General Politics Thread

[lichtgilphead]

5 minutes ago, MazzyStar said:

Who said I’m a yoon? Even if I was it doesn’t automatically mean that I’d support having nuclear weapons in Argyll. Anyway none of this has anything to do with the orignal point.  

Swing and a miss champ. 

My recollection was that you were a Labour supporter. Labour are Yoons, and enthusiastically support Trident (Jackie Baillie, anyone?)

Apologies if my recollection was incorrect.

 

[MazzyStar]

4 minutes ago, lichtgilphead said:

My recollection was that you were a Labour supporter. Labour are Yoons, and enthusiastically support Trident (Jackie Baillie, anyone?)

Apologies if my recollection was incorrect.

 

No, I don’t particularly like Labour. 

[Granny Danger]

Tobias Ellwood resigns as defence committee chair after controversial Afghanistan video

https://news.sky.com/story/tobias-ellwood-resigns-as-defence-committee-chair-after-controversial-afghanistan-video-12960666

[GHF-23]

19 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

The pro-Zionist scumbags will be upset by this.

Antisemitism definition used by UK universities leading to ‘unreasonable’ accusations 

Report says IHRA definition has led to 40 cases against people and groups – of which 38 were cleared – and is stifling academic freedoms
 

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/13/antisemitism-definition-used-by-uk-universities-leading-to-unreasonable-accusations
 

It’s about time that the false equivalency between anti-semitism and anti-Zionism was exposed.

Some additional context. The 2 which were not cleared were not in fact substantiated, they are yet to be decided. 

Same week that there's been a furore over Rory Stewart being honest about Corbyn's suspension/removal of the whip, with a full court press by the punditry class asking "oh but why was he suspended?!" The answer to this is of course that in a statement condemning antisemitism he made the point that the "crisis" had been largely manufactured by the press and internal opposition.

Not only is this obvious to anyone who has read the Forde report and has a passing acquaintance with the British press, but was also explicitly called out by the much vaunted (and again, for anyone who has actually read it surprisingly sedate) EHRC report as opinion that the Labour party should not penalise members for expressing. 

We've also seen the collapse of another Labour party civil case just before it goes to trial, as obviously no one would like this to ever get anywhere near a courtroom, and John Ware has for the umpteenth time produced a novella about why despite the well documented "interesting" editing and other choices that were made his Panorama documentary was an unimpeachable piece of journalism.

And in a final story for today Labour Right ghoul and self-proclaimed scourge of antisemitism Luke Akehurst was recorded describing a black Jewish labour member as having inner conflict and not celebrating her heritage. It's all going well guys! 

[StellarHibee]

18 hours ago, MazzyStar said:

No, I don’t particularly like Labour. 

Most unionists don't particularly like much of anything to do with the union, but they'll defend it at all costs anyway.

[coprolite]

On 29/08/2023 at 08:08, O'Kelly Isley III said:

Not if you were the individual or corporation who was sucking on the PFI teat.  The whole cynical point of PFI was to shuffle costs off the public finances, and whilst it did that in the first instance it kicked the problem down the road by which time the architects would have moved on to their international sinecures.

That was bad enough, but the quality of the 'products' that emerged from PFI was invariably shit, the tab for which will be picked up by Joe Public.

I’m going to be tedious and pedantic, but it wasn’t the costs that were removed from the treasury. The outgoings were probably expected to be a bit higher than public borrowing to fund investment but were fiddled (obviously and knowingly) to look like they were expected to be lower and were actually much higher in practice. 
 

Two things were meant to be taken out of the national accounts , risk and debt. 
 

Notionally the contracts did de-risk the government and put any cost overruns onto shareholders.  But any project that looked like it could make a loss could easily be abandoned by shareholders, letting the company go bust. If that happened, no hospital/airport/school and no money back, so government bail outs were almost guaranteed. No actual risk for the PFI firm.

What made Gordon Brown have a throbbing erection was getting the debt off the balance sheet. Which actually did work.

