Politics & Stuff

[Fulham Broadway 16,831]

14 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Rwanda bill passes: Detention of migrants can start in days

The legislation has now formally passed after the Lords decided not to table any further amendments

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rwanda-bill-rishi-sunak-house-lords-peers-rw78c9vb8

Rishi Sunak’s new Rwanda legislation will pave the way for the detention of migrants within days under plans to get the first deportation flights off the ground by July.

The prime minister said that the government has reserved 2,200 detention spaces and already chartered planes to ensure flights can begin in ten to 12 weeks’ time.

He promised that planes would depart for Kigali “come what may” and that there would then be a “regular rhythm of multiple flights every month” over the summer and beyond. The Rwanda bill has now formally passed after the Lords decided not to table any further amendments.

James Cleverly, the home secretary, said the bill passing through parliament is a “landmark moment in our plan to stop the boats”.

In a video shared on Twitter/X, he said: “The Safety of Rwanda Bill has passed in parliament and it will become law within days.

“The Act will prevent people from abusing the law by using false human rights claims to block removals. And it makes clear that the UK parliament is sovereign, giving government the power to reject interim blocking measures imposed by European courts.

“I promised to do what was necessary to clear the path for the first flight. That’s what we have done. Now we’re working day in and day out to get flights off the ground.”

 

Crossbench peer Lord Anderson said that his amendment had been the last one standing. He said that the purpose of parliamentary ping pong was to persuade the government to agree a compromise but they had refused to do so.

“The time has come to accept the primacy of the elected house and withdraw from the fray,” he said.

After the government’s treaty with Rwanda has been ratified — expected later this week — the government will be able to detain migrants in removal centres. They will remain at the centres as long as there is a “reasonable prospect” that they will be removed.

The government is refusing to say when it will begin detaining migrants amid concerns that they could abscond. Officials have identified 150 people who arrived in Britain before March last year who are considered “legally watertight” cases. They have already been screened by Rwanda before their planned removal.

Speaking earlier from Downing Street, Sunak said: “Enough is enough. No more prevarication, no more delay. Parliament will sit there tonight and vote, no matter how late it goes. No ifs, no buts. These flights are going to Rwanda.

“The success of this deterrent doesn’t rest on one flight alone. It rests on the relentless, continual process of successfully and permanently removing people to Rwanda … with a regular rhythm of multiple flights every month over the summer and beyond until the boats are stopped.”

• Trevor Phillips: Rwanda vote shows dire need for House of Lords reform
• What is the Rwanda bill — and how many will be deported?

After Home Office figures showed small boat crossings were up by a quarter so far this year, Sunak argued that only the “systematic deterrent” of deportation to Rwanda would ultimately stem the flow across the Channel.

Under the legislation, migrants can appeal against deportation only with “compelling evidence” that they will face serious and irreversible harm in Rwanda, rather than on general claims about the country’s safety.

Migrants can appeal to the Home Office and then to an Upper Tribunal in a process that is likely to take at least six weeks and could leave some cleared for deportation in June.

The final resort is an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which blocked the last attempt to send flights to Rwanda in 2022 by issuing interim injunctions. However, the court has since increased the threshold for blocking deportations to proving that they would pose a threat to an individual’s “life and limb”.

The prime minister said he was “confident” removals to Rwanda would be compliant with international law, but that he was prepared to tell ministers to ignore interim injunctions if necessary.

He also declined to rule out leaving the ECHR, although he would face a cabinet revolt if he did so. “If it ever comes to a choice between securing our borders and membership of a foreign court, I’m of course always going to prioritise our national security,” he said.

The Safety of Rwanda bill led to a late-night stand-off between the Commons and the Lords as MPs rejected the two Lords amendments that have been the final sticking points.

Michael Tomlinson, the illegal migration minister, said the government would not compromise and accept the two main amendments being pushed by the Lords. He said requirements of independent verification of Rwanda’s safety and exemption for Afghans who helped British forces were “unnecessary”. Late on Monday evening the Lords dropped the Afghanistan amendment.

