Be Excellent To Each Other

Sky are reporting that Hancock has resigned.

Yep, though this may mean we get Pob to replace him.

But, for a fleeting moment, feel proud for Hancock for doing the Right Thing, something Johnson and Cummings wouldn't.

Then snap out of it when you remember how fucking hopeless he's been.

Doing the right thing when he had literally no other choice at all? Reprehensible piece of shit just like the rest.

Even outside of breaking Covid guidance and the rank hypocrisy of calling for the prosecution of Prof. Ferguson and then to do the same yourself, the thing that most shocks me most is that he hired this woman to the board with an undeclared intimate relationship and created a clear conflict of interest undermining its ability to function. This government has just been chucking plum after plum to friends of friends of personal business interests. The same government that stomped its feets and waved its arms angrily at the 'Brussels gravy train'. Safe to say they make me feel pretty nauseous.

Nope, Sajid Javid who is my MP

I met him once. I filmed him while he visited my place of work. He was surrounded by several yes men while he listened to stuff, nodded, said a few words then buggered off.

It’s odd. You won’t find many locals saying good things about him, and plenty of similar stories abound, but they keep re-electing him.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland ... -1.4615810

Jesus Christ.

The last 18 months really have plumbed new depths, haven't they?

This is an interesting read

The Euro 2020 football fan with the flare deserves a break

It's the defining image of the summer.

Good article, particularly with regard to highlighting how attitudes to drugs vary depending on who is partaking.

I've read it a couple of times and there is little in there I feel I could disagree with.

"Something for the Weekend" by James Wharton about the chemsex underworld was a heck of an eye-opener for me about casual drug use and addiction, and how taxi apps made things so much easier.

The whole refugee situation in Afghanistan is a sickening mess and I don't have any firm views on the rightness or wrongness of the withdrawal.

I can't even bring myself to listen to the emergency debate in Parliament as I can no longer bear hearing Johnson speak anymore, especially on matters of grave importance.

A profoundly unserious person. There must have been periods in history when he would have got away with it, but not now.

Seems pretty wrong with hindsight. Also I can't help wondering if more people would have had firmer views in opposing withdrawal if this had happened while Trump was still in charge.

If you look at the history of Afghanistan, it's been nothing but disputes between factions, invasions, revolutions, etc. etc. for hundreds of years.

The Russians went in on 24/12/79 and their last withdrawal of troops was 10 years later, "leaving the government forces alone in the battle against the insurgents, which continued until 1992, when the former Soviet-backed government collapsed. Due to its length, it has sometimes been referred to as the "Soviet Union's Vietnam War" or the "Bear Trap" by the Western media. The Soviets' failure in the war is thought to be a contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union.

During that time "Between 562,000 and 2,000,000 Afghans were killed and millions more fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran.

It was entirely predictable that the UN forces were not going to be able to stabilise the country. The 20 years since they went in have seen improvements in living standards and women's rights, and it's terrible for those who are likely to loose those, as well as being subject to the barbaric practices of the Taliban. Their spokesmen are saying they won't victimise Afghans who helped the UN during their occupation, but it's impossible to control some of the distant rural areas with their own local fundamentalists interpreting Sharia Law in their own way.

The Taliban are just the latest gang to take control, but it's only a matter of time before the backlash starts, whether it's from internal rebel groups, neighbouring countries or the UN again.

Hmm. It is certainly a truism that "oh, Afghanistan is a graveyard for armies". But those histories are not written by Afghans. And the current tragedy was that, for all the messiness, and the fact that it was a patchwork of competing demands the country *was* pretty stable. Really there were two choices - go back in time and don't intervene in the first place or, having intervened and then built a system that relied on 'The West' being there, remain there.

Absolutely, but what values for "pretty stable" can we use? Compared to what? Life under Russian occupation or the Mujahideen (which wasn't a single group anyway)? For any period before that? What was stable for some would have been the unacceptable for others. It really is a case of damned if you don't intervene and damned if you do.

I don't pretend to know a solution, but trying to apply Western values to a culturally diverse and historically, definitely NOT Western population, is unlikely to succeed for the country as a whole. And the West starts to question its position when it counts the financial and human costs and decides it can't sustain either of those indefinitely. It's interesting to note that a few months ago, 70% off the US population were in favour of withdrawal of troops, but now many are saying Afghans shouldn't have been abandoned to the Taliban.

And now Tony "weapons of mass destruction" Blair is sticking his two penn'orth in. Just what we need.

I think that first paragraph suggests we assume there's something to fix. History from an Afghan point of view might be more "everything was fine, then the British came in, so we fought them. Eventually they left, and we did some of the things they left behind. Then everything was fine, till the Russians came, and we fought them, some of us. Then they left, and we went back to how things were".

The point is that nations are a construction, imposed upon people, and then we judge them according to that. But if you live nearer the Pakistan border than any Afghan town, the nation of Afghanistan means nothing to you, until and unless someone comes along and convinces you, or forces you, to pick a side.

Certainly agree on the latter. They are carefully saying they were not there to nation-build, because they know they've failed on that measure. But also, the only time 'nation-building' has succeeded is when you have a structure in place. That's why dismantling the Baath party in Iraq was such a mistake, and why Japan and Germany were so successful - no one told them how to be, just used the existing bureaucracy (and that's what counts). If there is no existing bureaucracy then, well, good luck with that - nations get forged in fire, conquest and war with others, mostly, to forge an idea of what the nation should be and no external power is going to force that to happen. And even then you need Westphalia to actually create the sovereign state - before that, bits of 'England' in 'France' is the least of your worries. In class once we ended up talking about states and their existence as if it were indefatigable, so the lecturer said "what's a natural state?" As in - where's an example of an undeniable state that was obviously going to be that way? Um, yeah, right. An island? Cyprus has two, UK mainland three (alright, four. Yes, okay, Yorkshire, off you go, too). etc. etc.

