I for one am fascinated by this ongoing debate about how to trigger a Labour Leadership Election.
I promise I've read every word, and not completely skipped over any of your posts.
Good, remember the Labour leadership contest is conducted AV.
Quadruple the excitement
It's so enthralling that I've stopped my usual Monday Night Zombie Appocalypse Planning session to pay full and undivided attention.
To be fair, if we stuck to topics that entertained the masses we'd all be wittering on about The Apprentice. I remember I first came here because I was looking for information about the Cheadle by-election back in 2005. The fact that a concurrent conversation about cheese was going on at the same time was a bonus. If you can't discuss the details of how to trigger a Labour leadership election in excruciating detail here, where can you?
It was precisely because Pop Idol (?) watchers were clogging up the discussion boards on Betfair where Mike was trying to discuss the 2004 US presidential - there being a Pop Idol contestant also called Kerry - that prompted Mike into setting up this site in the first place.
I'm not sure people quite get the situation in Syria:
Assad doesn't have the military numbers to control half the country never mind of all of it. Bearing in mind his opponents want his head on a platter, who exactly is going to provide the manpower for him to win anything considerable against anyone? Many of those shipped in to fight for him are not even fully controlled by his military but are Iranian proxies.
Quiz question for PB mob. Who has the largest single military ground force in Syria?
When you read Corbyn's comments or hear his interviews today, the first and easiest reaction is to think that he is utterly insane. The problem is that he is quite, quite sane. This is, perhaps, what makes him more insidious and more dangerous.
To most on the Left (and indeed probably quite a lot on the more centrist Right), Multiculturalism is a methodology not an ideology. It is a method by which they can ignore the inherent contradictions of allowing core Muslim beliefs such as Kafir, Haraam and Harb to be ignored, to be swept under the carpet and not addressed at all.
This is obviously a mistake, the core tenets of Islam cannot square with peaceful co-existence with Western society. They are diametrically opposed philosophies.
But to Corbyn, Multuculturalism isn't a method, it is his creed. It is his absolute fundamental belief that this apartheid form of society actually works despite all the evidence to the contrary. He cannot accept the evidence in front of his eyes and the outcome which Multiculturalism creates - segregated, ideologically opposed communities. And wherever you find such segregated, ideological opposition, the only possible result is conflict.
The problem with Corbyn is not that he is insane. It is that he is blind.
I'd never heard that motivation for multiculturalism the other day till you outlined it - quite compelling.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
The problem is that there is no overall strategy for Syria.
At its heart, this is probably because the actual solution required is not politically acceptable to the West.
Syria need a similar policy to De-Prussification after WW2. In this example Syria needs wiped from the earth and the population groups ethnically cleansed into coherent individual states.
There is absolutely no chance of the West going with this solution. It makes any military action in Syria utterly futile. It is a perfect example of the Politicians Fallacy.
Going backwards, we can afford it. We pay for it now. There's plenty of government fat that could still be cut if necessary.
The technology isn't outdated now, though there's always the possibility it might become so. All the same, even if the subs were detectable, as long as they could get their missiles off before being hit, the deterrent effect would still be there.
The first three points I have some sympathy with. We should co-operate with the French instead.
Were the submarines detectable, the nuclear aggressor would surely first target them, destroying the deterrent before the threat of nuclear conflict became apparent.
Targeting the nuclear forces is close to a cast-iron trigger for their launch. It gives the nation targeted practically no choice.
Yet that is precisely not the case as the rules do not state the existing leader is not required to get nominations once a challenger has received sufficient nominations to force a contest. The 20% is required to launch a challenge, the 15% of nominations would be required as under the normal rules which clearly the challenger will already have achieved, if the incumbent does not then get 15% of nominations the challenger would then be elected unopposed
Sorry, but that's just fantasy.
.
The
Quote the part of the rulebook that says that. Because the r
Yes, a nomination stage to force a contest if there is no vacancy, once nominations have been achieve
Bear in mind that the election will be governed by the NEC, elected by the Corbynite-dominated membership. What do you think their interpretation of the rule will be?
The NEC also includes representatives of the PLP, MEPs, trades unions and socialist societies, not just constituency Labour Parties
Yes, it does. And going by its constitutional make-up, I'd say that Corbyn should find no difficulty generating a majority on it. The twelve (out of 33) union places are a good start.
If Corbyn fails to make any further progress in 2 years in the polls and starts losing by-elections to UKIP the unions could certainly live with replacing Corbyn by Hilary Benn
Regarding Corbyn's comments, there's no 'shoot to kill' policy in the UK for terrorists anyway. There's an 'in extremis shoot to save innocent lives' policy, which as a side effect may well kill the terrorist.
Oh, Richard please ! Do you have to bring your legalistic stuff always ? You are almost as bad as Corbyn !
Thinking about it Corbyn could have got away with his position if he had invoked the example of Jean Charles DeMenenez
I don't think he is very good thinking on his feet. There is nothing he said today that could not be argued. It is the way he says it.
@BenPBradshaw: Please tell me it's not true Jeremy has said that faced with Kalashnikov wielding genocidal fascists our security forces should not shoot?
"This is obviously a mistake, the core tenets of Islam cannot square with peaceful co-existence with Western society. They are diametrically opposed philosophies."
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
The problem is that there is no overall strategy for Syria.
At its heart, this is probably because the actual solution required is not politically acceptable to the West.
Syria need a similar policy to De-Prussification after WW2. In this example Syria needs wiped from the earth and the population groups ethnically cleansed into coherent individual states.
There is absolutely no chance of the West going with this solution. It makes any military action in Syria utterly futile. It is a perfect example of the Politicians Fallacy.
If you saw Obama's press conference today at Antalya you would know that. In the face of almost relentlessly hostile questioning by the US press, he became increasingly defensive and said he wouldn't change it.
I think Corbyn will have to row back from his disgusting comments today. Or he will be ousted.
Fancy a bet, Sean?
What odds will you give me Corbyn is still in place on Jan 1st 2016?
I do not see any way they can. He will still get the votes of the Momentum bunch and we see every day that NP supports him
I remain of the view Hilary Benn will replace Corbyn in two years time in a Howard like manoeuvre with almost unanimous backing from the PLP, probably following Labour falling behind UKIP in a by-election in a formerly Labour held seat
Please God this happens .... if Benn were then to succeed Cameron as the next Prime Minister, my 949/1 bet then delivers!
He won't be PM of course or win the election, his job will be to make modest progress as Michael Howard did for the Tories and then hand over to Chuka Umunna, Stella Creasey or Dan Jarvis after an election defeat
That is a non sequitur. If Labour progressed under Benn in 2020 on the scale the Tories managed in 2005 a minority Labour Government would be likely - even if Labour remains the second largest party.
Howard picked up 30 seats, that would give Benn about 260 seats ie barely more than Brown got in 2010 and so no grounds for a minority Labour government, especially given boundary changes although I agree a hung parliament is possible
That could still be enough to block the Tories when it came to the Queen's Speech.
Maybe on a few issues perhaps, certainly not enough to form a government
If the Government loses the Queen's Speech vote it falls!
I think Corbyn will have to row back from his disgusting comments today. Or he will be ousted.
Fancy a bet, Sean?
What odds will you give me Corbyn is still in place on Jan 1st 2016?
I do not see any way they can. He will still get the votes of the Momentum bunch and we see every day that NP supports him
I remain of the view Hilary Benn will replace Corbyn in two years time in a Howard like manoeuvre with almost unanimous backing from the PLP, probably following Labour falling behind UKIP in a by-election in a formerly Labour held seat
Please God this happens .... if Benn were then to succeed Cameron as the next Prime Minister, my 949/1 bet then delivers!
He won't be PM of course or win the election, his job will be to make modest progress as Michael Howard did for the Tories and then hand over to Chuka Umunna, Stella Creasey or Dan Jarvis after an election defeat
That is a non sequitur. If Labour progressed under Benn in 2020 on the scale the Tories managed in 2005 a minority Labour Government would be likely - even if Labour remains the second largest party.
Howard picked up 30 seats, that would give Benn about 260 seats ie barely more than Brown got in 2010 and so no grounds for a minority Labour government, especially given boundary changes although I agree a hung parliament is possible
That could still be enough to block the Tories when it came to the Queen's Speech.
Maybe on a few issues perhaps, certainly not enough to form a government
If the Government loses the Queen's Speech vote it falls!
Tories plus UKIP plus DUP/UUP probably gives a majority and the LDs are unlikely to vote down the largest party either
"This is obviously a mistake, the core tenets of Islam cannot square with peaceful co-existence with Western society. They are diametrically opposed philosophies."
