General News Thread

[Sampson]

4 hours ago, Sly said:

Ultimately it also clears the Conservative Party out of the “Boris brigade” and gets them back to being a more stable offering (hopefully). 
 

 

Hopefully, but Badenoch and Jenrick need to go over to Reform for that to work then the Tories might be worth voting for again. While Badenoch and Jenrick are there they’re ultimately going to feel like Reform-lite and going after culture wars and the like.

 

I actually think ironically the Tories best path to reemergence might be to go back to John Major/Ken Clark style conservatives and go pro-EU to try and win over the middle class, centrist dads, home counties and small business owners again. 

Edited 13 January by Sampson

[Jon the Hat]

1 hour ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

The phrase "they deserve each other" springs to mind.

The Iranian people deserve freedom and respect in their own country like everyone else.  

[kenny]

16 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Hopefully, but Badenoch and Jenrick need to go over to Reform for that to work then the Tories might be worth voting for again. While Badenoch and Jenrick are there they’re ultimately going to feel like Reform-lite am going after culture wars and the like.

 

I actually think ironically the Tories best path to reemergence might be to go back to John Major/Ken Clark style conservatives and go pro-EU to try and win over the middle class, centrist dads, home counties and small business owners again. 

I would 'go local'. We have some decent Tory MP's in Leicester that appear to be doing well in Kearns, O'Brien and Raja. Costa is fine, albeit he won't pull up any trees.

 

If they had a cohort nationally like those, then they would be a better party.

 

Badenoch comes accross well in one to one interviews and less well in the headline stuff IMO.

[CornwallFox]

9 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

In short, because a lot of people think Israel = bad therefore Iran cannot = bad as they are anti-Israel and Israel bombed them and stuff.  They are ****wits.  By any measure you care to use, the Iranian Regime is awful, and one should support the uprising of the people even if that means you presently happen to agree with Trump, Netanyahu and select other arseholes.

I don't think this is correct Jon.

I happen to think the state of Israel is a horrendous, law breaking nation for its actions over decades, but that doesn't affect my thinking about Iran.

 

I think Iran is seen by everybody as bad as that's how it's been portrayed on every side since the whole 'axis of evil' thing and beyond. 

 

I think it's seen like some sort of dark empire and weird ultra religious state and people struggle to imagine what life looks like there to empathise. In reality, of course, there's plenty of pictures of Tehran looking pretty progressive in the 70s, if they're real. I think it's a lack of knowledge and understanding of what it's like there that make it feel almost like an alien planet to most people. 

 

You are, of course, correct about the Iranian people deserving freedom and respect.

Edited 13 January by CornwallFox

[Sampson]

6 minutes ago, kenny said:

I would 'go local'. We have some decent Tory MP's in Leicester that appear to be doing well in Kearns, O'Brien and Raja. Costa is fine, albeit he won't pull up any trees.

 

If they had a cohort nationally like those, then they would be a better party.

 

Badenoch comes accross well in one to one interviews and less well in the headline stuff IMO.

Yeah that’s fair, I think it worked for the LibDems last election to concentrate on local stuff. It’s also an easy way to attack Reform as their local record isn’t great. The problem is I guess people then don’t know what they stand for on a national level as happened with the LibDems. 

[Happy Fox]

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601136877

 

[ClaphamFox]

37 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

I don't think this is correct Jon.

I happen to think the state of Israel is a horrendous, law breaking nation for its actions over decades, but that doesn't affect my thinking about Iran.

 

I think Iran is seen by everybody as bad as that's how it's been portrayed on every side since the whole 'axis of evil' thing and beyond. 

 

I think it's seen like some sort of dark empire and weird ultra religious state and people struggle to imagine what life looks like there to empathise. In reality, of course, there's plenty of pictures of Tehran looking pretty progressive in the 70s, if they're real. I think it's a lack of knowledge and understanding of what it's like there that make it feel almost like an alien planet to most people. 

 

You are, of course, correct about the Iranian people deserving freedom and respect.

They are real, and Iran was a very different place in the 70s. The reason it is portrayed as a bad place now is because since the 1979 revolution it has become a deeply authoritarian Islamic theocracy with little to no regard for human rights or freedoms. Authoritarian theocracies are inherently unstable because large chunks of their population will always want more freedom, hence they will always be reliant on violence to maintain the status quo—which is exactly what is happening in Iran now. The IRGC are savages who are capable of murdering hundreds of thousand of Iranians if they feel it's necessary to preserve the republic

 

Your perception of Israel may not influence your view of events in Iran, but that is definitely not the case for many on the left. I've just seen a tweet from Zarah Sultana in which she offered tacit sympathy for the Iranians that have been murdered in the past few days before immediately pivoting to an anti-UK, anti-US and anti-Israel rant. Yes, Zarah is completely bonkers but she's not alone in her stance on this.

Edited 13 January by ClaphamFox

[bovril]

As they say Iran is a secular country kept religious and Turkey is a religious country kept secular, though not so much now.

[Happy Fox]

BBC reporting re the numbers killed now in the thousands. Our inept PM doesn't say a word as per usual.