• Revealed: UK targets four countries for Rwanda deal
• Labour ‘jitters’ emerge over migration policy

Robert Buckland, the former justice secretary, rebelled to back both amendments, while Sir Jeremy Wright, a former attorney general, voted for one.

Lord Carlile of Berriew, a crossbencher, said that Sunak wanted parliament to “say that an untruth is a truth”, calling the bill “ill-judged, badly drafted, inappropriate, illegal in current UK and international law”.

Ministers could be hit by legal action as soon as next Tuesday. The FDA, a union representing senior civil servants, is expected to convene its executive committee next Monday. The union is likely to launch a judicial review the following day, arguing that ministers’ new power to disregard interim ECHR rulings would mean telling civil servants to break international law.

Government insiders admitted they are nervous about making public when they would begin to detain migrants to be removed, given the fear some could abscond.

The Rwandan parliament last week passed legislation to improve the country’s asylum system. Home Office insiders said they were hopeful that ratification of the treaty with Rwanda would be completed by the end of the week.

A blame game unfolded in Whitehall after internal government documents disclosed within moments of Sunak’s press conference showed the first Rwanda flight was “provisionally scheduled for June”. The papers were believed to be old but brought by a minister to Sunak’s Downing Street press conference and then left under their chair when they left. Five ministers sat in the front row for the speech. Sources close to Grant Shapps, James Cleverly, Victoria Prentis and Michael Tomlinson denied them being the culprit. Andrew Mitchell, the deputy foreign secretary, did not respond to a request to comment.

Labour blamed Sunak for delays in pushing through the legislation. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said Downing Street could have brought back the bill before Easter but chose not to “because they always want someone else to blame”. Cooper called the Rwanda scheme an “extraordinary gimmick” that would fail to stop small boat arrivals.

The prospect of flights commencing within months could put some airlines at risk of criticism by the UN. Three special rapporteurs warned earlier this month that commercial airlines and regulators could be “complicit in violating” international human rights by facilitating removals. “If airlines and aviation authorities give effect to state decisions that violate human rights, they must be held responsible for their conduct,” they said.

Must be an election looming. Nothing but an election stunt. They would need over 300 planes immediately just to cover the current backlog. Funny how they never mention there is a reciprocal agreement with Rwanda.

It will be delayed by the lawyers and unelected Sunak can blame 'lefty woke lawyers'. 

The governments one aim is to have one plane fly there before the election, as nothing but red meat thrown to the gammons.

On a more sombre note several drowned today in the channel trying to get to the UK

[Vesper 28,768]

Why Are Voters Worried About Biden's Age?

It's all about appearances.

https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/why-are-voters-worried-about-bidens

In seeking re-election, President Joe Biden has been haunted by voters' concern with his age. Their concern is not strictly medical. Biden's opponent, Donald Trump, although only three and a half years younger, doesn't elicit the same worry from voters. According to a March New York Times poll, 73 percent of voters thought Biden was "just too old to be an effective president," while only 42 percent thought that of Trump. In fact, unless voters are asked specifically about Trump's age by a pollster, they don't think about it, but they do think about Biden's. 

Biden's advisors seem to believe that Biden can dispel these concerns by appearing feisty in speeches and by touting his accomplishments in office, but the problem runs deeper. It begins with Americans' expectations about how their presidents should appear, and these go back to America's founding and its conception of the presidency.

In designing a new government, America's founders rejected Great Britain's monarchy in favor of a republic. But while insisting otherwise, they mimicked much of Britain's structure of rule. They divided the national government between a president (aka king or queen) and a bicameral legislature (aka Houses of Lords and Commons). The president was to be elected, but as envisaged by the founders, by electors who would decide independently what candidate to support. The president was an elected monarch, albeit subject to re-election every four years.

As Great Britain's system evolved, the king or queen has become primarily the head of state—the symbolic representative of the British people—and the duties of running the government have been taken over by the prime minister. The United States has gone, if anything, in the other direction, as the president has absorbed more of the responsibilities of foreign and domestic affairs. The president has taken on the duties of prime minister, but the regal aspect of the job remains very important to the success of American presidents.