Except that this is absolute nonsense.
No, it i the core philosophy of Islam. Kafir denotes all non-believers (often including dhinn) as not human and worthy of death and with no protection under law. Haraam demotes all non-Muslim culture to be as the people and to be destroyed and purged, while Harb denotes that all non-Muslim territory is an actual war zone and battle is to be met regardless of any other consideration.
Kafir, Haraam and Harb make Islam utterly incompatible with the West.
"This is obviously a mistake, the core tenets of Islam cannot square with peaceful co-existence with Western society. They are diametrically opposed philosophies."
I'm not sure people quite get the situation in Syria:
Assad doesn't have the military numbers to control half the country never mind of all of it. Bearing in mind his opponents want his head on a platter, who exactly is going to provide the manpower for him to win anything considerable against anyone? Many of those shipped in to fight for him are not even fully controlled by his military but are Iranian proxies.
Quiz question for PB mob. Who has the largest single military ground force in Syria?
The obvious answer is the Syrian armed forces, but then there's the Iranians and Hezbollah. Or maybe all the combined opposition forces are bigger.
For all I know it could be the combined Celtic and Rangers humanitarian force.
No need to over analyse. JC is a terrible, not very bight politician who is out of his depth.
'Are there circumstances in which you'd support military action against Isiil?' Is not just a reasonable question but one which journalists have a duty to ask. As a Labour Party member I'd like him to answer it.
Ps. NP exMP I've watched the bbc interview if full and he doesn't say anything like what you are saying he said.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
Yet that is precisely not the case as the rules do not state the existing leader is not required to get nominations once a challenger has received sufficient nominations to force a contest. The 20% is required to launch a challenge, the 15% of nominations would be required as under the normal rules which clearly the challenger will already have achieved, if the incumbent does not then get 15% of nominations the challenger would then be elected unopposed
Sorry, but that's just fantasy.
.
The
Quote the part of the rulebook that says that. Because the r
Yes, a nomination stage to force a contest if there is no vacancy, once nominations have been achieve
Bear in mind that the election will be governed by the NEC, elected by the Corbynite-dominated membership. What do you think their interpretation of the rule will be?
The NEC also includes representatives of the PLP, MEPs, trades unions and socialist societies, not just constituency Labour Parties
Yes, it does. And going by its constitutional make-up, I'd say that Corbyn should find no difficulty generating a majority on it. The twelve (out of 33) union places are a good start.
If Corbyn fails to make any further progress in 2 years in the polls and starts losing by-elections to UKIP the unions could certainly live with replacing Corbyn by Hilary Benn
Regarding Corbyn's comments, there's no 'shoot to kill' policy in the UK for terrorists anyway. There's an 'in extremis shoot to save innocent lives' policy, which as a side effect may well kill the terrorist.
Oh, Richard please ! Do you have to bring your legalistic stuff always ? You are almost as bad as Corbyn !
Thinking about it Corbyn could have got away with his position if he had invoked the example of Jean Charles DeMenenez
I don't think he is very good thinking on his feet. There is nothing he said today that could not be argued. It is the way he says it.
Harman burnt her bridges with the left over the welfare vote
I think HYUFD is proving that people believe what they want to believe.
Further evidence -
He was insisting the other night that Hillary Clinton could get indicted by the Feds, win the nomination (in either order), run for office, win, be found guilty, pardon herself, then carry on as POTUS as if nothing has happened.
Technically true
But the reality would be different.
Take Chris Huhne, technically he could have remained an MP after serving his sentence. But we all knew the moment he pleaded guilty he'd have to resign as an MP. Public opinion would demand it, he knew it too, that's why he quit straight away.
The President has the power to pardon unlike MPs under Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution
Stop trying to change the subject - his point was that technically he could have stayed an MP but realistically he couldn't.
That's the way it works here too.
Realistically if Hillary has just won a presidential election she can pardon herself as much as she wants!
Has any country in the world impeached both a husband and wife, separately?!
An impeachment to be successful requires 2/3 of the Senate, the impeachment of Bill failed on that ground as would any attempted impeachment of Hillary
The impeachment of Bill failed because it was a clearly politically motivated attack over a tawdry episode. A president pardoning themselves after having been found guilty in court would be an act of a wholly different magnitude. Nixon did not resign because he fancied more time to play golf.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
I for one am fascinated by this ongoing debate about how to trigger a Labour Leadership Election.
I promise I've read every word, and not completely skipped over any of your posts.
Good, remember the Labour leadership contest is conducted AV.
Quadruple the excitement
It's so enthralling that I've stopped my usual Monday Night Zombie Appocalypse Planning session to pay full and undivided attention.
To be fair, if we stuck to topics that entertained the masses we'd all be wittering on about The Apprentice. I remember I first came here because I was looking for information about the Cheadle by-election back in 2005. The fact that a concurrent conversation about cheese was going on at the same time was a bonus. If you can't discuss the details of how to trigger a Labour leadership election in excruciating detail here, where can you?
It was precisely because Pop Idol (?) watchers were clogging up the discussion boards on Betfair where Mike was trying to discuss the 2004 US presidential - there being a Pop Idol contestant also called Kerry - that prompted Mike into setting up this site in the first place.
Wow! Talk about unintended consequences... James Burke did an entire series that was effectively about that IIRC.
Regarding Corbyn's comments, there's no 'shoot to kill' policy in the UK for terrorists anyway. There's an 'in extremis shoot to save innocent lives' policy, which as a side effect may well kill the terrorist.
That's right - he supports existing policy. There has however been vague media speculation that it was going to change to a "shoot to kill" policy (whatever that would be), and that's what he was asked about. In practice, I can't see a change from the current policy under either party.
I wouldn't say that he supports existing policy. He seems to think there's some alternative to shooting which kills the terrorist.
To put the question more clearly, if he were asked 'Prime Minister, do we have authority to stop this murderous attack by shooting at the terrorist, and to keep shooting until he's clearly dead and therefore no longer a threat?', what would he answer?
I think Corbyn will have to row back from his disgusting comments today. Or he will be ousted.
Fancy a bet, Sean?
What odds will you give me Corbyn is still in place on Jan 1st 2016?
I do not see any way they can. He will still get the votes of the Momentum bunch and we see every day that NP supports him
I remain of the view Hilary Benn will replace Corbyn in two years time in a Howard like manoeuvre with almost unanimous backing from the PLP, probably following Labour falling behind UKIP in a by-election in a formerly Labour held seat
Please God this happens .... if Benn were then to succeed Cameron as the next Prime Minister, my 949/1 bet then delivers!
He won't be PM of course or win the election, his job will be to make modest progress as Michael Howard did for the Tories and then hand over to Chuka Umunna, Stella Creasey or Dan Jarvis after an election defeat
That is a non sequitur. If Labour progressed under Benn in 2020 on the scale the Tories managed in 2005 a minority Labour Government would be likely - even if Labour remains the second largest party.
Howard picked up 30 seats, that would give Benn about 260 seats ie barely more than Brown got in 2010 and so no grounds for a minority Labour government, especially given boundary changes although I agree a hung parliament is possible
That could still be enough to block the Tories when it came to the Queen's Speech.
Maybe on a few issues perhaps, certainly not enough to form a government
If the Government loses the Queen's Speech vote it falls!
Tories plus UKIP plus DUP/UUP probably gives a majority and the LDs are unlikely to vote down the largest party either
I doubt that. re-LDs It was not Ashdown's position in 1992 that he would support the largest party. Farron would probably revert to that - very unlikely to support the Tories again after 2015.
I'm not sure people quite get the situation in Syria:
Assad doesn't have the military numbers to control half the country never mind of all of it. Bearing in mind his opponents want his head on a platter, who exactly is going to provide the manpower for him to win anything considerable against anyone? Many of those shipped in to fight for him are not even fully controlled by his military but are Iranian proxies.
Quiz question for PB mob. Who has the largest single military ground force in Syria?
The obvious answer is the Syrian armed forces, but then there's the Iranians and Hezbollah. Or maybe all the combined opposition forces are bigger.
For all I know it could be the combined Celtic and Rangers humanitarian force.
I don't pretend to know.
Please feel free to enlighten me.
Its the Kurdish-led YPG.
The Syrian army as a singular force musters less, there are Syrian militia units but they seem to have strong elements of warlordism going on and have at times clashed with their own security forces, the Shite militias are a patchwork who come under a series of commands but usually Iranian proxies. IS is in the low-mid 10ks in Syria, the FSA again is a patchwork under all kinds of command structures.
