is renewables and nuclear. Why can’t you see it!
He doesn't want to.
Just like he returns the "EVs burst into flames all the time" - someone posts the statistics on EV vs ICE fires. Then a little time later...
I am happy to concede any time that Labour has the wrong policy on the North Sea. But their view on energy independence is essentially correct in that the only long term solution is nuclear and renewables.
The Tories seem to now think it is nuclear even though they did nothing whilst in government and they think net zero is a disaster even though those policies they pursued were essentially correct in terms of long term independence.
A proposal has been submitted for 150 houses in #TheydonBois on #GreenBelt. Green Belt protects the nature of our precious village. I will continue to do everything I can working with community groups & residents to oppose this development & to stand up for our community.
And this is why the Tories are not yet ready for government. They’re still as NIMBY as ever.
He is right, most voters do want to protect our precious greenbelt, local LD councillors and LD voters as well as most Tory voters are massively opposed to that Theydon development and Neil knows he needs LD tactical votes to hold his seat and beat Reform. The Reform candidate for Theydon in May by contrast is a developer. I don't believe that site is in the Local Plan either
Jokes aside, the PM's Chief of Staff having his phone nicked would have had much bigger implications at the time of the robbery. The importance of tech security/spying is made clear to spads all the time. Govt by WhatsApp is normal. Who has that phone now and what else was on it?
Oh, how sweet. She actually believes his phone was nicked
A proposal has been submitted for 150 houses in #TheydonBois on #GreenBelt. Green Belt protects the nature of our precious village. I will continue to do everything I can working with community groups & residents to oppose this development & to stand up for our community.
And this is why the Tories are not yet ready for government. They’re still as NIMBY as ever.
He is right, most voters do want to protect our precious greenbelt, local LD councillors are massively opposed to that Theydon development and Neil knows he needs LD tactical votes to hold his seat and beat Reform
He wants to protect a “village” which has a tube station with trains to London every 15 minutes. It’s lunacy.
We need to get away from this rubbish and start building. Build anywhere where it’s sensible. This proposal is perfectly sensible.
A proposal has been submitted for 150 houses in #TheydonBois on #GreenBelt. Green Belt protects the nature of our precious village. I will continue to do everything I can working with community groups & residents to oppose this development & to stand up for our community.
And this is why the Tories are not yet ready for government. They’re still as NIMBY as ever.
He is right, most voters do want to protect our precious greenbelt, local LD councillors are massively opposed to that Theydon development and Neil knows he needs LD tactical votes to hold his seat and beat Reform
He wants to protect a “village” which has a tube station with trains to London every 15 minutes. It’s lunacy.
We need to get away from this rubbish and start building. Build anywhere where it’s sensible. This proposal is perfectly sensible.
It is surrounded by green fields and miles out of London, even if it is the second to last stop on the tube line.
I don't even think this site is in the Local Plan for development, the local Reform candidate is a developer though so perhaps you will back Reform in Theydon?
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
Not really, 49% of Conservative voters and 58% of Reform voters back the US strikes in Iran, only 35% and 25% opposed.
So Kemi's voters are more hawklike than the average UK voter, 49% of whom oppose the strikes and 28% in favour, even if not quite as bomb the regime to bits as Farage's voters. What she should raise is the need for ground troops by Trump if he really wants regime change https://yougov.com/en-gb/daily-results/20260302-14ed5-1
Why did she U-turn then?
She hasn't, Kemi still backs the strikes and unlike Starmer wants the RAF to strike Iranian missile sites too
No she U-turned.
No she still backs strikes on Iranian missile sites
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
Hang on, the "loony net zero policies" are Tory policies. Leader after leader after leader. On the day Liz Truss blew up her government it was an opposition debate on Fracking and the SofS stood there are the dispatch lauding their policies on net zero and renewables.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
Trump: “Now with the death of Iran, the greatest enemy America has is the Radical Left, Highly Incompetent, Democrat Party! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT”
When does the bombing start?
He went for invasion and occupation, not bombing.
But he now has to secure the territory against possible Dem insurgencies.
A proposal has been submitted for 150 houses in #TheydonBois on #GreenBelt. Green Belt protects the nature of our precious village. I will continue to do everything I can working with community groups & residents to oppose this development & to stand up for our community.
And this is why the Tories are not yet ready for government. They’re still as NIMBY as ever.
All parties do this.
In a recent Guardian article an "environmental activist" in Lincolnshire didn't want to be identified. He was decrying local opposition to solar farms.
The reason he didn't want to be named - he is a Green candidate in the area, and has opposition to the solar farms in his platform
A proposal has been submitted for 150 houses in #TheydonBois on #GreenBelt. Green Belt protects the nature of our precious village. I will continue to do everything I can working with community groups & residents to oppose this development & to stand up for our community.
And this is why the Tories are not yet ready for government. They’re still as NIMBY as ever.
All parties do this.
In a recent Guardian article an "environmental activist" in Lincolnshire didn't want to be identified. He was decrying local opposition to solar farms.
The reason he didn't want to be named - he is a Green candidate in the area, and has opposition to the solar farms in his platform
Any party that does this deserves to be called out and lose.
Greens and Lib Dems are some of the worst. However the Tories have an honest chance of being elected. And they’ll just repeat their recent mistakes if this continues.
A proposal has been submitted for 150 houses in #TheydonBois on #GreenBelt. Green Belt protects the nature of our precious village. I will continue to do everything I can working with community groups & residents to oppose this development & to stand up for our community.
And this is why the Tories are not yet ready for government. They’re still as NIMBY as ever.
All parties do this.
In a recent Guardian article an "environmental activist" in Lincolnshire didn't want to be identified. He was decrying local opposition to solar farms.
The reason he didn't want to be named - he is a Green candidate in the area, and has opposition to the solar farms in his platform
Any party that does this deserves to be called out and lose.
Greens and Lib Dems are some of the worst. However the Tories have an honest chance of being elected. And they’ll just repeat their recent mistakes if this continues.
Tories now need LD and Green tactical votes to beat Reform.
Labour are pro development in the shires, less so in big cities but have no chance in most shire seats now
No one seems to give a damn anymore but article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which deals with grave breaches, provides, amongst others that, "extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly" is a war crime.
Destroying the energy infrastructure of Iran would, in my view, be a war crime, particularly in the context of a country which is already suffering deeply from drought and which is very dependent on the pumping of water.
But I wouldn't want to make the policy seem even more attractive to Trump than it is already.
Energy facilities have been consistently regarded as legitimate military targets in warfare, have they not? I seem to recall we targeted them extensively in WWII.
Do you have a better method, via military tools, to force the reopening of the Straits and the collapse of the regime?
If not, then it is surely justified by military necessity? Considering the fact that we are at a point where they are actively at war and the Strait is closed.
The clue's in the name, The Fourth Geneva Convention.
It is almost like after WWII it was decided some things were off limits and should not be repeated.
It's notable how 'we must start a war to overthrow the regime for the sake of the Iranian people' has so easily morphed into it's fine to target civilians, whatever the law says.
This is approaching Russian logic.
Yup, Vladimir Putin's could have written Bart's posts this morning.
It reinforces the point I have been making, plenty of the Iranian population and the wider diaspora think this war isn't about regime change but bombing Iran back into the stone age.
Except I am right.
As Richard Tyndall also said too, the targeting of energy facilities has been consistently done over time, under the claim of military necessity.
It is one of those irregular verbs again.
I know people on here don’t like facts but I thought this link was interesting (haven’t read it in full yet). It draws a distinction between Putin’s targeting of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and Ukraine’s targeting of oil facilities in Russia.
I don’t know enough of the detail to form a view on which side of the line Iran is, but suffice to say that there is a line and Ukraine and Russia are on different sides of it
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
And here you go again. It’s obvious to anyone with a pulse that the only long term way out is renewables and nuclear. Why can’t you see it!
If there is any positive to be drawn from this chaos, it is that a few more minds should become focused on the urgency of developing alternatives to fossil fuels.
I think for some on the right it's become a vibey culture war issue. Fossil fuels are associated with the good old days before things got all complicated.
Labour have put off the funding review for nearly a year. Either Starmer overrides the Treasury, or this project will die - along with any prospect of the UK ever leading something similar.
Japan sounds alarm over UK commitment to the GCAP joint fighter jet programme w/ Italy
As might be expected from the calibre of the cardboard cut-outs that promulgate it, the good guys/bad guys school of conflict analysis is utter wank. As far as nation states are concerned, it's our guys and the other guys. These categories are fungible, mutable and subject to tervigersation.
Apparently all that needs to happen is for Iran to surrender unconditionally to the aggressor. I know that. I read it here. I’m amazed they haven’t.
Our armchair brigade have forgotten all about the Ukraine conflict too now they have a new one. Poor old Zelensky
Please don't talk about people on here in a collective way. It pisses me off to have views assigned to me that I don't share. I still think the Ukraine War is by far the more important conduct, which is one reason why the Iran War is such a colossal mistake - it distracts from Ukraine and makes it harder for Ukraine to win.
If there are some posters on here who fit your description have the courage to name them directly, rather than using a group description that encompasses all of those who are strong supporters of Ukraine.
We managed perfectly well in this country without a supreme court. What a silly idea to introduce one.
Britain has long had a Supreme Court - it was called the Law Lords, and they were bound up in the House of Lords.
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
We managed perfectly well in this country without a supreme court. What a silly idea to introduce one.
Britain has long had a Supreme Court - it was called the Law Lords, and they were bound up in the House of Lords.
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
They could just have called it what it legally was - the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
Labour have put off the funding review for nearly a year. Either Starmer overrides the Treasury, or this project will die - along with any prospect of the UK ever leading something similar.
Japan sounds alarm over UK commitment to the GCAP joint fighter jet programme w/ Italy
And as we know from past experience, all such delays only end up making stuff more expensive if it does go ahead.
The UK aren't going to be leading it anyway because, in the event it ever amounts to anything, there is no way the British are going to buy more aircraft than the Japanese. Ceding the largest member of the consortium status was the price of letting Japan in. Easing Japan out and Germany in is a much more stable and workable configuration. Spain would likely follow then we've got the Eurofighter band back together.
