Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
How long has the USA been blockading oil imports to Cuba? Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.
One of Trump’s many problems is that he mentally exists in the late 20th century, when the USA was hegemonic and militarily peerless - able to crush enemies at will
Now it is economically rivalled and industrially outranked by China. It is also heavily indebted. And militarily the balance has shifted in favour of smaller cheaper drones. So it is harder to impose overwhelming power even on inferior, poorer rivals
Which means he may lash out in frustration as this drags on, unexpectedly
That is why he imposed his massive tariffs on China as well as everyone else, however that has also raised costs for US consumers. Even Biden imposed tariffs on Chinese imports but he was sensible enough to largely have free trade with most of the rest of the world. Trump could still have removed the Iranian regime with ground troops but so far he has refused because of the body bags
Iran is massive - a ground attack simply wouldn’t work.
I will refer you to my comment about Afghanistan from last week, started 1979 continued to 2020 and no one won
If the US committed ground troops to Tehran and restored the Shah governing with anti regime groups it would.
That grifter Pahlavi is a non-starter. He's quite old, fond of the high life and there is no viable succession. His oldest daughter is a just a typical Tehrangeles influencer/model/whatever who has never set foot in Iran.
He has plenty of support from Iranian exiles displaying his portrait on the streets and the more liberal Tehran population would back him with US troops supporting him, even if the regime retained support in pockets of more hardline Islam in rural areas and smaller towns.
He's just another Chalabi (ironically an Iranian agent), probably.
The economic consequences of this insanity by Trump are becoming ever more alarming. We face genuine shortages (as well as exorbitant prices) of fuel. Keep your cars topped up. Unless we find a way to stop this madness we are facing a deep recession.
Surely even the Muppet chorus that Trump has appointed to his cabinet can see this? The 22nd amendment is one of the very few options left.
Anyone with a brain knew Trump 2 would be really bad, a classic in sequels (Godfather 2 being the honourable exception) but this is off the scale. For Gods sake America, get a grip.
If it makes people in Western countries live less profligate lives, I can't see a problem. I'm a bit fed up with walking into public buildings which have the heating turned up to the max well into the spring. We only usually have the heating on for about 3 months a year, and it's only on for part of the day during those times.
The US wasn’t militarily peerless or invincible in the 20th century either. It ground out a score draw in Korea, cocked up an attempted invasion of Cuba, and lost a decade long war in Vietnam.
Wars against a determined enemy are difficult. The two gulf wars were won easily because the enemy military effectively disbanded itself. I’d say that was the exception, not the rule.
That’s somewhat wrong. It was peerless. Even the USSR never quite matched the military power of the USA. Tho nukes made war between them unthinkable. It was also invincible - in the pure sense it could not be conquered.
However it’s fair to say American military adventures did not often go well, even back then
And now, with drones, it’s even harder for large powers to truly defeat smaller powers. As Russia has discovered in Ukraine
There is no way Trump will send troops into mainland Iran. It would be Iraq on meth. He MAY try and seize Kharg island
Iraq is now Saddam free and elects its own government
Well maybe. But it’s still a major mess, and badly divided. And jihadism has not disappeared
To get Iraq to this state America spent about eleventy trillion dollars, and tens of thousands died, and the world was thrown into turmoil
Was it worth it? I don’t think so. It was a calamitous error
If Iran were in the state Iraq is now, the Middle East and the world would be a far more peaceful place.
Iraq has the Iranian proxy PMF and the Kurdish groups with their own private armies.
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
America was responsible for, and supported, the corrupt regime that Castro overthrew.
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
How long has the USA been blockading oil imports to Cuba? Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.
The USA has been blockading oil imports to Cuba since 1960, which became a full embargo of Cuba under Democrat President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Trump is not a good guy, but Cuba has made its bed. And Cuba is communist, still.
The economic consequences of this insanity by Trump are becoming ever more alarming. We face genuine shortages (as well as exorbitant prices) of fuel. Keep your cars topped up. Unless we find a way to stop this madness we are facing a deep recession.
Surely even the Muppet chorus that Trump has appointed to his cabinet can see this? The 22nd amendment is one of the very few options left.
Anyone with a brain knew Trump 2 would be really bad, a classic in sequels (Godfather 2 being the honourable exception) but this is off the scale. For Gods sake America, get a grip.
If it makes people in Western countries live less profligate lives, I can't see a problem. I'm a bit fed up with walking into public buildings which have the heating turned up to the max well into the spring. We only usually have the heating on for about 3 months a year, and it's only on for part of the day during those times.
There will be demand destruction, it is inevitable, unless these clowns bail everyone out which they shouldn’t.
The economic consequences of this insanity by Trump are becoming ever more alarming. We face genuine shortages (as well as exorbitant prices) of fuel. Keep your cars topped up. Unless we find a way to stop this madness we are facing a deep recession.
Surely even the Muppet chorus that Trump has appointed to his cabinet can see this? The 22nd amendment is one of the very few options left.
Anyone with a brain knew Trump 2 would be really bad, a classic in sequels (Godfather 2 being the honourable exception) but this is off the scale. For Gods sake America, get a grip.
If it makes people in Western countries live less profligate lives, I can't see a problem. I'm a bit fed up with walking into public buildings which have the heating turned up to the max well into the spring. We only usually have the heating on for about 3 months a year, and it's only on for part of the day during those times.
The US wasn’t militarily peerless or invincible in the 20th century either. It ground out a score draw in Korea, cocked up an attempted invasion of Cuba, and lost a decade long war in Vietnam.
Wars against a determined enemy are difficult. The two gulf wars were won easily because the enemy military effectively disbanded itself. I’d say that was the exception, not the rule.
That’s somewhat wrong. It was peerless. Even the USSR never quite matched the military power of the USA. Tho nukes made war between them unthinkable. It was also invincible - in the pure sense it could not be conquered.
However it’s fair to say American military adventures did not often go well, even back then
And now, with drones, it’s even harder for large powers to truly defeat smaller powers. As Russia has discovered in Ukraine
There is no way Trump will send troops into mainland Iran. It would be Iraq on meth. He MAY try and seize Kharg island
Iraq is now Saddam free and elects its own government
Well maybe. But it’s still a major mess, and badly divided. And jihadism has not disappeared
To get Iraq to this state America spent about eleventy trillion dollars, and tens of thousands died, and the world was thrown into turmoil
Was it worth it? I don’t think so. It was a calamitous error
If Iran were in the state Iraq is now, the Middle East and the world would be a far more peaceful place.
Iraq has the Iranian proxy PMF and the Kurdish groups with their own private armies.
Indeed, which is still a tremendous improvement on the state of Iran.
If we could flick a switch and magically have Iran in the same state as Iraq is, without any cost or conflict, then I 100% would, it would be a huge improvement to global security and security in the Middle East. As well as for the civil rights of Iranians. Would you?
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
Up 6% for Les Republicains on the 36% they got in 2020 even if they still lost again to the socialists, the National Rally candidate was eliminated in the first round
UAE senior advisor to government, and one of the most powerful businessmen in the country, Anwar Gargash:
“The war must not end with yet another ceasefire. The event must conclude with the containment of the nuclear threat, the drones, the missiles, and Iranian bullying in the Strait of Hormuz”
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Plenty of people getting a bit over-excited on a Monday morning and let's hope there are enough trousers for all the braces being thrown around.
West Texas Intermediate remains below $100 while Brent is $113 per barrel. Not quite sure why the disparityin prices is so great.
I presume our old friend uncertainty is doing the rounds and everyone is agitated about what Trump might or might not do and how the Iranians might or might not respond.
I see one or two are "hoping" 10year gilts will do for Starmer what they did for Truss - I suspect not given the very different circumstances.
On topic, I don't get the antipathy to Rayner any more than I get the antipathy to Starmer. There seems a visceral disappointment she hadn't built a billion houses before she was forced out of office but, and here I think the maxim isn't wholly appropriate, Rome wasn't built in a day and the Conservatives had 14 years of leading the Government to build all these houses and change the planning system etc, etc.
I'm also not sure what she did was anywhere near a hanging offence given what others have got away with in recent times. Nonetheless, she will serve her penance in the wilderness and return as so many have before her.
On the disparity in pricing of oil - this is because the oil market isn't about perfect substitution and supply worldwide.
So if you have lots of oil in Texas, you can't (easily) get more of it to markets cut off by the Middle East thing. It can only (in the short and medium term) go to the markets it was already serving. So you have market segmentation, until the price differentials make sense to spend the extra on getting to the other places. If you can.
I think the probability is either Trump will TACO, he will get a large number of USA service personnel killed and will TACO, or if he doesn't TACO he will be neutered at the midterns and lose control of Congress, and - maybe - practical control of the Senate.
Or Iran might blink.
I hope we stay as far out of Trump's vanity war as is possible.
My greatest concern is that I do not see the UK involved in redefining the international order such that the USA can be avoided. I think we should be addressing items such as alternate payment systems and international trade. Others are doing this, and we will be marginalised.
I think there is an aspect of Mr Starmer the timid little mouse in this, but OTOH we are in a TINA situation.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
Up 6% for Les Republicains on the 36% they got in 2020 even if they still lost again to the socialists, the National Rally candidate was eliminated in the first round
Mixed results for Le Pen last night. Failed in Marseilles (tho they never really had a chance of victory, they just manager expectations badly). Yet they took the Nice mayoralty, thanks to canvassing by @roger - I think that’s the biggest city they’ve won, yet?
The AfD did pretty well in Germany. 19.5% in the Rhineland - arguably their best result west of the Elbe
The economic consequences of this insanity by Trump are becoming ever more alarming. We face genuine shortages (as well as exorbitant prices) of fuel. Keep your cars topped up. Unless we find a way to stop this madness we are facing a deep recession.
Surely even the Muppet chorus that Trump has appointed to his cabinet can see this? The 22nd amendment is one of the very few options left.
Anyone with a brain knew Trump 2 would be really bad, a classic in sequels (Godfather 2 being the honourable exception) but this is off the scale. For Gods sake America, get a grip.
If it makes people in Western countries live less profligate lives, I can't see a problem. I'm a bit fed up with walking into public buildings which have the heating turned up to the max well into the spring. We only usually have the heating on for about 3 months a year, and it's only on for part of the day during those times.
There will be demand destruction, it is inevitable, unless these clowns bail everyone out which they shouldn’t.
How can there not be demand destruction, the boats stuck in the Straits of Hormuz are quite literally carrying gas and oil. Stored energy, work yet to be done by economies all over the world. It's not the study of economics one needs to check to see there'll be a global slowdown, it's more fundamental than that it's physics.
I just hope labour are not that stupid to replace Starmer with Rayner when we are in the middle of an existential crisis
And as for Starmer agreeing to be demoted to Foreign Secretary we are really on fantasy island
I have no faith or trust in Starmer but this is not what the country wants or needs right now
Have you seen the price of petrol? This is on Starmer's watch.
He took a phonecall from the Putin shill at Mar a Lago yesterday. We will have ships in the Gulf by teatime tomorrow. Get rid.