No faction has a single unified command structure as large as the YPG.
Hattie falls in the Clement Attlee category of 'not up to it' as did Andy Burnham which is one of the reasons who Corbyn won. It will be the unions that do for Corbyn, if they stop the money it doesn't matter what the new members think.
I went to my local party agm last week and while there was a large turn out there was only one new passive aggressive Trotskyite and all of he officers were re-elected. Unless they can do it online I don't see the new members getting off their arses to take over the party. They certainly aren't delivering leaflets for sadiq khan.
Regarding Corbyn's comments, there's no 'shoot to kill' policy in the UK for terrorists anyway. There's an 'in extremis shoot to save innocent lives' policy, which as a side effect may well kill the terrorist.
That's right - he supports existing policy. There has however been vague media speculation that it was going to change to a "shoot to kill" policy (whatever that would be), and that's what he was asked about. In practice, I can't see a change from the current policy under either party.
I wouldn't say that he supports existing policy. He seems to think there's some alternative to shooting which kills the terrorist.
To put the question more clearly, if he were asked 'Prime Minister, do we have authority to stop this murderous attack by shooting at the terrorist, and to keep shooting until he's clearly dead and therefore no longer a threat?', what would he answer?
Corbyn is leader of the labour party.... he is expected to know how many beans make 5. He is expected to be coherent and be aware of just what is going on around him. He is clearly clueless on so many counts that even I have run out of numbers. Mr Palmer on the other hand has not even realised that the clock has started running.
I for one am fascinated by this ongoing debate about how to trigger a Labour Leadership Election.
I promise I've read every word, and not completely skipped over any of your posts.
Good, remember the Labour leadership contest is conducted AV.
Quadruple the excitement
It's so enthralling that I've stopped my usual Monday Night Zombie Appocalypse Planning session to pay full and undivided attention.
To be fair, if we stuck to topics that entertained the masses we'd all be wittering on about The Apprentice. I remember I first came here because I was looking for information about the Cheadle by-election back in 2005. The fact that a concurrent conversation about cheese was going on at the same time was a bonus. If you can't discuss the details of how to trigger a Labour leadership election in excruciating detail here, where can you?
It was precisely because Pop Idol (?) watchers were clogging up the discussion boards on Betfair where Mike was trying to discuss the 2004 US presidential - there being a Pop Idol contestant also called Kerry - that prompted Mike into setting up this site in the first place.
Wow! Talk about unintended consequences... James Burke did an entire series that was effectively about that IIRC.
Connections, or how the stirrup led to The Bomb...
I for one am fascinated by this ongoing debate about how to trigger a Labour Leadership Election.
I promise I've read every word, and not completely skipped over any of your posts.
Good, remember the Labour leadership contest is conducted AV.
Quadruple the excitement
It's so enthralling that I've stopped my usual Monday Night Zombie Appocalypse Planning session to pay full and undivided attention.
To be fair, if we stuck to topics that entertained the masses we'd all be wittering on about The Apprentice. I remember I first came here because I was looking for information about the Cheadle by-election back in 2005. The fact that a concurrent conversation about cheese was going on at the same time was a bonus. If you can't discuss the details of how to trigger a Labour leadership election in excruciating detail here, where can you?
It was precisely because Pop Idol (?) watchers were clogging up the discussion boards on Betfair where Mike was trying to discuss the 2004 US presidential - there being a Pop Idol contestant also called Kerry - that prompted Mike into setting up this site in the first place.
Wow! Talk about unintended consequences... James Burke did an entire series that was effectively about that IIRC.
Connections, or how the stirrup led to The Bomb...
Everything was connected to the B52 as I remember. Yes he jumped the shark a bit there.
I think Corbyn will have to row back from his disgusting comments today. Or he will be ousted.
Fancy a bet, Sean?
What odds will you give me Corbyn is still in place on Jan 1st 2016?
I do not see any way they can. He will still get the votes of the Momentum bunch and we see every day that NP supports him
I remain of the view Hilary Benn will replace Corbyn in two years time in a Howard like manoeuvre with almost unanimous backing from the PLP, probably following Labour falling behind UKIP in a by-election in a formerly Labour held seat
Please God this happens .... if Benn were then to succeed Cameron as the next Prime Minister, my 949/1 bet then delivers!
He won't be PM of course or win the election, his job will be to make modest progress as Michael Howard did for the Tories and then hand over to Chuka Umunna, Stella Creasey or Dan Jarvis after an election defeat
That is a non sequitur. If Labour progressed under Benn in 2020 on the scale the Tories managed in 2005 a minority Labour Government would be likely - even if Labour remains the second largest party.
Howard picked up 30 seats, that would give Benn about 260 seats ie barely more than Brown got in 2010 and so no grounds for a minority Labour government, especially given boundary changes although I agree a hung parliament is possible
That could still be enough to block the Tories when it came to the Queen's Speech.
Maybe on a few issues perhaps, certainly not enough to form a government
If the Government loses the Queen's Speech vote it falls!
Tories plus UKIP plus DUP/UUP probably gives a majority and the LDs are unlikely to vote down the largest party either
I doubt that. re-LDs It was not Ashdown's position in 1992 that he would support the largest party. Farron would probably revert to that - very unlikely to support the Tories again after 2015.
He would not support a Labour government with no mandate either but vote on an issue by issue basis. I would still expect Tories plus DUP/UUP plus UKIP to have a majority anyway
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
I'm not sure people quite get the situation in Syria:
Assad doesn't have the military numbers to control half the country never mind of all of it. Bearing in mind his opponents want his head on a platter, who exactly is going to provide the manpower for him to win anything considerable against anyone? Many of those shipped in to fight for him are not even fully controlled by his military but are Iranian proxies.
Quiz question for PB mob. Who has the largest single military ground force in Syria?
The obvious answer is the Syrian armed forces, but then there's the Iranians and Hezbollah. Or maybe all the combined opposition forces are bigger.
For all I know it could be the combined Celtic and Rangers humanitarian force.
I don't pretend to know.
Please feel free to enlighten me.
Its the Kurdish-led YPG.
The Syrian army as a singular force musters less, there are Syrian militia units but they seem to have strong elements of warlordism going on and have at times clashed with their own security forces, the Shite militias are a patchwork who come under a series of commands but usually Iranian proxies. IS is in the low-mid 10ks in Syria, the FSA again is a patchwork under all kinds of command structures.
No faction has a single unified command structure as large as the YPG.
Who is going to form a coherent government is Belgium is parhaps our most pressing security concern....
What odds will you give me Corbyn is still in place on Jan 1st 2016?
I do not see any way they can. He will still get the votes of the Momentum bunch and we see every day that NP supports him
I remain of the view Hilary Benn will replace Corbyn in two years time in a Howard like manoeuvre with almost unanimous backing from the PLP, probably following Labour falling behind UKIP in a by-election in a formerly Labour held seat
Please God this happens .... if Benn were then to succeed Cameron as the next Prime Minister, my 949/1 bet then delivers!
He won't be PM of course or win the election, his job will be to make modest progress as Michael Howard did for the Tories and then hand over to Chuka Umunna, Stella Creasey or Dan Jarvis after an election defeat
That is a non sequitur. If Labour progressed under Benn in 2020 on the scale the Tories managed in 2005 a minority Labour Government would be likely - even if Labour remains the second largest party.
Howard picked up 30 seats, that would give Benn about 260 seats ie barely more than Brown got in 2010 and so no grounds for a minority Labour government, especially given boundary changes although I agree a hung parliament is possible
That could still be enough to block the Tories when it came to the Queen's Speech.
Maybe on a few issues perhaps, certainly not enough to form a government
If the Government loses the Queen's Speech vote it falls!
That's not necessarily true any more. The FTPA requires an explicit vote of no confidence to boot a government out. You could argue that it was only convention that a government resigned on losing a Queen's Speech (or Budget) and that the convention still applies. Perhaps. But given that the process for changing governments midterm is now laid out in law, it's at the least an open question.
The argument as to why it would remains the same - that a government that can't gain the support of the Commons for its legislative programme or for Supply has lost the House's support to such a fundamental extent that they are tantamount to a vote of no confidence. Against that - and the position I'd take - is that as a VoNC is now required, there is no longer the need for the convention which existed in part to avoid bringing the Palace into politics if a government refused to resign. If an opposition wants to force a government out, there is now a cast-iron means of doing so.
I think HYUFD is proving that people believe what they want to believe.