A proposal has been submitted for 150 houses in #TheydonBois on #GreenBelt. Green Belt protects the nature of our precious village. I will continue to do everything I can working with community groups & residents to oppose this development & to stand up for our community.
And this is why the Tories are not yet ready for government. They’re still as NIMBY as ever.
All parties do this.
In a recent Guardian article an "environmental activist" in Lincolnshire didn't want to be identified. He was decrying local opposition to solar farms.
The reason he didn't want to be named - he is a Green candidate in the area, and has opposition to the solar farms in his platform
Most people accept, sometimes reluctantly, the need for new buildings.
They find it almost impossible to accept the idea of new buildings near them.
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
Hang on, the "loony net zero policies" are Tory policies. Leader after leader after leader. On the day Liz Truss blew up her government it was an opposition debate on Fracking and the SofS stood there are the dispatch lauding their policies on net zero and renewables.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
Also worth bearing in mind that although the true loon Ed Miliband has accelerated the retreat from the North Sea, it was the Tories who started this madness with their open ended windfall tax madness.
Indeed on a wider front this is Badenoch's problem. So many of the Labour policies she is now deriding and opposing were initially introduced by the Tories including when she was in Cabinet.
It seems we are getting close to a rational conclusion to this debate that will satisfy all but the most hardcore extremists.
Treat all people with dignity and respect.
When it comes to trans individuals, treat them with dignity and respect. Where it does not violate safeguarding, then call them by whatever name they want to be called and whatever pronoun they want to be called - out of respect.
However if it violates safeguarding, then safe spaces might be required for real women, not trans women.
If need be, alternative provision might be required for trans individuals, eg gender-neutral toilets, that maintain dignity and respect without violating the safeguarding protections for women.
Yep. Things should in general be trans inclusive unless there's a safety or fairness issue in which case exclusion can be justified. I think most people would think that reasonable.
But consider the WI instance. There's no safety or fairness issue there, they want to carry on as they are - inclusive - but following the judgement have concluded they must now exclude trans women.
So we're not there yet.
There is a safety/fairness issue there, it is an organisation for women. Any discussions that they have exclude males for a reason.
If it were not, they would not be excluding biological males, which includes any "trans women".
They disagree. They see no such issues. They've been trans inclusive with no problems for years. They didn't want to change. The membership concurs.
What you're effectively saying is that anything badged as 'for women' must by definition be for biological women only, regardless of whether there is a genuine safety or fairness issue and regardless of what the women involved in it want.
That's fine as an opinion (and the judgement does push in that direction) but it isn't the balanced moderate stance you're presenting it as. It's more the absolutist 'gender critical' position.
I am saying if there is no safeguarding concerns, then we should be inclusive of everyone - males, females, trans or not.
I am saying if it is safeguarded for women, then it should be for women. Which yes, is gender-critical perhaps but then that is the purpose of a women's-only space.
If its not for women, then it should be inclusive to everyone, whether that be males or trans individuals.
Nobody should be discriminated against because they are trans. But excluding biological males from women's spaces is not discrimination.
However, isn't the point of viewpoint's excellent article that, even in situations where there isn't a safeguarding issue (Susan is, by external anatomy, female), the sum effect of various laws is to treat Susan as male? And that even if an organisation like the WI or Girlguiding wants to be trans inclusive, it dare not for fear of a rich person attacking them with legal threats?
And I don't know about anyone else, but I don't trust law or politics to reflect the will of the people on this, because a determined minority tends to beat a mild majority.
There is no law AFAIK preventing either the WI or Girlguiding to allow men or boys into their organisations if they choose to do so.
I have a friend whose daughter is in the Scouts, not the Guides.
That they choose to be women's-only organisations is their choice.
The weird thing is they are making the choice whilst saying they don't agree with it. Trying to claim they are being forced by the law.
The Guides one is, if anything, stranger given that girls have been allowed in the Cubs and Scouts for over 30 years (and were also when the Scouts was first formed 1907 until the Guides were founded in 1910).
The guides I think realised they had a problem with things like camping trips which get much more complicated with a mixed sex cohort - if you're not allowed to believe it is an undifferentiated single gender.
Yet the Scouts don't have this problem?
Nope: TO PROMOTE THE DEVELOPMENT OF **YOUNG PEOPLE** IN ACHIEVING THEIR FULL PHYSICAL, INTELLECTUAL, SOCIAL AND SPIRITUAL POTENTIALS AS INDIVIDUALS, AS RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS AND AS MEMBERS OF THEIR LOCAL, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITIES
Indeed. My question was somewhat rhetorical.
So the easy answer is for the Guides to do what the Scouts did 34 years ago and change their mission statement.
A proposal has been submitted for 150 houses in #TheydonBois on #GreenBelt. Green Belt protects the nature of our precious village. I will continue to do everything I can working with community groups & residents to oppose this development & to stand up for our community.
And this is why the Tories are not yet ready for government. They’re still as NIMBY as ever.
All parties do this.
In a recent Guardian article an "environmental activist" in Lincolnshire didn't want to be identified. He was decrying local opposition to solar farms.
The reason he didn't want to be named - he is a Green candidate in the area, and has opposition to the solar farms in his platform
Most people accept, sometimes reluctantly, the need for new buildings.
They find it almost impossible to accept the idea of new buildings near them.
We managed perfectly well in this country without a supreme court. What a silly idea to introduce one.
Britain has long had a Supreme Court - it was called the Law Lords, and they were bound up in the House of Lords.
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
I don't think it needed reforming. Everything was working fine.
The toilets thing is unfortunate and seems to have been extended beyond the Supreme Court judgment by the EHRC. In practice, it creates the requirement for trans men and trans women to ‘out’ themselves at work, in restaurants, and just about anywhere really by forcing them to use the ‘wrong’ facilities (including disabled toilets with no disability).
No, it does not.
Plenty of people use the gender-neutral disabled toilets for a plethora of reasons and anyway not all disabilities are visible.
Having adequate provision of gender-neutral toilets that can be used by the disabled or anyone else who requires them is a reasonable compromise that protects everyone.
The simplest solution to me seems to be to make all toilets gender neutral where practical. A lot of establishments seem to be following this practice now. Waterstones bookshops are ahead of the curve on this and two unversities I have visited over the last coupleof weeks (UCL and Portsmouth) have gone down this route.
Ironically the only real downside is it means men might end up having to queue in the same way women have had to suffer over the years.
Why go to all that for a miniscule minority who whine about anything, if you have bollox you use gents , if not you use ladies. Pandering to all these miniscule minorities is why this country is so F****d up
Your friend Susan has no bollocks yet is banned from using the ladies under the law.
It seems we are getting close to a rational conclusion to this debate that will satisfy all but the most hardcore extremists.
Treat all people with dignity and respect.
When it comes to trans individuals, treat them with dignity and respect. Where it does not violate safeguarding, then call them by whatever name they want to be called and whatever pronoun they want to be called - out of respect.
However if it violates safeguarding, then safe spaces might be required for real women, not trans women.
If need be, alternative provision might be required for trans individuals, eg gender-neutral toilets, that maintain dignity and respect without violating the safeguarding protections for women.
Yep. Things should in general be trans inclusive unless there's a safety or fairness issue in which case exclusion can be justified. I think most people would think that reasonable.
But consider the WI instance. There's no safety or fairness issue there, they want to carry on as they are - inclusive - but following the judgement have concluded they must now exclude trans women.
So we're not there yet.
There is a safety/fairness issue there, it is an organisation for women. Any discussions that they have exclude males for a reason.
If it were not, they would not be excluding biological males, which includes any "trans women".
They disagree. They see no such issues. They've been trans inclusive with no problems for years. They didn't want to change. The membership concurs.
What you're effectively saying is that anything badged as 'for women' must by definition be for biological women only, regardless of whether there is a genuine safety or fairness issue and regardless of what the women involved in it want.
That's fine as an opinion (and the judgement does push in that direction) but it isn't the balanced moderate stance you're presenting it as. It's more the absolutist 'gender critical' position.
I am saying if there is no safeguarding concerns, then we should be inclusive of everyone - males, females, trans or not.
I am saying if it is safeguarded for women, then it should be for women. Which yes, is gender-critical perhaps but then that is the purpose of a women's-only space.
If its not for women, then it should be inclusive to everyone, whether that be males or trans individuals.
Nobody should be discriminated against because they are trans. But excluding biological males from women's spaces is not discrimination.
Implication of this:
Any women's group, regardless of what it's about or what it does, MUST exclude trans women whether they want to or not. They are only permitted to include trans women if they also include men - ie if they cease to be a women's group.
I'm surprised a small state social liberal like you would be happy with that. But ok.
If they accept males then they cease to be a women's group.
Groups should be free to choose who they accept, within the law, absolutely. I am perfectly OK with that.
Scouts accept girls who want to join. I can see absolutely no reason for Guides to reject young boys who want to join the Guides, however they have chosen to do that.
That is their choice, which as a small state social liberal I think they are and should be free to make, even if I don't agree with it.
Back to the WI. It wishes to continue as it has been for many years - an organisation for women including trans women. Under the position you support it cannot do this. It must either stop being a women's organisation and accept men or it must exclude trans women and be for biological women only.
I get what you're saying. It's nice and clear as I know you like to be. But if you're able to view this as a 'small state socially liberal' position, well that's impressive and you should find out when auditions start for the gymnastics at the next Olympics. Men's gymnastics, I hasten to add. Must have fairness in elite sport.
If they were to desire to be an organisation for women and trans women then I would have no objection to that, its their organisation, their choice.
As far as I am aware there is no law or court case that has said they must be for women only.
They have chosen their membership criteria independently.
They think the SC judgement creates a serious legal risk for them should they stick to the trans inclusive membership policy they've had since the 1970s. They fear that somebody with deep pockets (or access to) would sue them and win.
The legal bit. This article does not constitute advice as defined in the code of conduct and professional standards of the Royal Statistical Society and you are urged to consider other sources as well.
(In gambling terms : DYOR)
It seems a pretty good summary, though. And in any even professional legal advice is not infrequently wrong.