I understand you would prefer the Churchillian Boris Johnson to the fishwife Rayner, but Johnson is a) not inside Parliament or b) the Party of Government. We need a Peter Wright style coup before we get Big Dog back in the driving seat.
What on earth have you had for breakfast ?
I have had years of battles on here with @HYUFD over his devotion to Johnson who I even voted against in the members ballot
Spraying unfounded allegations around and even using 'fishwife' Rayner indicates you are losing it
Either way Starmer needs to go. Do you trust him not to fold for Trump?
In fairness to the "fishwife" she would have no qualms about telling Trump to do one.
My wife comes from fishwife stock in Arbroath and Auchmithy. Strong independent women who worked with their men in a tough trade, who knew their own mind and were not shy in expressing it. Any man would be fortunate to share their life with such a woman. I certainly have been.
As does my Lossiemouth wife of 62 years and a history going back generations to this disaster
One of Trump’s many problems is that he mentally exists in the late 20th century, when the USA was hegemonic and militarily peerless - able to crush enemies at will
Now it is economically rivalled and industrially outranked by China. It is also heavily indebted. And militarily the balance has shifted in favour of smaller cheaper drones. So it is harder to impose overwhelming power even on inferior, poorer rivals
Which means he may lash out in frustration as this drags on, unexpectedly
They still are peerless in many ways, no other country could project 5% of the firepower into the Gulf that the US has in the last four weeks.
There is something else going on with the Hormuz other than the drone threat, but I don't know what it is. The Iraqis, with technical and doctrinal support from the French, struggled to sink tankers with fucking Excocets during the 'Tanker War' of the mid 80s. The USN could and would secure the strait if ordered to, but they have not been ordered to. Maybe Trump is very reluctant to take any significant amount of casualties or lose a ship.
There is a very big difference between now and the 1980s in that the critical cargoes to the world economy are the bulk LNG carriers. You wouldn't necessarily have to sink one of those; aren't they potentially massive floating bombs, something an oil tanker just isn't ?
They would still be pretty hard targets (and a bulk LNG carrier has never been lost to explosion), but the explosive potential in a worst case scenario is pretty large (enormous).
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237610002_Consequences_of_LNG_Marine_Incidents ...The spherical tanks in the Moss design are usually constructed of aluminum with thickness varying from 29 to 57mm. As for the membrane tank, thick insulation surrounds the tank and limits boil-off to under 0.2% per day. The sphere has internal LNG pumps with no bottom connections. The sphere maintains its own structural integrity and it does not rely on the vessel for this purpose. The cargo load is transferred to the vessel through a continuous metal skirt attached to the equator of the sphere. As for the membrane design, there are multiple barriers between the external environment and the LNG cargo. The hull is a double hull with internal structures. Some vessels have a further wall surrounding the sphere. The sphere is protected with an external skirt (providing support), insulation, and the sphere wall...
There is very little data (thankfully) on missile or drone attacks on them.
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
How long has the USA been blockading oil imports to Cuba? Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.
The USA has been blockading oil imports to Cuba since 1960, which became a full embargo of Cuba under Democrat President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Trump is not a good guy, but Cuba has made its bed. And Cuba is communist, still.
Happy to keep you informed.
Kennedy blocking exports of US oil to Cuba was not a 'full embargo', Trump stopping eg Mexico exporting oil to Cuba is.
Happy to keep you informed, but sorry to drag you away from your 24/7 simping for Israel, Hasbaratholomew.
The US wasn’t militarily peerless or invincible in the 20th century either. It ground out a score draw in Korea, cocked up an attempted invasion of Cuba, and lost a decade long war in Vietnam.
Wars against a determined enemy are difficult. The two gulf wars were won easily because the enemy military effectively disbanded itself. I’d say that was the exception, not the rule.
That’s somewhat wrong. It was peerless. Even the USSR never quite matched the military power of the USA. Tho nukes made war between them unthinkable. It was also invincible - in the pure sense it could not be conquered.
However it’s fair to say American military adventures did not often go well, even back then
And now, with drones, it’s even harder for large powers to truly defeat smaller powers. As Russia has discovered in Ukraine
There is no way Trump will send troops into mainland Iran. It would be Iraq on meth. He MAY try and seize Kharg island
Iraq is now Saddam free and elects its own government
Well maybe. But it’s still a major mess, and badly divided. And jihadism has not disappeared
To get Iraq to this state America spent about eleventy trillion dollars, and tens of thousands died, and the world was thrown into turmoil
Was it worth it? I don’t think so. It was a calamitous error
If Iran were in the state Iraq is now, the Middle East and the world would be a far more peaceful place.
Iraq has the Iranian proxy PMF and the Kurdish groups with their own private armies.
Indeed, which is still a tremendous improvement on the state of Iran.
If we could flick a switch and magically have Iran in the same state as Iraq is, without any cost or conflict, then I 100% would, it would be a huge improvement to global security and security in the Middle East. As well as for the civil rights of Iranians. Would you?
Ok, here’s what you need to know about “Bombing Electrical Facilities”…
Several countries, to include the U.S., use “Graphite Bombs”. These aren’t bombs in the sense you are thinking; they have a small explosive charge, but don’t destroy something by brute force.
Instead, long graphite filaments are expelled. They extend across power lines & create a short-circuit. Either some form of protection cuts power to the line, or the line eventually fails. The graphite is vaporized in the process, leaving nothing behind.
The effect is that the power goes out. These are sometimes called “Soft Bombs” & “Blackout Bombs”.
We’ve used these before. They were used in Desert Storm, but unfortunately we used actual bombs later & did a lot of damage that couldn’t be repaired quickly. This is considered a mistake…the point is to disrupt electricity in a way it can be rapidly restored when hostilities cease, minimizing suffering of the civilian population. After all, without electricity, water & sewer systems stop working…which leads to public health issues.
“Can the Strait of Hormuz be opened? You need to deploy two American divisions there and prepare to stay for months. That’s how the start of the war in Vietnam looked, the start of the war in Iraq, and the same in Afghanistan.
It succeeds at first. By the way, all wars, including this new chapter of ours, one must know: an initiated war starts with a brilliant achievement and impressive damage.
Then comes the stage of treading water, which I believe we have entered.
And if you don't know how to get out of it and cut it short in time, it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat.
And America hasn't won a single war. It won almost every battle, but it hasn't won a single war in the last 60 years.
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
So, the US has long been blockading Cuba, and the US has now stopped Venezuelan oil getting through… and that’s Cuba’s fault.
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
How long has the USA been blockading oil imports to Cuba? Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.
The USA has been blockading oil imports to Cuba since 1960, which became a full embargo of Cuba under Democrat President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Trump is not a good guy, but Cuba has made its bed. And Cuba is communist, still.
Happy to keep you informed.
Kennedy blocking exports of US oil to Cuba was not a 'full embargo', Trump stopping eg Mexico exporting oil to Cuba is.
Happy to keep you informed, but sorry to drag you away from your 24/7 simping for Israel, Hasbaratholomew.
The USA attempted to do a full embargo of Cuba, the problem was they could not enforce it against the USSR which shipped oil to Cuba despite America pressuring others not to do so.
It has been American policy since 1960 to try to prevent third party nations from getting oil to Cuba too. With more or less success over that time.
The Toricelli Act passed with bipartisan support in 1992, and the Helms-Burton Act passed under President Clinton with bipartisan support in 1996 have both targeted foreign companies trading with Cuba.
Cuba has been getting its oil from enemies of America, not its allies. America has been consistent in trying to prevent this, since 1960.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
So, the US has long been blockading Cuba, and the US has now stopped Venezuelan oil getting through… and that’s Cuba’s fault.
Yep. They could have removed the communist dictatorship at any time in the past 66 years.
UAE senior advisor to government, and one of the most powerful businessmen in the country, Anwar Gargash:
“The war must not end with yet another ceasefire. The event must conclude with the containment of the nuclear threat, the drones, the missiles, and Iranian bullying in the Strait of Hormuz”
Are there are any Muslim/Christian/Hindu/Sikh/Buddhist/Mormon/Jedi ambulances living in the UK?
Yes.
Lots of private ambulances - and since religion and medical charity go together...
Something that many people don't know - most of the "ambulances" in the UK are not zooming around with blue lights, getting the critically ill to hospital in under x minutes.
The vast majority are mini-buses (with adaptions for the less able, often) moving the sick and elderly at a more sedate pace. It's a vital job, but far less sexy.
I generally associate (Muslim) private ambulances for getting a body ready for a funeral/taking the body to the cemetery.
Like Jews, Muslims are very quick in burying the dead.
The charity that was attacked has a volunteer/funding base covering Jewish / Muslim / Christian / Druze communities - or those are the ones specifically mentioned, and provide free services to everyone. They describe it as "pre-hospital emergency treatment", which is not a term with which I am familiar - but I think is a rapid response before NHS services arrive in their limited area.
I think the St John's Ambulance and RNLI are good comparisons, in that they work with the emergency services and do respond to 999.
In my head before checking I had speculated that it could potentially be aimed as a separatist Orthodox Jewish services, since ritual-based regulations can be quite heavy (eg separate sinks are common in a Jewish kitchen to prevent cross-contamination between meat and dairy under dietary laws), but that is not the case.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Not to worry, I'm sure if the Government just tells them liking Lord of the Rings is a sign of extremism that'll bring them back aboard the mainstream centrism train... ahem.
More seriously, that sort of thing is concerning. Had coffee with a friend recently who lamented not having the ability to leave the country easily if Reform won.
“Can the Strait of Hormuz be opened? You need to deploy two American divisions there and prepare to stay for months. That’s how the start of the war in Vietnam looked, the start of the war in Iraq, and the same in Afghanistan.
It succeeds at first. By the way, all wars, including this new chapter of ours, one must know: an initiated war starts with a brilliant achievement and impressive damage.
Then comes the stage of treading water, which I believe we have entered.
And if you don't know how to get out of it and cut it short in time, it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat.
And America hasn't won a single war. It won almost every battle, but it hasn't won a single war in the last 60 years.
It cost a lot of blood and treasure, and is not as great as one would hope, but Saddam is gone, Iraq is a far better and less threatening place today than it was under Saddam.
One can debate whether that victory was worth it, but it was won.
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
How long has the USA been blockading oil imports to Cuba? Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.
The USA has been blockading oil imports to Cuba since 1960, which became a full embargo of Cuba under Democrat President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Trump is not a good guy, but Cuba has made its bed. And Cuba is communist, still.
Happy to keep you informed.
Kennedy blocking exports of US oil to Cuba was not a 'full embargo', Trump stopping eg Mexico exporting oil to Cuba is.
Happy to keep you informed, but sorry to drag you away from your 24/7 simping for Israel, Hasbaratholomew.
The USA attempted to do a full embargo of Cuba, the problem was they could not enforce it against the USSR which shipped oil to Cuba despite America pressuring others not to do so.
It has been American policy since 1960 to try to prevent third party nations from getting oil to Cuba too. With more or less success over that time.