Further evidence -
He was insisting the other night that Hillary Clinton could get indicted by the Feds, win the nomination (in either order), run for office, win, be found guilty, pardon herself, then carry on as POTUS as if nothing has happened.
Technically true
But the reality would be different.
Take Chris Huhne, technically he could have remained an MP after serving his sentence. But we all knew the moment he pleaded guilty he'd have to resign as an MP. Public opinion would demand it, he knew it too, that's why he quit straight away.
The President has the power to pardon unlike MPs under Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution
Stop trying to change the subject - his point was that technically he could have stayed an MP but realistically he couldn't.
That's the way it works here too.
Realistically if Hillary has just won a presidential election she can pardon herself as much as she wants!
Has any country in the world impeached both a husband and wife, separately?!
An impeachment to be successful requires 2/3 of the Senate, the impeachment of Bill failed on that ground as would any attempted impeachment of Hillary
The impeachment of Bill failed because it was a clearly politically motivated attack over a tawdry episode. A president pardoning themselves after having been found guilty in court would be an act of a wholly different magnitude. Nixon did not resign because he fancied more time to play golf.
Depends what of, being found guilty of not storing emails properly in a manner which was not treasonous is rather different from authorising a burglary, especially if Hillary had just won a general election and a mandate
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
No need to over analyse. JC is a terrible, not very bight politician who is out of his depth.
'Are there circumstances in which you'd support military action against Isiil?' Is not just a reasonable question but one which journalists have a duty to ask. As a Labour Party member I'd like him to answer it.
Ps. NP exMP I've watched the bbc interview if full and he doesn't say anything like what you are saying he said.
His choice of words is very poor though he chooses them carefully. Which makes it even worse. Basically, he cannot think on his feet.
Hattie falls in the Clement Attlee category of 'not up to it' as did Andy Burnham which is one of the reasons who Corbyn won. It will be the unions that do for Corbyn, if they stop the money it doesn't matter what the new members think.
I went to my local party agm last week and while there was a large turn out there was only one new passive aggressive Trotskyite and all of he officers were re-elected. Unless they can do it online I don't see the new members getting off their arses to take over the party. They certainly aren't delivering leaflets for sadiq khan.
I'm not sure people quite get the situation in Syria:
Assad doesn't have the military numbers to control half the country never mind of all of it. Bearing in mind his opponents want his head on a platter, who exactly is going to provide the manpower for him to win anything considerable against anyone? Many of those shipped in to fight for him are not even fully controlled by his military but are Iranian proxies.
Quiz question for PB mob. Who has the largest single military ground force in Syria?
The obvious answer is the Syrian armed forces, but then there's the Iranians and Hezbollah. Or maybe all the combined opposition forces are bigger.
For all I know it could be the combined Celtic and Rangers humanitarian force.
I don't pretend to know.
Please feel free to enlighten me.
Its the Kurdish-led YPG.
The Syrian army as a singular force musters less, there are Syrian militia units but they seem to have strong elements of warlordism going on and have at times clashed with their own security forces, the Shite militias are a patchwork who come under a series of commands but usually Iranian proxies. IS is in the low-mid 10ks in Syria, the FSA again is a patchwork under all kinds of command structures.
No faction has a single unified command structure as large as the YPG.
Who is going to form a coherent government is Belgium is parhaps our most pressing security concern....
It doesn't really matter if none of them apply the measures and resources required.
@DPJHodges: At the next election the Conservatives won't have to campaign. They'll just have to send every voter a DVD of tonight's 10 o'clock news.
In my lifetime i never thought to see such an appalling interview. The man is quite simply mad and the Labour Party and supporters are equally to blame for putting him there. This will never be forgotten whatever they do now. Labour are finished.
I'm just totally confused. Can JC really be that stupid? He is able to see the reaction that he gets by voicing his gut views and then goes on to ramp it up by being even more outlandish in terms of (what I believe must be as apparent to him as to me as) the views of Joe Public. I cannot fathom it and what I can't get anywhere near understanding is a bit frightening however comedic it appears to be on the surface. I hope Labour is not finished. There are many fine Labour politicians, though they will be severely diminished if they don't act NOW.
I do have the lingering suspicion that Labour's time may well have been and gone as a serious mainstream political party.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
- and the Kurds, which is a story in itself?
Well they could get their own homeland
Carved out of what? I have just learned from Y0kel that the Kurdish YPG are the largest force.
That complicates things.
I think we can assume Sykes-Picot is dead, which must make TE Lawrence feel vindicated.
I'm not sure people quite get the situation in Syria:
Assad doesn't have the military numbers to control half the country never mind of all of it. Bearing in mind his opponents want his head on a platter, who exactly is going to provide the manpower for him to win anything considerable against anyone? Many of those shipped in to fight for him are not even fully controlled by his military but are Iranian proxies.
Quiz question for PB mob. Who has the largest single military ground force in Syria?
The obvious answer is the Syrian armed forces, but then there's the Iranians and Hezbollah. Or maybe all the combined opposition forces are bigger.
For all I know it could be the combined Celtic and Rangers humanitarian force.
I don't pretend to know.
Please feel free to enlighten me.
Its the Kurdish-led YPG.
The Syrian army as a singular force musters less, there are Syrian militia units but they seem to have strong elements of warlordism going on and have at times clashed with their own security forces, the Shite militias are a patchwork who come under a series of commands but usually Iranian proxies. IS is in the low-mid 10ks in Syria, the FSA again is a patchwork under all kinds of command structures.
No faction has a single unified command structure as large as the YPG.
Who is going to form a coherent government is Belgium is parhaps our most pressing security concern....
Yes, those two years or so without a mandated government doesn't look so funny now.
Belgium's friendly with Spain on Tuesday has been called off amidst security fears following the deadly attacks in Paris. BBC
According to the beeb, the England France game is going ahead, and the crowd at Wembley will sing the Marseillaise.
How hard can it be?
At every NFL game yesterday there was a moment of silence, and a player ran out carrying the French flag alongside the stars and stripes. Lots of home made signs: Vive La France, Je suis Paris.
His choice of words is very poor though he chooses them carefully. Which makes it even worse. Basically, he cannot think on his feet.
Exactly. And his whole posture is passive aggressive. He goes off into long stop the war talking points digressions and sees everything through the same lens as he has for 30 years. The worst thing is not that he is generally wrong (though he is) but that his views are so banal yet he thinks he is profound. I had reserved judgement but enough is enough he is terrible.
I think HYUFD is proving that people believe what they want to believe.
Further evidence -
He was insisting the other night that Hillary Clinton could get indicted by the Feds, win the nomination (in either order), run for office, win, be found guilty, pardon herself, then carry on as POTUS as if nothing has happened.
Technically true
But the reality would be different.
Take Chris Huhne, technically he could have remained an MP after serving his sentence. But we all knew the moment he pleaded guilty he'd have to resign as an MP. Public opinion would demand it, he knew it too, that's why he quit straight away.
The President has the power to pardon unlike MPs under Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution
Stop trying to change the subject - his point was that technically he could have stayed an MP but realistically he couldn't.
That's the way it works here too.
Realistically if Hillary has just won a presidential election she can pardon herself as much as she wants!
Has any country in the world impeached both a husband and wife, separately?!
An impeachment to be successful requires 2/3 of the Senate, the impeachment of Bill failed on that ground as would any attempted impeachment of Hillary
The impeachment of Bill failed because it was a clearly politically motivated attack over a tawdry episode. A president pardoning themselves after having been found guilty in court would be an act of a wholly different magnitude. Nixon did not resign because he fancied more time to play golf.
Depends what of, being found guilty of not storing emails properly in a manner which was not treasonous is rather different from authorising a burglary, especially if Hillary had just won a general election and a mandate
If it's something trivial then she could just pay the fine and be done with it. She would only need to use the pardon power if it was to avoid a sentence that would materially impact her ability to do the job. Something that serious is an impeachment waiting to happen if a president doesn't resign first.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
I don't think SeanT has ever been to a PBmeet - he once said that he was wary of ...LIKING people and it cramping his style. I'll buy him a drink if he turns up and he can spit it if he likes.
On topic, sorry to disagree with the consensus here, but Corbyn's response on Syria remains right IMO. We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
As for shoot to kill, Corbyn has simply restated existing policy, that the police should respond proportionately, seeking to minimise casualties. That can indeed involve shooting to kill, but that shouldn't be the only option, and won't be in practice.
I can see the case for arguing that Corbyn should tack to the wind in the current climate. But I like the fact that he doesn't, and I'd vote for him again if the necessity arose. So, I suspect, would most of his supporters. Which is why it won't happen any time soon.