Biden has had a problem effectively playing the role of elected monarch. There are two kinds of ways presidents play it effectively, ways that are often combined in the same person. First, presidents can appear as father figures—the nation itself as the ultimate extended family and the president as father. George Washington was described as the "father" of his country, and other presidents who played this role included Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan.

Secondly, they can display a version of what social theorist Max Weber called "charismatic leadership." The president can appear to possess special gifts of courage, intelligence, wisdom, and eloquence. He can have succeeded spectacularly in war or business. He can be seen as a hero. He can have movie idol looks. Presidents who exercised charismatic leadership include the same cast of father figures, but also Ulysses S. Grant, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.

Presidents can be judged on their accomplishments—in their role as prime minister. As Weber noted, if charismatic leaders visibly fail in their stated objectives, they can lose their magical power over their followers. But a president's success in playing the monarch can also enhance the perception of his accomplishments. In polls of the public and of historians, John F. Kennedy is rated more highly as president that a host of presidents who could boast far greater accomplishments in office, including Jackson, Reagan, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Woodrow Wilson. A recent poll of political scientists ranked Theodore Roosevelt our fourth greatest president, even though his accomplishments in office are dwarfed by those of Wilson, Lyndon Johnson, and Andrew Jackson. Kennedy and Theodore Roosevelt were profoundly charismatic figures—so much so that voters then and generations to follow have overlooked personal flaws and shortcomings in their records that are deemed fatal in other presidents.

If these comparisons seem preposterous, consider the comparison between Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Scorned today largely because of his reputation as a racist, Wilson was responsible during his two terms for the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Trade Commission (which temporarily at least quieted the debate over antitrust), the income tax, tariff reduction, and the framework of foreign policy that America followed after World War II. Roosevelt, admittedly one of the most colorful and brilliant people to reside in the White House and seen by the contemporary public as a war hero for his exploits in Cuba, was also a champion of Indian removal and Anglo-Saxon racial supremacy and provoked and prosecuted a six-year colonial war in the Philippines.

---

Biden possesses none of the qualities or the background that have enhanced the presence of other presidents. He is not a father figure. At best, he is "Uncle Joe." He is not associated with qualities that have characterized father figures—strength, wisdom, and authority. He does not appear to be an energetic leader—a quality that Alexander Hamilton associated with the presidency. He cannot claim any of the attributes of charisma. He was not a war hero, or a wildly successful businessman, but a lifelong politician. He does not appear brilliant and is certainly not eloquent. He does not possess matinee idol looks. His life story, punctuated by personal tragedy, inspires pity and sorrow but not admiration. He is not someone that parents pine for their children to grow up to be. His campaign has tried to portray him as a man of mysterious power by circulating a "Dark Brandon" meme, but to no avail.

His being 81 years old and subject to illness is not a bar to exercising regal leadership. Andrew Jackson, one of America's most popular presidents, was a few weeks short of 62 when he was inaugurated at a time when life expectancy was about 47. Jackson was affectionately called "old Hickory." Jackson also suffered from a chronic cough and periodic illnesses that were feared to be fatal. Lincoln was “old Abe,” while Eisenhower suffered two heart attacks in office and spoke in garbled sentences in press conferences. If anything, the cause of Biden's public problems run in the opposite direction. His lack of regal leadership allows his constituents to focus on his halting gait, his malapropisms, and his occasional forgetfulness. It allows "being old" to become an issue.

Some of the president's supporters seemed surprised when his feistiness during his State of the Union address failed to noticeably boost his approval ratings. Voters aren't looking, however, for displays of emotion, but for a commanding presence that intimidates would-be hecklers. (Reagan turned around the 1980 primary with his outburst, "I paid for this microphone, Mr. Green," when the moderator tried unsuccessfully to silence him.) The president's supporters have also expected that Biden's success in getting three major bills through Congress would enhance his popularity, but voters have not seemed to notice. What they did notice, and which has reinforced his image as "old," was the administration's calamitous exit from Afghanistan.

