Met police arrest man over theft of Morgan McSweeney’s phone
Suspect, 28, is accused of selling the device that belonged to Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff and contained WhatsApp messages about Peter Mandelson
I have exercised my franchise, and possibly someone else's.
The polling station has gone full Palantir AI, or at least now scans polling cards and ballot papers with tablets.
I alerted the tablet-wielders that someone had left their completed ballot paper in the booth. Whether those votes will count, who knows? Can they be sure some party hack (or even I myself) did not add the crosses?
The couple who drove me to Sainsbury's had already failed to vote twice. They'd been turned away from two wrong polling stations. Let's hope it will be third time lucky on their way home from the shops.
Met police arrest man over theft of Morgan McSweeney’s phone
Suspect, 28, is accused of selling the device that belonged to Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff and contained WhatsApp messages about Peter Mandelson
"A KLM flight attendant from Haarlem has been hospitalized due to a possible hantavirus infection. She came into contact with the 69-year-old Dutch woman who died of the virus in Johannesburg, South Africa. The flight attendant is in isolation at Amsterdam UMC with mild symptoms. She is currently being tested for the hantavirus, the Ministry of Public Health confirmed."
“ Just took my 93yr grandmother to vote, she’s registered blind. In a very loud voice she said, “which box for Islamism and bigger boobs?” A cheer went up from the waiting voters.”
I was going to vote Green but I got a letter from the Lib Dem Candidate last night which changed my mind. In a hand written type face it said what he was doing for the area and what he had done.........
He then said "The Green Party are not targetting this area. They are working hard on other parts as they know in your area the Lib Dems have the best chance of beating Labour which is why you won't have heard from them".
"A KLM flight attendant from Haarlem has been hospitalized due to a possible hantavirus infection. She came into contact with the 69-year-old Dutch woman who died of the virus in Johannesburg, South Africa. The flight attendant is in isolation at Amsterdam UMC with mild symptoms. She is currently being tested for the hantavirus, the Ministry of Public Health confirmed."
Are there any Chinese virology labs in Argentina or has a virus just naturally mutated?
(Apart from the plague on board that looks like an epic trip, I will note down the name of the cruise company)
"A KLM flight attendant from Haarlem has been hospitalized due to a possible hantavirus infection. She came into contact with the 69-year-old Dutch woman who died of the virus in Johannesburg, South Africa. The flight attendant is in isolation at Amsterdam UMC with mild symptoms. She is currently being tested for the hantavirus, the Ministry of Public Health confirmed."
Are there any Chinese virology labs in Argentina or has a virus just naturally mutated?
(Apart from the plague on board that looks like an epic trip, I will note down the name of the cruise company)
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
There seems to have been distressingly little advance in materials science to improve the durability of road surfaces over the last few decades. That, or increasing lorry traffic has demolished any gains made.
Isn't it also something to do with the increasing weight of many modern tanks cars?
That won't help, but is really very marginal. The legal limit on axle weight for an HGV in Britain is 10,500kg, while that of even a monstrous vehicle like the Cybertruck is only ~1,500kg. Because road wear is proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight, it means that one HGV produces as much road wear as 2,401 Cybertrucks.
Road wear is almost completely about HGVs.
Cybertruck is 3,000+ kg.
Yeah, but it has two axles.
Apparently the average weight of new cars has increased by 400kg over 7 years. There are 32 million cars in the UK. How many extra HGV's does that work out at?
Scottish postal voters 19.68% of the total electorate. “ Thanks to the Electoral Commission we now know that the polling day electorate in Scotland is 4,320,981. The total number of postal voters is 850,185, which is exactly 19.68 per cent of the electorate.” From Holyrood Magazine. I don’t know how this compares with other areas.
Mrs PtP voted LD in Camden, mainly because of her hostility to the anti-car agenda of the Labour council. Will take dynamite to shift them though.
I’ll look out for her ballot on Friday. 😉 A week ago, I was thinking there was a fair chance that Labour could lose overall control in Camden. Now, I’m thinking they’ll probably hang on, but this is purely vibes. I have no actual info.
"A KLM flight attendant from Haarlem has been hospitalized due to a possible hantavirus infection. She came into contact with the 69-year-old Dutch woman who died of the virus in Johannesburg, South Africa. The flight attendant is in isolation at Amsterdam UMC with mild symptoms. She is currently being tested for the hantavirus, the Ministry of Public Health confirmed."
Are there any Chinese virology labs in Argentina or has a virus just naturally mutated?
(Apart from the plague on board that looks like an epic trip, I will note down the name of the cruise company)
Soon to be discounted too...
You might want to use a credit card for a spot of that sweet Section 75 protection...
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
There seems to have been distressingly little advance in materials science to improve the durability of road surfaces over the last few decades. That, or increasing lorry traffic has demolished any gains made.
Isn't it also something to do with the increasing weight of many modern tanks cars?
That won't help, but is really very marginal. The legal limit on axle weight for an HGV in Britain is 10,500kg, while that of even a monstrous vehicle like the Cybertruck is only ~1,500kg. Because road wear is proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight, it means that one HGV produces as much road wear as 2,401 Cybertrucks.
Road wear is almost completely about HGVs.
Cybertruck is 3,000+ kg.
Yeah, but it has two axles.
Apparently the average weight of new cars has increased by 400kg over 7 years. There are 32 million cars in the UK. How many extra HGV's does that work out at?
If all 33 million cars went from 800kg /axel to 1000kg, about 190 HGVs, assuming the fourth power rule is correct.
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
There seems to have been distressingly little advance in materials science to improve the durability of road surfaces over the last few decades. That, or increasing lorry traffic has demolished any gains made.
Isn't it also something to do with the increasing weight of many modern tanks cars?
That won't help, but is really very marginal. The legal limit on axle weight for an HGV in Britain is 10,500kg, while that of even a monstrous vehicle like the Cybertruck is only ~1,500kg. Because road wear is proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight, it means that one HGV produces as much road wear as 2,401 Cybertrucks.
Road wear is almost completely about HGVs.
Cybertruck is 3,000+ kg.
Yeah, but it has two axles.
Apparently the average weight of new cars has increased by 400kg over 7 years. There are 32 million cars in the UK. How many extra HGV's does that work out at?
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
There seems to have been distressingly little advance in materials science to improve the durability of road surfaces over the last few decades. That, or increasing lorry traffic has demolished any gains made.