You really do want that nomination don't you, at any price.
I'm not sure people quite get the situation in Syria:
Assad doesn't have the military numbers to control half the country never mind of all of it. Bearing in mind his opponents want his head on a platter, who exactly is going to provide the manpower for him to win anything considerable against anyone? Many of those shipped in to fight for him are not even fully controlled by his military but are Iranian proxies.
Quiz question for PB mob. Who has the largest single military ground force in Syria?
The obvious answer is the Syrian armed forces, but then there's the Iranians and Hezbollah. Or maybe all the combined opposition forces are bigger.
For all I know it could be the combined Celtic and Rangers humanitarian force.
I don't pretend to know.
Please feel free to enlighten me.
Its the Kurdish-led YPG.
The Syrian army as a singular force musters less, there are Syrian militia units but they seem to have strong elements of warlordism going on and have at times clashed with their own security forces, the Shite militias are a patchwork who come under a series of commands but usually Iranian proxies. IS is in the low-mid 10ks in Syria, the FSA again is a patchwork under all kinds of command structures.
No faction has a single unified command structure as large as the YPG.
Who is going to form a coherent government is Belgium is parhaps our most pressing security concern....
It doesn't really matter if none of them apply the measures and resources required.
Now Hollande is on a roll, he should just annex Belgium, gift the Dutch part to the Dutch, and pour in the necessary resources to retake control of the problem areas. Given the utter, shambolic ineptitude of the Belgian government, a healthy chunk of the population would probably be over the moon.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
Hattie falls in the Clement Attlee category of 'not up to it' as did Andy Burnham which is one of the reasons who Corbyn won. It will be the unions that do for Corbyn, if they stop the money it doesn't matter what the new members think.
I went to my local party agm last week and while there was a large turn out there was only one new passive aggressive Trotskyite and all of he officers were re-elected. Unless they can do it online I don't see the new members getting off their arses to take over the party. They certainly aren't delivering leaflets for sadiq khan.
Good point, it was the loss of backing of Tory donors which did for IDS, the loss of Union backing could similarly do for Corbyn
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
- and the Kurds, which is a story in itself?
Well they could get their own homeland
Carved out of what? I have just learned from Y0kel that the Kurdish YPG are the largest force.
That complicates things.
I think we can assume Sykes-Picot is dead, which must make TE Lawrence feel vindicated.
Please God this happens .... if Benn were then to succeed Cameron as the next Prime Minister, my 949/1 bet then delivers!
He won't be PM of course or win the election, his job will be to make modest progress as Michael Howard did for the Tories and then hand over to Chuka Umunna, Stella Creasey or Dan Jarvis after an election defeat
That is a non sequitur. If Labour progressed under Benn in 2020 on the scale the Tories managed in 2005 a minority Labour Government would be likely - even if Labour remains the second largest party.
Howard picked up 30 seats, that would give Benn about 260 seats ie barely more than Brown got in 2010 and so no grounds for a minority Labour government, especially given boundary changes although I agree a hung parliament is possible
That could still be enough to block the Tories when it came to the Queen's Speech.
Maybe on a few issues perhaps, certainly not enough to form a government
If the Government loses the Queen's Speech vote it falls!
That's not necessarily true any more. The FTPA requires an explicit vote of no confidence to boot a government out. You could argue that it was only convention that a government resigned on losing a Queen's Speech (or Budget) and that the convention still applies. Perhaps. But given that the process for changing governments midterm is now laid out in law, it's at the least an open question.
The argument as to why it would remains the same - that a government that can't gain the support of the Commons for its legislative programme or for Supply has lost the House's support to such a fundamental extent that they are tantamount to a vote of no confidence. Against that - and the position I'd take - is that as a VoNC is now required, there is no longer the need for the convention which existed in part to avoid bringing the Palace into politics if a government refused to resign. If an opposition wants to force a government out, there is now a cast-iron means of doing so.
We are indeed in new territory here to some extent following the FTPA - but I would expect those parties opposing the Queen's Speech to do likewise if a Vote of Confidence was required. In a 650 House of Commons - 262 Lab + 50 SNP + 3 SDLP + 3 Plaid + 1 Green + Lady H gives 320. That should be enough given that LibDems are unlikely to support the Tories.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
- and the Kurds, which is a story in itself?
Well they could get their own homeland
Which Turkey will Veto.
Depends where it is and Turkey is not in the P5
I think Turkey has a lot more influence over a solution in Syria than you imagine.
I think HYUFD is proving that people believe what they want to believe.
Further evidence -
He was insisting the other night that Hillary Clinton could get indicted by the Feds, win the nomination (in either order), run for office, win, be found guilty, pardon herself, then carry on as POTUS as if nothing has happened.
Technically true
But the reality would be different.
Take Chris Huhne, technically he could have remained an MP after serving his sentence. But we all knew the moment he pleaded guilty he'd have to resign as an MP. Public opinion would demand it, he knew it too, that's why he quit straight away.
The President has the power to pardon unlike MPs under Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution
Stop trying to change the subject - his point was that technically he could have stayed an MP but realistically he couldn't.
That's the way it works here too.
Realistically if Hillary has just won a presidential election she can pardon herself as much as she wants!
Has any country in the world impeached both a husband and wife, separately?!
An impeachment to be successful requires 2/3 of the Senate, the impeachment of Bill failed on that ground as would any attempted impeachment of Hillary
The impeachment of Bill failed because it was a clearly politically motivated attack over a tawdry episode. A president pardoning themselves after having been found guilty in court would be an act of a wholly different magnitude. Nixon did not resign because he fancied more time to play golf.
Depends what of, being found guilty of not storing emails properly in a manner which was not treasonous is rather different from authorising a burglary, especially if Hillary had just won a general election and a mandate
If it's something trivial then she could just pay the fine and be done with it. She would only need to use the pardon power if it was to avoid a sentence that would materially impact her ability to do the job. Something that serious is an impeachment waiting to happen if a president doesn't resign first.
I think a fine is most likely, unless it is treasonous then she would not be able to run anyway
We are indeed in new territory here to some extent following the FTPA - but I would expect those parties opposing the Queen's Speech to do likewise if a Vote of Confidence was required. In a 650 House of Commons - 262 Lab + 50 SNP + 3 SDLP + 3 Plaid + 1 Green + Lady H gives 320. That should be enough given that LibDems are unlikely to support the Tories
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
- and the Kurds, which is a story in itself?
Well they could get their own homeland
Carved out of what? I have just learned from Y0kel that the Kurdish YPG are the largest force.
That complicates things.
I think we can assume Sykes-Picot is dead, which must make TE Lawrence feel vindicated.
The top of Syria and Iraq
Iraq is not long for this world. There are kurds in Turkey too.
@DPJHodges: At the next election the Conservatives won't have to campaign. They'll just have to send every voter a DVD of tonight's 10 o'clock news.
In my lifetime i never thought to see such an appalling interview. The man is quite simply mad and the Labour Party and supporters are equally to blame for putting him there. This will never be forgotten whatever they do now. Labour are finished.
I'm just totally confused. Can JC really be that stupid? He is able to see the reaction that he gets by voicing his gut views and then goes on to ramp it up by being even more outlandish in terms of (what I believe must be as apparent to him as to me as) the views of Joe Public. I cannot fathom it and what I can't get anywhere near understanding is a bit frightening however comedic it appears to be on the surface. I hope Labour is not finished. There are many fine Labour politicians, though they will be severely diminished if they don't act NOW.
I do have the lingering suspicion that Labour's time may well have been and gone as a serious mainstream political party.
Labour are history. To round off a bad day You now have this , it just gets worse and worse.
Mr Corbyn was branded “a f****** disgrace” by one of his own shadow ministers tonight after a fiery meeting of Labour MPs
It was a different story for Shadow International Development Secretary Diane Abbott, who apparently sat writing Christmas cards during the 70-minute clash. “She wasn’t listening to the questions, just writing a big stack of Christmas cards,” said an insider. “It was deeply disrespectful.”
Regarding Corbyn's comments, there's no 'shoot to kill' policy in the UK for terrorists anyway. There's an 'in extremis shoot to save innocent lives' policy, which as a side effect may well kill the terrorist.
That's right - he supports existing policy. There has however been vague media speculation that it was going to change to a "shoot to kill" policy (whatever that would be), and that's what he was asked about. In practice, I can't see a change from the current policy under either party.