I have observed numerous focus groups among swing voters who had backed Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. During the groups, the moderators would often ask the members what comes to mind when they thought of Biden. Their answers displayed concern about his age, but in a way that showed how his of lack of perceived leadership had highlighted his physical disability and blinded voters to his accomplishments in office. He was "not tough enough," "slow," "too old," "uninspiring," "not strong enough to get things done,” and “not strong or forceful enough," the voters in the focus groups said. "I don’t think he gets anything done." "He is barely treading water.”

In fact, Biden had already accomplished more in office than most of his predecessors, but it didn't matter. He didn't appear to have done so. Instead, he appeared "old."

That perception has seemed particularly telling among younger and among male voters. It's important to note that many of these voters were not similarly put off in 2016 and 2020 by Bernie Sanders' age, even though Sanders is a year older than Biden. It's a question of a candidate's commanding presence and charisma. I would guess—I haven't any specific polling—that Biden's lack of regal stature accounts for some of his failure to win over black and Hispanic males. 

---

The voters' concern with Biden's age does not mean he will lose his re-election bid. Voters have sometimes preferred bland candidates to more charismatic ones. Democrat William Jennings Bryan, famed for his oratory, lost to Republican William McKinley in 1896. Segregationist George Wallace lost three bids for the presidency. Charismatic candidates have devoted followings but by the same token, they can also arouse strong opposition. And other factors can determine voters' choice of a president.

A case in point is Joe Biden's defeat of Donald Trump in 2020. Trump was a darkly charismatic candidate and president. He had a regal, commanding presence. He was a stern father figure, but also in his public performances the life of the party. Many voters admired his having become a billionaire. Asked to describe him in one word, those voters who spoke positively of him described him as "strong," "great," "determined," and "leader." Like other charismatic leaders, he enjoyed a worshipful following that ignored his failings. Even Trump's opponents implicitly acknowledged his regal bearing by describing him as "arrogant" and "egotistical" and as a would-be dictator. That perception of strength has overridden any concern about his age, even among those who have opposed his candidacy.

But Trump's brand of charisma also sparked intense opposition. For his critics, Trump's bloated ego and incivility magnified what were perceived as his failures in office and helped Democrats win back the House of Representatives in 2018 and helped the bland Biden defeat him in 2020. In the 2020 election, voters focused on his seeming incomprehension of the COVID-19 pandemic—epitomized by his gaffe about potentially injecting disinfectants to fight the illness—and ignored his role in speeding the development of a vaccine. In his first debate with Biden, he appeared to be an adolescent bully and extremist. 

It could happen again. If Biden is haunted by the complex of concerns summed up in worry about his being old, Trump is haunted by January 6, a history of corruption, a string of indictments, a casual embrace of bigotry, and responsibility for Dobbs v. Jackson. But the concerns about Biden's age, underlain by his own lack of a regal presence, could also help deny Biden re-election in 2024.

John B. Judis is the author of The Politics of Our Time: Populism, Nationalism, Socialism and, with Ruy Teixeira, Where Have All the Democrats Gone?

[Fulham Broadway 16,831]

Quite a long but worth watching vid.

Any politician that stands up for Palestinians is totally fucked by the Israeli lobby. 

They changed the definition of anti semitism to include any criticsm of Israel

[Fernando 6,453]

8 hours ago, Vesper said:

let me re-post this basic intro on some of the dangers of generative AI

 

Mo Gawdat is the Former Chief Business Officer of Google X Development

X Development LLC, doing business as X (formerly Google X), is an American semi-secret research and development facility and organization founded by Google in January 2010.

That part of what will happen to everyone's job and he start discussing hologram. Around 30 to 35 I was left like wow....

 

[cosmicway 1,323]

The thing is AI is not something that can be tamed, or makes any sense to tame.
If AI can solve all the problems of the Putnam exam (something that one or two persons in America can do now every year) then what is there to argue about and what sense will that make ?
So out of spite you don't let AI become president, director of the CIA, FBI and so on.
Do it.
It just won't make sense and this will not last long.