The answer is (sort of) quite simple - concrete rather than tarmac. There was a phase in the 70s/80s when we were shifting in that direction. It's marginally more expensive to lay, but iirc about double the lifespan.
The problem is that concrete gives much higher road noise, so people (understandably) campaign vociferously against it.
I suspect that most efforts to improve wear performance ultimately just effectively reinvent equivalents to concrete with it's attendant problems.
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
There seems to have been distressingly little advance in materials science to improve the durability of road surfaces over the last few decades. That, or increasing lorry traffic has demolished any gains made.
Isn't it also something to do with the increasing weight of many modern tanks cars?
That won't help, but is really very marginal. The legal limit on axle weight for an HGV in Britain is 10,500kg, while that of even a monstrous vehicle like the Cybertruck is only ~1,500kg. Because road wear is proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight, it means that one HGV produces as much road wear as 2,401 Cybertrucks.
Road wear is almost completely about HGVs.
Cybertruck is 3,000+ kg.
Yeah, but it has two axles.
Apparently the average weight of new cars has increased by 400kg over 7 years. There are 32 million cars in the UK. How many extra HGV's does that work out at?
5,500 fully laden 6-axle at 44 tonnes.
(Assuming increase from 1.5 tonne to 1.9)
Eh, I was within two orders of magnitude. I count that as a win.
"A KLM flight attendant from Haarlem has been hospitalized due to a possible hantavirus infection. She came into contact with the 69-year-old Dutch woman who died of the virus in Johannesburg, South Africa. The flight attendant is in isolation at Amsterdam UMC with mild symptoms. She is currently being tested for the hantavirus, the Ministry of Public Health confirmed."
Are there any Chinese virology labs in Argentina or has a virus just naturally mutated?
(Apart from the plague on board that looks like an epic trip, I will note down the name of the cruise company)
Soon to be discounted too...
It looks like next years voyage is on the sister ship:
I have exercised my franchise, and possibly someone else's.
The polling station has gone full Palantir AI, or at least now scans polling cards and ballot papers with tablets.
I alerted the tablet-wielders that someone had left their completed ballot paper in the booth. Whether those votes will count, who knows? Can they be sure some party hack (or even I myself) did not add the crosses?
I was curious, so I looked at the Electoral Commission's handbook for polling station staff, but it doesn't mention the point. I found that a little surprising -- it seems like it would probably come up often enough to be worth having the standard approach written down.
"A KLM flight attendant from Haarlem has been hospitalized due to a possible hantavirus infection. She came into contact with the 69-year-old Dutch woman who died of the virus in Johannesburg, South Africa. The flight attendant is in isolation at Amsterdam UMC with mild symptoms. She is currently being tested for the hantavirus, the Ministry of Public Health confirmed."
It’s specifically Andes virus and we’ve known for many years that Andes virus can spread from human to human.
Met police arrest man over theft of Morgan McSweeney’s phone
Suspect, 28, is accused of selling the device that belonged to Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff and contained WhatsApp messages about Peter Mandelson
Lots of "Oh shit..." circulating around Number 10....
The crucial bit: "The phone has not been found"
... yet.
Lots of popcorn at the ready if it does surface!
On a separate note, interesting to see we can solve this sort of crime, and months after the event if there is sufficient political pressure. Maybe if we did this more often, then gave the perps good long sentences to keep them away from the streets, there would be fewer phones snatched in the first place.
"A KLM flight attendant from Haarlem has been hospitalized due to a possible hantavirus infection. She came into contact with the 69-year-old Dutch woman who died of the virus in Johannesburg, South Africa. The flight attendant is in isolation at Amsterdam UMC with mild symptoms. She is currently being tested for the hantavirus, the Ministry of Public Health confirmed."
Although hantavirus does present rather similar to other respiratory viruses...
Zack Polanski has claimed that neither Israel nor any other country has a right to exist
Why can’t he just be quiet? Bizarre strategy.
Maybe he thinks he can gain more anti-semitic votes than he loses. The strategy seemed to work (to a point) for Corbyn
On the subject of anti-semitism, would any of these images be tolerated of any other Jewish politician?
Incidentally a bizarre response to blame the Green Party for right wing press cartoons.
Perfectly ok as we have been assured on here that Polanski has a 'hooked nose'
He does though. Its tricky for cartoonists who will exaggerate features of the subject for comic effect. I'd argue Polanski's features of note are (1) his gap in his teeth and (2) a rather large nose.
Can’t be arsed having a long exchange about physiognomy but as I said before I don’t see a hooked nose. Nevertheless even I did, given the long, ignoble history of antisemitic cartooning I would avoid heavily exaggerating that feature of a Jewish politician.
It's the Telegraph one that particularly jumps out at me as bad.
Top right is the worst afaic. Looks as though it comes from the Mail - you'd have thought with its inglorious history in relation to antisemitism, it could be a little more careful.
They are all bad.
The only one I am inclined to clear of the anti-semitism charge is the one by Brookes. He's just an awful cartoonist who makes all his subjects look subhuman (note what he does with the teeth and ears).
Pathetic, Sainsburys deserves a boycott until he is reinstated
Until it's the police budget paying for have a go hero gone wrong compensation rather than the store, the store is going to be forced to protect itself against compensation claims. The solution is the police getting some real motivation to enforce the law.
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
There seems to have been distressingly little advance in materials science to improve the durability of road surfaces over the last few decades. That, or increasing lorry traffic has demolished any gains made.
Isn't it also something to do with the increasing weight of many modern tanks cars?
That won't help, but is really very marginal. The legal limit on axle weight for an HGV in Britain is 10,500kg, while that of even a monstrous vehicle like the Cybertruck is only ~1,500kg. Because road wear is proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight, it means that one HGV produces as much road wear as 2,401 Cybertrucks.
Road wear is almost completely about HGVs.
Cybertruck is 3,000+ kg.
Yeah, but it has two axles.
Apparently the average weight of new cars has increased by 400kg over 7 years. There are 32 million cars in the UK. How many extra HGV's does that work out at?
Good question.
The average weight increased from 1553kg to 1947kg (according to autocar, between 2016 and 2023) That's about 150% extra wear from each car.
At the 2016 average weight, each HGV axle is responsible for as much wear as 33,434 car axles. So if the average weight increase applies to all 32 million cars (it will take time for that to be the case) then it's about 1,500 HGVs worth of extra wear.
