Ad Lib

In principle I support the use of sanctions against tyrannical regimes, including the Taliban in Afghanistan. On the specifics, I think the sanctions that have in fact been imposed on Afghanistan do not strike the right balance, and unduly restrict the availability of international aid. Several Western Governments appear to be coming around to that position, and have acknowledged their previous approach got it wrong.

You said "the government [Ad Lib] works for" not "the state [Ad Lib] works for". I am no more morally or practically responsible for the foreign policy of the UK Government than you are. Just as public servants who worked for the National Assembly of Afghanistan bear no more moral culpability for the rise of the Taliban than the average 12 year old girl in Kabul. Whether or not you support sanctions, the justification that Western countries offer is not that ordinary Afghan functionaries are morally culpable for what the Taliban does. Their argument is a utilitarian one: that it is impossible to influence the Taliban's behaviour without rendering parts of Afghan civil society non or less functional. If you think it is necessary to cripple the House of Commons Library in order to change the foreign policy of this Government, good luck to you. But in adopting that position you'll look like a fucking moron.

I don't work for the Government. My job is quite literally to provide the opposition and backbenchers with information with which they can scrutinise and hold to account what the Government does. You're giving it big licks like you've hit a strike but your bowling ball is in the gutter of three lanes left of your own.

Dad passed away this morning. 58. I was back up in Scotland in time, and he was comfortable and at home, but it doesn’t make it feel any less shit. Brain tumours are fucking horrendous. Get them in the sea.

We should put an actual 5G chip in Piers Corbyn and link it up to an alarm that goes off whenever he's closer than 6ft to someone's phone.

Excellent, now do the other Cobyns and the other Piers.

Delicious relegation fodder.

I mean not really. I don't have to defend our Government being an international basket case.

No. I already adjusted for that. Germany spends 1.4% of its GDP on the military. If we spent 1.4% of our GDP on the military, we would spend £35 billion. It actually spends only $7 billion or so less than the UK.

In-service costs for Trident are about 6% of the defence budget (so about £2.5 billion). There are additional costs associated with the project to renew the nuclear deterrent but, since 2015, that has averaged about £1 billion per year. Most of that is front-loaded, however, and the ongoing cost for the deterrent is expected to remain about 6% of the overall defence budget.

Yes, nonsense. You were overstating military expenditure by £12 billion, or almost a quarter of the entire budget. No, not really, not if it meant dismantling a significant part of Western Europe's defence infrastructure and made it materially easier for the Russians to undermine the continued independent existence of Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

The Ministry of Defence spent £54.5 billion in 2019-20. Your figure is nonsense. Even if we spent the same proportion of our GDP on the military as Germany (an equivalently sized European country) we would still be spending about £35 billion. If we spent what France spends on the military as a proportion of GDP we'd still be spending £52 billion.

To the Raith Rovers fan who told me to “f**k of you jakie b*****d” when I confessed none of us saw the goal, have a merry Christmas.

There’s just no humour in the way they express stuff. I think that’s what I find nauseating about it. At a Scottish game you might at least get: ”What a shitey home support” ”You’re supposed to be at home” ”Shall we sing a song for you” ”Can you sing a wee bit louder over there” ”Is this a library?” All of which can be a bit lame, but at least don’t sound like you’re 6 and have just learned two swear words.

English football crowds: Every opposition substitution announced on the Tannoy, crowd shouts “who?” megacringily after both the sub off and the sub on name. Similarly, instead of just trying to put a goalie off at a goal kick, you get “oooooooooooooooooooh yore shiiiiiiiiiit aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah”. It’s like GBH of the ears.

It’s not a “diktat” or “decree” if the democratically elected legislative chamber voted for it. It’s just a law.

Strongly advise you get the meme right.

Statutory instrument subject to the made affirmative procedure, actually.

Yes, but he is a Falkirk fan. Their attendances are massive so he won't be a huge miss.

Such a minter for you.

You support Falkirk. Months on a ventilator in ICU would be a drastic improvement for your quality of life. I suppose, in that context, you might be quite pro pandemic.

The Government isn't my employer.

It's called advice you moron. If you leave longer intervals between social gatherings it will, generally speaking, be easier to work out which social gathering you contracted the virus at if you subsequently test positive. This makes it way easier to work out which close contacts are at a greater/lesser risk of having picked-up the virus. We can then use that information to tailor and target contact tracing testing more effectively, reduce the dependence on and impact of self-isolation protocols and get back to normal more quickly. But sure, by all means ridicule really pretty mild measures designed to stop you giving your grandparents a deadly disease.

Those two things aren't even remotely inconsistent. They are advising you to cut back on non-essential social contact, and they are saying if you are going to engage in social contact (whether or not it is essential) to get tested first. Both of these things reduce the risk that you unwittingly infect your colleagues, friends or family if you have the virus, and the former reduces your risk of getting it in the first place. Both of those things are consistent with reducing transmission of a pathogen which manifests itself in a lot of people asymptomatically or with mild symptoms.