[Spudulike]

2 hours ago, Happy Fox said:

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601136877

 

This is shocking and makes me feel sick that I can't do anything about it. It's alright for the likes of Corbyn to say this can only be dealt with by the Iranian people and the usual anti-western rhetoric but how many more have to die before admitting they can't? This had got to be stopped, somehow.

[leicsmac]

The big question is what kind of international intervention would actually be effective without causing even more dreadful problems for the Iranian people?

 

Answers on a postcard there. 

[Sampson]

I really wish people would not just post links without comment.

 

I’m not clicking on a link to an Iranian website which a user has said makes them feel sick. 

[Trav Le Bleu]

3 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

The Iranian people deserve freedom and respect in their own country like everyone else.  

As do Israelis and Palestinians.

 

But in general the whole Middle East is just one mess of vengeance and revenge.

[Sampson]

16 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

As do Israelis and Palestinians.

 

But in general the whole Middle East is just one mess of vengeance and revenge.

I’m no historian but didn’t the Ottoman Empire as a kind of multicultural federation hold it together for hundreds of years despite different types of both Christianity and Islam being prevalent until it collapsed after WW1? Then it’s been a mess since then. Don’t know enough about that time in history or whether the Ottomans weren’t brutal themselves or anything.

[Lionator]

40 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

As do Israelis and Palestinians.

 

But in general the whole Middle East is just one mess of vengeance and revenge.

One of the problems with the Middle East is that it’s seen through a ‘countries’ lens when it’s wayyyyy more complicated than that. People are much more likely to identify by their religion, sect, ethnicity than their nationality and yet the powerful still use their power to impose the nation state model. 

[Tommy G]

57 minutes ago, Sampson said:

I really wish people would not just post links without comment.

 

I’m not clicking on a link to an Iranian website which a user has said makes them feel sick. 

https://news.sky.com/story/spirit-animal-raccoon-gets-drunk-as-a-skunk-in-a-booze-store-and-sleeps-off-hangover-in-the-toilet-13478586

[Bellend Sebastian]

59 minutes ago, Sampson said:

I really wish people would not just post links without comment.

 

2 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

https://news.sky.com/story/spirit-animal-raccoon-gets-drunk-as-a-skunk-in-a-booze-store-and-sleeps-off-hangover-in-the-toilet-13478586

Surely evidence that we should actually do this more?

 

In all seriousness though (for a change) one of the reasons I came off Twitter ages ago was that the algorithm had convinced itself that I was into videos of hapless Russian servicemen having bits of their body blown off by drone dropped grenades and I would rather have seen less of that given the choice

[Wymsey]

Scary..

 

https://www.sciencealert.com/youngest-person-to-be-diagnosed-with-dementia-in-britain-dies-at-24

 

[bovril]

1 hour ago, Sampson said:

I’m no historian but didn’t the Ottoman Empire as a kind of multicultural federation hold it together for hundreds of years despite different types of both Christianity and Islam being prevalent until it collapsed after WW1? Then it’s been a mess since then. Don’t know enough about that time in history or whether the Ottomans weren’t brutal themselves or anything.

I'm not cringingly embarrassed by the British empire as much as some people and think it probably brought some good in some places but obviously British policy in the Middle East in the first few decades of last century is one of the great disasters of history 

[bovril]

1 hour ago, Lionator said:

One of the problems with the Middle East is that it’s seen through a ‘countries’ lens when it’s wayyyyy more complicated than that. People are much more likely to identify by their religion, sect, ethnicity than their nationality and yet the powerful still use their power to impose the nation state model. 

Not sure this is totally true any more. There's a lot of nationalism in the middle east and people absolutely do identify by nationality, admittedly more so in some countries like Egypt than others. Obviously 100 years ago what you say would've been true. 

[st albans fox]

1 hour ago, bovril said:

I'm not cringingly embarrassed by the British empire as much as some people and think it probably brought some good in some places but obviously British policy in the Middle East in the first few decades of last century is one of the great disasters of history 

Trans Jordan was drawn way bigger than it needed to be ………..

who needs that much desert ? 

[Happy Fox]

4 hours ago, Sampson said:

I really wish people would not just post links without comment.

 

I’m not clicking on a link to an Iranian website which a user has said makes them feel sick. 

 

Iran International and BBC Persian are a legit sources they are not Iranian regime afiliated.

[CornwallFox]

4 hours ago, Happy Fox said:

BBC reporting re the numbers killed now in the thousands. Our inept PM doesn't say a word as per usual.

Has he been asked? 

If he has - and he will have been - he will definitely have answered. 

Do you think it might just be that whatever news/social media you consume hasn't told you his thoughts? There's plenty of legitimate things to criticise Starmar for, but some of the things I read like this are a bit silly. 

[bovril]

45 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Trans Jordan 

Woke British empire 

[st albans fox]

18 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

Has he been asked? 

If he has - and he will have been - he will definitely have answered. 

Do you think it might just be that whatever news/social media you consume hasn't told you his thoughts? There's plenty of legitimate things to criticise Starmar for, but some of the things I read like this are a bit silly. 

He condemned it days ago 

when most who are criticising him probably didn’t even know what was happening !