But the HGVs will generally be driven more than each of the 32 million cars, so it would take fewer extra HGVs on the roads to create the extra wear from the increased weight of the cars.
If all cars end up weighing the 2023 average* then they will produce as much road wear as... 2,364 HGVs.
There are estimated to be 625,800 HGVs in Britain. So, even if you assume that the HGVs and cars have the same mileage, and all the cars are at 2023 average weight, the HGVs will be responsible for about 265 times the road wear as the cars. In other words (neglecting LGVs, buses, etc) cars are responsible for less than 0.4% of road wear. Even though the cars are heavier now.
* This isn't really an accurate way of doing the calculation - it will slightly underestimate the road wear from cars to use the average weight, but it doesn't really matter.
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
There seems to have been distressingly little advance in materials science to improve the durability of road surfaces over the last few decades. That, or increasing lorry traffic has demolished any gains made.
The answer is (sort of) quite simple - concrete rather than tarmac. There was a phase in the 70s/80s when we were shifting in that direction. It's marginally more expensive to lay, but iirc about double the lifespan.
The problem is that concrete gives much higher road noise, so people (understandably) campaign vociferously against it.
I suspect that most efforts to improve wear performance ultimately just effectively reinvent equivalents to concrete with it's attendant problems.
Ah, that kinda makes sense. I guess if you dissipate more of the energy as noise then less of the energy will damage the road surface.
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
There seems to have been distressingly little advance in materials science to improve the durability of road surfaces over the last few decades. That, or increasing lorry traffic has demolished any gains made.
Isn't it also something to do with the increasing weight of many modern tanks cars?
That won't help, but is really very marginal. The legal limit on axle weight for an HGV in Britain is 10,500kg, while that of even a monstrous vehicle like the Cybertruck is only ~1,500kg. Because road wear is proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight, it means that one HGV produces as much road wear as 2,401 Cybertrucks.
Road wear is almost completely about HGVs.
Cybertruck is 3,000+ kg.
Yeah, but it has two axles.
Apparently the average weight of new cars has increased by 400kg over 7 years. There are 32 million cars in the UK. How many extra HGV's does that work out at?
5,500 fully laden 6-axle at 44 tonnes.
(Assuming increase from 1.5 tonne to 1.9)
I assumed the maximum legal limit axle weight, so your number is probably a bit more accurate.
Pathetic, Sainsburys deserves a boycott until he is reinstated
Until it's the police budget paying for have a go hero gone wrong compensation rather than the store, the store is going to be forced to protect itself against compensation claims. The solution is the police getting some real motivation to enforce the law.
One senses the baleful influence of legal advisers in the background here.
Upshot is that if you want to improve the condition of the roads the single easiest way to achieve that is to increase the amount of freight that travels by rail.
This country is mad... Like, it's literally lost it's mind!
I listened to 8 hours of The Rest is History on my 4 day road trip. 1974 and 1975-78. An awful lot of comparables even in different circumstances. We can't go on as we have been doing.
Pathetic, Sainsburys deserves a boycott until he is reinstated
Until it's the police budget paying for have a go hero gone wrong compensation rather than the store, the store is going to be forced to protect itself against compensation claims. The solution is the police getting some real motivation to enforce the law.
One senses the baleful influence of legal advisers in the background here.
What choice have they got? Give the bloke a medal and say well done - then when someone else copies him and gets stabbed they'll have actively encouraged it.
Either the police start doing their job, or we legislate away compensation rights - otherwise shops are going to be forced to tell their staff to put safety first and enforce that policy when someone goes off script.
Met police arrest man over theft of Morgan McSweeney’s phone
Suspect, 28, is accused of selling the device that belonged to Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff and contained WhatsApp messages about Peter Mandelson
Pathetic, Sainsburys deserves a boycott until he is reinstated
Until it's the police budget paying for have a go hero gone wrong compensation rather than the store, the store is going to be forced to protect itself against compensation claims. The solution is the police getting some real motivation to enforce the law.
One senses the baleful influence of legal advisers in the background here.
Indeed. All of this is downstream from the backlog in the courts & the overcrowding of the prisons: Police / CPS aren’t going to bother prosecuting what they have been told by the Home Office is a minor crime - until the end of last month theft under goods under £200 was effectively de-criminalised.
The end result is these repeat offenders never being effectively punished because no individual crime rises to the level of something regarded as prosecutable so. Even if they are arrested, any enforcement will happen two years down the line when they’ll be given a caution & put back on the streets. So they just keep offending until they cross the line & seriously harm somebody leaving a trail of traumatised shop workers in their wake in the meantime.
The government will point to the recently passed Crime & Policing bill as their response which does at least end the de facto de-criminalisation of theft under £200. We’ll have to see whether it has any actual effect in the real world, or whether the bottlenecks elsewhere in the justice system prevent those changes having any real effect: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/biggest-shake-up-in-decades-to-tackle-local-crime
Good look to everybody voting against Reform today.
Such petty small minded self-harming bollocks. You'd rather give power to Polanski's lot. Makes me want to vote Reform to be honest, though that would still be allowing your witless drivel to influence me in some form.
Pathetic, Sainsburys deserves a boycott until he is reinstated
Until it's the police budget paying for have a go hero gone wrong compensation rather than the store, the store is going to be forced to protect itself against compensation claims. The solution is the police getting some real motivation to enforce the law.
One senses the baleful influence of legal advisers in the background here.
What choice have they got? Give the bloke a medal and say well done - then when someone else copies him and gets stabbed they'll have actively encouraged it.
Either the police start doing their job, or we legislate away compensation rights - otherwise shops are going to be forced to tell their staff to put safety first and enforce that policy when someone goes off script.
The police never enforced the law on shop lifting directly. There were never enough of them, on their own.
Usually, they always did what happened here. The shop staff and any passersby restrained the shoplifter until the police arrived.
Pathetic, Sainsburys deserves a boycott until he is reinstated
Until it's the police budget paying for have a go hero gone wrong compensation rather than the store, the store is going to be forced to protect itself against compensation claims. The solution is the police getting some real motivation to enforce the law.
One senses the baleful influence of legal advisers in the background here.
What choice have they got? Give the bloke a medal and say well done - then when someone else copies him and gets stabbed they'll have actively encouraged it.
Either the police start doing their job, or we legislate away compensation rights - otherwise shops are going to be forced to tell their staff to put safety first and enforce that policy when someone goes off script.
The police doing their job would be a very good start, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world should forego the use of common sense.