Edited April 25 by cosmicway

[robsblubot 3,502]

There is no AI "thing." Ai may bring paradigm changes to a number of different areas.

My skepticism is regarding the self-awareness bit, which I think is just a "fun" clickbait doomsday scenario based more on sci-fi ideas than science.

There is no evidence whatsoever that self-awareness may be just around the corner; I've been hearing that that's the case for decades.
It is very likely the probabilistic ML engines in use today will indeed disrupt a lot of industries, services, life in general.
It's also likely that they are completely incapable of achieving self-awareness and we are still a breakthrough away from seeing that. We don't even grok what it would take to get self-awareness in artificial systems.
Of course it can, and perhaps should be discussed, but my take remains that this specific issue is a potential concern, not an urgent concern like other aspects around AI and automation.

There are good points made in the video linked above, and a lot of speculation too.

[cosmicway 1,323]

1 hour ago, robsblubot said:

There is no AI "thing." Ai may bring paradigm changes to a number of different areas.

My skepticism is regarding the self-awareness bit, which I think is just a "fun" clickbait doomsday scenario based more on sci-fi ideas than science.

There is no evidence whatsoever that self-awareness may be just around the corner; I've been hearing that that's the case for decades.
It is very likely the probabilistic ML engines in use today will indeed disrupt a lot of industries, services, life in general.
It's also likely that they are completely incapable of achieving self-awareness and we are still a breakthrough away from seeing that. We don't even grok what it would take to get self-awareness in artificial systems.
Of course it can, and perhaps should be discussed, but my take remains that this specific issue is a potential concern, not an urgent concern like other aspects around AI and automation.

There are good points made in the video linked above, and a lot of speculation too.

We are mainly talking about problem solving.
I don't know if AI can do the Putnam exam paper, but I assume it is feasible.

But self awareness is of course a different philosophy.
It's ok to solve a problem when someone else gives it to us and says "solve this problem" and quite another to think of the problem and then proceed to attempt to solve it.
In this context when I say a problem it can be anything, hard or easy.
Who makes better spare ribs ? Al downtown or Joe uptown ? I have to go there and decide for myself - it's a "problem".
What do I say to that blonde I keep seeing in the supermaraket ? She looks the part but conversation opener ?
Those are the issues and again they exist because a) I like spare ribs, b) I like blondes.
Why I like spare ribs ? I like them because when I was small my mom took me to a restaurant.
Why I like blondes ? Because they are nice looking blondes.
All these things are related to of self awareness and libidinous drive, unchecked so far in the field of AI.
But nevertheless it looks like the story has began.


 

Edited April 25 by cosmicway

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,919]

On 23/04/2024 at 04:40, Vesper said:

3 main things worry me to core atm in terms of existential threats to the future of humankind

in no order (and at some levels all are interconnected)

Nuclear Weapons

AI

Global Climate Change

 

at a more immediate level:

the possible re-election of Trump and then the Republicans retaining control the US House of Representatives and gaining back the US Senate (wherein a christo-fascistic minority would hold the whip hand over all 3 branches of the most powerful nation in human history's 3 branches of its federal government (Executive, Judicial (the US Supreme Court especially), and Legislative)

Trump is a POS who can't win, but I can't say he's any more of a threat than the guy who watches his police forces rough up students and teachers peacefully protesting on campus and call them "Antisemites" for opposing our tax dollars funding a literal genocide😂

I held my nose and voted for Biden 4 years ago....he's making it really hard to repeat that choice today though.

[robsblubot 3,502]

2 hours ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

Trump is a POS who can't win, but I can't say he's any more of a threat than the guy who watches his police forces rough up students and teachers peacefully protesting on campus and call them "Antisemites" for opposing our tax dollars funding a literal genocide😂

I held my nose and voted for Biden 4 years ago....he's making it really hard to repeat that choice today though.