The Toricelli Act passed with bipartisan support in 1992, and the Helms-Burton Act passed under President Clinton with bipartisan support in 1996 have both targeted foreign companies trading with Cuba.
Cuba has been getting its oil from enemies of America, not its allies. America has been consistent in trying to prevent this, since 1960.
At last concord, we agree there was not a 'full embargo' (much as petulant US losers might have wished it) against Cuba until the current petulant loser Trump enforced maximum pressure this year.
Ok, here’s what you need to know about “Bombing Electrical Facilities”…
Several countries, to include the U.S., use “Graphite Bombs”. These aren’t bombs in the sense you are thinking; they have a small explosive charge, but don’t destroy something by brute force.
Instead, long graphite filaments are expelled. They extend across power lines & create a short-circuit. Either some form of protection cuts power to the line, or the line eventually fails. The graphite is vaporized in the process, leaving nothing behind.
The effect is that the power goes out. These are sometimes called “Soft Bombs” & “Blackout Bombs”.
We’ve used these before. They were used in Desert Storm, but unfortunately we used actual bombs later & did a lot of damage that couldn’t be repaired quickly. This is considered a mistake…the point is to disrupt electricity in a way it can be rapidly restored when hostilities cease, minimizing suffering of the civilian population. After all, without electricity, water & sewer systems stop working…which leads to public health issues.
I'd forget that many people don't know about them.
Actually what happened in Desert Storm was that they were used at first - a version with a cruise missile flying a pattern, unreeling graphite lines. Used on electricity substations and the like, where there are bare wires, insulted with just air.
The Iraqis got very good at replacing the blown equipment and swapping components around to keep things going. So eventually the coalition started hitting the infrastructure with conventional weapons.
As a result there was a proposed plan to look at hardening the UK electricity system. Which quietly got binned, when they saw the cost. Much was simple stuff, like anti-bird netting on the top of the fences round vulnerable electrical installations.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Not to worry, I'm sure if the Government just tells them liking Lord of the Rings is a sign of extremism that'll bring them back aboard the mainstream centrism train... ahem.
More seriously, that sort of thing is concerning. Had coffee with a friend recently who lamented not having the ability to leave the country easily if Reform won.
It's Restore who are the even bigger danger. If Farage is Orban, Lowe is a proper Mosely in the making. Very concerning, with there being economic uncertainty on the way.
This is Adam Mockler explaining to a MAGA panel how NATO actually works.
The woman is furious. America is fighting in the Strait of Hormuz and the allies won’t show up. “What’s the point of an alliance if they won’t help us?” she asks.
Mockler explains, with the patience of a man teaching long division to a golden retriever, that NATO is a defensive alliance. Article 5 is not a blank check. It does not activate because one member decided, unilaterally, to go to war in someone else’s waterway. Europe does not scramble its navies because Washington picked a fight and then expected company.
The face she makes says everything. This is the real cost of ideological illiteracy in a nuclear-armed democracy. When the people advising power have never bothered to understand how the world is actually assembled, every institution becomes a betrayal. Every ally becomes a coward. Every rule becomes an obstacle.
They spent years calling Europe freeloaders. Then started a war. Then got angry that the freeloaders wouldn’t come. The confusion is genuine. That’s the part that should keep you up at night. https://x.com/Microinteracti1/status/2035999238258131086
“Can the Strait of Hormuz be opened? You need to deploy two American divisions there and prepare to stay for months. That’s how the start of the war in Vietnam looked, the start of the war in Iraq, and the same in Afghanistan.
It succeeds at first. By the way, all wars, including this new chapter of ours, one must know: an initiated war starts with a brilliant achievement and impressive damage.
Then comes the stage of treading water, which I believe we have entered.
And if you don't know how to get out of it and cut it short in time, it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat.
And America hasn't won a single war. It won almost every battle, but it hasn't won a single war in the last 60 years.
It cost a lot of blood and treasure, and is not as great as one would hope, but Saddam is gone, Iraq is a far better and less threatening place today than it was under Saddam.
One can debate whether that victory was worth it, but it was won.
..it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat...
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
How long has the USA been blockading oil imports to Cuba? Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.
The USA has been blockading oil imports to Cuba since 1960, which became a full embargo of Cuba under Democrat President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Trump is not a good guy, but Cuba has made its bed. And Cuba is communist, still.
Happy to keep you informed.
Kennedy blocking exports of US oil to Cuba was not a 'full embargo', Trump stopping eg Mexico exporting oil to Cuba is.
Happy to keep you informed, but sorry to drag you away from your 24/7 simping for Israel, Hasbaratholomew.
The USA attempted to do a full embargo of Cuba, the problem was they could not enforce it against the USSR which shipped oil to Cuba despite America pressuring others not to do so.
It has been American policy since 1960 to try to prevent third party nations from getting oil to Cuba too. With more or less success over that time.
The Toricelli Act passed with bipartisan support in 1992, and the Helms-Burton Act passed under President Clinton with bipartisan support in 1996 have both targeted foreign companies trading with Cuba.
Cuba has been getting its oil from enemies of America, not its allies. America has been consistent in trying to prevent this, since 1960.
At last concord, we agree there was not a 'full embargo' (much as petulant US losers might have wished it) against Cuba until the current petulant loser Trump enforced maximum pressure this year.
America has been attempting an embargo since 1960.
That existing embargo has been more successful since the fall of the Venezuelan dictator in January, absolutely.
It is long-running US policy since 1960 being implemented though, not new policy.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Not to worry, I'm sure if the Government just tells them liking Lord of the Rings is a sign of extremism that'll bring them back aboard the mainstream centrism train... ahem.
More seriously, that sort of thing is concerning. Had coffee with a friend recently who lamented not having the ability to leave the country easily if Reform won.
I don’t understand this kind of reaction
Reform are not Nazis. They’re not even Vox or AfD. They’re much more like traditional conservatives from about the 1950s. Was Britain a fascist hell hole in the 1950s, such that people needed to flee abroad? No
The hysteria Reform induce in liberal snowflakes is absurd
To my mind the biggest danger from Reform is their total incoherence on economic policies. Tho they are belatedly trying to fix this
One of Trump’s many problems is that he mentally exists in the late 20th century, when the USA was hegemonic and militarily peerless - able to crush enemies at will
Now it is economically rivalled and industrially outranked by China. It is also heavily indebted. And militarily the balance has shifted in favour of smaller cheaper drones. So it is harder to impose overwhelming power even on inferior, poorer rivals
Which means he may lash out in frustration as this drags on, unexpectedly
They still are peerless in many ways, no other country could project 5% of the firepower into the Gulf that the US has in the last four weeks.
There is something else going on with the Hormuz other than the drone threat, but I don't know what it is. The Iraqis, with technical and doctrinal support from the French, struggled to sink tankers with fucking Excocets during the 'Tanker War' of the mid 80s. The USN could and would secure the strait if ordered to, but they have not been ordered to. Maybe Trump is very reluctant to take any significant amount of casualties or lose a ship.
There is a very big difference between now and the 1980s in that the critical cargoes to the world economy are the bulk LNG carriers. You wouldn't necessarily have to sink one of those; aren't they potentially massive floating bombs, something an oil tanker just isn't ?
They would still be pretty hard targets (and a bulk LNG carrier has never been lost to explosion), but the explosive potential in a worst case scenario is pretty large (enormous).
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237610002_Consequences_of_LNG_Marine_Incidents ...The spherical tanks in the Moss design are usually constructed of aluminum with thickness varying from 29 to 57mm. As for the membrane tank, thick insulation surrounds the tank and limits boil-off to under 0.2% per day. The sphere has internal LNG pumps with no bottom connections. The sphere maintains its own structural integrity and it does not rely on the vessel for this purpose. The cargo load is transferred to the vessel through a continuous metal skirt attached to the equator of the sphere. As for the membrane design, there are multiple barriers between the external environment and the LNG cargo. The hull is a double hull with internal structures. Some vessels have a further wall surrounding the sphere. The sphere is protected with an external skirt (providing support), insulation, and the sphere wall...
There is very little data (thankfully) on missile or drone attacks on them.
57mm of aluminium is pretty much cheese, as far as any even vaguely serious explosion is concerned.
In addition, aluminium is more brittle at cryogenic temperatures. Which is why stainless steel used to be popular for the tanks - the right grades of stainless actually get stronger at cryogenic temps. Wonder when that changed and why?
“Can the Strait of Hormuz be opened? You need to deploy two American divisions there and prepare to stay for months. That’s how the start of the war in Vietnam looked, the start of the war in Iraq, and the same in Afghanistan.
It succeeds at first. By the way, all wars, including this new chapter of ours, one must know: an initiated war starts with a brilliant achievement and impressive damage.
Then comes the stage of treading water, which I believe we have entered.
And if you don't know how to get out of it and cut it short in time, it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat.
And America hasn't won a single war. It won almost every battle, but it hasn't won a single war in the last 60 years.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
This is Adam Mockler explaining to a MAGA panel how NATO actually works.
The woman is furious. America is fighting in the Strait of Hormuz and the allies won’t show up. “What’s the point of an alliance if they won’t help us?” she asks.
Mockler explains, with the patience of a man teaching long division to a golden retriever, that NATO is a defensive alliance. Article 5 is not a blank check. It does not activate because one member decided, unilaterally, to go to war in someone else’s waterway. Europe does not scramble its navies because Washington picked a fight and then expected company.
The face she makes says everything. This is the real cost of ideological illiteracy in a nuclear-armed democracy. When the people advising power have never bothered to understand how the world is actually assembled, every institution becomes a betrayal. Every ally becomes a coward. Every rule becomes an obstacle.
They spent years calling Europe freeloaders. Then started a war. Then got angry that the freeloaders wouldn’t come. The confusion is genuine. That’s the part that should keep you up at night. https://x.com/Microinteracti1/status/2035999238258131086
“Can the Strait of Hormuz be opened? You need to deploy two American divisions there and prepare to stay for months. That’s how the start of the war in Vietnam looked, the start of the war in Iraq, and the same in Afghanistan.
It succeeds at first. By the way, all wars, including this new chapter of ours, one must know: an initiated war starts with a brilliant achievement and impressive damage.
Then comes the stage of treading water, which I believe we have entered.
And if you don't know how to get out of it and cut it short in time, it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat.
And America hasn't won a single war. It won almost every battle, but it hasn't won a single war in the last 60 years.
“Can the Strait of Hormuz be opened? You need to deploy two American divisions there and prepare to stay for months. That’s how the start of the war in Vietnam looked, the start of the war in Iraq, and the same in Afghanistan.
It succeeds at first. By the way, all wars, including this new chapter of ours, one must know: an initiated war starts with a brilliant achievement and impressive damage.
Then comes the stage of treading water, which I believe we have entered.
And if you don't know how to get out of it and cut it short in time, it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat.
And America hasn't won a single war. It won almost every battle, but it hasn't won a single war in the last 60 years.