Did I hear a whisper, "if you're explaining you're losing"
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
Yet that is precisely not the case as the rules do not state the existing leader is not required to get nominations once a challenger has received sufficient nominations to force a contest. The 20% is required to launch a challenge, the 15% of nominations would be required as under the normal rules which clearly the challenger will already have achieved, if the incumbent does not then get 15% of nominations the challenger would then be elected unopposed
Sorry, but that's just fantasy.
There's nothing to say that they "revert to normal rules". In the contest you have the leader plus any 20% challengers. That's it. These are the normal rules for the situation when there is an existing leader.
The rules ONLY state the mechanism for a challenger to force a contest, once a contest is forced the presumption is it will be conducted under normal rules and the incumbent will then also be required to obtain nominations to enter it.
No - the rules state who will be nominated. Your suggestion would mean that as soon as someone is nominated with 20%, then Corbyn ceases to be leader. That is the only way to then redo under the "no leader" rules.
That is not credible.
Exactly. The nomination phase is mentioned as either under no leader, or with a leader. Once the nomination phase is over you move on to the next stage (leader re-elected unopposed or a contest between challengers/leader). Nothing says you re-do the nomination stage all over again.
The
Quote the part of the rulebook that says that. Because the r
Yes, a nomination stage to force a contest if there is no vacancy, once nominations have been achieved to force that contest it is fought on normal rules and the nomination process is not complete until any other candidates have received sufficient nominees to force a challenge
Bear in mind that the election will be governed by the NEC, elected by the Corbynite-dominated membership. What do you think their interpretation of the rule will be?
The NEC also includes representatives of the PLP, MEPs, trades unions and socialist societies, not just constituency Labour Parties
Yes, it does. And going by its constitutional make-up, I'd say that Corbyn should find no difficulty generating a majority on it. The twelve (out of 33) union places are a good start.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
This is quite hilarious - we've just all been united in our condemnation of militant Islam, and you think the best plan is to hand over great chunks of a country to... ...Militant Sunni Muslims. Do you realise Al Qaeda is a non-ISIS Sunni group (as only one example). By what right do you tell a woman who has been able to wear what she likes, do what job she likes, drive a car etc., that she now faces displacement or the prospect of living in Saudi-aligned Syriastan?
Key words 'as I understand it', there is nothing that states the incumbent automatically appears on the ballot by default at all
Chapter clause II, Rule D(i) states that “When the PLP is in opposition, the election of the leader and deputy leader shall take place at each annual session of party conference
He's on the ballot, automatically, every year, challenge or not
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
- and the Kurds, which is a story in itself?
Well they could get their own homeland
Carved out of what? I have just learned from Y0kel that the Kurdish YPG are the largest force.
That complicates things.
I think we can assume Sykes-Picot is dead, which must make TE Lawrence feel vindicated.
The top of Syria and Iraq
Iraq is not long for this world. There are kurds in Turkey too.
@DPJHodges: At the next election the Conservatives won't have to campaign. They'll just have to send every voter a DVD of tonight's 10 o'clock news.
In my lifetime i never thought to see such an appalling interview. The man is quite simply mad and the Labour Party and supporters are equally to blame for putting him there. This will never be forgotten whatever they do now. Labour are finished.
I'm just totally confused. Can JC really be that stupid? He is able to see the reaction that he gets by voicing his gut views and then goes on to ramp it up by being even more outlandish in terms of (what I believe must be as apparent to him as to me as) the views of Joe Public. I cannot fathom it and what I can't get anywhere near understanding is a bit frightening however comedic it appears to be on the surface. I hope Labour is not finished. There are many fine Labour politicians, though they will be severely diminished if they don't act NOW.
I do have the lingering suspicion that Labour's time may well have been and gone as a serious mainstream political party.
Labour are history. To round off a bad day You now have this , it just gets worse and worse.
Mr Corbyn was branded “a f****** disgrace” by one of his own shadow ministers tonight after a fiery meeting of Labour MPs
It was a different story for Shadow International Development Secretary Diane Abbott, who apparently sat writing Christmas cards during the 70-minute clash. “She wasn’t listening to the questions, just writing a big stack of Christmas cards,” said an insider. “It was deeply disrespectful.”
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
- and the Kurds, which is a story in itself?
Well they could get their own homeland
Which Turkey will Veto.
Depends where it is and Turkey is not in the P5
I think Turkey has a lot more influence over a solution in Syria than you imagine.
They've been a far greater cause of the problems, than most realise, that's for sure.
We are indeed in new territory here to some extent following the FTPA - but I would expect those parties opposing the Queen's Speech to do likewise if a Vote of Confidence was required. In a 650 House of Commons - 262 Lab + 50 SNP + 3 SDLP + 3 Plaid + 1 Green + Lady H gives 320. That should be enough given that LibDems are unlikely to support the Tories
You are forgetting the boundary changes and your numbers are still short and the fact that in no circumstances will the PLP attempt to form a government reliant on the SNP, they loathe them even more than the Tories at the moment
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
Can you do that using straight lines?
Sykes and Picot did
- and we are now paying the price. This is starting to look like Sykes Picot is on the way out.
"This is obviously a mistake, the core tenets of Islam cannot square with peaceful co-existence with Western society. They are diametrically opposed philosophies."
Except that this is absolute nonsense.
You dismiss the concept too easily and without the slightest justification. It bears consideration.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
Can you do that using straight lines?
It is not that difficult, the Alawite bit is basically Damascus and the coastal regions
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
This is quite hilarious - we've just all been united in our condemnation of militant Islam, and you think the best plan is to hand over great chunks of a country to... ...Militant Sunni Muslims. Do you realise Al Qaeda is a non-ISIS Sunni group (as only one example). By what right do you tell a woman who has been able to wear what she likes, do what job she likes, drive a car etc., that she now faces displacement or the prospect of living in Saudi-aligned Syriastan?
It is either that or ISISland in Sunni Syria, there is no alternative!
Belgium's friendly with Spain on Tuesday has been called off amidst security fears following the deadly attacks in Paris. BBC
According to the beeb, the England France game is going ahead, and the crowd at Wembley will sing the Marseillaise.
How hard can it be?
At every NFL game yesterday there was a moment of silence, and a player ran out carrying the French flag alongside the stars and stripes. Lots of home made signs: Vive La France, Je suis Paris.
I agree" it really should go ahead or we capitulate.
Not excusing the cancellation but of course there may just be other factors at play. Too many people in the area while a terrorist is still on the run ( I think) there are other terrorist cells poised to strike and plod are fully engaged in a manhunt so stretched to the limit. They may have had a direct threat. Who knows....... Doesn't leave a good feeling though.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
The problem is that there is no overall strategy for Syria.
At its heart, this is probably because the actual solution required is not politically acceptable to the West.
Syria need a similar policy to De-Prussification after WW2. In this example Syria needs wiped from the earth and the population groups ethnically cleansed into coherent individual states.
There is absolutely no chance of the West going with this solution. It makes any military action in Syria utterly futile. It is a perfect example of the Politicians Fallacy.
If you saw Obama's press conference today at Antalya you would know that. In the face of almost relentlessly hostile questioning by the US press, he became increasingly defensive and said he wouldn't change it.
Obama is an ally almost not worth having in the context of dealing with ISIS.
No need to over analyse. JC is a terrible, not very bight politician who is out of his depth.
'Are there circumstances in which you'd support military action against Isiil?' Is not just a reasonable question but one which journalists have a duty to ask. As a Labour Party member I'd like him to answer it.
Ps. NP exMP I've watched the bbc interview if full and he doesn't say anything like what you are saying he said.
Are you suggesting that an ex Labour MP seeking re-selection has twisted the leader's words? Whatever next.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
The problem is that there is no overall strategy for Syria.
At its heart, this is probably because the actual solution required is not politically acceptable to the West.
Syria need a similar policy to De-Prussification after WW2. In this example Syria needs wiped from the earth and the population groups ethnically cleansed into coherent individual states.
There is absolutely no chance of the West going with this solution. It makes any military action in Syria utterly futile. It is a perfect example of the Politicians Fallacy.
If you saw Obama's press conference today at Antalya you would know that. In the face of almost relentlessly hostile questioning by the US press, he became increasingly defensive and said he wouldn't change it.
Obama is an ally almost not worth having in the context of dealing with ISIS.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
The problem is that there is no overall strategy for Syria.
At its heart, this is probably because the actual solution required is not politically acceptable to the West.
Syria need a similar policy to De-Prussification after WW2. In this example Syria needs wiped from the earth and the population groups ethnically cleansed into coherent individual states.
There is absolutely no chance of the West going with this solution. It makes any military action in Syria utterly futile. It is a perfect example of the Politicians Fallacy.