It's not "his" police is it? I mean he can certainly apply pressure, which I presume is what you want him to do, or perhaps show some support, but ultimately it's city's and state's call.

Was reading about their (protestor's) demands today: good luck with that. Like it or not, the reality here is that any, and I mean any, elected president would support Israel the same way Biden is doing (perhaps even more unapologetically so).

The argument, which I happen to not find crazy, is that if you don't want to US to support Israel it would cease to exist. So, these universities are in a bind: they can either take a stance against Israel and appear (which is enough) antisemite, or stand against the protestors, which seems unpopular esp in the liberal media. My money is on that nothing will happen. Kinda "occupy wall street redux."

Regarding Trump vs Biden, I think it goes way deeper than politics or whether you agree with specific policies or not. The whole pardoning for favors alone is already a huge red flag to me. How that shit isn't illegal is beyond me. Then again he asked for votes to be "found" in a recorded phone call, so. 🤷‍♂️

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,919]

23 minutes ago, robsblubot said:

It's not "his" police is it? I mean he can certainly apply pressure, which I presume is what you want him to do, or perhaps show some support, but ultimately it's city's and state's call.

Was reading about their (protestor's) demands today: good luck with that. Like it or not, the reality here is that any, and I mean any, elected president would support Israel the same way Biden is doing (perhaps even more unapologetically so).

The argument, which I happen to not find crazy, is that if you don't want to US to support Israel it would cease to exist. So, these universities are in a bind: they can either take a stance against Israel and appear (which is enough) antisemite, or stand against the protestors, which seems unpopular esp in the liberal media. My money is on that nothing will happen. Kinda "occupy wall street redux."

Regarding Trump vs Biden, I think it goes way deeper than politics or whether you agree with specific policies or not. The whole pardoning for favors alone is already a huge red flag to me. How that shit isn't illegal is beyond me. Then again he asked for votes to be "found" in a recorded phone call, so. 🤷‍♂️

I mean its a matter of leadership.

Im from, and live in the south. A president applying pressure on the police and pulling rank is the reason why our states function at all today. I do agree the universities are in a bind, but really they should just let the protests happen.

I think he could get an easy win by saying he respects the right for peaceful protest, and leave it there. Calling them antisemites is weak sauce.

[Vesper 28,768]

On 27/04/2024 at 00:40, Sir Mikel OBE said:

Trump is a POS who can't win, but I can't say he's any more of a threat than the guy who watches his police forces rough up students and teachers peacefully protesting on campus and call them "Antisemites" for opposing our tax dollars funding a literal genocide😂

I held my nose and voted for Biden 4 years ago....he's making it really hard to repeat that choice today though.

the US is a federal system, Biden has no direct control over local coppers other thanusing the bully pulpit and perhaps a federal prosecution if they break serious laws

[Vesper 28,768]

Britain’s Conservative Party faces a fight for its very survival.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/britains-conservative-party-facing-up-to-the-threat-of-total-extinction

LONDON—A crucial difference between the dinosaurs and Britain’s ruling Conservative Party is that the dinosaurs had no way of knowing the asteroid was coming. For the Tories, portents of doom abound, with some polls suggesting that an extinction-level event of catastrophic political losses could be on the way in the next general election. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has signaled that he’ll call the election in the second half of the year, and it can legally come no later than January 2025.

With his party trailing the opposition Labour Party by over 20 points, most pundits expect the election will be the end of Tory rule. But will it be the end of the Conservative Party altogether?

Lawmakers will get an early, if imperfect, indication of whether a Tory Götterdämmerung is in the making on Thursday, when local elections are held across England and Wales. The complex and varied ballots—which include elections for thousands of local council seats, several regional mayors, and law enforcement officials—will not affect the makeup of the British parliament or pose a direct threat to Sunak’s grip on power. But some Tories fear this could be where the unraveling of the world’s oldest operating—and electorally most successful—political party begins.

“This is the first of two stages of Conservative annihilation,” one former Conservative minister told The Daily Beast, the second being the general election when it arrives. “People have completely switched off and have become unpersuadable. They’ve made up their mind and they just want the nightmare to be over.”