An interesting question, now there is at least partial license to discriminate against trans individuals, is how broad are the protections against discrimination afforded to them, as trans individuals, by the Equality Act, as you mention in the header.
The big that confuses me is… if you are a male-presenting transman, you are not allowed to use the men’s toilets, but you’re also not allowed to use the women’s toilets?
We managed perfectly well in this country without a supreme court. What a silly idea to introduce one.
Britain has long had a Supreme Court - it was called the Law Lords, and they were bound up in the House of Lords.
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
I don't think it needed reforming. Everything was working fine.
It had its drawbacks. Too little space and too congested a schedule to do an effective job. But that could have been resolved by changing the standing orders to allow them to sit separately from the House of Lords and in another building.
Jokes aside, the PM's Chief of Staff having his phone nicked would have had much bigger implications at the time of the robbery. The importance of tech security/spying is made clear to spads all the time. Govt by WhatsApp is normal. Who has that phone now and what else was on it?
Oh, how sweet. She actually believes his phone was nicked
I don't think she does. She's saying if it were nicked, a far bigger fuss would have been made at the time, so where's the initial report of the theft and what was done?
I have no skin in this game and the header is comprehensive and the legal summary is very clear
On that basis I can't help fearing the law might be an ass. As @Stuartinromford suggested most sensible people would be of the opinion "live and let live". Whatever floats one's boat but I think there should be a significant distinction between someone undertaking transformative surgery and hormone therapy and Isla Bryson.
For decades no one minded James Morris transitioning to Jan. There was a trans glamour model called Tula in the 1970s who was often draped over a pimped car on the cover of Custom Car magazine or page 3 of the Sun. No one cared.
People like Isla Bryson have poisoned the well for those without ulterior criminal motivations.
Possibly the biggest mistake in the law was to say (with good intentions) that surgery was not required to be trans and get a GRA.
If only post-op individuals were being discussed, I think the debate would be much calmer. In fact I doubt there'd ever have been much of a debate.
Unintended consequences has meant that tightening up against abuse has meant safeguarding people who were legitimate.
exactly the vociferous looneys spoilt it for everybody
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
Hang on, the "loony net zero policies" are Tory policies. Leader after leader after leader. On the day Liz Truss blew up her government it was an opposition debate on Fracking and the SofS stood there are the dispatch lauding their policies on net zero and renewables.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
Also worth bearing in mind that although the true loon Ed Miliband has accelerated the retreat from the North Sea, it was the Tories who started this madness with their open ended windfall tax madness.
Indeed on a wider front this is Badenoch's problem. So many of the Labour policies she is now deriding and opposing were initially introduced by the Tories including when she was in Cabinet.
As might be expected from the calibre of the cardboard cut-outs that promulgate it, the good guys/bad guys school of conflict analysis is utter wank. As far as nation states are concerned, it's our guys and the other guys. These categories are fungible, mutable and subject to tervigersation.
Apparently all that needs to happen is for Iran to surrender unconditionally to the aggressor. I know that. I read it here. I’m amazed they haven’t.
Our armchair brigade have forgotten all about the Ukraine conflict too now they have a new one. Poor old Zelensky
Please don't talk about people on here in a collective way. It pisses me off to have views assigned to me that I don't share. I still think the Ukraine War is by far the more important conduct, which is one reason why the Iran War is such a colossal mistake - it distracts from Ukraine and makes it harder for Ukraine to win.
If there are some posters on here who fit your description have the courage to name them directly, rather than using a group description that encompasses all of those who are strong supporters of Ukraine.
Fair comment reasonably made
I’ll desist
The view of someone who has spent quite a lot of time fighting on the front in Ukraine.
I'd also like to point out, directly targeting civilian power plants as a punishment for a force not surrendering is likely tantamount to a war crime/crime against humanity.
Could they be valid military targets? Sure, in extremely opaque and loose following of the laws. But the question should be why it's a military target. If its because they are supporting manufacturing and military bases, then why not hit the bases, manufacturing facilities vs crippling civilian infrastructure. https://x.com/RyanO_ChosenCoy/status/2035730025568170270
The US, with complete air superiority, and a very large airforce in theatre, has that ability, so his line that this is collective punishment of civilians seems valid.
We managed perfectly well in this country without a supreme court. What a silly idea to introduce one.
Britain has long had a Supreme Court - it was called the Law Lords, and they were bound up in the House of Lords.
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
Jokes aside, the PM's Chief of Staff having his phone nicked would have had much bigger implications at the time of the robbery. The importance of tech security/spying is made clear to spads all the time. Govt by WhatsApp is normal. Who has that phone now and what else was on it?
Oh, how sweet. She actually believes his phone was nicked
I don't think she does. She's saying if it were nicked, a far bigger fuss would have been made at the time, so where's the initial report of the theft and what was done?
Would be amusing if the commons committee asked for the crime number and police report of the theft.
A proposal has been submitted for 150 houses in #TheydonBois on #GreenBelt. Green Belt protects the nature of our precious village. I will continue to do everything I can working with community groups & residents to oppose this development & to stand up for our community.
And this is why the Tories are not yet ready for government. They’re still as NIMBY as ever.
All parties do this.
In a recent Guardian article an "environmental activist" in Lincolnshire didn't want to be identified. He was decrying local opposition to solar farms.
The reason he didn't want to be named - he is a Green candidate in the area, and has opposition to the solar farms in his platform
Most people accept, sometimes reluctantly, the need for new buildings.
They find it almost impossible to accept the idea of new buildings near them.
Labour have put off the funding review for nearly a year. Either Starmer overrides the Treasury, or this project will die - along with any prospect of the UK ever leading something similar.
Japan sounds alarm over UK commitment to the GCAP joint fighter jet programme w/ Italy
And as we know from past experience, all such delays only end up making stuff more expensive if it does go ahead.
The UK aren't going to be leading it anyway because, in the event it ever amounts to anything, there is no way the British are going to buy more aircraft than the Japanese. Ceding the largest member of the consortium status was the price of letting Japan in. Easing Japan out and Germany in is a much more stable and workable configuration. Spain would likely follow then we've got the Eurofighter band back together.
Technology lead (though you're likely right that even that is now in question).
The leaders of the West are not doing their duty. It may already be too late, but everyone with an ounce of clout or influence must now use it to end the US-Israel attack on Iran. And let us not forget that those two countries started this war. They attacked, an action which all through history has put the attacker in the wrong.
If the war is not soon stopped, then an economic and political crisis worse than anything since 1945 may well be triggered. It will be accompanied by yet another mass movement of countless refugees into Western Europe. And for what?
Will we never grow out of the Utopian fantasy that we can go stomping round the world, telling other countries what to do? It is as if we have been hypnotised. All someone needs to do is to talk of Winston Churchill or of ‘appeasement’, and grown men and women lose their minds and start howling for war. Some seem to long for it.
In the early moments of Donald Trump’s current spasm, the leaders of Reform UK and the Tory Party instantly piled in to endorse the Trump-Netanyahu assault. They had time to think before they spoke. But they couldn’t be bothered. Like so many modern ‘conservatives’ and ‘patriots’, they have fallen in love with foreign war, quite unaware that war is the enemy of conservatism and the ally of the Left.
For instance, has it still not sunk in that the vast waves of migration from Africa and the Middle East are the direct results of the wars we kept starting or fuelling, in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria? Even now, there are people amid the ruins of their former homes, in their demolished cities, all over Iran, preparing for the long trudge westwards that ends with them struggling aboard a rubber dinghy on the French coast, headed for Kent or Sussex.
You may meet them, sooner than you think, in an English suburb. If you do, it will be a poorer, bleaker place than it is now.
’ The president doing this is crucial. I've seen the polling, but I really hope the American people will be with him because he's doing this to make the whole world safer" -- NATO Secretary Mark Rutte
We managed perfectly well in this country without a supreme court. What a silly idea to introduce one.
Britain has long had a Supreme Court - it was called the Law Lords, and they were bound up in the House of Lords.
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
The Law Lords sat in parliament and their boss was the Lord Chancellor, whose boss was the PM. That gave them a vital link to politics and by extension a form of democratic accountability. They should not be a 'wholly separate body' because 'wholly separate bodies' are not accountable, which is when you get ideological capture and judicial overreach. The name was never the issue. And the desire to 'reform the House of Lords meaningfully' is itself a meaningless aim. Why reform something if it wrecks the constitutional ecosystem? That isn't reform, it's simple vandalism.
Labour have put off the funding review for nearly a year. Either Starmer overrides the Treasury, or this project will die - along with any prospect of the UK ever leading something similar.
Japan sounds alarm over UK commitment to the GCAP joint fighter jet programme w/ Italy
And as we know from past experience, all such delays only end up making stuff more expensive if it does go ahead.
I suspect it's unfair to blame the Treasury for this.
The Defence Investment Plan will require decisions on whether, how and when to pony up more money for Defence, and I suspect the delay is that Starmer doesn't want to make unpleasant decisions on taxation and spending. So he delays.
The leaders of the West are not doing their duty. It may already be too late, but everyone with an ounce of clout or influence must now use it to end the US-Israel attack on Iran. And let us not forget that those two countries started this war. They attacked, an action which all through history has put the attacker in the wrong.
If the war is not soon stopped, then an economic and political crisis worse than anything since 1945 may well be triggered. It will be accompanied by yet another mass movement of countless refugees into Western Europe. And for what?
Will we never grow out of the Utopian fantasy that we can go stomping round the world, telling other countries what to do? It is as if we have been hypnotised. All someone needs to do is to talk of Winston Churchill or of ‘appeasement’, and grown men and women lose their minds and start howling for war. Some seem to long for it.
In the early moments of Donald Trump’s current spasm, the leaders of Reform UK and the Tory Party instantly piled in to endorse the Trump-Netanyahu assault. They had time to think before they spoke. But they couldn’t be bothered. Like so many modern ‘conservatives’ and ‘patriots’, they have fallen in love with foreign war, quite unaware that war is the enemy of conservatism and the ally of the Left.