The only problem is that debt in the National accounts and of itself is only a huge economic issue for the doughnuts that work in the press and the bbc.  Replacing debt service payments with pfi rents and services doesn’t in principle change the level of expenditure. 

It was only an accounting trick for spinning economic competence to morons who didn’t know what they were reporting on. And it worked.

(If that wasn’t tedious and pedantic enough) Under new international accounting rules, pfi wouldn’t have made the debt disappear at all. To my mind that demonstrates that it doesn’t have any fundamental underlying benefit other than gaming quirks of the accounting rules.
 

 

[Wee-Bey]

Carillion baby. 

[coprolite]

21 hours ago, lichtgilphead said:

My recollection was that you were a Labour supporter. Labour are Yoons, and enthusiastically support Trident (Jackie Baillie, anyone?)

Apologies if my recollection was incorrect.

 

Labour supporter = Yoon = in favour of trident is one of the most simple minded things I’ve read on this forum, and there’s stiff competition. 

[Fullerene]

22 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Who the f**k is this gimp?

He also thinks people are struggling to buy their own homes because they are spending all their money on smashed avocado on toast.

[lichtgilphead]

2 hours ago, coprolite said:

Labour supporter = Yoon = in favour of trident is one of the most simple minded things I’ve read on this forum, and there’s stiff competition. 

I'm just taking a lead from another poster who stated that everyone that voted Labour should be considered a Unionist.

I specifically asked "Is it fair to consider a vote for Labour in a Westminster or Holyrood election to be a vote to continue the union, given polling evidence shows that up to 30% of Labour voters would vote "Yes" in Indyref 2?"

@orfc replied ""Basically no, if independence was their main concern they'd vote SNP

Why didn't you step in at that point?

[StellarHibee]

On 13/09/2023 at 10:22, oneteaminglasgow said:

A fucking classic in the genre of ‘saying the quiet bit loud’

These people are absolute vermin, and I would dance on their graves. 

I'm half expecting at this point for these "things" to out themselves as evil Venusians and to begin firing mind control beams from their elongated heads.

[coprolite]

1 hour ago, lichtgilphead said:

I'm just taking a lead from another poster who stated that everyone that voted Labour should be considered a Unionist.

I specifically asked "Is it fair to consider a vote for Labour in a Westminster or Holyrood election to be a vote to continue the union, given polling evidence shows that up to 30% of Labour voters would vote "Yes" in Indyref 2?"

@orfc replied ""Basically no, if independence was their main concern they'd vote SNP

Why didn't you step in at that point?

Because I haven’t seen that before now. 
It’s clearly bollocks though. 
 

[Wee Bully]

On 13/09/2023 at 18:02, Granny Danger said:

He’s a Partick Thistle supporter

Automatically marks him out as OFTW.  

[BFTD]

On 13/09/2023 at 10:22, oneteaminglasgow said:

A fucking classic in the genre of ‘saying the quiet bit loud’

These people are absolute vermin, and I would dance on their graves. 

"Wind your neck in, you fucking clown - the AI deathbots aren't ready to protect us yet"

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66803279

[Miguel Sanchez]

On 04/12/2018 at 21:12, banana said:

Folk heralding Russell Brand, what a time to be alive.

I blame Question Time.

banana on the right side of history for once. What a time to be alive.

[btb]

Quote

The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has proposed regular meetings between UK and European Union ministers, as part of a major reset of British foreign policy under a Labour government.

While it's encouraging to see Labour steering slightly away from the Tories on Brexit what's in it for the EU?

 

[carpetmonster]

4 minutes ago, btb said:

While it's encouraging to see Labour steering slightly away from the Tories on Brexit what's in it for the EU?

 

There’s bound to be a few EU ministers that like British stuff like Branston pickle and monster munch and can’t get it anymore. Dave’s probably just turning up with a holdall full of crisps and swapping them for stroopwafels and jamon Ruffles. 

[BFTD]

4 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

banana on the right side of history for once. What a time to be alive.

Understandable - nobody had told him that Brand was an abuser of women by that point.