I know this is anathema to lawyers and can only imagine how many thousands of them will be put out of work if it is applied wholesale across the board, but the rest of us are entitled to have some say.
This country is mad... Like, it's literally lost it's mind!
I listened to 8 hours of The Rest is History on my 4 day road trip. 1974 and 1975-78. An awful lot of comparables even in different circumstances. We can't go on as we have been doing.
This country is mad... Like, it's literally lost it's mind!
I listened to 8 hours of The Rest is History on my 4 day road trip. 1974 and 1975-78. An awful lot of comparables even in different circumstances. We can't go on as we have been doing.
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
There seems to have been distressingly little advance in materials science to improve the durability of road surfaces over the last few decades. That, or increasing lorry traffic has demolished any gains made.
Isn't it also something to do with the increasing weight of many modern tanks cars?
That won't help, but is really very marginal. The legal limit on axle weight for an HGV in Britain is 10,500kg, while that of even a monstrous vehicle like the Cybertruck is only ~1,500kg. Because road wear is proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight, it means that one HGV produces as much road wear as 2,401 Cybertrucks.
Road wear is almost completely about HGVs.
Cybertruck is 3,000+ kg.
Yeah, but it has two axles.
Apparently the average weight of new cars has increased by 400kg over 7 years. There are 32 million cars in the UK. How many extra HGV's does that work out at?
5,500 fully laden 6-axle at 44 tonnes.
(Assuming increase from 1.5 tonne to 1.9)
I assumed the maximum legal limit axle weight, so your number is probably a bit more accurate.
It's quite simple, lighter vehicles only wear the surface, heavy vehicles wear the surface but also fracture and collapse the subsurface facilities and foundation for the road.
This is a bit awkward for the Thatcherite economists.
Britain has eight big North European neighbours. Of them Britain has, 1/ The weakest economy. 2/ The lowest taxes. 3/ The lowest marginal tax rate on labour at high incomes. The right should be less confident sneering at the idea of "taxing for growth". https://x.com/thomasforth/status/2051763318222659963
Try Switzerland, even lower taxes than the UK and higher gdp per capita than all those 8
The argument is that low taxes do not deliver better growth.
Eight neighbouring countries support the argument versus one not-quite neighbouring country against.
Seems to me that the argument is pretty conclusively proven.
No it isn't, Switzerland has faster growth than its neighbours and us, as does uber low tax Singapore and the UAE and the US also has faster growth than higher tax the UK and most of Europe now
But the money in the US is all going to, like, 15 people.
Pathetic, Sainsburys deserves a boycott until he is reinstated
Until it's the police budget paying for have a go hero gone wrong compensation rather than the store, the store is going to be forced to protect itself against compensation claims. The solution is the police getting some real motivation to enforce the law.
One senses the baleful influence of legal advisers in the background here.
What choice have they got? Give the bloke a medal and say well done - then when someone else copies him and gets stabbed they'll have actively encouraged it.
Either the police start doing their job, or we legislate away compensation rights - otherwise shops are going to be forced to tell their staff to put safety first and enforce that policy when someone goes off script.
The police doing their job would be a very good start, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world should forego the use of common sense.
I know this is anathema to lawyers and can only imagine how many thousands of them will be put out of work if it is applied wholesale across the board, but the rest of us are entitled to have some say.
Ha, I'd love them all to be out of business - but until they are not many people (besides you?) will want to be made liable for encouraging minimum wage staff to take on untrained security roles
The couple who drove me to Sainsbury's had already failed to vote twice. They'd been turned away from two wrong polling stations. Let's hope it will be third time lucky on their way home from the shops.
It won’t be long before shoplifters are winning awards from Supermarkets. Shoplifter of the month, win a free crate of Stella and 20 Bensons.
I remember back in the day when supermarkets ultimate competition prize was we will let you do a supermarket sweep, you get to keep whatever you can get in your trolley in 30 mins. Now it appears that happens every day, and no entry needed.
And here is the problem with the required ID. Voter turned up today in tight ward with required id. However having changed name (presumably got married) all her id is with her new name, but the name on the register is her old name. Who thinks of changing that outside of the normal annual update.
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
Me too. And it's fucking ridiculous how slowly they are being addressed.
Never mind, Casino, there is some very good news coming from Hampshire today. Apparently beavers have been spotted in a nature reserve for the first time:
Perhaps you can keep an eye open for them and let us know if you have any success in spotting beavers locally. I am sure we would all like to hear about it if you did.
Pathetic, Sainsburys deserves a boycott until he is reinstated
Probelm is Morrisons have done the same recently. Didn't Co-Op or Waitrose also have a similar scenario. If you follow through with boycotting all the supermarkets that have taken this stance (I presume after consultation with lawyers on what their exposure to employees doing this) the only people you will be buying food off is the people actually nicking it in the first place.
Good look to everybody voting against Reform today.
Such petty small minded self-harming bollocks. You'd rather give power to Polanski's lot. Makes me want to vote Reform to be honest, though that would still be allowing your witless drivel to influence me in some form.
Two ends of the same horseshoe afaic.
One will keep the lights on.
The Greens, it'll be a low energy LED putting out the same lux powered by a small solar PV with battery storage that'll last for years and cost next to FA. But it'll be really loud because of all the idiots whining about it.
Met police arrest man over theft of Morgan McSweeney’s phone
Suspect, 28, is accused of selling the device that belonged to Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff and contained WhatsApp messages about Peter Mandelson
What are the chances of a) the plod actually tracking down a stolen phone and b) it not already have been exported to China for parts or Africa for resale? Unlucky Rodney.
Pathetic, Sainsburys deserves a boycott until he is reinstated
I agree with your sentiment. None of these people should be sacked, but just from the last few weeks you will be boycotting Waitrose, Sainsburys and Asda. You are going to run out of shops to go to.
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
Me too. And it's fucking ridiculous how slowly they are being addressed.
Never mind, Casino, there is some very good news coming from Hampshire today. Apparently beavers have been spotted in a nature reserve for the first time:
Perhaps you can keep an eye open for them and let us know if you have any success in spotting beavers locally. I am sure we would all like to hear about it if you did.
There's some in Invergowrie near my daughters. The damage to the trees around their den is genuinely spectacular.
Met police arrest man over theft of Morgan McSweeney’s phone
Suspect, 28, is accused of selling the device that belonged to Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff and contained WhatsApp messages about Peter Mandelson
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
Me too. And it's fucking ridiculous how slowly they are being addressed.