For instance, has it still not sunk in that the vast waves of migration from Africa and the Middle East are the direct results of the wars we kept starting or fuelling, in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria? Even now, there are people amid the ruins of their former homes, in their demolished cities, all over Iran, preparing for the long trudge westwards that ends with them struggling aboard a rubber dinghy on the French coast, headed for Kent or Sussex.
You may meet them, sooner than you think, in an English suburb. If you do, it will be a poorer, bleaker place than it is now.
We managed perfectly well in this country without a supreme court. What a silly idea to introduce one.
Britain has long had a Supreme Court - it was called the Law Lords, and they were bound up in the House of Lords.
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
The Law Lords sat in parliament and their boss was the Lord Chancellor, whose boss was the PM. That gave them a vital link to politics and by extension a form of democratic accountability. They should not be a 'wholly separate body' because 'wholly separate bodies' are not accountable, which is when you get ideological capture and judicial overreach. The name was never the issue. And the desire to 'reform the House of Lords meaningfully' is itself a meaningless aim. Why reform something if it wrecks the constitutional ecosystem? That isn't reform, it's simple vandalism.
Brave to argue for democratic accountability and then, in the same paragraph, defend the House of Lords.
We managed perfectly well in this country without a supreme court. What a silly idea to introduce one.
Britain has long had a Supreme Court - it was called the Law Lords, and they were bound up in the House of Lords.
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
The Law Lords sat in parliament and their boss was the Lord Chancellor, whose boss was the PM. That gave them a vital link to politics and by extension a form of democratic accountability. They should not be a 'wholly separate body' because 'wholly separate bodies' are not accountable, which is when you get ideological capture and judicial overreach. The name was never the issue. And the desire to 'reform the House of Lords meaningfully' is itself a meaningless aim. Why reform something if it wrecks the constitutional ecosystem? That isn't reform, it's simple vandalism.
Brave to argue for democratic accountability and then, in the same paragraph, defend the House of Lords.
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
Not really, 49% of Conservative voters and 58% of Reform voters back the US strikes in Iran, only 35% and 25% opposed.
So Kemi's voters are more hawklike than the average UK voter, 49% of whom oppose the strikes and 28% in favour, even if not quite as bomb the regime to bits as Farage's voters. What she should raise is the need for ground troops by Trump if he really wants regime change https://yougov.com/en-gb/daily-results/20260302-14ed5-1
Why did she U-turn then?
She hasn't, Kemi still backs the strikes and unlike Starmer wants the RAF to strike Iranian missile sites too
No she U-turned.
She didn't really u turn.
She was having an argument with herself in the mirror whilst on a Teams Call waiting for GB News.
She hadn't had an argument for an hour and she had to deal with the tick..
She yelled so loud at herself GB News recorded it and claimed she'd had a massive row with Pritti and changed policy.
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
Hang on, the "loony net zero policies" are Tory policies. Leader after leader after leader. On the day Liz Truss blew up her government it was an opposition debate on Fracking and the SofS stood there are the dispatch lauding their policies on net zero and renewables.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
Also worth bearing in mind that although the true loon Ed Miliband has accelerated the retreat from the North Sea, it was the Tories who started this madness with their open ended windfall tax madness.
Indeed on a wider front this is Badenoch's problem. So many of the Labour policies she is now deriding and opposing were initially introduced by the Tories including when she was in Cabinet.
And the electorate rejected them. So you come back with a different offer.
’ The president doing this is crucial. I've seen the polling, but I really hope the American people will be with him because he's doing this to make the whole world safer" -- NATO Secretary Mark Rutte
What is Rutte's game? Is it to try and prevent Trump going full tonto and abolishing NATO?
We managed perfectly well in this country without a supreme court. What a silly idea to introduce one.
Britain has long had a Supreme Court - it was called the Law Lords, and they were bound up in the House of Lords.
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Is good poetry, but not, I would claim, an accurate reflection of reality. Names kinda matter. The Allusionist podcast had an interesting episode about how they chose their name and the importance of choosing the right name.
I support fairly extensive reform of British institutions, but I think we can do that reform in a way that retains a link with our past, rather than fulfilling some low-rent politician's desire to be starring in the West Wing.
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
Hang on, the "loony net zero policies" are Tory policies. Leader after leader after leader. On the day Liz Truss blew up her government it was an opposition debate on Fracking and the SofS stood there are the dispatch lauding their policies on net zero and renewables.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
Also worth bearing in mind that although the true loon Ed Miliband has accelerated the retreat from the North Sea, it was the Tories who started this madness with their open ended windfall tax madness.
Indeed on a wider front this is Badenoch's problem. So many of the Labour policies she is now deriding and opposing were initially introduced by the Tories including when she was in Cabinet.
And the electorate rejected them. So you come back with a different offer.
It's not really a problem for Kemi. She wasn't running the previous Tory Government, and she wasn't fronting any of the Net Zero bits. Since becoming leader, she has been clear and on the record in opposing the current Net Zero plans, and wanting to drill in the North Sea. The Government's energy policy is in tatters, and this will be a feeding frenzy. Sir will find it very difficult to move Milliband on, but the longer he takes the worse it will be.
The leaders of the West are not doing their duty. It may already be too late, but everyone with an ounce of clout or influence must now use it to end the US-Israel attack on Iran. And let us not forget that those two countries started this war. They attacked, an action which all through history has put the attacker in the wrong.
If the war is not soon stopped, then an economic and political crisis worse than anything since 1945 may well be triggered. It will be accompanied by yet another mass movement of countless refugees into Western Europe. And for what?
Will we never grow out of the Utopian fantasy that we can go stomping round the world, telling other countries what to do? It is as if we have been hypnotised. All someone needs to do is to talk of Winston Churchill or of ‘appeasement’, and grown men and women lose their minds and start howling for war. Some seem to long for it.
In the early moments of Donald Trump’s current spasm, the leaders of Reform UK and the Tory Party instantly piled in to endorse the Trump-Netanyahu assault. They had time to think before they spoke. But they couldn’t be bothered. Like so many modern ‘conservatives’ and ‘patriots’, they have fallen in love with foreign war, quite unaware that war is the enemy of conservatism and the ally of the Left.
For instance, has it still not sunk in that the vast waves of migration from Africa and the Middle East are the direct results of the wars we kept starting or fuelling, in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria? Even now, there are people amid the ruins of their former homes, in their demolished cities, all over Iran, preparing for the long trudge westwards that ends with them struggling aboard a rubber dinghy on the French coast, headed for Kent or Sussex.
You may meet them, sooner than you think, in an English suburb. If you do, it will be a poorer, bleaker place than it is now.
Oh no, agree with most of what Hitchens says here. Makes me wonder where I am going wrong......
Yes, but note the 'war is an ally of the left' nonsense. Making out people on the left just love it when foreign conflicts unleash a wave of refugees seeking shelter in the west.
’ The president doing this is crucial. I've seen the polling, but I really hope the American people will be with him because he's doing this to make the whole world safer" -- NATO Secretary Mark Rutte
What is Rutte's game? Is it to try and prevent Trump going full tonto and abolishing NATO?
Whatever it is, it's well outside of his brief, which he NATO policy. He should not be speaking for European foreign policy outside of that.
The leaders of the West are not doing their duty. It may already be too late, but everyone with an ounce of clout or influence must now use it to end the US-Israel attack on Iran. And let us not forget that those two countries started this war. They attacked, an action which all through history has put the attacker in the wrong.
If the war is not soon stopped, then an economic and political crisis worse than anything since 1945 may well be triggered. It will be accompanied by yet another mass movement of countless refugees into Western Europe. And for what?
Will we never grow out of the Utopian fantasy that we can go stomping round the world, telling other countries what to do? It is as if we have been hypnotised. All someone needs to do is to talk of Winston Churchill or of ‘appeasement’, and grown men and women lose their minds and start howling for war. Some seem to long for it.
In the early moments of Donald Trump’s current spasm, the leaders of Reform UK and the Tory Party instantly piled in to endorse the Trump-Netanyahu assault. They had time to think before they spoke. But they couldn’t be bothered. Like so many modern ‘conservatives’ and ‘patriots’, they have fallen in love with foreign war, quite unaware that war is the enemy of conservatism and the ally of the Left.
For instance, has it still not sunk in that the vast waves of migration from Africa and the Middle East are the direct results of the wars we kept starting or fuelling, in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria? Even now, there are people amid the ruins of their former homes, in their demolished cities, all over Iran, preparing for the long trudge westwards that ends with them struggling aboard a rubber dinghy on the French coast, headed for Kent or Sussex.
You may meet them, sooner than you think, in an English suburb. If you do, it will be a poorer, bleaker place than it is now.
Oh no, agree with most of what Hitchens says here. Makes me wonder where I am going wrong......
Yes, but note the 'war is an ally of the left' nonsense. Making out people on the left just love it when foreign conflicts unleash a wave of refugees seeking shelter in the west.
Yeah, thats not accurate but he is correct in saying it is un-conservative which is the broader point here. Perhaps war is the ally of fundamentalists works much better.
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
Hang on, the "loony net zero policies" are Tory policies. Leader after leader after leader. On the day Liz Truss blew up her government it was an opposition debate on Fracking and the SofS stood there are the dispatch lauding their policies on net zero and renewables.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
Also worth bearing in mind that although the true loon Ed Miliband has accelerated the retreat from the North Sea, it was the Tories who started this madness with their open ended windfall tax madness.
Indeed on a wider front this is Badenoch's problem. So many of the Labour policies she is now deriding and opposing were initially introduced by the Tories including when she was in Cabinet.
And the electorate rejected them. So you come back with a different offer.
It's not really a problem for Kemi. She wasn't running the previous Tory Government, and she wasn't fronting any of the Net Zero bits. Since becoming leader, she has been clear and on the record in opposing the current Net Zero plans, and wanting to drill in the North Sea. The Government's energy policy is in tatters, and this will be a feeding frenzy. Sir will find it very difficult to move Milliband on, but the longer he takes the worse it will be.
Increasing North Sea drilling would do nothing to help UK energy prices in this time of crisis. Prices are set on global markets and increased North Sea drilling would have little impact on global supply.