The public opinion thing is tough, mind - you can argue that a leader has to do what their people want. Be nice to see someone make a bold decision, explain why and bring people round. Immigration is a net benefit to the nation, let's keep freedom of movement, etc.

Quite

https://twitter.com/joncstone/status/14 ... 5733725184

‘The british evacuated 200 dogs and cats from Afghanistan and then apologised for leaving people behind’ has the potential to become one of those facts that people remember for literally hundreds of years https://t.co/uavuC0D9aX

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) August 28, 2021

I thought the Taliban let that British ex-soldier and his animals through but wouldn't allow his Afghan staff.

Wasn't it an extra plane to get the animals and staff looking after them out, plus any extras in they could fit on.

One of his supporters had chartered a plane for them all. I’ve not seen who actually made it out.

Jesus fucking Christ

https://twitter.com/mrjamesob/status/14 ... 5524151298

Williamson was asked if he had met Marcus Rashford.

“We met over Zoom & he seemed incredibly engaged, compassionate and charming but then he had to shoot off.”

Later Williamson’s team admit that he actually met the rugby player Maro Itoje.https://t.co/Q4jttxPe3e

— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) September 8, 2021

What a wazzock.

easy mistake to make as they are both...

..... sports players

Later saw a tweet saying Williamson self-reported as having "A rhino's hide". WE KNOW. YOU ALL DO, IT'S THE REASON YOU'VE GOT JOBS.

I'm not great with names, and in a job where you meet load of people it probably is tricky to remember them all but still that would be a pretty embarrassing gaffe for most people.... but really, it won't make a jot of difference to anything.

https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1435851342086643716

Afghan refugees are in quarantine hotels in Britain without medicine, nappies, government support, information. But this is what the home secretary has been working on. https://t.co/xfJrXD94FO

— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) September 9, 2021

<Adds to list>

You’re only adding Priti Patel to The List now?

He might have many lists, from idiots to pure evil.

Her list of stuff that is wrong. It is curated over many threads here.

Oh. She is The List. That makes more sense.

Priti Patel is one of the reasons I don't tend to watch TV news anymore, and why even thinking about politics gets me in a foul mood.

Liz Truss is Foreign Secretary. About the only positive thing I can say about this is that she won't be as bad as Theresa May's original choice.

Astonishing. And finally I can remove Dorries from the list of "yeah, yeah, but is it just too easy and unfair to point her out, when she's just a junior minister" into full-on "brace for incoming crazy".

Did I drink to much at Cottage? How the hell did we end up with a minister and department for "Levelling Up"? Why not have a secretary for purple too?

Government by tabloid headline. I hate it.

That official photo of Gove makes him look like he’s been caught by his wife, standing in front of the fridge and wrapping slides of bread around his penis, and she wants to know why the hell he’s been keeping the bread in the fridge.

Thanks for tonight's nightmare, Mimi...

How long do people usually wait to hear back from emails to their MP? I’ve emailed my MP (Valerie Vaz) a number of times over the years but I never seem to get a response.

In the past, I've waited 8-10 weeks then sent a follow-up along the lines of "I appreciate you and your team are very busy, but I sent this X weeks ago and would like to know when I can expect a reply". Usually did the trick.

But I'm so deflated right now and have such a low opinion of my MP and her party that I've not bothered writing since the Cummings thing.

Generally two weeks or so, and she sends a monthly review of what's gone on. Had a great 90ish minute zoom chat with her in February or so.

However, mine are often brilliantly written, pithy, and self aware whinges about government policy, rather than casework for her, so YMMV.

Plus the attached headshot with smouldering eyes probably helps.

Mine seems to have difficulty explaining to me why her party's policies are "better" than the status quo. I'm not expecting the zeal of a Sci-["new convert to a perfectly fine religious organisation with an interest in nautical customs and spaceships" - Ed.] but if you can't make the effort to point me towards anything that might get me out of my bubble or even say why something's an improvement perhaps there's deeper issues with the policy that perhaps ought to be addressed. True, I live in an ueber-safe seat, I'm not a party member, and I was probably written off as a potential voter long ago, but it would be at least worth a try.

On the plus side, her dedication to supporting local nativity trails and knowledge of how to fish is well-documented.

I bet the photographer was thinking, "Try to smile, you miserable bastard."

Then again, I think his expression sums up how we all feel at the mo.

Ah, this is making some sort of weird sense to me now. It's one of those departments that has been renamed several times in the last couple of decades . When I worked for Government Office for the North West we were under the aegis of The Department for Communities and Local Government, before the government office network was disbanded by that useless bastard Eric Pickles. The "leveling up" bit now means absolutely nothing, it's the Communities and local government bit which is relevant and it gets kicked around like the political football it's been for years.

Ironically there has been talk recently about setting up a new set of regional offices to represent government within the regions, as if it's a new idea, but it's already been done and then scrapped. Funds wasted on a grand scale.

The sign that "levelling up" has been achieved will be when new rolling stock is distributed evenly across the country, rather than all to those soft southerners, while oop north we're still riding on Sprinters with bus bodies on train bogeys.

This is way fucking beyond disgusting
.


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... gee-deaths