“Can the Strait of Hormuz be opened? You need to deploy two American divisions there and prepare to stay for months. That’s how the start of the war in Vietnam looked, the start of the war in Iraq, and the same in Afghanistan.
It succeeds at first. By the way, all wars, including this new chapter of ours, one must know: an initiated war starts with a brilliant achievement and impressive damage.
Then comes the stage of treading water, which I believe we have entered.
And if you don't know how to get out of it and cut it short in time, it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat.
And America hasn't won a single war. It won almost every battle, but it hasn't won a single war in the last 60 years.
It cost a lot of blood and treasure, and is not as great as one would hope, but Saddam is gone, Iraq is a far better and less threatening place today than it was under Saddam.
One can debate whether that victory was worth it, but it was won.
..it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat...
Is Iraq today inferior to what existed before?
No, it is far superior.
Saddam has gone. The threat from Iraq is vastly diminished. We are no longer needing to enforce a No Fly Zone as we were to contain the threat. The country is now an albeit flawed democracy, not a totalitarian dictatorship.
That's not a perfect win, but its a win and a vast improvement on the status quo ante.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
UAE senior advisor to government, and one of the most powerful businessmen in the country, Anwar Gargash:
“The war must not end with yet another ceasefire. The event must conclude with the containment of the nuclear threat, the drones, the missiles, and Iranian bullying in the Strait of Hormuz”
Now I don't know in what condition they are but there's no reason they cannot help to make Hormuz operational.
Oh indeed.
What was said yesterday has been unsaid for a while in the region, that this is the opportunity to get rid of the Iran problem once and for all, and a few weeks of disruption is a price worth paying for that long-term security. This has been going on for nearly half a century.
Right now they’re quite happy that the US are in the area, which lets them concentrate their own resources on defensive operations, but expect that to change in the near future. That the US already have Warthogs and Apaches flying over Southern Iran suggests they have very little air defence left, I suspect at this point most of the shipping problem is insurance, apparently Scott Bessent is working on US underwriting of escorted shipping through the Straight.
It’s not just the O&G traffic either, I can see from my window at least three cruise ships moored at Port Rashid in Dubai that haven’t moved in three weeks. The cost of keeping those stuck is astronomical.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
Er, what about posh boy Farage in the seventies, apparently openly racist and fashy according to DC contemporaries?
(I think it will be good for his affiliate sales revenue stream.)
Presumably Tesla’s plan is to buy overnight surplus to store in massive batteries, to be sold during peak hours - which is possibly the best thing that could possibly happen to grid stability.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
Er, what about posh boy Farage in the seventies, apparently openly racist and fashy according to DC contemporaries?
Farage was son of a stockbroker and antiques dealer, not aristocracy, landed gentry or even Eton, Westminster or Harrow or Winchester educated, he went to Dulwich which is next rank down of major public schools
The US wasn’t militarily peerless or invincible in the 20th century either. It ground out a score draw in Korea, cocked up an attempted invasion of Cuba, and lost a decade long war in Vietnam.
Wars against a determined enemy are difficult. The two gulf wars were won easily because the enemy military effectively disbanded itself. I’d say that was the exception, not the rule.
That’s somewhat wrong. It was peerless. Even the USSR never quite matched the military power of the USA. Tho nukes made war between them unthinkable. It was also invincible - in the pure sense it could not be conquered.
However it’s fair to say American military adventures did not often go well, even back then
And now, with drones, it’s even harder for large powers to truly defeat smaller powers. As Russia has discovered in Ukraine
There is no way Trump will send troops into mainland Iran. It would be Iraq on meth. He MAY try and seize Kharg island
Iraq is now Saddam free and elects its own government
Well maybe. But it’s still a major mess, and badly divided. And jihadism has not disappeared
To get Iraq to this state America spent about eleventy trillion dollars, and tens of thousands died, and the world was thrown into turmoil
Was it worth it? I don’t think so. It was a calamitous error
If Iran were in the state Iraq is now, the Middle East and the world would be a far more peaceful place.
Iraq has the Iranian proxy PMF and the Kurdish groups with their own private armies.
Indeed, which is still a tremendous improvement on the state of Iran.
If we could flick a switch and magically have Iran in the same state as Iraq is, without any cost or conflict, then I 100% would, it would be a huge improvement to global security and security in the Middle East. As well as for the civil rights of Iranians. Would you?
There are no such switches.
Absolutely agreed, it was a thought experiment. If there were such a hypothetical switch, would you press it?
The point of the thought experiment is that prior to 2003, Iraq under Saddam was as bad and as dangerous as Iran. Today that is not the case. Today Iran is very much the greater threat to both the Middle East and its own citizens.
You may not think the cost of the Iraq War was worth it, that's certainly a valid thought and one I would debate (and fully accept I am in a small minority in maintaining it was a good idea). The cost in blood and treasure was immense, so I can understand those who say it was not worth it. However, whether it was worth it or not, whether it was a good idea or not, it has left Iraq in a better place than it was before. Especially compared to Iran.
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
How long has the USA been blockading oil imports to Cuba? Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.
The USA has been blockading oil imports to Cuba since 1960, which became a full embargo of Cuba under Democrat President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Trump is not a good guy, but Cuba has made its bed. And Cuba is communist, still.
Happy to keep you informed.
Kennedy blocking exports of US oil to Cuba was not a 'full embargo', Trump stopping eg Mexico exporting oil to Cuba is.
Happy to keep you informed, but sorry to drag you away from your 24/7 simping for Israel, Hasbaratholomew.
The USA attempted to do a full embargo of Cuba, the problem was they could not enforce it against the USSR which shipped oil to Cuba despite America pressuring others not to do so.
It has been American policy since 1960 to try to prevent third party nations from getting oil to Cuba too. With more or less success over that time.
The Toricelli Act passed with bipartisan support in 1992, and the Helms-Burton Act passed under President Clinton with bipartisan support in 1996 have both targeted foreign companies trading with Cuba.
Cuba has been getting its oil from enemies of America, not its allies. America has been consistent in trying to prevent this, since 1960.
At last concord, we agree there was not a 'full embargo' (much as petulant US losers might have wished it) against Cuba until the current petulant loser Trump enforced maximum pressure this year.
America has been attempting an embargo since 1960.
That existing embargo has been more successful since the fall of the Venezuelan dictator in January, absolutely.
It is long-running US policy since 1960 being implemented though, not new policy.
So, in conclusion, oil is scarce in Cuba because of the US.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
Er, what about posh boy Farage in the seventies, apparently openly racist and fashy according to DC contemporaries?
A fair point
And yet I still find it surprising that young posh London lads are openly pro-remigration, for example. It just feels counter intuitive, one always expects the young to be left (as indeed most are in the UK, still - the Greens are I believe the favoured party of 18-24s)
Cotton & Pepper sounds like a clothes boutique in a wealthy Cotswolds town set up by bored Cotswolds wives who have discovered that moving out there from London is very dull and so may as well set up a shop where similar people can come and spend their time and money and pretend it’s all ok.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
Up 6% for Les Republicains on the 36% they got in 2020 even if they still lost again to the socialists, the National Rally candidate was eliminated in the first round
Mixed results for Le Pen last night. Failed in Marseilles (tho they never really had a chance of victory, they just manager expectations badly). Yet they took the Nice mayoralty, thanks to canvassing by @roger - I think that’s the biggest city they’ve won, yet?
The AfD did pretty well in Germany. 19.5% in the Rhineland - arguably their best result west of the Elbe
One Nation also came second on votes if not seats in the South Australian election on Saturday.
The candidate of Le Pen's party in Nice Eric Ciotti was runner up for the candidacy of Les Republicains in the 2022 presidential election, he is basically Le Pen's Robert Jenrick
I just hope labour are not that stupid to replace Starmer with Rayner when we are in the middle of an existential crisis
And as for Starmer agreeing to be demoted to Foreign Secretary we are really on fantasy island
I have no faith or trust in Starmer but this is not what the country wants or needs right now
Have you seen the price of petrol? This is on Starmer's watch.
He took a phonecall from the Putin shill at Mar a Lago yesterday. We will have ships in the Gulf by teatime tomorrow. Get rid.
I understand you would prefer the Churchillian Boris Johnson to the fishwife Rayner, but Johnson is a) not inside Parliament or b) the Party of Government. We need a Peter Wright style coup before we get Big Dog back in the driving seat.
What on earth have you had for breakfast ?
I have had years of battles on here with @HYUFD over his devotion to Johnson who I even voted against in the members ballot
Spraying unfounded allegations around and even using 'fishwife' Rayner indicates you are losing it
Either way Starmer needs to go. Do you trust him not to fold for Trump?
In fairness to the "fishwife" she would have no qualms about telling Trump to do one.
My wife comes from fishwife stock in Arbroath and Auchmithy. Strong independent women who worked with their men in a tough trade, who knew their own mind and were not shy in expressing it. Any man would be fortunate to share their life with such a woman. I certainly have been.
I have no doubt your good, lady, wife would have no qualms about telling Trump "to do one" too.. Perhaps one of Starmer's manifold faults is he is no "fishwife". Is this morning's Cobra meeting a confirmation of capitulation?
Fishwife is a derogatory term as you can see from both @DavidL and my wives heritage, and indeed they were amongst the most hard working women in their communities
It’s just his unfunny, affected, self pitying style. He doesn’t really think of her as a fishwife, he’s parodying a caricature of people he disagrees with.
I took a decision in November to neither respond to your posts or comment on posting characteristics of yours I find offensive. My only interaction has been to defend comments you have made directly to me or about me.
You have decided you despise someone you have never met on a random blog. How bizarre.
That’s just because you are embarrassed of your Instagram activity, and would rather deflect. No need to make it look like a high minded stately decision
I couldn’t care less, I’m glad you are spending less time trolling me. I don’t despise you. You were an irritant that I’ve managed to get rid of, everyone’s a winner
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
How long has the USA been blockading oil imports to Cuba? Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.
The USA has been blockading oil imports to Cuba since 1960, which became a full embargo of Cuba under Democrat President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Trump is not a good guy, but Cuba has made its bed. And Cuba is communist, still.
Happy to keep you informed.
Kennedy blocking exports of US oil to Cuba was not a 'full embargo', Trump stopping eg Mexico exporting oil to Cuba is.
Happy to keep you informed, but sorry to drag you away from your 24/7 simping for Israel, Hasbaratholomew.
The USA attempted to do a full embargo of Cuba, the problem was they could not enforce it against the USSR which shipped oil to Cuba despite America pressuring others not to do so.
It has been American policy since 1960 to try to prevent third party nations from getting oil to Cuba too. With more or less success over that time.
The Toricelli Act passed with bipartisan support in 1992, and the Helms-Burton Act passed under President Clinton with bipartisan support in 1996 have both targeted foreign companies trading with Cuba.
Cuba has been getting its oil from enemies of America, not its allies. America has been consistent in trying to prevent this, since 1960.
At last concord, we agree there was not a 'full embargo' (much as petulant US losers might have wished it) against Cuba until the current petulant loser Trump enforced maximum pressure this year.