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
Hang on, the "loony net zero policies" are Tory policies. Leader after leader after leader. On the day Liz Truss blew up her government it was an opposition debate on Fracking and the SofS stood there are the dispatch lauding their policies on net zero and renewables.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
Also worth bearing in mind that although the true loon Ed Miliband has accelerated the retreat from the North Sea, it was the Tories who started this madness with their open ended windfall tax madness.
Indeed on a wider front this is Badenoch's problem. So many of the Labour policies she is now deriding and opposing were initially introduced by the Tories including when she was in Cabinet.
And the electorate rejected them. So you come back with a different offer.
It's not really a problem for Kemi. She wasn't running the previous Tory Government, and she wasn't fronting any of the Net Zero bits. Since becoming leader, she has been clear and on the record in opposing the current Net Zero plans, and wanting to drill in the North Sea. The Government's energy policy is in tatters, and this will be a feeding frenzy. Sir will find it very difficult to move Milliband on, but the longer he takes the worse it will be.
He finds it difficult to do anything. He's simply not leader material. You cannot take accountability by polishing your desk to the extent everything slides off it.
’ The president doing this is crucial. I've seen the polling, but I really hope the American people will be with him because he's doing this to make the whole world safer" -- NATO Secretary Mark Rutte
What is Rutte's game? Is it to try and prevent Trump going full tonto and abolishing NATO?
I was thinking about the next GE. If Labour dont go long to 2029, is there value in Oct 27 or Feb 28? Try and take the hit early and defend London in May 28 from a fresh perspective? Or is it just hang on grimly till the end?
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
Hang on, the "loony net zero policies" are Tory policies. Leader after leader after leader. On the day Liz Truss blew up her government it was an opposition debate on Fracking and the SofS stood there are the dispatch lauding their policies on net zero and renewables.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
Also worth bearing in mind that although the true loon Ed Miliband has accelerated the retreat from the North Sea, it was the Tories who started this madness with their open ended windfall tax madness.
Indeed on a wider front this is Badenoch's problem. So many of the Labour policies she is now deriding and opposing were initially introduced by the Tories including when she was in Cabinet.
And the electorate rejected them. So you come back with a different offer.
It's not really a problem for Kemi. She wasn't running the previous Tory Government, and she wasn't fronting any of the Net Zero bits. Since becoming leader, she has been clear and on the record in opposing the current Net Zero plans, and wanting to drill in the North Sea. The Government's energy policy is in tatters, and this will be a feeding frenzy. Sir will find it very difficult to move Milliband on, but the longer he takes the worse it will be.
Increasing North Sea drilling would do nothing to help UK energy prices in this time of crisis. Prices are set on global markets and increased North Sea drilling would have little impact on global supply.
It might alter the global price of oil a shade, but what it will do is enable the UK exchequer to take advantage of the price spike, offsetting some of the economic impact. Increasing the gas supply however can absolutely affect the domestic price.
We managed perfectly well in this country without a supreme court. What a silly idea to introduce one.
Britain has long had a Supreme Court - it was called the Law Lords, and they were bound up in the House of Lords.
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
The Law Lords sat in parliament and their boss was the Lord Chancellor, whose boss was the PM. That gave them a vital link to politics and by extension a form of democratic accountability. They should not be a 'wholly separate body' because 'wholly separate bodies' are not accountable, which is when you get ideological capture and judicial overreach. The name was never the issue. And the desire to 'reform the House of Lords meaningfully' is itself a meaningless aim. Why reform something if it wrecks the constitutional ecosystem? That isn't reform, it's simple vandalism.
Brave to argue for democratic accountability and then, in the same paragraph, defend the House of Lords.
’ The president doing this is crucial. I've seen the polling, but I really hope the American people will be with him because he's doing this to make the whole world safer" -- NATO Secretary Mark Rutte
What is Rutte's game? Is it to try and prevent Trump going full tonto and abolishing NATO?
Europe lacks the leadership of a Tony Blair, so he feels the need to step up and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Trump.
’ The president doing this is crucial. I've seen the polling, but I really hope the American people will be with him because he's doing this to make the whole world safer" -- NATO Secretary Mark Rutte
What is Rutte's game? Is it to try and prevent Trump going full tonto and abolishing NATO?
Whatever it is, it's well outside of his brief, which he NATO policy. He should not be speaking for European foreign policy outside of that.
I think he fancies himself as a 'Trump whisperer'. Or is just trying to stay personally relevant. Or is engaged in some attempted soft cop hard cop dynamics. Whatever, I wish he'd desist.
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
Hang on, the "loony net zero policies" are Tory policies. Leader after leader after leader. On the day Liz Truss blew up her government it was an opposition debate on Fracking and the SofS stood there are the dispatch lauding their policies on net zero and renewables.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
Also worth bearing in mind that although the true loon Ed Miliband has accelerated the retreat from the North Sea, it was the Tories who started this madness with their open ended windfall tax madness.
Indeed on a wider front this is Badenoch's problem. So many of the Labour policies she is now deriding and opposing were initially introduced by the Tories including when she was in Cabinet.
And the electorate rejected them. So you come back with a different offer.
It's not really a problem for Kemi. She wasn't running the previous Tory Government, and she wasn't fronting any of the Net Zero bits. Since becoming leader, she has been clear and on the record in opposing the current Net Zero plans, and wanting to drill in the North Sea. The Government's energy policy is in tatters, and this will be a feeding frenzy. Sir will find it very difficult to move Milliband on, but the longer he takes the worse it will be.
Increasing North Sea drilling would do nothing to help UK energy prices in this time of crisis. Prices are set on global markets and increased North Sea drilling would have little impact on global supply.
I just do not understand why those objecting to drilling in the North Sea cannot see just how many billions in tax it would yield to the treasury
It is economic vandalism not to exploit our own reserves to the full
’ The president doing this is crucial. I've seen the polling, but I really hope the American people will be with him because he's doing this to make the whole world safer" -- NATO Secretary Mark Rutte
What is Rutte's game? Is it to try and prevent Trump going full tonto and abolishing NATO?
Whatever it is, it's well outside of his brief, which he NATO policy. He should not be speaking for European foreign policy outside of that.
I think he fancies himself as a 'Trump whisperer'. Or is just trying to stay personally relevant. Or is engaged in some attempted soft cop hard cop dynamics. Whatever, I wish he'd desist.
"Sir Keir Starmer may have had a tough year in office, but in one key measure he is top of the shop: the Toby Jug in his likeness outsold all other prime ministers in 2025. The Houses of Parliament gift shop sells 11cm-tall jugs of the last 22 prime ministers, from Conservative Andrew Bonar Law onwards. They cost £35 each.
"The sales figures give an insight into the enduring popularity of some politicians over others. In 2025, the Starmer jug sold most, at 116, including 32 to his colleagues in parliament and further 84 online. Boris Johnson came second selling 48, Winston Churchill 46 and Margaret Thatcher 46."
Poor old Sir Alec Douglas Home has the wooden spoon. That said, the jug doesn't really do him justice. Otherwise I might have got one.
’ The president doing this is crucial. I've seen the polling, but I really hope the American people will be with him because he's doing this to make the whole world safer" -- NATO Secretary Mark Rutte
What is Rutte's game? Is it to try and prevent Trump going full tonto and abolishing NATO?
Europe lacks the leadership of a Tony Blair, so he feels the need to step up and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Trump.
You've managed to cheer me up there, William. There isn't much to be thankful for right now, with this Iran craziness, but you’ve managed to find something - as the Middle East flares up bigtime yet again Europe lacks the leadership of a Tony Blair.
’ The president doing this is crucial. I've seen the polling, but I really hope the American people will be with him because he's doing this to make the whole world safer" -- NATO Secretary Mark Rutte
What is Rutte's game? Is it to try and prevent Trump going full tonto and abolishing NATO?
’ The president doing this is crucial. I've seen the polling, but I really hope the American people will be with him because he's doing this to make the whole world safer" -- NATO Secretary Mark Rutte
What is Rutte's game? Is it to try and prevent Trump going full tonto and abolishing NATO?
Whatever it is, it's well outside of his brief, which he NATO policy. He should not be speaking for European foreign policy outside of that.
I think he fancies himself as a 'Trump whisperer'. Or is just trying to stay personally relevant. Or is engaged in some attempted soft cop hard cop dynamics. Whatever, I wish he'd desist.
I think Malcolm is correct.
Any adult who calls Trump 'Daddy' has issues and not helped if you are head of NATO
"Sir Keir Starmer may have had a tough year in office, but in one key measure he is top of the shop: the Toby Jug in his likeness outsold all other prime ministers in 2025. The Houses of Parliament gift shop sells 11cm-tall jugs of the last 22 prime ministers, from Conservative Andrew Bonar Law onwards. They cost £35 each.
"The sales figures give an insight into the enduring popularity of some politicians over others. In 2025, the Starmer jug sold most, at 116, including 32 to his colleagues in parliament and further 84 online. Boris Johnson came second selling 48, Winston Churchill 46 and Margaret Thatcher 46."
Poor old Sir Alec Douglas Home has the wooden spoon. That said, the jug doesn't really do him justice. Otherwise I might have got one.
Brown beats Cameron, in a reversal of the 2010 general election.
Gimson added: "It tells us that Cameron, though an astonishingly skillful politician, never formed an emotional connection with the British people, and people want to buy things which actually move them.
Jokes aside, the PM's Chief of Staff having his phone nicked would have had much bigger implications at the time of the robbery. The importance of tech security/spying is made clear to spads all the time. Govt by WhatsApp is normal. Who has that phone now and what else was on it?
Oh, how sweet. She actually believes his phone was nicked
I don't think she does. She's saying if it were nicked, a far bigger fuss would have been made at the time, so where's the initial report of the theft and what was done?
Would be amusing if the commons committee asked for the crime number and police report of the theft.
More useful if the committee asked why the flip there is no official storage of government electronic communications, as well as why they are routed through foreign-owned apps such as WhatsApp and Zoom.