You'd do well to investigate a little about what Syria was. A total multi-faith melting pot where the President says prayers in Mosques and Churches, where there was a degree of freedom and secularism virtually unknown in the Middle East. Also one of the most patriotic countries in the world, where being Syrian came first to the vast majority. Something that should interest you as a nationalist. Why do you think Assad is still going after 5 years?
A 'grand plan' to divide Syria's people into tribes is an incredibly colonial and patronising suggestion. It also happens to be what Syria's less savoury neighbours want because it will favour the enlargement of their spheres of influence.
Stunning really, they were warned, they were told people even pleaded with them not to vote him in. They did. They now have to deal with the consequences of their folly. They have effectively destroyed their own party from within.
Hattie falls in the Clement Attlee category of 'not up to it' as did Andy Burnham which is one of the reasons who Corbyn won. It will be the unions that do for Corbyn, if they stop the money it doesn't matter what the new members think.
I went to my local party agm last week and while there was a large turn out there was only one new passive aggressive Trotskyite and all of he officers were re-elected. Unless they can do it online I don't see the new members getting off their arses to take over the party. They certainly aren't delivering leaflets for sadiq khan.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
- and the Kurds, which is a story in itself?
Well they could get their own homeland
Carved out of what? I have just learned from Y0kel that the Kurdish YPG are the largest force.
That complicates things.
I think we can assume Sykes-Picot is dead, which must make TE Lawrence feel vindicated.
The top of Syria and Iraq
Iraq is not long for this world. There are kurds in Turkey too.
Regarding Corbyn's comments, there's no 'shoot to kill' policy in the UK for terrorists anyway. There's an 'in extremis shoot to save innocent lives' policy, which as a side effect may well kill the terrorist.
That's right - he supports existing policy. There has however been vague media speculation that it was going to change to a "shoot to kill" policy (whatever that would be), and that's what he was asked about. In practice, I can't see a change from the current policy under either party.
Nick, I like you a lot, but this is delusional. Corbyn was first asked if he'd ever support military action against Islamic extremism.
He didn't answer, instead warning that we shouldn't act 'irrationally and illegally" and that if we carried out 'random acts without legal backing for them'.
He was asked again - if there was legal sanction, would he ever support military action against Islamic extremism.
He said it was a hypothetical question.
He was asked again, if in theory, he would ever support military action against Islamic extremists.
He again didn't answer.
He was then asked the hypothetical question of whether, if there was a similar attack to Paris in the UK, he'd be prepared to order police and security services onto the streets.
He said he would be, preferably the police, not the security services, and stressed role of community policing.
He was then asked if he'd be prepared to order people to shoot to kill on Britain's streets.
He chose to talk about the dangers of a general shoot-to-kill policy.
The problem isn't that he was changing policy, it is that he refused to give any answer to questions about whether he'd ever be prepared to authorise lethal force, either at home or abroad.
Stunning really, they were warned, they were told people even pleaded with them not to vote him in. They did. They now have to deal with the consequences of their folly. They have effectively destroyed their own party from within.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
A more sensible strategy would be to give Assad the Alawite, Shiite part and the FSA the Sunni part
That would have been fine if we were back a couple of years. Now there are many other opposition groups. What do they get? We're at the point where my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
All non-ISIS Sunni groups could have a role in a government in the Sunni region of Syria
- and the Kurds, which is a story in itself?
Well they could get their own homeland
The Kurdish/ Turkish issue is one of the great under discussed issues. A compromise agreement between them to produce a de facto Kurdistan would be a huge step forward in the region but it seems totally impossible.
It is either that or ISISland in Sunni Syria, there is no alternative!
There is an alternative - leave the place the F alone. Stop funding and training dubious 'rebels' and then being shocked when the results blow up in our faces, and support the country to get back on its feet with whomsoever in control that the Syrian people choose. It really is that simple. This 'we must re-draw the map to stop x attacking y' really is the most patronising rubbish when the country was bloody fine until the US had the bright idea of riding the 'Arab Spring' to rid itself of every awkward regime in the region. And can easily be fine again if it stops.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
The problem is that there is no overall strategy for Syria.
At its heart, this is probably because the actual solution required is not politically acceptable to the West.
Syria need a similar policy to De-Prussification after WW2. In this example Syria needs wiped from the earth and the population groups ethnically cleansed into coherent individual states.
There is absolutely no chance of the West going with this solution. It makes any military action in Syria utterly futile. It is a perfect example of the Politicians Fallacy.
If you saw Obama's press conference today at Antalya you would know that. In the face of almost relentlessly hostile questioning by the US press, he became increasingly defensive and said he wouldn't change it.
Obama is an ally almost not worth having in the context of dealing with ISIS.
Hollande says "we are at war". Obama says it's a "setback". The difference was stark. All the G20 folks said we need to get together to beat these folks. Obama will not change his non-strategy. Obama had to defend his "IS is contained" comment. The Paris based train killer the three Americans subdued, the Libyan resort attack, the Sinai plane bring down, the two suicide bombers in Beirut killing 44 last week, then Paris on Friday. IS is not contained in any sense.
The man lives in a fantasy world and will allow nothing to alter his warped world view.
Every strategist, the military and most Americans know he has no strategy. There is a big gulf between what he says and what Americans believe. It's the nearest thing to LBJ's credibility gap I have seen.
Americans don't feel safe and don't want Syrian immigrants until there is a realistic vetting process. Almost half the governors have written to say they will not accept Syrians. Obama said he won't do that and wants 10,000 Syrians here by the end of next year.
Yet again he is 100% against the will of the people and is still determined to push it through regardless.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
The problem is that there is no overall strategy for Syria.
At its heart, this is probably because the actual solution required is not politically acceptable to the West.
Syria need a similar policy to De-Prussification after WW2. In this example Syria needs wiped from the earth and the population groups ethnically cleansed into coherent individual states.
There is absolutely no chance of the West going with this solution. It makes any military action in Syria utterly futile. It is a perfect example of the Politicians Fallacy.
If you saw Obama's press conference today at Antalya you would know that. In the face of almost relentlessly hostile questioning by the US press, he became increasingly defensive and said he wouldn't change it.
Obama is an ally almost not worth having in the context of dealing with ISIS.
Stunning really, they were warned, they were told people even pleaded with them not to vote him in. They did. They now have to deal with the consequences of their folly. They have effectively destroyed their own party from within.
Suck it up.
I'm curious as to why those who voted for Corbyn feel let down by him. He's pretty much stayed true to the things he's always believed in.
If I ever meet NPXMP in person I will politely spit fine wine in his silly face.
Having studiously avoided each other over the past 10 years, I consider any future meeting to be very unlikely.
We are deluded to be seeking to bomb the country while simultaneously trying to get rid of the government - it makes the Iraq intervention that I voted for look well-thought-through by comparison. If the negotiations reach an agreement on a postwar coalition after defeating ISIS, then I'd favour Britain taking part in a joint UN mission to drive ISIS out and end the war.
There's nothing wrong with bombing:as part of an overall strategy - it is important. But if that's the sum total of your strategy it will not work. IS is fighting Assad, so very few (if any) countries are going to gang up on eliminating IS if it means Assad will stay. So you need to get rid of Assad and then tackle IS, or as a questioner asked Obama in his amazingly hostile press conference today - 'why can't we just go and kill the bastards?'.
The problem is that there is no overall strategy for Syria.
At its heart, this is probably because the actual solution required is not politically acceptable to the West.
Syria need a similar policy to De-Prussification after WW2. In this example Syria needs wiped from the earth and the population groups ethnically cleansed into coherent individual states.
There is absolutely no chance of the West going with this solution. It makes any military action in Syria utterly futile. It is a perfect example of the Politicians Fallacy.
If you saw Obama's press conference today at Antalya you would know that. In the face of almost relentlessly hostile questioning by the US press, he became increasingly defensive and said he wouldn't change it.
Obama is an ally almost not worth having in the context of dealing with ISIS.
@DPJHodges: At the next election the Conservatives won't have to campaign. They'll just have to send every voter a DVD of tonight's 10 o'clock news.
In my lifetime i never thought to see such an appalling interview. The man is quite simply mad and the Labour Party and supporters are equally to blame for putting him there. This will never be forgotten whatever they do now. Labour are finished.
I'm just totally confused. Can JC really be that stupid? He is able to see the reaction that he gets by voicing his gut views and then goes on to ramp it up by being even more outlandish in terms of (what I believe must be as apparent to him as to me as) the views of Joe Public. I cannot fathom it and what I can't get anywhere near understanding is a bit frightening however comedic it appears to be on the surface. I hope Labour is not finished. There are many fine Labour politicians, though they will be severely diminished if they don't act NOW.