Never mind, Casino, there is some very good news coming from Hampshire today. Apparently beavers have been spotted in a nature reserve for the first time:
Perhaps you can keep an eye open for them and let us know if you have any success in spotting beavers locally. I am sure we would all like to hear about it if you did.
There's some in Invergowrie near my daughters. The damage to the trees around their den is genuinely spectacular.
Apparently they live in a lodge, not a den. Not everyday rodents, your beavers.
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
There seems to have been distressingly little advance in materials science to improve the durability of road surfaces over the last few decades. That, or increasing lorry traffic has demolished any gains made.
Isn't it also something to do with the increasing weight of many modern tanks cars?
That won't help, but is really very marginal. The legal limit on axle weight for an HGV in Britain is 10,500kg, while that of even a monstrous vehicle like the Cybertruck is only ~1,500kg. Because road wear is proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight, it means that one HGV produces as much road wear as 2,401 Cybertrucks.
Road wear is almost completely about HGVs.
Cybertruck is 3,000+ kg.
Yeah, but it has two axles.
Apparently the average weight of new cars has increased by 400kg over 7 years. There are 32 million cars in the UK. How many extra HGV's does that work out at?
5,500 fully laden 6-axle at 44 tonnes.
(Assuming increase from 1.5 tonne to 1.9)
I assumed the maximum legal limit axle weight, so your number is probably a bit more accurate.
It's quite simple, lighter vehicles only wear the surface, heavy vehicles wear the surface but also fracture and collapse the subsurface facilities and foundation for the road.
It’s also what the road is designed for. I’d wager that HGVs charging up and down motorways isn’t anywhere near as problematic as 3-tonne SUVs rolling around housing estates.
Have we had the obiligatory reports of voting being brisk yet?
Report from New Pitsligo polling station: turnout is roughly the same as 5 years ago. Memorably in that election (my first in Scotland) I had am enjoyable contretemps with Alex Salmond who had illegally parked his Alba-graphiced car directly outside the door. Told him to shift it. "I am the candidate, that law doesn't apply to me" / "interesting concept, shall I ask the Returning Officer to confirm that?"
It won’t be long before shoplifters are winning awards from Supermarkets. Shoplifter of the month, win a free crate of Stella and 20 Bensons.
I remember back in the day when supermarkets ultimate competition prize was we will let you do a supermarket sweep, you get to keep whatever you can get in your trolley in 30 mins. Now it appears that happens every day, and no entry needed.
I do wonder, when I’m in the toon or Durham, what would happen if I just went into Greggs and walked out with a sandwich.
It does seem to be a crime where the shop on the receiving end cares more for the perpetrator
But, joking aside, there will come a point where the majority who abide by the rules and laws will think ‘why bother’ when there’s no comeback for those who don’t.
The guy Sainsburys were going into bat for was a prolific champagne thief. I pay for my wines from Sainsburys. I bought a bottle of a wonderful wine today from there today called Jam Shed. A true classic of the genre..
But why should I if I can just go in, help myself, and go home 🤔
Which poses the obvious question - we've now got 50% more plod per head of population than in 1960. Why do we also have far more crime?
We don’t.
We do and we don't but friends of mine have spent their old age studying this at second degree level. We have more defined crime - once upon a time stepping on the cracks in a pavement was bad form now it is an indictable offence. We have more detected crime - once upon a time you could step on the cracks in the pavement and nobody noticed so you got away with it, now there is almost certainly CCTV evidence There is a greater willingness to report some crimes - someone will now report you as a stepper on the cracks in the pavement whereas once they wouldn't. The police have to log many reports of crimes which were once seen as trivial. In former times they wouldn't have made a record of you being reported for stepping on the cracks in the pavement. And so on
Seems Saudi Arabia holds some cards. The US has never been so isolated.
President Donald Trump’s abrupt reversal on his plan to help ships go through the Strait of Hormuz came after a key Gulf ally suspended the U.S. military’s ability to use its bases and airspace to carry out the operation, according to two U.S. officials.
Trump surprised Gulf allies by announcing “Project Freedom”, the officials said, angering leadership in Saudi Arabia. In response, the Kingdom informed the U.S. it would not allow the U.S. military to fly aircraft from Prince Sultan Airbase or fly through Saudi airspace to support the effort.
A call between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not resolve the issue, the two U.S. officials said, forcing the president to pause Project Freedom in order to restore U.S. military access to the critical airspace.-NBC News
Having spoken to a senior Saudi official about the NBC article regarding Project Freedom, I honestly think the article completely misunderstood what actually happened because it was written almost entirely from a US perspective rather than from a GCC perspective.
First of all, contrary to the impression being created, the GCC were NOT blindsided by Project Freedom.
They knew about it beforehand. Roughly half a day before. The airspace was opened. The facilities were available. Nobody objected. There was broad support for the idea because, at least publicly, Project Freedom was supposed to be a limited humanitarian-security operation aimed at relieving the 22,000 sailors trapped around Hormuz and allowing shipping lanes to breathe again.
Nobody in the GCC had a problem with that.
But here is the issue .. and this is the part the NBC article completely misses. If you are asking GCC countries to participate in such an operation, then you need to be upfront about the rules of engagement from day one!
You cannot say: “Please open your skies and bases, expose your energy infrastructure” …only for everyone to discover afterwards that the actual American policy was apparently:
“Oh by the way, if Iran attacks you with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones in several waves, we still won’t retaliate because Donald Trump is busy chasing The Deal.”
And this is exactly what shocked the Saudis. Not the Iranian attack itself.
The UAE/GCC expected retaliation.. This is Iran. Nobody in the Gulf is naïve about that anymore. The shock came from the American reaction afterwards.
You had attacks against Emirati infrastructure. Fujairah was targeted. Multiple waves involving drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles.
And Washington’s response was basically: “Meh. Minor incident. Let’s not escalate.” Minor incident?!
For the GCC that was madness.
Because what Riyadh, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi suddenly realized was that Trump’s obsession with preserving “The Deal” had apparently reached the point where Gulf energy infrastructure was now considered acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of his precious negotiations.
Everything became: The deal. The deal. The beautiful deal. The greatest deal. The mother of all deals. The ultimate “Art of the deal” Or perhaps, more accurately: The ultimate fart of the deal.
Which poses the obvious question - we've now got 50% more plod per head of population than in 1960. Why do we also have far more crime?