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
Hang on, the "loony net zero policies" are Tory policies. Leader after leader after leader. On the day Liz Truss blew up her government it was an opposition debate on Fracking and the SofS stood there are the dispatch lauding their policies on net zero and renewables.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
Also worth bearing in mind that although the true loon Ed Miliband has accelerated the retreat from the North Sea, it was the Tories who started this madness with their open ended windfall tax madness.
Indeed on a wider front this is Badenoch's problem. So many of the Labour policies she is now deriding and opposing were initially introduced by the Tories including when she was in Cabinet.
And the electorate rejected them. So you come back with a different offer.
It's not really a problem for Kemi. She wasn't running the previous Tory Government, and she wasn't fronting any of the Net Zero bits. Since becoming leader, she has been clear and on the record in opposing the current Net Zero plans, and wanting to drill in the North Sea. The Government's energy policy is in tatters, and this will be a feeding frenzy. Sir will find it very difficult to move Milliband on, but the longer he takes the worse it will be.
Increasing North Sea drilling would do nothing to help UK energy prices in this time of crisis. Prices are set on global markets and increased North Sea drilling would have little impact on global supply.
Except this is not strictly true in reality. Or at least it would not be if we had kept a sensible energy policy.
One of the consequences of shutting down the UK North Sea has been the massive knock on effect on refineries. This has not yet impacted petrol refining but has massively reduced the capacity for diesel refining. So we have to import a lot more diesel which makes it both more expensive on a day to day basis and more prone to the impact of sudden jumps in the oil price.
This is why the price of diesel has jumped far more than petrol.
And given that so much of our distribution network relies on diesel transport this is also why the issues in the Middle East will have a much bigger effect on inflation..
The leaders of the West are not doing their duty. It may already be too late, but everyone with an ounce of clout or influence must now use it to end the US-Israel attack on Iran. And let us not forget that those two countries started this war. They attacked, an action which all through history has put the attacker in the wrong.
If the war is not soon stopped, then an economic and political crisis worse than anything since 1945 may well be triggered. It will be accompanied by yet another mass movement of countless refugees into Western Europe. And for what?
Will we never grow out of the Utopian fantasy that we can go stomping round the world, telling other countries what to do? It is as if we have been hypnotised. All someone needs to do is to talk of Winston Churchill or of ‘appeasement’, and grown men and women lose their minds and start howling for war. Some seem to long for it.
In the early moments of Donald Trump’s current spasm, the leaders of Reform UK and the Tory Party instantly piled in to endorse the Trump-Netanyahu assault. They had time to think before they spoke. But they couldn’t be bothered. Like so many modern ‘conservatives’ and ‘patriots’, they have fallen in love with foreign war, quite unaware that war is the enemy of conservatism and the ally of the Left.
For instance, has it still not sunk in that the vast waves of migration from Africa and the Middle East are the direct results of the wars we kept starting or fuelling, in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria? Even now, there are people amid the ruins of their former homes, in their demolished cities, all over Iran, preparing for the long trudge westwards that ends with them struggling aboard a rubber dinghy on the French coast, headed for Kent or Sussex.
You may meet them, sooner than you think, in an English suburb. If you do, it will be a poorer, bleaker place than it is now.
Oh no, agree with most of what Hitchens says here. Makes me wonder where I am going wrong......
Yes, but note the 'war is an ally of the left' nonsense. Making out people on the left just love it when foreign conflicts unleash a wave of refugees seeking shelter in the west.
Yeah, thats not accurate but he is correct in saying it is un-conservative which is the broader point here. Perhaps war is the ally of fundamentalists works much better.
It's not a surprise that Peter Hitchens would talk drivel about the left. But, yes, let me not be churlish, that aside he nails it.
The woman from the fish and chip shop has taken her degree to a new position as a data entry clerk – a job that used to be the preserve of 16-year-old girls leaving school with two O-levels and a typing certificate.
’ The president doing this is crucial. I've seen the polling, but I really hope the American people will be with him because he's doing this to make the whole world safer" -- NATO Secretary Mark Rutte
What is Rutte's game? Is it to try and prevent Trump going full tonto and abolishing NATO?
Whatever it is, it's well outside of his brief, which he NATO policy. He should not be speaking for European foreign policy outside of that.
I think he fancies himself as a 'Trump whisperer'. Or is just trying to stay personally relevant. Or is engaged in some attempted soft cop hard cop dynamics. Whatever, I wish he'd desist.
I think Malcolm is correct.
I'm probably doing what I often accuse others of doing with Donald Trump - trying too hard to find a rationale that isn't there.
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
Hang on, the "loony net zero policies" are Tory policies. Leader after leader after leader. On the day Liz Truss blew up her government it was an opposition debate on Fracking and the SofS stood there are the dispatch lauding their policies on net zero and renewables.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
Also worth bearing in mind that although the true loon Ed Miliband has accelerated the retreat from the North Sea, it was the Tories who started this madness with their open ended windfall tax madness.
Indeed on a wider front this is Badenoch's problem. So many of the Labour policies she is now deriding and opposing were initially introduced by the Tories including when she was in Cabinet.
And the electorate rejected them. So you come back with a different offer.
It's not really a problem for Kemi. She wasn't running the previous Tory Government, and she wasn't fronting any of the Net Zero bits. Since becoming leader, she has been clear and on the record in opposing the current Net Zero plans, and wanting to drill in the North Sea. The Government's energy policy is in tatters, and this will be a feeding frenzy. Sir will find it very difficult to move Milliband on, but the longer he takes the worse it will be.
Increasing North Sea drilling would do nothing to help UK energy prices in this time of crisis. Prices are set on global markets and increased North Sea drilling would have little impact on global supply.
I just do not understand why those objecting to drilling in the North Sea cannot see just how many billions in tax it would yield to the treasury
It is economic vandalism not to exploit our own reserves to the full
We need to stop burning fossil fields soon. If we transition away from burning fossil fuels soon, then the price of fossil fuels will plummet and any new drilling in the North Sea will end up not making any money.
That's the rationale. You might disagree with various points in the logic model.
We managed perfectly well in this country without a supreme court. What a silly idea to introduce one.
Britain has long had a Supreme Court - it was called the Law Lords, and they were bound up in the House of Lords.
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
They could just have called it what it legally was - the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
“I think a lot of European nations were right about our invasion of Iraq. And frankly, if the Europeans had been a little more independent, and a little more willing to stand up, then maybe we could have saved the entire world from the strategic disaster that was the American-led invasion of Iraq.”
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
Hang on, the "loony net zero policies" are Tory policies. Leader after leader after leader. On the day Liz Truss blew up her government it was an opposition debate on Fracking and the SofS stood there are the dispatch lauding their policies on net zero and renewables.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
Also worth bearing in mind that although the true loon Ed Miliband has accelerated the retreat from the North Sea, it was the Tories who started this madness with their open ended windfall tax madness.
Indeed on a wider front this is Badenoch's problem. So many of the Labour policies she is now deriding and opposing were initially introduced by the Tories including when she was in Cabinet.
And the electorate rejected them. So you come back with a different offer.
It's not really a problem for Kemi. She wasn't running the previous Tory Government, and she wasn't fronting any of the Net Zero bits. Since becoming leader, she has been clear and on the record in opposing the current Net Zero plans, and wanting to drill in the North Sea. The Government's energy policy is in tatters, and this will be a feeding frenzy. Sir will find it very difficult to move Milliband on, but the longer he takes the worse it will be.
Increasing North Sea drilling would do nothing to help UK energy prices in this time of crisis. Prices are set on global markets and increased North Sea drilling would have little impact on global supply.
I just do not understand why those objecting to drilling in the North Sea cannot see just how many billions in tax it would yield to the treasury
It is economic vandalism not to exploit our own reserves to the full
We need to stop burning fossil fields soon. If we transition away from burning fossil fuels soon, then the price of fossil fuels will plummet and any new drilling in the North Sea will end up not making any money.
That's the rationale. You might disagree with various points in the logic model.
I simply do not accept that we have to do either or
It has to be both as we transition over the next 20 years
I was thinking about the next GE. If Labour dont go long to 2029, is there value in Oct 27 or Feb 28? Try and take the hit early and defend London in May 28 from a fresh perspective? Or is it just hang on grimly till the end?
Unless they reclaim a clear poll lead, Labour will of course hang on until 2029 given their massive Commons majority
Goodwin seems about as careful and credible an author as Naomi Wolf.
EXC: .@GoodwinMJ’s new book “Suicide of a Nation: Immigration, Islam, Identity” is out now, and I’m only 5 chapters in and have found a huge amount of what appears to be false quotes and basic misinterpretations of data, that appear to be AI hallucinations.
He’s not an academic anymore by any sense of the word. He’s a right wing grifter and has moved Reform into a very stupid direction in my view.
They have become completely obsessed with Islam and vote rigging since Gorton.
I’m not sure he was ever an academic. I met him at the Transatlantic Studies Conference in Nottingham in 2005. He was working on his PhD at the time. After dinner, a group of us sat outside with drinks putting the world to rights. My former supervisor was there, a couple of academics I respected from here and across the Atlantic, a number of postgrads, etc.
At some point, Goodwin piped up and started pontificating on various issues (none of which we had actually been speaking about, so desperate was his need to be heard or involved) and reflected not only his interest in the right but also Roger Eatwell’s (his supervisor) interest in populism. The wonderful Ken Kennard - who was then a reader at Kent (I think) and never short of a story or two from a previous life - muttered “who the f*** let Genghis in?”
We managed perfectly well in this country without a supreme court. What a silly idea to introduce one.
Britain has long had a Supreme Court - it was called the Law Lords, and they were bound up in the House of Lords.
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
I don't think it needed reforming. Everything was working fine.
Although the Lord High Chancellor was an ex-officio member so you had a single person who crossed the executive, legislative and judicial branches (as well as being a member of the Regency Council)
Jokes aside, the PM's Chief of Staff having his phone nicked would have had much bigger implications at the time of the robbery. The importance of tech security/spying is made clear to spads all the time. Govt by WhatsApp is normal. Who has that phone now and what else was on it?
Oh, how sweet. She actually believes his phone was nicked
I don't think she does. She's saying if it were nicked, a far bigger fuss would have been made at the time, so where's the initial report of the theft and what was done?