America has been attempting an embargo since 1960.
That existing embargo has been more successful since the fall of the Venezuelan dictator in January, absolutely.
It is long-running US policy since 1960 being implemented though, not new policy.
So, in conclusion, oil is scarce in Cuba because of the US.
Because Cuba is a communist dictatorship sanctioned by the US, yes.
Cuba could have had reform and removed the communist dictatorship and normalised relations at any point since 1960. They have not. The dictatorship has made its bed, preferring conflict to liberalisation.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
Er, what about posh boy Farage in the seventies, apparently openly racist and fashy according to DC contemporaries?
A fair point
And yet I still find it surprising that young posh London lads are openly pro-remigration, for example. It just feels counter intuitive, one always expects the young to be left (as indeed most are in the UK, still - the Greens are I believe the favoured party of 18-24s)
Kids have been repelling hard against their parents’ attitudes forever.
One of Trump’s many problems is that he mentally exists in the late 20th century, when the USA was hegemonic and militarily peerless - able to crush enemies at will
Now it is economically rivalled and industrially outranked by China. It is also heavily indebted. And militarily the balance has shifted in favour of smaller cheaper drones. So it is harder to impose overwhelming power even on inferior, poorer rivals
Which means he may lash out in frustration as this drags on, unexpectedly
They still are peerless in many ways, no other country could project 5% of the firepower into the Gulf that the US has in the last four weeks.
There is something else going on with the Hormuz other than the drone threat, but I don't know what it is. The Iraqis, with technical and doctrinal support from the French, struggled to sink tankers with fucking Excocets during the 'Tanker War' of the mid 80s. The USN could and would secure the strait if ordered to, but they have not been ordered to. Maybe Trump is very reluctant to take any significant amount of casualties or lose a ship.
There is a very big difference between now and the 1980s in that the critical cargoes to the world economy are the bulk LNG carriers. You wouldn't necessarily have to sink one of those; aren't they potentially massive floating bombs, something an oil tanker just isn't ?
They would still be pretty hard targets (and a bulk LNG carrier has never been lost to explosion), but the explosive potential in a worst case scenario is pretty large (enormous).
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237610002_Consequences_of_LNG_Marine_Incidents ...The spherical tanks in the Moss design are usually constructed of aluminum with thickness varying from 29 to 57mm. As for the membrane tank, thick insulation surrounds the tank and limits boil-off to under 0.2% per day. The sphere has internal LNG pumps with no bottom connections. The sphere maintains its own structural integrity and it does not rely on the vessel for this purpose. The cargo load is transferred to the vessel through a continuous metal skirt attached to the equator of the sphere. As for the membrane design, there are multiple barriers between the external environment and the LNG cargo. The hull is a double hull with internal structures. Some vessels have a further wall surrounding the sphere. The sphere is protected with an external skirt (providing support), insulation, and the sphere wall...
There is very little data (thankfully) on missile or drone attacks on them.
57mm of aluminium is pretty much cheese, as far as any even vaguely serious explosion is concerned.
In addition, aluminium is more brittle at cryogenic temperatures. Which is why stainless steel used to be popular for the tanks - the right grades of stainless actually get stronger at cryogenic temps. Wonder when that changed and why?
AFAIK the LNG carrier that was attacked a couple of weeks ago in the Mediterranean had a tank burn out rather than explode, which I found interesting.
One of Trump’s many problems is that he mentally exists in the late 20th century, when the USA was hegemonic and militarily peerless - able to crush enemies at will
Now it is economically rivalled and industrially outranked by China. It is also heavily indebted. And militarily the balance has shifted in favour of smaller cheaper drones. So it is harder to impose overwhelming power even on inferior, poorer rivals
Which means he may lash out in frustration as this drags on, unexpectedly
They still are peerless in many ways, no other country could project 5% of the firepower into the Gulf that the US has in the last four weeks.
There is something else going on with the Hormuz other than the drone threat, but I don't know what it is. The Iraqis, with technical and doctrinal support from the French, struggled to sink tankers with fucking Excocets during the 'Tanker War' of the mid 80s. The USN could and would secure the strait if ordered to, but they have not been ordered to. Maybe Trump is very reluctant to take any significant amount of casualties or lose a ship.
There is a very big difference between now and the 1980s in that the critical cargoes to the world economy are the bulk LNG carriers. You wouldn't necessarily have to sink one of those; aren't they potentially massive floating bombs, something an oil tanker just isn't ?
They would still be pretty hard targets (and a bulk LNG carrier has never been lost to explosion), but the explosive potential in a worst case scenario is pretty large (enormous).
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237610002_Consequences_of_LNG_Marine_Incidents ...The spherical tanks in the Moss design are usually constructed of aluminum with thickness varying from 29 to 57mm. As for the membrane tank, thick insulation surrounds the tank and limits boil-off to under 0.2% per day. The sphere has internal LNG pumps with no bottom connections. The sphere maintains its own structural integrity and it does not rely on the vessel for this purpose. The cargo load is transferred to the vessel through a continuous metal skirt attached to the equator of the sphere. As for the membrane design, there are multiple barriers between the external environment and the LNG cargo. The hull is a double hull with internal structures. Some vessels have a further wall surrounding the sphere. The sphere is protected with an external skirt (providing support), insulation, and the sphere wall...
There is very little data (thankfully) on missile or drone attacks on them.
57mm of aluminium is pretty much cheese, as far as any even vaguely serious explosion is concerned.
In addition, aluminium is more brittle at cryogenic temperatures. Which is why stainless steel used to be popular for the tanks - the right grades of stainless actually get stronger at cryogenic temps. Wonder when that changed and why?
Yes, but they are spheres within a double hull, and surrounded by a load of other stuff, so not a simple layer of aluminium. If you read the report, the design is specced to survive a bow on strike by another vessel amidships; they're fairly resilient.
OTOH, what you say is also correct, and the theoretical explosive potential of a fully loaded carrier is said to be approximately equivalent to small atomic bomb.
I wouldn't volunteer to be the first on a cruise through the straits.
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
How long has the USA been blockading oil imports to Cuba? Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.
The USA has been blockading oil imports to Cuba since 1960, which became a full embargo of Cuba under Democrat President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Trump is not a good guy, but Cuba has made its bed. And Cuba is communist, still.
Happy to keep you informed.
Kennedy blocking exports of US oil to Cuba was not a 'full embargo', Trump stopping eg Mexico exporting oil to Cuba is.
Happy to keep you informed, but sorry to drag you away from your 24/7 simping for Israel, Hasbaratholomew.
The USA attempted to do a full embargo of Cuba, the problem was they could not enforce it against the USSR which shipped oil to Cuba despite America pressuring others not to do so.
It has been American policy since 1960 to try to prevent third party nations from getting oil to Cuba too. With more or less success over that time.
The Toricelli Act passed with bipartisan support in 1992, and the Helms-Burton Act passed under President Clinton with bipartisan support in 1996 have both targeted foreign companies trading with Cuba.
Cuba has been getting its oil from enemies of America, not its allies. America has been consistent in trying to prevent this, since 1960.
At last concord, we agree there was not a 'full embargo' (much as petulant US losers might have wished it) against Cuba until the current petulant loser Trump enforced maximum pressure this year.
America has been attempting an embargo since 1960.
That existing embargo has been more successful since the fall of the Venezuelan dictator in January, absolutely.
It is long-running US policy since 1960 being implemented though, not new policy.
So, in conclusion, oil is scarce in Cuba because of the US.
Because Cuba is a communist dictatorship sanctioned by the US, yes.
Cuba could have had reform and removed the communist dictatorship and normalised relations at any point since 1960. They have not. The dictatorship has made its bed, preferring conflict to liberalisation.
Yeah, it's amazing the way US-Vietnamese relations only improved once the latter removed the communist dictatorship.
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
How long has the USA been blockading oil imports to Cuba? Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.
The USA has been blockading oil imports to Cuba since 1960, which became a full embargo of Cuba under Democrat President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Trump is not a good guy, but Cuba has made its bed. And Cuba is communist, still.
Happy to keep you informed.
Kennedy blocking exports of US oil to Cuba was not a 'full embargo', Trump stopping eg Mexico exporting oil to Cuba is.
Happy to keep you informed, but sorry to drag you away from your 24/7 simping for Israel, Hasbaratholomew.
The USA attempted to do a full embargo of Cuba, the problem was they could not enforce it against the USSR which shipped oil to Cuba despite America pressuring others not to do so.
It has been American policy since 1960 to try to prevent third party nations from getting oil to Cuba too. With more or less success over that time.
The Toricelli Act passed with bipartisan support in 1992, and the Helms-Burton Act passed under President Clinton with bipartisan support in 1996 have both targeted foreign companies trading with Cuba.
Cuba has been getting its oil from enemies of America, not its allies. America has been consistent in trying to prevent this, since 1960.
At last concord, we agree there was not a 'full embargo' (much as petulant US losers might have wished it) against Cuba until the current petulant loser Trump enforced maximum pressure this year.
America has been attempting an embargo since 1960.
That existing embargo has been more successful since the fall of the Venezuelan dictator in January, absolutely.
It is long-running US policy since 1960 being implemented though, not new policy.
So, in conclusion, oil is scarce in Cuba because of the US.
Because Cuba is a communist dictatorship sanctioned by the US, yes.
Cuba could have had reform and removed the communist dictatorship and normalised relations at any point since 1960. They have not. The dictatorship has made its bed, preferring conflict to liberalisation.
In a better world, following his success in Venezuela, Trump would then have turned his attention to Cuba, not Iran
I’m pretty sure he could have overturned the regime in Havana without hurtling us all towards economic depression and maybe nuclear war
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
Er, what about posh boy Farage in the seventies, apparently openly racist and fashy according to DC contemporaries?
Is the privately educated liberal posh chap actually real or some kind of invention for movies and TV (the characters played by Hugh Grant etc.)? All the posh chaps I've ever met have been diehard Tories or, in more recent times, diehard Reform.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
Er, what about posh boy Farage in the seventies, apparently openly racist and fashy according to DC contemporaries?
A fair point
And yet I still find it surprising that young posh London lads are openly pro-remigration, for example. It just feels counter intuitive, one always expects the young to be left (as indeed most are in the UK, still - the Greens are I believe the favoured party of 18-24s)
If you are a rich posh London lad in your twenties who wants a real shift to the right and to shock one's leftie and liberal contemporaries mostly voting Green or reluctantly still Labour who does one say you back Farage or Kemi? No contest, your Mum and Dad in Kensington and your grandmother in the Cotswolds are still voting for Kemi's Tories so backing them is just a yawn and your leftie friends see her as an also ran now anyway, it is Nige they hate
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Not to worry, I'm sure if the Government just tells them liking Lord of the Rings is a sign of extremism that'll bring them back aboard the mainstream centrism train... ahem.
More seriously, that sort of thing is concerning. Had coffee with a friend recently who lamented not having the ability to leave the country easily if Reform won.