We don’t.
We do and we don't but friends of mine have spent their old age studying this at second degree level. We have more defined crime - once upon a time stepping on the cracks in a pavement was bad form now it is an indictable offence. We have more detected crime - once upon a time you could step on the cracks in the pavement and nobody noticed so you got away with it, now there is almost certainly CCTV evidence There is a greater willingness to report some crimes - someone will now report you as a stepper on the cracks in the pavement whereas once they wouldn't. The police have to log many reports of crimes which were once seen as trivial. In former times they wouldn't have made a record of you being reported for stepping on the cracks in the pavement. And so on
One wonders also about police numbers. Did they include Specials? Do they include PCSOs?
Which poses the obvious question - we've now got 50% more plod per head of population than in 1960. Why do we also have far more crime?
We don’t.
We do and we don't but friends of mine have spent their old age studying this at second degree level. We have more defined crime - once upon a time stepping on the cracks in a pavement was bad form now it is an indictable offence. We have more detected crime - once upon a time you could step on the cracks in the pavement and nobody noticed so you got away with it, now there is almost certainly CCTV evidence There is a greater willingness to report some crimes - someone will now report you as a stepper on the cracks in the pavement whereas once they wouldn't. The police have to log many reports of crimes which were once seen as trivial. In former times they wouldn't have made a record of you being reported for stepping on the cracks in the pavement. And so on
E&W has a crime survey since 1981 that just asks people if they have experienced crime. That's by far the best way to measure it, and it shows huge decreases across everything except fraud. For example, in my lifetime, theft is down 78%, violent crime is s down 75%, criminal damage down 82%.
PBers point this out all the time and yet the misperception persists, even on a forum as informed as this.
Seems Saudi Arabia holds some cards. The US has never been so isolated.
President Donald Trump’s abrupt reversal on his plan to help ships go through the Strait of Hormuz came after a key Gulf ally suspended the U.S. military’s ability to use its bases and airspace to carry out the operation, according to two U.S. officials.
Trump surprised Gulf allies by announcing “Project Freedom”, the officials said, angering leadership in Saudi Arabia. In response, the Kingdom informed the U.S. it would not allow the U.S. military to fly aircraft from Prince Sultan Airbase or fly through Saudi airspace to support the effort.
A call between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not resolve the issue, the two U.S. officials said, forcing the president to pause Project Freedom in order to restore U.S. military access to the critical airspace.-NBC News
Having spoken to a senior Saudi official about the NBC article regarding Project Freedom, I honestly think the article completely misunderstood what actually happened because it was written almost entirely from a US perspective rather than from a GCC perspective.
(snip)
Because what Riyadh, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi suddenly realized was that Trump’s obsession with preserving “The Deal” had apparently reached the point where Gulf energy infrastructure was now considered acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of his precious negotiations.
Everything became: The deal. The deal. The beautiful deal.[...] .”
The war (aka pursuit of the deal) is bad for business. And was from the start. It's a simple as that.
If Trump hadn't dumped the JCPOA (which is effectively what he's now trying to recreate), we could possibly have avoided most of this mess. (Though some of the Israeli raids would still have taken place.)
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
There seems to have been distressingly little advance in materials science to improve the durability of road surfaces over the last few decades. That, or increasing lorry traffic has demolished any gains made.
Isn't it also something to do with the increasing weight of many modern tanks cars?
That won't help, but is really very marginal. The legal limit on axle weight for an HGV in Britain is 10,500kg, while that of even a monstrous vehicle like the Cybertruck is only ~1,500kg. Because road wear is proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight, it means that one HGV produces as much road wear as 2,401 Cybertrucks.
Road wear is almost completely about HGVs.
Cybertruck is 3,000+ kg.
Yeah, but it has two axles.
Apparently the average weight of new cars has increased by 400kg over 7 years. There are 32 million cars in the UK. How many extra HGV's does that work out at?
5,500 fully laden 6-axle at 44 tonnes.
(Assuming increase from 1.5 tonne to 1.9)
I assumed the maximum legal limit axle weight, so your number is probably a bit more accurate.
It's quite simple, lighter vehicles only wear the surface, heavy vehicles wear the surface but also fracture and collapse the subsurface facilities and foundation for the road.
It’s also what the road is designed for. I’d wager that HGVs charging up and down motorways isn’t anywhere near as problematic as 3-tonne SUVs rolling around housing estates.
Why would you think that? When I was last in Britain (on the M4) before Christmas the wear from HGVs on the motorway was very obvious.
Good look to everybody voting against Reform today.
Such petty small minded self-harming bollocks. You'd rather give power to Polanski's lot. Makes me want to vote Reform to be honest, though that would still be allowing your witless drivel to influence me in some form.
Two ends of the same horseshoe afaic.
One will keep the lights on.
Given Reform support Trump's disastrous war on Iran, which is sending energy prices sky high, presumably you are referring to the Greens as who will keep the lights on, presumably by installing some solar panels.
Well judging by my friends any party that wants to win needs to fix the potholes. It's literally the only issue anyone gives a fuck about.
There seems to have been distressingly little advance in materials science to improve the durability of road surfaces over the last few decades. That, or increasing lorry traffic has demolished any gains made.
Isn't it also something to do with the increasing weight of many modern tanks cars?
That won't help, but is really very marginal. The legal limit on axle weight for an HGV in Britain is 10,500kg, while that of even a monstrous vehicle like the Cybertruck is only ~1,500kg. Because road wear is proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight, it means that one HGV produces as much road wear as 2,401 Cybertrucks.
Road wear is almost completely about HGVs.
Cybertruck is 3,000+ kg.
Yeah, but it has two axles.
Apparently the average weight of new cars has increased by 400kg over 7 years. There are 32 million cars in the UK. How many extra HGV's does that work out at?
5,500 fully laden 6-axle at 44 tonnes.
(Assuming increase from 1.5 tonne to 1.9)
I assumed the maximum legal limit axle weight, so your number is probably a bit more accurate.
It's quite simple, lighter vehicles only wear the surface, heavy vehicles wear the surface but also fracture and collapse the subsurface facilities and foundation for the road.
It’s also what the road is designed for. I’d wager that HGVs charging up and down motorways isn’t anywhere near as problematic as 3-tonne SUVs rolling around housing estates.
Why would you think that? When I was last in Britain (on the M4) before Christmas the wear from HGVs on the motorway was very obvious.