Fair point. That’s a good alternative interpretation
We managed perfectly well in this country without a supreme court. What a silly idea to introduce one.
Britain has long had a Supreme Court - it was called the Law Lords, and they were bound up in the House of Lords.
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
They could just have called it what it legally was - the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
But that doesn’t sound shiny and new
Don’t forget it was Blair you are dealing with
Shiny and new is not the point; it's American. Supreme Court; half the population in higher education paid for by loans not grants; presidential-ish sofa government rather than Cabinet government. The West Wing amplified Labour's traditional fondness for Washington.
Badenoch made a big mistake supporting the war. It’s not fatal but it shows she still doesn’t really understand the pool she is supposed to be swimming in.
I get the kneejerk "support America" notion. Ordinarily that would have been the way forward for a Conservative leader.
But Gilead isn't America. It used to be, but isn't. And backing the paedo king is not a long term strategy...
I don't get it, and it shouldn't be the reflexive action for a conservative leader, regardless of who is running the US. As a matter of fact, ruinous foreign conflicts that cause chaos and have no plausible off-ramp are not a unique feature of Trump's US - they are the norm for that country.
However, the attention is now going to switch to the domestic impact of the war, and here the Tories are on far safer ground, because they are on the record opposing loony Net Zero policies and supporting drilling the North Sea. Unless Sir Useless does another very big u-turn here, it is going to get very messy for him.
Hang on, the "loony net zero policies" are Tory policies. Leader after leader after leader. On the day Liz Truss blew up her government it was an opposition debate on Fracking and the SofS stood there are the dispatch lauding their policies on net zero and renewables.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
Also worth bearing in mind that although the true loon Ed Miliband has accelerated the retreat from the North Sea, it was the Tories who started this madness with their open ended windfall tax madness.
Indeed on a wider front this is Badenoch's problem. So many of the Labour policies she is now deriding and opposing were initially introduced by the Tories including when she was in Cabinet.
And the electorate rejected them. So you come back with a different offer.
It's not really a problem for Kemi. She wasn't running the previous Tory Government, and she wasn't fronting any of the Net Zero bits. Since becoming leader, she has been clear and on the record in opposing the current Net Zero plans, and wanting to drill in the North Sea. The Government's energy policy is in tatters, and this will be a feeding frenzy. Sir will find it very difficult to move Milliband on, but the longer he takes the worse it will be.
Increasing North Sea drilling would do nothing to help UK energy prices in this time of crisis. Prices are set on global markets and increased North Sea drilling would have little impact on global supply.
Except this is not strictly true in reality. Or at least it would not be if we had kept a sensible energy policy.
One of the consequences of shutting down the UK North Sea has been the massive knock on effect on refineries. This has not yet impacted petrol refining but has massively reduced the capacity for diesel refining. So we have to import a lot more diesel which makes it both more expensive on a day to day basis and more prone to the impact of sudden jumps in the oil price.
This is why the price of diesel has jumped far more than petrol.
And given that so much of our distribution network relies on diesel transport this is also why the issues in the Middle East will have a much bigger effect on inflation..
Afternoon all. Was taking a look at the Reform polling decline after last nights Opinium. They were last as low as 27 with them straddling the 2025 LEs (only a couple of 29s since, all others 30 plus) and were at 27 with them as far back as Jan 2025. The same goes for YouGov and Find Out Now - back to pre LE 2025 levels.with other pollsters they are running a point to two points above the run in to 2025 LEs. The point i think that will prove crucial is that they are hitting these levels on a sharpish downward trajectory and not the sharp upward one early 2025 saw. This suggests at least the possibility of an undershoot versus expectations. Im of the opinion as we stand that this will show itself in a very poor Holyrood showing (possibly even falling below the Tories, LDs or Greens in seats, very probably below Labour), a poor London result, perhaps 4th in wards won and no more than 1 or 2 councils and failing to come first in Wales. Then id take a look at thr 73 seats they are defending - how many of them are lost?
The polls may turn of course and they have the virtual standing start premium of lots of gains but the potential for narrative shift exists
As you say though in most polls Reform are polling about as well as before the LE2025, they are about tied in Wales for the lead, likely to win the most or second most list seats at Holyrood and make gains in outer London suburbs. We are a long way yet from saying Reform are in real decline
Doing 30 braking versus doing 30 accelerating.
Unless heavy tactical anti Reform votes this year though Reform will likely see similar gains, especially in the country council and redwall large town and northern and Midlands cities voting and in Wales
I am not so sure about Farage in Wales as I once was. Yes, we love the racism and misogyny, but has the gloss been taken off by Nathan Gill and Farage's recent assertion that Welsh is a foreign language and Welsh language speakers who don't want to speak English can f*** off from where their ancestors came from in 800 AD and earlier. Eight hundred AD some years, it is worth mentioning is before the Huguenot Farage's ancestors left France.it is worth mentioning
In the late 19th century, Han Chinese settlers on Taiwan would EAT the locals, as they thought it would confer strength - eating certain desirable parts of these brave warrior tribesmen. They also boiled the meat down to make a soup, that supposedly prevented malaria
In the late 19th century, Han Chinese settlers on Taiwan would EAT the locals, as they thought it would confer strength - eating certain desirable parts of these brave warrior tribesmen. They also boiled the meat down to make a soup, that supposedly prevented malaria
It's good that those sort of practices have gone out of fashion.
Fair to say this dude is not OVER-optimistic about the Iran War sequelae
"Risible - and frighteningly woolly thinking for a Hudson Institute scholar. Repeat after me: the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is NOT the deterrent. The strategic aim of Iran is to stop the flow of oil through it in order to cause pain. Closure is just ONE means of doing so. THE REAL DETERRENT is the destruction of Gulf oil and gas infrastructure so that hydrocarbons do not reach the global economy IRRESPECTIVE OF WHETHER THE STRAIT IS OPEN OR NOT.
"If Iran pushes that button in response to some dumb Trump-Bibi escalation, we can expect GLOBAL depression. This in turn means mass starvation in the Third World, which in turn leads to a worldwide equivalent of the Arab Spring. In the developed world, ex-the, Russia and maybe China, it means mass unemployment, travel restrictions, mandatory WFH, and the victory for far more extreme versions of populism in Europe. It means command economies. It means aggressive, militaristic efforts to secure important national resources, and war when such efforts are disputed. It means the forced rewiring of the entire postwar civilisation. It is the final conflagration of the Fourth Turning. It is the violent sweeping away of the existing excess elites (per @Peter_Turchin)."
In the late 19th century, Han Chinese settlers on Taiwan would EAT the locals, as they thought it would confer strength - eating certain desirable parts of these brave warrior tribesmen. They also boiled the meat down to make a soup, that supposedly prevented malaria
It's good that those sort of practices have gone out of fashion.
What amazes me is how this fact is barely known. I only found out coz I was in Taiwan and I did a lot of deep reading. Then discovered this
If it was an atrocity committed by western imperialists it would be in every single history book and endlessly cited as an example of hideous colonialist depravity
Fair to say this dude is not OVER-optimistic about the Iran War sequelae
"Risible - and frighteningly woolly thinking for a Hudson Institute scholar. Repeat after me: the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is NOT the deterrent. The strategic aim of Iran is to stop the flow of oil through it in order to cause pain. Closure is just ONE means of doing so. THE REAL DETERRENT is the destruction of Gulf oil and gas infrastructure so that hydrocarbons do not reach the global economy IRRESPECTIVE OF WHETHER THE STRAIT IS OPEN OR NOT.
"If Iran pushes that button in response to some dumb Trump-Bibi escalation, we can expect GLOBAL depression. This in turn means mass starvation in the Third World, which in turn leads to a worldwide equivalent of the Arab Spring. In the developed world, ex-the, Russia and maybe China, it means mass unemployment, travel restrictions, mandatory WFH, and the victory for far more extreme versions of populism in Europe. It means command economies. It means aggressive, militaristic efforts to secure important national resources, and war when such efforts are disputed. It means the forced rewiring of the entire postwar civilisation. It is the final conflagration of the Fourth Turning. It is the violent sweeping away of the existing excess elites (per @Peter_Turchin)."
That guy normally pushes a very pro-Russian 'multipolar' perspective, so if he's saying that, I'd take it as a sign that the likes of Putin are in serious trouble as a result of recent developments.
I was thinking about the next GE. If Labour dont go long to 2029, is there value in Oct 27 or Feb 28? Try and take the hit early and defend London in May 28 from a fresh perspective? Or is it just hang on grimly till the end?
Unless they reclaim a clear poll lead, Labour will of course hang on until 2029 given their massive Commons majority
I suspect Starmer will quit in 2027/2028 and a new leader will go for it in 2028 if they lead the polls which they may well do.
I know most of Pb disagrees with me but I still think fundamentally they have the right approach, they just need more time to bear fruit and they need a newer leader with an ability to sell it.
Fair to say this dude is not OVER-optimistic about the Iran War sequelae
"Risible - and frighteningly woolly thinking for a Hudson Institute scholar. Repeat after me: the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is NOT the deterrent. The strategic aim of Iran is to stop the flow of oil through it in order to cause pain. Closure is just ONE means of doing so. THE REAL DETERRENT is the destruction of Gulf oil and gas infrastructure so that hydrocarbons do not reach the global economy IRRESPECTIVE OF WHETHER THE STRAIT IS OPEN OR NOT.
"If Iran pushes that button in response to some dumb Trump-Bibi escalation, we can expect GLOBAL depression. This in turn means mass starvation in the Third World, which in turn leads to a worldwide equivalent of the Arab Spring. In the developed world, ex-the, Russia and maybe China, it means mass unemployment, travel restrictions, mandatory WFH, and the victory for far more extreme versions of populism in Europe. It means command economies. It means aggressive, militaristic efforts to secure important national resources, and war when such efforts are disputed. It means the forced rewiring of the entire postwar civilisation. It is the final conflagration of the Fourth Turning. It is the violent sweeping away of the existing excess elites (per @Peter_Turchin)."
Comments
I agree it is a silly name.