I don’t understand this kind of reaction
Reform are not Nazis. They’re not even Vox or AfD. They’re much more like traditional conservatives from about the 1950s. Was Britain a fascist hell hole in the 1950s, such that people needed to flee abroad? No
The hysteria Reform induce in liberal snowflakes is absurd
To my mind the biggest danger from Reform is their total incoherence on economic policies. Tho they are belatedly trying to fix this
Reform contains a range of views. Farage strikes me as a right wing Tory, as do folks like Tice and Jenrick. At the same time, the party contains more right wing elements and its membership looks to skew towards the far right. The question is how they might evolve in power, and the risk of them embracing much more extreme positions in power is high in my view, as their policies fail and they look for scapegoats. The Tory party has always been a broad church with its liberal wing keeping the right in check, evident eg in Heath sacking Powell in 68 after the rivers of blood speech. Without that restraining role from the left, with Farage likely representing the moderate wing of Reform, I think it is reasonable for people to fear a Reform government. Especially anyone with skin in the game, eg someone whose family could end up being one of those scapegoats.
“Can the Strait of Hormuz be opened? You need to deploy two American divisions there and prepare to stay for months. That’s how the start of the war in Vietnam looked, the start of the war in Iraq, and the same in Afghanistan.
It succeeds at first. By the way, all wars, including this new chapter of ours, one must know: an initiated war starts with a brilliant achievement and impressive damage.
Then comes the stage of treading water, which I believe we have entered.
And if you don't know how to get out of it and cut it short in time, it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat.
And America hasn't won a single war. It won almost every battle, but it hasn't won a single war in the last 60 years.
It cost a lot of blood and treasure, and is not as great as one would hope, but Saddam is gone, Iraq is a far better and less threatening place today than it was under Saddam.
One can debate whether that victory was worth it, but it was won.
..it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat...
Is Iraq today inferior to what existed before?
No, it is far superior.
Saddam has gone. The threat from Iraq is vastly diminished. We are no longer needing to enforce a No Fly Zone as we were to contain the threat. The country is now an albeit flawed democracy, not a totalitarian dictatorship.
That's not a perfect win, but its a win and a vast improvement on the status quo ante.
The collateral damage, and subsequent disorder in neighbouring countries was enormous. There are to this day many millions of refugees. You are ignoring that - just as Trump is now ignoring the potential collateral damage to the entire globe.
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
How long has the USA been blockading oil imports to Cuba? Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.
The USA has been blockading oil imports to Cuba since 1960, which became a full embargo of Cuba under Democrat President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Trump is not a good guy, but Cuba has made its bed. And Cuba is communist, still.
Happy to keep you informed.
Kennedy blocking exports of US oil to Cuba was not a 'full embargo', Trump stopping eg Mexico exporting oil to Cuba is.
Happy to keep you informed, but sorry to drag you away from your 24/7 simping for Israel, Hasbaratholomew.
The USA attempted to do a full embargo of Cuba, the problem was they could not enforce it against the USSR which shipped oil to Cuba despite America pressuring others not to do so.
It has been American policy since 1960 to try to prevent third party nations from getting oil to Cuba too. With more or less success over that time.
The Toricelli Act passed with bipartisan support in 1992, and the Helms-Burton Act passed under President Clinton with bipartisan support in 1996 have both targeted foreign companies trading with Cuba.
Cuba has been getting its oil from enemies of America, not its allies. America has been consistent in trying to prevent this, since 1960.
At last concord, we agree there was not a 'full embargo' (much as petulant US losers might have wished it) against Cuba until the current petulant loser Trump enforced maximum pressure this year.
America has been attempting an embargo since 1960.
That existing embargo has been more successful since the fall of the Venezuelan dictator in January, absolutely.
It is long-running US policy since 1960 being implemented though, not new policy.
So, in conclusion, oil is scarce in Cuba because of the US.
Because Cuba is a communist dictatorship sanctioned by the US, yes.
Cuba could have had reform and removed the communist dictatorship and normalised relations at any point since 1960. They have not. The dictatorship has made its bed, preferring conflict to liberalisation.
In a better world, following his success in Venezuela, Trump would then have turned his attention to Cuba, not Iran
I’m pretty sure he could have overturned the regime in Havana without hurtling us all towards economic depression and maybe nuclear war
Oh well
Iran is a far greater threat than Cuba.
Topple the Mullahs and peace in the Middle East becomes viable.
“Can the Strait of Hormuz be opened? You need to deploy two American divisions there and prepare to stay for months. That’s how the start of the war in Vietnam looked, the start of the war in Iraq, and the same in Afghanistan.
It succeeds at first. By the way, all wars, including this new chapter of ours, one must know: an initiated war starts with a brilliant achievement and impressive damage.
Then comes the stage of treading water, which I believe we have entered.
And if you don't know how to get out of it and cut it short in time, it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat.
And America hasn't won a single war. It won almost every battle, but it hasn't won a single war in the last 60 years.
It cost a lot of blood and treasure, and is not as great as one would hope, but Saddam is gone, Iraq is a far better and less threatening place today than it was under Saddam.
One can debate whether that victory was worth it, but it was won.
..it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat...
Is Iraq today inferior to what existed before?
No, it is far superior.
Saddam has gone. The threat from Iraq is vastly diminished. We are no longer needing to enforce a No Fly Zone as we were to contain the threat. The country is now an albeit flawed democracy, not a totalitarian dictatorship.
That's not a perfect win, but its a win and a vast improvement on the status quo ante.
The collateral damage, and subsequent disorder in neighbouring countries was enormous. There are to this day many millions of refugees. You are ignoring that - just as Trump is now ignoring the potential collateral damage to the entire globe.
I am not ignoring it, I acknowledged there was a cost.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
Er, what about posh boy Farage in the seventies, apparently openly racist and fashy according to DC contemporaries?
Is the privately educated liberal posh chap actually real or some kind of invention for movies and TV (the characters played by Hugh Grant etc.)? All the posh chaps I've ever met have been diehard Tories or, in more recent times, diehard Reform.
You must have missed the recent poll which shows Labour as the most popular party in just one demographic. Rich people
See also The Blob. Most of the Blob is rich liberal privately educated people
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
It's not normal to blockade a country because it allies with countries you don't like. There is a thing called "sovereignty"
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
Er, what about posh boy Farage in the seventies, apparently openly racist and fashy according to DC contemporaries?
Is the privately educated liberal posh chap actually real or some kind of invention for movies and TV (the characters played by Hugh Grant etc.)? All the posh chaps I've ever met have been diehard Tories or, in more recent times, diehard Reform.
My daughter had some exposure to Dulwich College boys through South East London social networks, eg at house parties, and said they were mostly really toxic. She is woke AF.
Cotton & Pepper sounds like a clothes boutique in a wealthy Cotswolds town set up by bored Cotswolds wives who have discovered that moving out there from London is very dull and so may as well set up a shop where similar people can come and spend their time and money and pretend it’s all ok.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
Er, what about posh boy Farage in the seventies, apparently openly racist and fashy according to DC contemporaries?
A fair point
And yet I still find it surprising that young posh London lads are openly pro-remigration, for example. It just feels counter intuitive, one always expects the young to be left (as indeed most are in the UK, still - the Greens are I believe the favoured party of 18-24s)
I just hope labour are not that stupid to replace Starmer with Rayner when we are in the middle of an existential crisis
And as for Starmer agreeing to be demoted to Foreign Secretary we are really on fantasy island
I have no faith or trust in Starmer but this is not what the country wants or needs right now
Have you seen the price of petrol? This is on Starmer's watch.
He took a phonecall from the Putin shill at Mar a Lago yesterday. We will have ships in the Gulf by teatime tomorrow. Get rid.
I understand you would prefer the Churchillian Boris Johnson to the fishwife Rayner, but Johnson is a) not inside Parliament or b) the Party of Government. We need a Peter Wright style coup before we get Big Dog back in the driving seat.
What on earth have you had for breakfast ?
I have had years of battles on here with @HYUFD over his devotion to Johnson who I even voted against in the members ballot
Spraying unfounded allegations around and even using 'fishwife' Rayner indicates you are losing it
Either way Starmer needs to go. Do you trust him not to fold for Trump?
In fairness to the "fishwife" she would have no qualms about telling Trump to do one.
My wife comes from fishwife stock in Arbroath and Auchmithy. Strong independent women who worked with their men in a tough trade, who knew their own mind and were not shy in expressing it. Any man would be fortunate to share their life with such a woman. I certainly have been.
I have no doubt your good, lady, wife would have no qualms about telling Trump "to do one" too.. Perhaps one of Starmer's manifold faults is he is no "fishwife". Is this morning's Cobra meeting a confirmation of capitulation?
Fishwife is a derogatory term as you can see from both @DavidL and my wives heritage, and indeed they were amongst the most hard working women in their communities
It’s just his unfunny, affected, self pitying style. He doesn’t really think of her as a fishwife, he’s parodying a caricature of people he disagrees with.
I took a decision in November to neither respond to your posts or comment on posting characteristics of yours I find offensive. My only interaction has been to defend comments you have made directly to me or about me.
You have decided you despise someone you have never met on a random blog. How bizarre.
That’s just because you are embarrassed of your Instagram activity, and would rather deflect. No need to make it look like a high minded stately decision
I couldn’t care less, I’m glad you are spending less time trolling me. I don’t despise you. You were an irritant that I’ve managed to get rid of, everyone’s a winner
Let's not relitigate the past. I have absolutely no embarrassment for my Instagram account. I have not changed the way I use Instagram and I have absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. I have subsequently made my account private because I am simply shocked that a complete stranger who has taken a dislike to me on political betting blog would want to trawl through my Instagram and Facebook pages, like someone rifling a stranger's underwater drawer.Your account pops up on my account being as you decided to engage. I haven't looked. I have no interest in who you are or what you do.
TSE did ask for this debate to be curtailed back in November. I have kept my side of the bargain, so this defence is my last word.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Not to worry, I'm sure if the Government just tells them liking Lord of the Rings is a sign of extremism that'll bring them back aboard the mainstream centrism train... ahem.
More seriously, that sort of thing is concerning. Had coffee with a friend recently who lamented not having the ability to leave the country easily if Reform won.
I don’t understand this kind of reaction
Reform are not Nazis. They’re not even Vox or AfD. They’re much more like traditional conservatives from about the 1950s. Was Britain a fascist hell hole in the 1950s, such that people needed to flee abroad? No
The hysteria Reform induce in liberal snowflakes is absurd
To my mind the biggest danger from Reform is their total incoherence on economic policies. Tho they are belatedly trying to fix this
Reform contains a range of views. Farage strikes me as a right wing Tory, as do folks like Tice and Jenrick. At the same time, the party contains more right wing elements and its membership looks to skew towards the far right. The question is how they might evolve in power, and the risk of them embracing much more extreme positions in power is high in my view, as their policies fail and they look for scapegoats. The Tory party has always been a broad church with its liberal wing keeping the right in check, evident eg in Heath sacking Powell in 68 after the rivers of blood speech. Without that restraining role from the left, with Farage likely representing the moderate wing of Reform, I think it is reasonable for people to fear a Reform government. Especially anyone with skin in the game, eg someone whose family could end up being one of those scapegoats.