Even those who think reports of the Conservative Party’s impending political death are greatly exaggerated still expect the Tories to get smoked in the May 2 local elections, with some experts suggesting that the party could lose as many as half of its council seats.

Part of the problem is that the Tories did so well three years ago when many of the seats currently up for grabs were last contested. “May 2021 is when Boris Johnson was prime minister—remember him?” Sir John Curtice, Britain’s leading political scientist and professor at the University of Strathclyde, told The Daily Beast. At the time the Tories were well ahead of Labour in the national polls and enjoying a surge in popularity after the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. “A completely, completely different world,” Curtice said. “And the problem that the Tories therefore face is that they are defending a good year against the backdrop of an opinion poll situation where they’re 20 points behind.”

“I think nationally the Tories will be trounced as you would expect in a midterm,” another ex-Tory minister told The Daily Beast, while a current Conservative member of parliament (MP) said, “We’re obviously going to lose” many races given the successes of 2021.

The MP instead said the “interesting” aspect of next week’s elections will be the re-election bids of two incumbent Tory mayors—Andy Street in the West Midlands and Ben Houchen in the northeastern Tees Valley. Both politicians enjoy personal popularity in their local areas, so bad results in their races could be interpreted by some Tory lawmakers as unignorable warning signs about the intensity of sentiment against their party throughout the country.

“If both of them were to go, there would be considerable concern,” the Tory lawmaker said. “But what Conservative MPs would do about it, I don’t know.” The MP added that because a general election is potentially just months away, they’re not convinced “anybody is actually going to do anything completely mad”—by which they mean a move to topple Sunak and replace him with a new leader before the national ballot arrives. “We’ll have to see—I can never predict what my colleagues do,” the MP said. “It would be ridiculous.”

Ridiculous indeed. Since returning to power in 2010 after 13 years in opposition, the Conservatives have treated Britain to no fewer than five different prime ministers. Of those, just two (David Cameron and Boris Johnson) decisively won national elections, while a third (Theresa May) came out of an election with no clear majority, and needed the support of another party to govern. Liz Truss was installed as the leader of a country of 68 million people on the basis that a little over 81,000 Conservative Party members voted for her in a contest triggered by Johnson’s scandal-riddled downfall. And Sunak—the fifth Tory prime minister in just six years—came to power because a grand total of 193 people chose him to be the man to mop up the history-making mess of Truss’ unprecedentedly brief stint in Downing Street.

Curtice, the polling guru, estimated that the Labour party now has a “99 percent chance” of forming the next British government when the general election comes. “The Tories do face the not inconsiderable risk of turning up with their worst ever result in modern parliamentary history,” Curtice said. “But it may not be quite as bad as the fate of the Tories in Canada.”

That’s a reference to the cataclysmic performance of the Progressive Conservatives in Canada in 1993. After nine years in power, the PC lost all but two of its federal seats in one of the worst electoral defeats for a governing party ever seen in the Western world. The crushing result, which precipitated the party’s eventual dissolution, has been invoked by some British media reports on the upcoming U.K. general election owing to certain parallels between the circumstances the Canadian conservatives faced then and those which British Tories are navigating now.

If not a complete wipeout, how bad could it get for Britain’s Tories? As bad as 1997, perhaps, when John Major led the party into its worst defeat in a century? Some in the party seem to be taking comfort in the perception that the current Labour leader, Keir Starmer, is not as charismatic a figure as his 1997-landslide-winning predecessor Tony Blair. As one former Tory minister put it: “Mother Teresa couldn’t have beaten Blair.” Polling on Sunak’s personal popularity, though, also makes for pretty bleak reading from the Tory standpoint.