Well, there are pretty stringent standards for the construction and maintenence of A roads and motorways - a statutory requirement. For local council roads, it's effectively a free for all, so your local roads will be whatever your cash strapped council can come up with. Lorries have not become appreciably heavier (and the number has fallen) since those standards were introduced, while the cars and vans running around your estate have become much heavier and there are more of them.
Which poses the obvious question - we've now got 50% more plod per head of population than in 1960. Why do we also have far more crime?
Do we have more crime?
My understanding was that there had been a large decrease in violent crime, and also decreases in property crime. We do have a lot more crimes on the statute book (for example, upskirting was only recently made a criminal offence) and there are some crimes that are taken a lot more seriously today than they were in 1960 (such as domestic violence, child sexual abuse and rape, albeit a lot of progress still to be made).
Some crimes are a lot easier to perpetrate now than they used to be, such as taking and distributing images of child sexual abuse.
Have we had the obiligatory reports of voting being brisk yet?
Voting was languid at my polling place.
Voting also took a long time as I had work through the 22 candidates on the half metre long ballot paper to find one I might put a cross against. Quantity, not quality, in this case.
Supermarkets aren't innocent in all this. They took away tills to save staff costs. Many got rid of all barriers to maximise floor space. If you can go into my local little Sainsbury's and stroll around without anyone having seen you enter and loads of product right by the door then what are they honestly expecting? It's difficult to find an employee in there. There's no place for shop floor staff to actually be. Except behind the kiosk. Which you can't see the exit doors from. And which is locked and needs a code to enter or leave.
Seems Saudi Arabia holds some cards. The US has never been so isolated.
President Donald Trump’s abrupt reversal on his plan to help ships go through the Strait of Hormuz came after a key Gulf ally suspended the U.S. military’s ability to use its bases and airspace to carry out the operation, according to two U.S. officials.
Trump surprised Gulf allies by announcing “Project Freedom”, the officials said, angering leadership in Saudi Arabia. In response, the Kingdom informed the U.S. it would not allow the U.S. military to fly aircraft from Prince Sultan Airbase or fly through Saudi airspace to support the effort.
A call between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not resolve the issue, the two U.S. officials said, forcing the president to pause Project Freedom in order to restore U.S. military access to the critical airspace.-NBC News
Having spoken to a senior Saudi official about the NBC article regarding Project Freedom, I honestly think the article completely misunderstood what actually happened because it was written almost entirely from a US perspective rather than from a GCC perspective.
(snip)
Because what Riyadh, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi suddenly realized was that Trump’s obsession with preserving “The Deal” had apparently reached the point where Gulf energy infrastructure was now considered acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of his precious negotiations.
Everything became: The deal. The deal. The beautiful deal.[...] .”
The war (aka pursuit of the deal) is bad for business. And was from the start. It's a simple as that.
If Trump hadn't dumped the JCPOA (which is effectively what he's now trying to recreate), we could possibly have avoided most of this mess. (Though some of the Israeli raids would still have taken place.)
I have to say if that was the Saudi view - ie Operation Freedom was a small scale humanitarian operation - they are protesting too much. It's either a limited operation or an escalation and the Saudi need to decide which it is, and not just delegate to the Americans.
Supermarkets aren't innocent in all this. They took away tills to save staff costs. Many got rid of all barriers to maximise floor space. If you can go into my local little Sainsbury's and stroll around without anyone having seen you enter and loads of product right by the door then what are they honestly expecting? It's difficult to find an employee in there. There's no place for shop floor staff to actually be. Except behind the kiosk. Which you can't see the exit doors from. And which is locked and needs a code to enter or leave.
You can walk into pretty much any bookstore on the same terms. Do they deserve it too?
Ultimately, it's the thieving shit's fault for being a thieving shit.
Comments
He'd never pass for 28.
The polling station has gone full Palantir AI, or at least now scans polling cards and ballot papers with tablets.
I alerted the tablet-wielders that someone had left their completed ballot paper in the booth. Whether those votes will count, who knows? Can they be sure some party hack (or even I myself) did not add the crosses?
https://nltimes.nl/2026/05/07/klm-flight-attendant-hospitalized-contact-hantavirus-cruise-ship-passenger
"A KLM flight attendant from Haarlem has been hospitalized due to a possible hantavirus infection. She came into contact with the 69-year-old Dutch woman who died of the virus in Johannesburg, South Africa. The flight attendant is in isolation at Amsterdam UMC with mild symptoms. She is currently being tested for the hantavirus, the Ministry of Public Health confirmed."
(Apart from the plague on board that looks like an epic trip, I will note down the name of the cruise company)
“ Thanks to the Electoral Commission we now know that the polling day electorate in Scotland is 4,320,981. The total number of postal voters is 850,185, which is exactly 19.68 per cent of the electorate.” From Holyrood Magazine.
I don’t know how this compares with other areas.
(Assuming increase from 1.5 tonne to 1.9)
The problem is that concrete gives much higher road noise, so people (understandably) campaign vociferously against it.
I suspect that most efforts to improve wear performance ultimately just effectively reinvent equivalents to concrete with it's attendant problems.
https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/antarctica/cruises/pla32d27-atlantic-odyssey-incl-antarctic-peninsula-to-cape-verde
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/sainsburys-worker-sacked-for-tackling-champagne-thief-5HjdYnz_2/
Lots of popcorn at the ready if it does surface!
On a separate note, interesting to see we can solve this sort of crime, and months after the event if there is sufficient political pressure. Maybe if we did this more often, then gave the perps good long sentences to keep them away from the streets, there would be fewer phones snatched in the first place.
The only one I am inclined to clear of the anti-semitism charge is the one by Brookes. He's just an awful cartoonist who makes all his subjects look subhuman (note what he does with the teeth and ears).
TSE should seek permission to use that for the next General Election header.
The average weight increased from 1553kg to 1947kg (according to autocar, between 2016 and 2023) That's about 150% extra wear from each car.
At the 2016 average weight, each HGV axle is responsible for as much wear as 33,434 car axles. So if the average weight increase applies to all 32 million cars (it will take time for that to be the case) then it's about 1,500 HGVs worth of extra wear.
But the HGVs will generally be driven more than each of the 32 million cars, so it would take fewer extra HGVs on the roads to create the extra wear from the increased weight of the cars.
If all cars end up weighing the 2023 average* then they will produce as much road wear as... 2,364 HGVs.