We must agree to disagree. To my mind the one major party which is a clear and present danger to the wellbeing of the UK is the party in government. Unfortunately
The Greens are even crazier but they will never win a general election, unlike Labour
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
Er, what about posh boy Farage in the seventies, apparently openly racist and fashy according to DC contemporaries?
A fair point
And yet I still find it surprising that young posh London lads are openly pro-remigration, for example. It just feels counter intuitive, one always expects the young to be left (as indeed most are in the UK, still - the Greens are I believe the favoured party of 18-24s)
If you are a rich posh London lad in your twenties who wants a real shift to the right and to shock one's leftie and liberal contemporaries mostly voting Green or reluctantly still Labour who does one say you back Farage or Kemi? No contest, even your Mum and Dad in Kensington are still voting for Kemi's Tories and your leftie friends see her as an also ran now anyway, it is Nige they hate
Living in that world (my daughters when to private school - partially) the politics of the young is left wing. Uniform support for the Greens. My youngest is unusual, in that she actually discusses and considers policies - most just take the Green=Nice line - and disagrees on some policies. This is considered a bit radical.
The boys are generally similar, though the schools worry about a minority who fall down the manosphere garbage chute - they are actively fighting this. Much as in the (literally) next door state schools.
The pro-immigration thing is de-rigour - you'd be ostracised by your peer group instantly for being even vaguely anti. Though you hear some mutterings connecting the lack of jobs to "why do we need more immigrants?". But we are long way fro the dam bursting on that one.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
Er, what about posh boy Farage in the seventies, apparently openly racist and fashy according to DC contemporaries?
Is the privately educated liberal posh chap actually real or some kind of invention for movies and TV (the characters played by Hugh Grant etc.)? All the posh chaps I've ever met have been diehard Tories or, in more recent times, diehard Reform.
You must have missed the recent poll which shows Labour as the most popular party in just one demographic. Rich people
See also The Blob. Most of the Blob is rich liberal privately educated people
Yes the rich and the privately educated. Starmer Labour now leads with those educated in private schools with 38% of privately educated voters backing Starmer's party compared to just 21% of voters overall, while Reform lead with those educated in state school academies and educated at grammar schools More in Common found.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Not to worry, I'm sure if the Government just tells them liking Lord of the Rings is a sign of extremism that'll bring them back aboard the mainstream centrism train... ahem.
More seriously, that sort of thing is concerning. Had coffee with a friend recently who lamented not having the ability to leave the country easily if Reform won.
I don’t understand this kind of reaction
Reform are not Nazis. They’re not even Vox or AfD. They’re much more like traditional conservatives from about the 1950s. Was Britain a fascist hell hole in the 1950s, such that people needed to flee abroad? No
The hysteria Reform induce in liberal snowflakes is absurd
To my mind the biggest danger from Reform is their total incoherence on economic policies. Tho they are belatedly trying to fix this
Reform contains a range of views. Farage strikes me as a right wing Tory, as do folks like Tice and Jenrick. At the same time, the party contains more right wing elements and its membership looks to skew towards the far right. The question is how they might evolve in power, and the risk of them embracing much more extreme positions in power is high in my view, as their policies fail and they look for scapegoats. The Tory party has always been a broad church with its liberal wing keeping the right in check, evident eg in Heath sacking Powell in 68 after the rivers of blood speech. Without that restraining role from the left, with Farage likely representing the moderate wing of Reform, I think it is reasonable for people to fear a Reform government. Especially anyone with skin in the game, eg someone whose family could end up being one of those scapegoats.
We must agree to disagree. To my mind the one major party which is a clear and present danger to the wellbeing of the UK is the party in government. Unfortunately
The Greens are even crazier but they will never win a general election, unlike Labour
You're not looking at the risk of your family getting deported, of course
China is going to benefit enormously from this. Not only does it have more oil reserves than the rest of Asia, it's also the EV superpower to supervise what will now be an absolute worldwide scramble to electric cars and transportation.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
Er, what about posh boy Farage in the seventies, apparently openly racist and fashy according to DC contemporaries?
A fair point
And yet I still find it surprising that young posh London lads are openly pro-remigration, for example. It just feels counter intuitive, one always expects the young to be left (as indeed most are in the UK, still - the Greens are I believe the favoured party of 18-24s)
If you are a rich posh London lad in your twenties who wants a real shift to the right and to shock one's leftie and liberal contemporaries mostly voting Green or reluctantly still Labour who does one say you back Farage or Kemi? No contest, even your Mum and Dad in Kensington are still voting for Kemi's Tories and your leftie friends see her as an also ran now anyway, it is Nige they hate
Living in that world (my daughters when to private school - partially) the politics of the young is left wing. Uniform support for the Greens. My youngest is unusual, in that she actually discusses and considers policies - most just take the Green=Nice line - and disagrees on some policies. This is considered a bit radical.
The boys are generally similar, though the schools worry about a minority who fall down the manosphere garbage chute - they are actively fighting this. Much as in the (literally) next door state schools.
The pro-immigration thing is de-rigour - you'd be ostracised by your peer group instantly for being even vaguely anti. Though you hear some mutterings connecting the lack of jobs to "why do we need more immigrants?". But we are long way fro the dam bursting on that one.
There is growing anti immigration sentiment amongst some young men though
Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.
They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.
Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts. Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.
No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.
Why is the fuel scarce, skip?
Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.
I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.
The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.
Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.
How long has the USA been blockading oil imports to Cuba? Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.
The USA has been blockading oil imports to Cuba since 1960, which became a full embargo of Cuba under Democrat President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Trump is not a good guy, but Cuba has made its bed. And Cuba is communist, still.
Happy to keep you informed.
Kennedy blocking exports of US oil to Cuba was not a 'full embargo', Trump stopping eg Mexico exporting oil to Cuba is.
Happy to keep you informed, but sorry to drag you away from your 24/7 simping for Israel, Hasbaratholomew.
The USA attempted to do a full embargo of Cuba, the problem was they could not enforce it against the USSR which shipped oil to Cuba despite America pressuring others not to do so.
It has been American policy since 1960 to try to prevent third party nations from getting oil to Cuba too. With more or less success over that time.
The Toricelli Act passed with bipartisan support in 1992, and the Helms-Burton Act passed under President Clinton with bipartisan support in 1996 have both targeted foreign companies trading with Cuba.
Cuba has been getting its oil from enemies of America, not its allies. America has been consistent in trying to prevent this, since 1960.
At last concord, we agree there was not a 'full embargo' (much as petulant US losers might have wished it) against Cuba until the current petulant loser Trump enforced maximum pressure this year.
America has been attempting an embargo since 1960.
That existing embargo has been more successful since the fall of the Venezuelan dictator in January, absolutely.
It is long-running US policy since 1960 being implemented though, not new policy.
So, in conclusion, oil is scarce in Cuba because of the US.
Because Cuba is a communist dictatorship sanctioned by the US, yes.
Cuba could have had reform and removed the communist dictatorship and normalised relations at any point since 1960. They have not. The dictatorship has made its bed, preferring conflict to liberalisation.
In a better world, following his success in Venezuela, Trump would then have turned his attention to Cuba, not Iran
I’m pretty sure he could have overturned the regime in Havana without hurtling us all towards economic depression and maybe nuclear war
Oh well
You’re not interested in war tourism in Dubai? Burj-al-Arab is down to $800 a night next month, I’m seriously considering it.
One idiot in the Spectator is making a right arse of himself with a ‘Dubai is dead’ piece today, perhps someone should pitch the opposite view?
I mean I'm not saying that old Jeff isn't at least as qualified as various PB Straits of Hormuz experts... That's still not very good though.
Inevitable_GB_News (TWAT ACCOUNT) @GBNews23653867 · 15h 🚨When it comes to explaining the military situation in Iran, Sky News has Professor Michael Clarke, a Kings College lecturer. GB News has Jeff Banks, a fashion designer.
The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.
There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
We are
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.
It’s quite new for them to be openly fash-adjacent, and not scared of admitting it
Er, what about posh boy Farage in the seventies, apparently openly racist and fashy according to DC contemporaries?
Is the privately educated liberal posh chap actually real or some kind of invention for movies and TV (the characters played by Hugh Grant etc.)? All the posh chaps I've ever met have been diehard Tories or, in more recent times, diehard Reform.
Maybe you have just moved in weird circles. My old school friends and contemporaries peers are everything from ex Tory PMS, charity workers, one is one of the founders of Occupy London and a constant anti-capitalist campaigner, another a huge environmental campaigner. A couple are very liberal authors. Friends who went to other of the old public schools include one spin of a notable family who lives most of the year in a gypsey caravan and helps rescue dogs and another old Harrovian who is very senior in Finance but an absolute committed socialist who is constantly looking for ways to use the industry to benefit society more.
The idea that public schoolboys are one likeminded mass is very wrong.
Comments
Do we regard Iraq as stable and sensible yet?
Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.
Iraq hasn't gone to war with Iran since we invaded.
Trump is not a good guy, but Cuba has made its bed. And Cuba is communist, still.
Happy to keep you informed.
More seriously, home/personal life doesn't really rule out candidates, I think. Within some limits that neither Johnson or Rayner were/are beyond.
If we could flick a switch and magically have Iran in the same state as Iraq is, without any cost or conflict, then I 100% would, it would be a huge improvement to global security and security in the Middle East. As well as for the civil rights of Iranians. Would you?
eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE
https://x.com/richardhanania/status/2035758062011834445?s=46
“The war must not end with yet another ceasefire. The event must conclude with the containment of the nuclear threat, the drones, the missiles, and Iranian bullying in the Strait of Hormuz”
https://x.com/marionawfal/status/2035801759650652367
UAE Foreign Minister Abdulla bin Zayed, in response to critism of Gargash’s comments:
“We will never be blackmailed by terrorists”.
https://x.com/iranintl_en/status/2035822182090035518
Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?
Or Iran might blink.
I hope we stay as far out of Trump's vanity war as is possible.
My greatest concern is that I do not see the UK involved in redefining the international order such that the USA can be avoided. I think we should be addressing items such as alternate payment systems and international trade. Others are doing this, and we will be marginalised.
I think there is an aspect of Mr Starmer the timid little mouse in this, but OTOH we are in a TINA situation.
The AfD did pretty well in Germany. 19.5% in the Rhineland - arguably their best result west of the Elbe
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237610002_Consequences_of_LNG_Marine_Incidents
...The spherical tanks in the Moss design are usually constructed of aluminum with thickness varying from 29 to 57mm. As for the membrane tank, thick insulation surrounds the tank and limits boil-off to under 0.2% per day. The sphere has internal LNG pumps with no bottom connections. The sphere maintains its own structural integrity and it does not rely on the vessel for this purpose. The cargo load is transferred to the vessel through a continuous metal skirt attached to the equator of the sphere. As for the membrane design, there are multiple barriers between the external environment and the LNG cargo. The hull is a double hull with internal structures. Some vessels have a further wall surrounding the sphere. The sphere is protected with an external skirt (providing support), insulation, and the sphere wall...
