Dunge

Either that or a severe personality disorder. He basically carried out an assassination, having apparently never done anything like that before, and is now being seen ranting and raving to reporters. Even the likes of Anders Breivik needed to drug himself up to the eyeballs before doing what he did.

Exactly, but he’s given no document for what that would look like, only vague ideas*. Or how it would work within the framework of even hypothetically trying to send a potentially undocumented illegal migrant to a country that won’t accept them, or discussed the ramifications of exiting a treaty that was designed to protect European citizens from their own governments post WW2. I know the idea is a British Bill of Rights. I expect any politician proposing it to answer all of this in detail, along with giving good, thought-out answers to any challenges from legal experts. *In fact I’m not even sure he’s provided that much, beyond a mission statement.

I appreciate that. It’s just I never see any development in this debate beyond some initial complaints and headlines. Even when you get someone like Farage talking about leaving the European human rights act, there’s never any detail or discussion of implications. One of the biggest complaints about Brexit was the lack of proposal and detail for what should come next. That was for a referendum and caused enough arguments, as we all know. This is for a subject about which people would in theory elect an actual government with an actual manifesto. Stating concerns about society is one thing, understandable. But then people are saying “we need to limit migration”. That’s not a problem, that’s an incomplete solution to something else. If you’re going to present that as your solution, ok - but in that case I want to know the details and implications. I just think it’s time to hold a few feet to the fire over this.

No offence here, because clearly it’s not just you or anything like that, but I’m getting rather sick of people raising “the problem” without offering anything resembling a thought-out solution. I mean, given the alternatives, one could always just put up with it?

I’m of two minds. On one hand, it would be a disaster for Iran, an embarrassment for Putin, and there’s an argument to say that if it succeeds then Assad isn’t the strongman he’s presented as so what’s the point of him? On the other hand, you really don’t want anything like the group that called itself Islamic State getting a foothold anywhere in the world. They were truly evil.

You Are Just Being Paranoid

This really is nothing to celebrate. You think “The 1%” are going to respond to this by mending their ways? Or by doing nothing?

I think they’ll need to look at the actions of the military too. Hard to tell exactly what happened but it looked like they were ready to impose the martial law even after parliament had blocked it, or even potentially prevent parliament from blocking it. At the very least, questions will need to be asked.

He fvcks off?

Not that I would ever have done this at any point, of course not, but middle lane hoggers mostly get very scared and move over once they get undertaken…

It’s Gromit I feel sorry for.

I accept I’m being a bit flippant above but the more direct comparison would be that we currently have state-mandated suffering and we’re trying to remove it. Not to say that I agree with the use of either term.

Also, today I operated a state-sanctioned death machine that risked the lives of children and vulnerable people. ie. I drove down the A6 to Leicester.

I mean, you could call it “state-sanctioned murder”? Although you could equally call eating meat “animal murder” but I’ll still be having sausages for tea tomorrow.

What would you call it?

First paragraph: Yes. Second paragraph: If the USA (and indeed the UK) have any sense at all, they’ll stay the hell out of this one.

I still think it’s odds on he’ll be standing for Reform come the next election.

I don’t envy any MP their vote on assisted dying. There are excellent and convincing arguments on both sides and I think the whole debate has played out very maturely in Parliament and is one of its better days. I honestly don’t know which way I would have voted as an MP.

Was that an insult or a compliment? Was it a fish dish, for instance?

I think it’s the right idea in principle but sounds like it hasn’t been thought out in practice.

Pardon?

If Ukraine gets a new border, they need to mine it immediately, and possibly more and worse. Horrible thing to do but I’m struggling to see security otherwise.

Don’t worry. Trump’s riding in on a white horse. Or a pale horse; something like that.

I was surprised when they canned Holby City over it. Granted I was a highly infrequent watcher but I thought Holby City had overtaken it. Perhaps they’d simply exhausted the number of serial killers and Munchausens sufferers believably possible within a mid-sized British city.

They’re not technically ICBMs, it was a mid-range ballistic missile. And they informed the USA (briefly) before they fired it. In the short term, I don’t see Putin doing anything extreme. He will ramp up the rhetoric, terror, and level of attacks but he’s both winning (kind of) and a US President is about to take office who clearly wants to get the hell out of there. Meanwhile I’m not really sure what else the West can offer Ukraine other than volume of equipment so it’s hard to see where our further “escalation” comes from. Medium term, I think the possibility of a magical Trump deal is looking less optimistic by the day. I just reckon around February he’ll put Putin’s “terms” to Ukraine, Ukraine will reject them, then Trump will wash his hands of it and leave Russia to take ever more of Ukraine, maybe even in a short timescale. Which leaves long term, and the ball in Putin’s court. I don’t believe he would press on immediately because the war has been damaging to Russia and he’ll likely want to reflect, rebuild and concentrate on law and order in Russia and what used to be Ukraine. After that, a few years down the line, who knows. Depends whether he feels he’s achieved his legacy or is hungry for more. Watch this space, in particular Russian military spending compared to European military spending and the future of the NATO alliance. The Israel conflict meanwhile could be utterly miserable for the Middle East but shouldn’t directly affect our security as it stands other than potentially increasing the possibility of Islamic terrorism. The bigger worry there I think would be any party waving nukes around, because I’m not completely convinced one of Israel and Iran wouldn’t hurl one at the other. Again, not directly about us but setting an incredibly concerning precedent. Again, Trump will likely want to shorten the conflict, which could be terrible for Palestine and Palestinians but a shorter conflict would likely be safer for the rest of the world. *I know that’s not a number but that’s how I see the situation.