There are estimated to be 625,800 HGVs in Britain. So, even if you assume that the HGVs and cars have the same mileage, and all the cars are at 2023 average weight, the HGVs will be responsible for about 265 times the road wear as the cars. In other words (neglecting LGVs, buses, etc) cars are responsible for less than 0.4% of road wear. Even though the cars are heavier now.
* This isn't really an accurate way of doing the calculation - it will slightly underestimate the road wear from cars to use the average weight, but it doesn't really matter.
Either the police start doing their job, or we legislate away compensation rights - otherwise shops are going to be forced to tell their staff to put safety first and enforce that policy when someone goes off script.
The end result is these repeat offenders never being effectively punished because no individual crime rises to the level of something regarded as prosecutable so. Even if they are arrested, any enforcement will happen two years down the line when they’ll be given a caution & put back on the streets. So they just keep offending until they cross the line & seriously harm somebody leaving a trail of traumatised shop workers in their wake in the meantime.
The government will point to the recently passed Crime & Policing bill as their response which does at least end the de facto de-criminalisation of theft under £200. We’ll have to see whether it has any actual effect in the real world, or whether the bottlenecks elsewhere in the justice system prevent those changes having any real effect: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/biggest-shake-up-in-decades-to-tackle-local-crime
Usually, they always did what happened here. The shop staff and any passersby restrained the shoplifter until the police arrived.
I know this is anathema to lawyers and can only imagine how many thousands of them will be put out of work if it is applied wholesale across the board, but the rest of us are entitled to have some say.
Lowest wages and higher costs is a terrible thing, actually. Be better to have lower costs and higher wages.
I voted at 7.15 this morning on my way to Aberdeen. The only thing even remotely brisk was the morning air.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzmnSyqv37A
Perhaps you can keep an eye open for them and let us know if you have any success in spotting beavers locally. I am sure we would all like to hear about it if you did.
But it'll be really loud because of all the idiots whining about it.
Edit - The phone has not been recovered.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpvp48x2d70o
It does seem to be a crime where the shop on the receiving end cares more for the perpetrator
But, joking aside, there will come a point where the majority who abide by the rules and laws will think ‘why bother’ when there’s no comeback for those who don’t.
The guy Sainsburys were going into bat for was a prolific champagne thief. I pay for my wines from Sainsburys. I bought a bottle of a wonderful wine today from there today called Jam Shed. A true classic of the genre..
But why should I if I can just go in, help myself, and go home 🤔
Saudi Arabia will restrict US access to bases and airspace until it “provides proper protection” from Iran’s attacks, Saudi sources tell i24.
We have more defined crime - once upon a time stepping on the cracks in a pavement was bad form now it is an indictable offence.
We have more detected crime - once upon a time you could step on the cracks in the pavement and nobody noticed so you got away with it, now there is almost certainly CCTV evidence
There is a greater willingness to report some crimes - someone will now report you as a stepper on the cracks in the pavement whereas once they wouldn't.
The police have to log many reports of crimes which were once seen as trivial. In former times they wouldn't have made a record of you being reported for stepping on the cracks in the pavement. And so on
Having spoken to a senior Saudi official about the NBC article regarding Project Freedom, I honestly think the article completely misunderstood what actually happened because it was written almost entirely from a US perspective rather than from a GCC perspective.
First of all, contrary to the impression being created, the GCC were NOT blindsided by Project Freedom.
They knew about it beforehand. Roughly half a day before. The airspace was opened. The facilities were available. Nobody objected. There was broad support for the idea because, at least publicly, Project Freedom was supposed to be a limited humanitarian-security operation aimed at relieving the 22,000 sailors trapped around Hormuz and allowing shipping lanes to breathe again.
Nobody in the GCC had a problem with that.
But here is the issue .. and this is the part the NBC article completely misses.
If you are asking GCC countries to participate in such an operation, then you need to be upfront about the rules of engagement from day one!
You cannot say: “Please open your skies and bases, expose your energy infrastructure”
…only for everyone to discover afterwards that the actual American policy was apparently:
“Oh by the way, if Iran attacks you with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones in several waves, we still won’t retaliate because Donald Trump is busy chasing The Deal.”
And this is exactly what shocked the Saudis. Not the Iranian attack itself.
The UAE/GCC expected retaliation.. This is Iran. Nobody in the Gulf is naïve about that anymore.
The shock came from the American reaction afterwards.
You had attacks against Emirati infrastructure. Fujairah was targeted. Multiple waves involving drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles.
And Washington’s response was basically: “Meh. Minor incident. Let’s not escalate.”
Minor incident?!
For the GCC that was madness.
Because what Riyadh, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi suddenly realized was that Trump’s obsession with preserving “The Deal” had apparently reached the point where Gulf energy infrastructure was now considered acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of his precious negotiations.
Everything became: The deal. The deal. The beautiful deal. The greatest deal. The mother of all deals.
The ultimate “Art of the deal”
Or perhaps, more accurately: The ultimate fart of the deal.
[...]
l.”
https://x.com/aimendean/status/2052314085602292182?s=46
PBers point this out all the time and yet the misperception persists, even on a forum as informed as this.
The war (aka pursuit of the deal) is bad for business. And was from the start.
It's a simple as that.
If Trump hadn't dumped the JCPOA (which is effectively what he's now trying to recreate), we could possibly have avoided most of this mess.
(Though some of the Israeli raids would still have taken place.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkVixOqiGus
My understanding was that there had been a large decrease in violent crime, and also decreases in property crime. We do have a lot more crimes on the statute book (for example, upskirting was only recently made a criminal offence) and there are some crimes that are taken a lot more seriously today than they were in 1960 (such as domestic violence, child sexual abuse and rape, albeit a lot of progress still to be made).
Some crimes are a lot easier to perpetrate now than they used to be, such as taking and distributing images of child sexual abuse.
Voting also took a long time as I had work through the 22 candidates on the half metre long ballot paper to find one I might put a cross against. Quantity, not quality, in this case.
They took away tills to save staff costs. Many got rid of all barriers to maximise floor space.
If you can go into my local little Sainsbury's and stroll around without anyone having seen you enter and loads of product right by the door then what are they honestly expecting? It's difficult to find an employee in there.
There's no place for shop floor staff to actually be.
Except behind the kiosk. Which you can't see the exit doors from. And which is locked and needs a code to enter or leave.
Ultimately, it's the thieving shit's fault for being a thieving shit.