There is very little data (thankfully) on missile or drone attacks on them.
Happy to keep you informed, but sorry to drag you away from your 24/7 simping for Israel, Hasbaratholomew.
https://x.com/mcccanm/status/2035592536191086865
Ok, here’s what you need to know about “Bombing Electrical Facilities”…
Several countries, to include the U.S., use “Graphite Bombs”. These aren’t bombs in the sense you are thinking; they have a small explosive charge, but don’t destroy something by brute force.
Instead, long graphite filaments are expelled. They extend across power lines & create a short-circuit. Either some form of protection cuts power to the line, or the line eventually fails. The graphite is vaporized in the process, leaving nothing behind.
The effect is that the power goes out. These are sometimes called “Soft Bombs” & “Blackout Bombs”.
We’ve used these before. They were used in Desert Storm, but unfortunately we used actual bombs later & did a lot of damage that couldn’t be repaired quickly. This is considered a mistake…the point is to disrupt electricity in a way it can be rapidly restored when hostilities cease, minimizing suffering of the civilian population. After all, without electricity, water & sewer systems stop working…which leads to public health issues.
“Can the Strait of Hormuz be opened? You need to deploy two American divisions there and prepare to stay for months. That’s how the start of the war in Vietnam looked, the start of the war in Iraq, and the same in Afghanistan.
It succeeds at first. By the way, all wars, including this new chapter of ours, one must know: an initiated war starts with a brilliant achievement and impressive damage.
Then comes the stage of treading water, which I believe we have entered.
And if you don't know how to get out of it and cut it short in time, it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat.
And America hasn't won a single war. It won almost every battle, but it hasn't won a single war in the last 60 years.
All of this needs to be considered, and I very much hope I am wrong.”
https://x.com/Osint613/status/2035993996095258682
It has been American policy since 1960 to try to prevent third party nations from getting oil to Cuba too. With more or less success over that time.
The Toricelli Act passed with bipartisan support in 1992, and the Helms-Burton Act passed under President Clinton with bipartisan support in 1996 have both targeted foreign companies trading with Cuba.
Cuba has been getting its oil from enemies of America, not its allies. America has been consistent in trying to prevent this, since 1960.
But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany
My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments
They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill
https://x.com/flightradar24/status/2035918085215899921
Emirates were running an average of about 525 flights a day in Feb, and they’re now back up to about 370.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_Emiri_Air_Force
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatari_Emiri_Navy
As do Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi.
Now I don't know in what condition they are but there's no reason they cannot help to make Hormuz operational.
I think the St John's Ambulance and RNLI are good comparisons, in that they work with the emergency services and do respond to 999.
In my head before checking I had speculated that it could potentially be aimed as a separatist Orthodox Jewish services, since ritual-based regulations can be quite heavy (eg separate sinks are common in a Jewish kitchen to prevent cross-contamination between meat and dairy under dietary laws), but that is not the case.
More seriously, that sort of thing is concerning. Had coffee with a friend recently who lamented not having the ability to leave the country easily if Reform won.
It cost a lot of blood and treasure, and is not as great as one would hope, but Saddam is gone, Iraq is a far better and less threatening place today than it was under Saddam.
One can debate whether that victory was worth it, but it was won.
Actually what happened in Desert Storm was that they were used at first - a version with a cruise missile flying a pattern, unreeling graphite lines. Used on electricity substations and the like, where there are bare wires, insulted with just air.
The Iraqis got very good at replacing the blown equipment and swapping components around to keep things going. So eventually the coalition started hitting the infrastructure with conventional weapons.
As a result there was a proposed plan to look at hardening the UK electricity system. Which quietly got binned, when they saw the cost. Much was simple stuff, like anti-bird netting on the top of the fences round vulnerable electrical installations.
If Farage is Orban, Lowe is a proper Mosely in the making. Very concerning, with there being economic uncertainty on the way.
The woman is furious. America is fighting in the Strait of Hormuz and the allies won’t show up. “What’s the point of an alliance if they won’t help us?” she asks.
Mockler explains, with the patience of a man teaching long division to a golden retriever, that NATO is a defensive alliance. Article 5 is not a blank check. It does not activate because one member decided, unilaterally, to go to war in someone else’s waterway. Europe does not scramble its navies because Washington picked a fight and then expected company.
The face she makes says everything.
This is the real cost of ideological illiteracy in a nuclear-armed democracy. When the people advising power have never bothered to understand how the world is actually assembled, every institution becomes a betrayal. Every ally becomes a coward. Every rule becomes an obstacle.
They spent years calling Europe freeloaders. Then started a war. Then got angry that the freeloaders wouldn’t come. The confusion is genuine. That’s the part that should keep you up at night.
https://x.com/Microinteracti1/status/2035999238258131086
Am stealing that.
That existing embargo has been more successful since the fall of the Venezuelan dictator in January, absolutely.
It is long-running US policy since 1960 being implemented though, not new policy.
Our Tesla Correspondent has a video out about Tesla entering the UK electricity market.
TLDR: He thinks Musky Baby will find it tough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58Bc5kZ3Kbk
(I think it will be good for his affiliate sales revenue stream.)
Reform are not Nazis. They’re not even Vox or AfD. They’re much more like traditional conservatives from about the 1950s. Was Britain a fascist hell hole in the 1950s, such that people needed to flee abroad? No
The hysteria Reform induce in liberal snowflakes is absurd
To my mind the biggest danger from Reform is their total incoherence on economic policies. Tho they are belatedly trying to fix this
In addition, aluminium is more brittle at cryogenic temperatures. Which is why stainless steel used to be popular for the tanks - the right grades of stainless actually get stronger at cryogenic temps. Wonder when that changed and why?
No, it is far superior.
Saddam has gone. The threat from Iraq is vastly diminished. We are no longer needing to enforce a No Fly Zone as we were to contain the threat. The country is now an albeit flawed democracy, not a totalitarian dictatorship.
That's not a perfect win, but its a win and a vast improvement on the status quo ante.
Hail, Spode.
Conor Matchett
@conor_matchett
2h
EXCLUSIVE: 15 of Reform's Scots candidates exposed as members of racist conspiracy group
https://x.com/conor_matchett/status/2035992318856003814?s=20
What was said yesterday has been unsaid for a while in the region, that this is the opportunity to get rid of the Iran problem once and for all, and a few weeks of disruption is a price worth paying for that long-term security. This has been going on for nearly half a century.
Right now they’re quite happy that the US are in the area, which lets them concentrate their own resources on defensive operations, but expect that to change in the near future. That the US already have Warthogs and Apaches flying over Southern Iran suggests they have very little air defence left, I suspect at this point most of the shipping problem is insurance, apparently Scott Bessent is working on US underwriting of escorted shipping through the Straight.
It’s not just the O&G traffic either, I can see from my window at least three cruise ships moored at Port Rashid in Dubai that haven’t moved in three weeks. The cost of keeping those stuck is astronomical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_Spanish_general_election
The point of the thought experiment is that prior to 2003, Iraq under Saddam was as bad and as dangerous as Iran. Today that is not the case. Today Iran is very much the greater threat to both the Middle East and its own citizens.
You may not think the cost of the Iraq War was worth it, that's certainly a valid thought and one I would debate (and fully accept I am in a small minority in maintaining it was a good idea). The cost in blood and treasure was immense, so I can understand those who say it was not worth it. However, whether it was worth it or not, whether it was a good idea or not, it has left Iraq in a better place than it was before. Especially compared to Iran.
And yet I still find it surprising that young posh London lads are openly pro-remigration, for example. It just feels counter intuitive, one always expects the young to be left (as indeed most are in the UK, still - the Greens are I believe the favoured party of 18-24s)
The candidate of Le Pen's party in Nice Eric Ciotti was runner up for the candidacy of Les Republicains in the 2022 presidential election, he is basically Le Pen's Robert Jenrick
I couldn’t care less, I’m glad you are spending less time trolling me. I don’t despise you. You were an irritant that I’ve managed to get rid of, everyone’s a winner
Cuba could have had reform and removed the communist dictatorship and normalised relations at any point since 1960. They have not. The dictatorship has made its bed, preferring conflict to liberalisation.
What’s new now is the gender split.
If you read the report, the design is specced to survive a bow on strike by another vessel amidships; they're fairly resilient.
OTOH, what you say is also correct, and the theoretical explosive potential of a fully loaded carrier is said to be approximately equivalent to small atomic bomb.
I wouldn't volunteer to be the first on a cruise through the straits.
I’m pretty sure he could have overturned the regime in Havana without hurtling us all towards economic depression and maybe nuclear war
Oh well
The Tory party has always been a broad church with its liberal wing keeping the right in check, evident eg in Heath sacking Powell in 68 after the rivers of blood speech. Without that restraining role from the left, with Farage likely representing the moderate wing of Reform, I think it is reasonable for people to fear a Reform government. Especially anyone with skin in the game, eg someone whose family could end up being one of those scapegoats.
There are to this day many millions of refugees. You are ignoring that - just as Trump is now ignoring the potential collateral damage to the entire globe.
Topple the Mullahs and peace in the Middle East becomes viable.
See also The Blob. Most of the Blob is rich liberal privately educated people
Maduro refused to pay Trump protection money, so he was whacked. His replacement is willing to pay the necessary bribes.
Iran isn't like that.
I am not sure Cuba is either
TSE did ask for this debate to be curtailed back in November. I have kept my side of the bargain, so this defence is my last word.
Thank you.
Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Philippines will run out of oil in three weeks.
https://bsky.app/profile/chadbourn.bsky.social/post/3mhpvourgs224
The Greens are even crazier but they will never win a general election, unlike Labour
The boys are generally similar, though the schools worry about a minority who fall down the manosphere garbage chute - they are actively fighting this. Much as in the (literally) next door state schools.
The pro-immigration thing is de-rigour - you'd be ostracised by your peer group instantly for being even vaguely anti. Though you hear some mutterings connecting the lack of jobs to "why do we need more immigrants?". But we are long way fro the dam bursting on that one.
Labour now poll slightly worse with state educated voters than they do with voters overall, the Tories and LDs poll best with voters educated at grammar schools and the Greens and SNP poll best with those educated in state schools including academies
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/class-politics-how-old-school-voting-habits-are-unravelling/
One idiot in the Spectator is making a right arse of himself with a ‘Dubai is dead’ piece today, perhps someone should pitch the opposite view?
That's still not very good though.
Inevitable_GB_News (TWAT ACCOUNT)
@GBNews23653867
·
15h
🚨When it comes to explaining the military situation in Iran, Sky News has Professor Michael Clarke, a Kings College lecturer. GB News has Jeff Banks, a fashion designer.
You couldn't make it🤣🤣🤣
https://x.com/GBNews23653867/status/2035807449546977347?s=20
The idea that public schoolboys are one likeminded mass is very wrong.