I do have the lingering suspicion that Labour's time may well have been and gone as a serious mainstream political party.
Labour are history. To round off a bad day You now have this , it just gets worse and worse.
Mr Corbyn was branded “a f****** disgrace” by one of his own shadow ministers tonight after a fiery meeting of Labour MPs
It was a different story for Shadow International Development Secretary Diane Abbott, who apparently sat writing Christmas cards during the 70-minute clash. “She wasn’t listening to the questions, just writing a big stack of Christmas cards,” said an insider. “It was deeply disrespectful.”
@DPJHodges: At the next election the Conservatives won't have to campaign. They'll just have to send every voter a DVD of tonight's 10 o'clock news.
In my lifetime i never thought to see such an appalling interview. The man is quite simply mad and the Labour Party and supporters are equally to blame for putting him there. This will never be forgotten whatever they do now. Labour are finished.
I'm just totally confused. Can JC really be that stupid? He is able to see the reaction that he gets by voicing his gut views and then goes on to ramp it up by being even more outlandish in terms of (what I believe must be as apparent to him as to me as) the views of Joe Public. I cannot fathom it and what I can't get anywhere near understanding is a bit frightening however comedic it appears to be on the surface. I hope Labour is not finished. There are many fine Labour politicians, though they will be severely diminished if they don't act NOW.
I do have the lingering suspicion that Labour's time may well have been and gone as a serious mainstream political party.
Labour are history. To round off a bad day You now have this , it just gets worse and worse.
Mr Corbyn was branded “a f****** disgrace” by one of his own shadow ministers tonight after a fiery meeting of Labour MPs
It was a different story for Shadow International Development Secretary Diane Abbott, who apparently sat writing Christmas cards during the 70-minute clash. “She wasn’t listening to the questions, just writing a big stack of Christmas cards,” said an insider. “It was deeply disrespectful.”
I have to point out that I didn't have Dianne Abbott in mind when I mentioned the existence of fine Labour politicians.
You know things are really in the shitter when the Daily Mirror is giving a Labour leader both barrels. Seems Labour MPs are not quite as convinced by Hug a Jahadi Jez's round of interviews today as NP exMP.
Comments
"I have no idea what that means..."
Not a fan of Danny Kaye then?
Assad doesn't have the military numbers to control half the country never mind of all of it. Bearing in mind his opponents want his head on a platter, who exactly is going to provide the manpower for him to win anything considerable against anyone? Many of those shipped in to fight for him are not even fully controlled by his military but are Iranian proxies.
Quiz question for PB mob. Who has the largest single military ground force in Syria?
At its heart, this is probably because the actual solution required is not politically acceptable to the West.
Syria need a similar policy to De-Prussification after WW2. In this example Syria needs wiped from the earth and the population groups ethnically cleansed into coherent individual states.
There is absolutely no chance of the West going with this solution. It makes any military action in Syria utterly futile. It is a perfect example of the Politicians Fallacy.
https://twitter.com/Wahlrecht_de/status/666328292824358914?lang=en-gb
"This is obviously a mistake, the core tenets of Islam cannot square with peaceful co-existence with Western society. They are diametrically opposed philosophies."
Except that this is absolute nonsense.
Kafir, Haraam and Harb make Islam utterly incompatible with the West.
For all I know it could be the combined Celtic and Rangers humanitarian force.
I don't pretend to know.
Please feel free to enlighten me.
'Are there circumstances in which you'd support military action against Isiil?' Is not just a reasonable question but one which journalists have a duty to ask. As a Labour Party member I'd like him to answer it.
Ps. NP exMP I've watched the bbc interview if full and he doesn't say anything like what you are saying he said.
James Burke did an entire series that was effectively about that IIRC.
To put the question more clearly, if he were asked 'Prime Minister, do we have authority to stop this murderous attack by shooting at the terrorist, and to keep shooting until he's clearly dead and therefore no longer a threat?', what would he answer?
The Syrian army as a singular force musters less, there are Syrian militia units but they seem to have strong elements of warlordism going on and have at times clashed with their own security forces, the Shite militias are a patchwork who come under a series of commands but usually Iranian proxies. IS is in the low-mid 10ks in Syria, the FSA again is a patchwork under all kinds of command structures.
No faction has a single unified command structure as large as the YPG.
I went to my local party agm last week and while there was a large turn out there was only one new passive aggressive Trotskyite and all of he officers were re-elected. Unless they can do it online I don't see the new members getting off their arses to take over the party. They certainly aren't delivering leaflets for sadiq khan.
He is clearly clueless on so many counts that even I have run out of numbers. Mr Palmer on the other hand has not even realised that the clock has started running.
The argument as to why it would remains the same - that a government that can't gain the support of the Commons for its legislative programme or for Supply has lost the House's support to such a fundamental extent that they are tantamount to a vote of no confidence. Against that - and the position I'd take - is that as a VoNC is now required, there is no longer the need for the convention which existed in part to avoid bringing the Palace into politics if a government refused to resign. If an opposition wants to force a government out, there is now a cast-iron means of doing so.
I do have the lingering suspicion that Labour's time may well have been and gone as a serious mainstream political party.
BBC
That complicates things.
I think we can assume Sykes-Picot is dead, which must make TE Lawrence feel vindicated.
How hard can it be?
At every NFL game yesterday there was a moment of silence, and a player ran out carrying the French flag alongside the stars and stripes. Lots of home made signs: Vive La France, Je suis Paris.
His choice of words is very poor though he chooses them carefully. Which makes it even worse. Basically, he cannot think on his feet.
Exactly. And his whole posture is passive aggressive. He goes off into long stop the war talking points digressions and sees everything through the same lens as he has for 30 years. The worst thing is not that he is generally wrong (though he is) but that his views are so banal yet he thinks he is profound. I had reserved judgement but enough is enough he is terrible.
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/123909/world-leaders-have-taken-to-calling-isis-daesh-a-word-the-islamic-state-hates
"Analysis: Why the UK might end up voting for Brexit
The fundamentals favour a vote to stay in the EU – but campaign dramas and crises in the EU could easily make the status quo less appealing"
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/16/why-uk-might-end-voting-brexit/
Mr Corbyn was branded “a f****** disgrace” by one of his own shadow ministers tonight after a fiery meeting of Labour MPs
It was a different story for Shadow International Development Secretary Diane Abbott, who apparently sat writing Christmas cards during the 70-minute clash. “She wasn’t listening to the questions, just writing a big stack of Christmas cards,” said an insider. “It was deeply disrespectful.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/shadow-minister-brands-jeremy-corbyn-6843695
allahu akbar
Not excusing the cancellation but of course there may just be other factors at play. Too many people in the area while a terrorist is still on the run ( I think) there are other terrorist cells poised to strike and plod are fully engaged in a manhunt so stretched to the limit. They may have had a direct threat. Who knows....... Doesn't leave a good feeling though.
A 'grand plan' to divide Syria's people into tribes is an incredibly colonial and patronising suggestion. It also happens to be what Syria's less savoury neighbours want because it will favour the enlargement of their spheres of influence.
Suck it up.
He didn't answer, instead warning that we shouldn't act 'irrationally and illegally" and that if we carried out 'random acts without legal backing for them'.
He was asked again - if there was legal sanction, would he ever support military action against Islamic extremism.
He said it was a hypothetical question.
He was asked again, if in theory, he would ever support military action against Islamic extremists.
He again didn't answer.
He was then asked the hypothetical question of whether, if there was a similar attack to Paris in the UK, he'd be prepared to order police and security services onto the streets.
He said he would be, preferably the police, not the security services, and stressed role of community policing.
He was then asked if he'd be prepared to order people to shoot to kill on Britain's streets.
He chose to talk about the dangers of a general shoot-to-kill policy.
The problem isn't that he was changing policy, it is that he refused to give any answer to questions about whether he'd ever be prepared to authorise lethal force, either at home or abroad.
The man lives in a fantasy world and will allow nothing to alter his warped world view.
Every strategist, the military and most Americans know he has no strategy. There is a big gulf between what he says and what Americans believe. It's the nearest thing to LBJ's credibility gap I have seen.
Americans don't feel safe and don't want Syrian immigrants until there is a realistic vetting process. Almost half the governors have written to say they will not accept Syrians. Obama said he won't do that and wants 10,000 Syrians here by the end of next year.
Yet again he is 100% against the will of the people and is still determined to push it through regardless.