[GNU_Linux]

How very brave of our boys

Britain’s SAS faced allegations that it shot dead nine Afghans while they were sleeping and engaged in a policy of “executing Afghan males of fighting age” between 2010 and 2013, on the first day of a public inquiry into the killing of 80 civilians in Afghanistan.

Oliver Glasgow KC, the counsel to the inquiry, focused on seven deadly operations in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, including one in February 2011 where only three AK47 assault rifles were recovered after the nine had been killed.

“The central allegation at the heart of this inquiry is stark,” Glasgow told the high court. Raids on family compounds, intended to target Taliban commanders, “were abused by elements within UK special forces”.

They “carried out a policy of executing Afghan males of fighting age in circumstances where they posed no immediate threat or were hors de combat [unable to perform combat duties],” in scenarios where they were vulnerable or said to have suddenly produced a gun or grenade.

The public inquiry, chaired by Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, is expected to take 12 to 18 months to produce an interim report. It marks the start of a process long sought by the victims but was only granted by Conservative ministers after two families took the British government to court.

Secrecy conditions imposed by the inquiry mean large parts of it will be held without the public or press present – and that the identities of any soldiers involved have been redacted, as well as the names of their commanding officers and other members of the SAS and many others in the British military.

Nor will the Ministry of Defence or the inquiry formally acknowledge the involvement of the SAS in Afghanistan, although it has been widely reported, instead describing those involved as members of the UK special forces.

Glasgow also highlighted emails that appeared to indicate there was an effort to brush concerns under the carpet, and scepticism in some quarters that internal reports on the growing number of deadly incidents were not credible.

A legal officer for the SAS said in February 2011 he was concerned about “the recent spate of high EKIA [enemies killed in action] and said: “I get the sense that the way we are writing these up will not bear scrutiny in years to come,” adding that they would be picked up by lawyers “in the inevitable public inquiries”.


Deadly incidents described by Glasgow include:


A night raid on 7 February 2011, when nine Afghan males, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed and three AK47 assault rifles recovered. “We anticipate the evidence from the families will be that they were shot in bed, most likely when asleep,” Glasgow said, and he told the inquiry that the photographs of the bodies suggested Afghans may have been shot at close range. Internal documents and emails obtained by the inquiry show that the SAS said that at the time its soldiers were engaged by small arms fire. The elite unit’s headquarters concluded that no military police investigation was required because “reasonable force in accordance with the law of self-defence” was used.


A night raid on 9 February 2011 where eight Afghans were killed, including four by friendly fire from their own side, the SAS said. Four AK-47s were found in a search of the site after the raid had concluded, while another man was killed when he was sent back into building, only to reappear with a weapon. An email sent the following morning from a chief of staff at the SAS headquarters to a legal colleague, and read out by Glasgow, expressed scepticism as they reviewed the initial reports. “It’s another one of ‘more bodies than weapons. Please review,’ they wrote. However, two days later same chief of staff accepted the “high body count” was justified by the fact that four Afghans were killed as “a result of fratricide”. Several years later, the episode was investigated by the military police, but when the SAS and Afghan armed forces members involved were questioned “all bar one of them was unable to recall” the gunfight, Glasgow said.


A night raid on 16 February 2011 in which four members of one family were killed, including a man called Saddam Hussein. British intelligence said he was a Taliban military commander – but Glasgow told the inquiry that his family had said was “a student in Lashkar Gah and so could not have been an insurgent,” while the other victims were civilians. Two of those were shot dead after allegedly producing a weapon when they asked to assist with the search of the property, prompting one member of the SAS, from another unit, to say the official description of the episodes was not credible, in an email read out by Glasgow to the court. “For what must be the 10th time in the last two weeks,” when an Afghan was sent back “to open the curtains (??) he re-appeared with an AK” they wrote to a colleague. “You couldn’t MAKE IT UP,” they added.


A complaint was raised subsequently by an unnamed international organisation. An email sent in May from a legal officer at SAS headquarters said “the aspiration” was “to ‘nip [the allegation] in the bud’ at the lowest level”.

[Wee-Bey]

Hmm, wonder why the tories were so keen to ram through the Overseas Operations Bill a while back.