There is also another existential threat to the Conservative Party: itself. The party is riven by factional infighting which has already created major headaches for Sunak. One alliance from five rebellious, rightwing factions dubbed the “five families” has given him hell over migration policy. Liz Truss even launched a new “Popular Conservatism” faction in February which quickly set about giving Sunak’s policies a kicking, and promised to be part of the battle against “left-wing extremists.” Even if the Tories avoid total wipe-out in the general election, a heavy defeat could turn bitter factional divisions into an outright breakup of the Conservative Party.

Conservative MPs are now simply left to wait and ponder their own fate. Many doubtless already feel endangered—and are thinking about who’s to blame for their current predicament.

“We’ve had eight years of turmoil, total division, intellectual bankruptcy, a collapse in party discipline, and MPs who just don’t know how to behave,” one former Tory minister said. “They think they matter. And people now think they don’t.”

[Fulham Broadway 16,831]

US doctor describes witnessing starvation in northern Gaza

Another mother whose 10-year-old son had just died.

"The mom just told me with just a blank numb stare on her face that he had just died five minutes prior. The staff had been trying to cover up his body with blankets but she just refused to let them. She wanted to spend more time with him. She was grieving, she was sobbing, and stayed that way for about a good 20 minutes, she just didn't want to leave his side."

Then there was the man in his 50s, forgotten in a room, having had both legs amputated.

"He had lost his kids, his grandkids, his home," Sam recalls, "and he's alone in the corner of this dark hospital, maggots going out of his wounds and he was screaming: 'The worms are eating me alive please help me.' That was just one just one out of… I don't know, I just I stopped counting. But those are the people I still think of because they're still there."

Sam is a sensitive, thoughtful man in his 40s, the son of two doctors, who was born and raised in Chicago and who works as a surgeon at Northwestern hospital in the city. While in Gaza he kept video diaries and filmed his experiences.

 

IMAGE SOURCE,ALAMY

Image caption,

Seven-year-old Jenna Ayyad was severely traumatised - she has since been transferred to southern Gaza where she is receiving treatment

There was the little girl, Jenna Ayyad, aged seven, "just skeleton and bone" whose mother hoped to get to the south where better medical facilities were available.

 

Over 34 000 murdered thousands more buried under rubble, maimed suffocating.

66 women and children  in the last 24 hours. Imagine if they were US, Israeli or British

Empathy turns to Apathy when its Palestinians. Racism. Apartheid. They dont matter

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,919]

3 hours ago, Vesper said:

the US is a federal system, Biden has no direct control over local coppers other thanusing the bully pulpit and perhaps a federal prosecution if they break serious laws

Presidents have literally sent in federal forces to stop local coppers from infringing on Federal rights.

[Vesper 28,768]

10 hours ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

Presidents have literally sent in federal forces to stop local coppers from infringing on Federal rights.

non sequitur

I was responding to this part of what you said:

Quote

than the guy who watches his police forces rough up students and teachers peacefully protesting on campus

 

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,919]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

non sequitur

I was responding to this part of what you said:

 

Eh Fair enough there.

[Fulham Broadway 16,831]

Democrats, Republicans, US and UK politicians, their billionaire corporate media backers, AI bots, -all are trying to frame the growing protests and global demonstrations as Hate Marches, and anti Semitism. 

eg The Daily Nail has pictures of holocaust memorials covered up with tarpaulin ''in case of anti semitic vandalism' from the ''hate marchers''. Complete bollocks of course, as they are always covered up when there is any demonstration - this has been confirmed by the administrators. Its lie after lie after lie....

Reality is under 1st amendment the hundreds of US campuses and Universities have the right to free speech. Students and academics are being brutalised for the simple act of sitting down, for the simple act of demanding a ceasefire to the daily slaughter.

A new movement is being formed of anti war - comparable to 1968 when the mindless slaughter in Vietnam was occurring. Today there are far more cameras to record the events on campuses, and could well backfire on the Draconian measures being enforced by Democrat and Republicans - Dont fall into their bi partisan divide and rule trap whereby one party is better than the other - they both love selling weapons and endorsing the butcher Netanyahu

[Fulham Broadway 16,831]

 

If I was American and pro peace - I would consider voting Jill Stein for the 2024 presidency.