There is literally no other outcome from the WI / Guiding court cases as neither have the money to fight the other side in court...
Just like he returns the "EVs burst into flames all the time" - someone posts the statistics on EV vs ICE fires. Then a little time later...
A proposal has been submitted for 150 houses in #TheydonBois on #GreenBelt.
Green Belt protects the nature of our precious village.
I will continue to do everything I can working with community groups & residents to oppose this development & to stand up for our community.
And this is why the Tories are not yet ready for government. They’re still as NIMBY as ever.
The Tories seem to now think it is nuclear even though they did nothing whilst in government and they think net zero is a disaster even though those policies they pursued were essentially correct in terms of long term independence.
Reform’s policy is actively dangerous.
People really need to get real.
We need to get away from this rubbish and start building. Build anywhere where it’s sensible. This proposal is perfectly sensible.
I don't even think this site is in the Local Plan for development, the local Reform candidate is a developer though so perhaps you will back Reform in Theydon?
The 150 homes they're opposing will be literally next door to the tube station. This is the perfect location for desperately needed new homes.
This is what the Tories want to stop, 150 homes next to a Central Line tube station. It is completely batty.
So they're not "loony net zero". They are the established and consensual policies of both parties.
In a recent Guardian article an "environmental activist" in Lincolnshire didn't want to be identified. He was decrying local opposition to solar farms.
The reason he didn't want to be named - he is a Green candidate in the area, and has opposition to the solar farms in his platform
Greens and Lib Dems are some of the worst. However the Tories have an honest chance of being elected. And they’ll just repeat their recent mistakes if this continues.
Labour are pro development in the shires, less so in big cities but have no chance in most shire seats now
https://www.publicinternationallawandpolicygroup.org/lawyering-justice-blog/2025/11/3/international-humanitarian-law-in-focus-russias-violations-and-ukraines-legitimate-use-of-force-against-energy-targets
Japan sounds alarm over UK commitment to the GCAP joint fighter jet programme w/ Italy
Crucial development work is stalled due to UK MoD’s late Defence Investment Plan, repeatedly delayed since autumn
https://x.com/LOS_Fisher/status/2035624862052417562
And as we know from past experience, all such delays only end up making stuff more expensive if it does go ahead.
I’ll desist
You couldn't reform the House of Lords meaningfully without separating the Law Lords into a wholly separate body. But there was no need to call that separate body the Supreme Court, as a pathetic imitation of the US. Britain could have take inspiration from its past and called it the "Court of x Chamber" where x was inspired by where it would meet, or some other name with historical allusions. Supreme Court, indeed.
They find it almost impossible to accept the idea of new buildings near them.
If only we had a neat acronym for that mindset.
Indeed on a wider front this is Badenoch's problem. So many of the Labour policies she is now deriding and opposing were initially introduced by the Tories including when she was in Cabinet.
So the easy answer is for the Guides to do what the Scouts did 34 years ago and change their mission statement.
Rayner would have her sat crying
I'd also like to point out, directly targeting civilian power plants as a punishment for a force not surrendering is likely tantamount to a war crime/crime against humanity.
Could they be valid military targets? Sure, in extremely opaque and loose following of the laws. But the question should be why it's a military target. If its because they are supporting manufacturing and military bases, then why not hit the bases, manufacturing facilities vs crippling civilian infrastructure.
https://x.com/RyanO_ChosenCoy/status/2035730025568170270
The US, with complete air superiority, and a very large airforce in theatre, has that ability, so his line that this is collective punishment of civilians seems valid.
If the war is not soon stopped, then an economic and political crisis worse than anything since 1945 may well be triggered. It will be accompanied by yet another mass movement of countless refugees into Western Europe. And for what?
Will we never grow out of the Utopian fantasy that we can go stomping round the world, telling other countries what to do? It is as if we have been hypnotised. All someone needs to do is to talk of Winston Churchill or of ‘appeasement’, and grown men and women lose their minds and start howling for war. Some seem to long for it.
In the early moments of Donald Trump’s current spasm, the leaders of Reform UK and the Tory Party instantly piled in to endorse the Trump-Netanyahu assault. They had time to think before they spoke. But they couldn’t be bothered. Like so many modern ‘conservatives’ and ‘patriots’, they have fallen in love with foreign war, quite unaware that war is the enemy of conservatism and the ally of the Left.
For instance, has it still not sunk in that the vast waves of migration from Africa and the Middle East are the direct results of the wars we kept starting or fuelling, in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria? Even now, there are people amid the ruins of their former homes, in their demolished cities, all over Iran, preparing for the long trudge westwards that ends with them struggling aboard a rubber dinghy on the French coast, headed for Kent or Sussex.
You may meet them, sooner than you think, in an English suburb. If you do, it will be a poorer, bleaker place than it is now.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-15667435/PETER-HITCHENS-stand-trump-war-wrecks-world.html?ico=authors_pagination_mobile
’ The president doing this is crucial. I've seen the polling, but I really hope the American people will be with him because he's doing this to make the whole world safer" -- NATO Secretary Mark Rutte
The Defence Investment Plan will require decisions on whether, how and when to pony up more money for Defence, and I suspect the delay is that Starmer doesn't want to make unpleasant decisions on taxation and spending. So he delays.
She was having an argument with herself in the mirror whilst on a Teams Call waiting for GB News.
She hadn't had an argument for an hour and she had to deal with the tick..
She yelled so loud at herself GB News recorded it and claimed she'd had a massive row with Pritti and changed policy.
I support fairly extensive reform of British institutions, but I think we can do that reform in a way that retains a link with our past, rather than fulfilling some low-rent politician's desire to be starring in the West Wing.
He should not be speaking for European foreign policy outside of that.
You cannot take accountability by polishing your desk to the extent everything slides off it.
Or is it just hang on grimly till the end?
It is economic vandalism not to exploit our own reserves to the full
At 95, I'm still smokin'! 😝
I’ve learned two things:
Never waste a good cigar.
Never trust anyone who says you should ‘act your age.’
https://x.com/WilliamShatner/status/2035687941037510883
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp385808jk2o
"Sir Keir Starmer may have had a tough year in office, but in one key measure he is top of the shop: the Toby Jug in his likeness outsold all other prime ministers in 2025. The Houses of Parliament gift shop sells 11cm-tall jugs of the last 22 prime ministers, from Conservative Andrew Bonar Law onwards. They cost £35 each.
"The sales figures give an insight into the enduring popularity of some politicians over others. In 2025, the Starmer jug sold most, at 116, including 32 to his colleagues in parliament and further 84 online. Boris Johnson came second selling 48, Winston Churchill 46 and Margaret Thatcher 46."
Poor old Sir Alec Douglas Home has the wooden spoon. That said, the jug doesn't really do him justice. Otherwise I might have got one.
Have a browse here: https://www.shop.parliament.uk/collections/prime-minister-toby-jugs
Brown beats Cameron, in a reversal of the 2010 general election.
Gimson added: "It tells us that Cameron, though an astonishingly skillful politician, never formed an emotional connection with the British people, and people want to buy things which actually move them.
"And he didn't move people, he had many other admirable qualities, but connecting with the wider public, hopeless."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp385808jk2o
To be fair, Cameron never showed much interest in that section of the wider public not schooled at Eton.
One of the consequences of shutting down the UK North Sea has been the massive knock on effect on refineries. This has not yet impacted petrol refining but has massively reduced the capacity for diesel refining. So we have to import a lot more diesel which makes it both more expensive on a day to day basis and more prone to the impact of sudden jumps in the oil price.
This is why the price of diesel has jumped far more than petrol.
And given that so much of our distribution network relies on diesel transport this is also why the issues in the Middle East will have a much bigger effect on inflation..
Sold. We go with spineless cretin.
Iran out of beer… the struggle isreal
That's the rationale. You might disagree with various points in the logic model.
Don’t forget it was Blair you are dealing with
“I think a lot of European nations were right about our invasion of Iraq.
And frankly, if the Europeans had been a little more independent, and a little more willing to stand up, then maybe we could have saved the entire world from the strategic disaster that was the American-led invasion of Iraq.”
It has to be both as we transition over the next 20 years
At some point, Goodwin piped up and started pontificating on various issues (none of which we had actually been speaking about, so desperate was his need to be heard or involved) and reflected not only his interest in the right but also Roger Eatwell’s (his supervisor) interest in populism. The wonderful Ken Kennard - who was then a reader at Kent (I think) and never short of a story or two from a previous life - muttered “who the f*** let Genghis in?”
(after duties it's middling)
87 mins
"Risible - and frighteningly woolly thinking for a Hudson Institute scholar. Repeat after me: the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is NOT the deterrent. The strategic aim of Iran is to stop the flow of oil through it in order to cause pain. Closure is just ONE means of doing so. THE REAL DETERRENT is the destruction of Gulf oil and gas infrastructure so that hydrocarbons do not reach the global economy IRRESPECTIVE OF WHETHER THE STRAIT IS OPEN OR NOT.
"If Iran pushes that button in response to some dumb Trump-Bibi escalation, we can expect GLOBAL depression. This in turn means mass starvation in the Third World, which in turn leads to a worldwide equivalent of the Arab Spring. In the developed world, ex-the, Russia and maybe China, it means mass unemployment, travel restrictions, mandatory WFH, and the victory for far more extreme versions of populism in Europe. It means command economies. It means aggressive, militaristic efforts to secure important national resources, and war when such efforts are disputed. It means the forced rewiring of the entire postwar civilisation. It is the final conflagration of the Fourth Turning. It is the violent sweeping away of the existing excess elites (per
@Peter_Turchin)."
https://x.com/admcollingwood/status/2035669964326158811?s=20
Bessent to @kwelkernbc: “In essence, we are jujitsuing the Iranians. We are using their own oil against them.”
If it was an atrocity committed by western imperialists it would be in every single history book and endlessly cited as an example of hideous colonialist depravity
In China? Meh. They shrug
I know most of Pb disagrees with me but I still think fundamentally they have the right approach, they just need more time to bear fruit and they need a newer leader with an ability to sell it.
Is this a good or a bad thing?