Off Topic The QPR Not 606 Rolling Election Poll

No, he phoned her the next morning to apologise and blamed his staff. Though you may have thought you would inform your number one ally while you were planning to attack a small Caribbean island rather than when you were actually attacking it. Particularly an island with strong historical links to your ally.

But right bit of the post.

 

Pretty low stuff, but much lower than Fallon's 'stab in the back' stuff a couple of weeks ago? Cameron's policy has been all over the place with this. He clearly enjoyed standing on a platform in Libya after Gaddaffi fell, but it's hard to deny looking at the place now that it joins the glorious list including Afghanistan and Iraq of 'we enjoy the fighting bit, let's leave them to it now'. Collective responsibility of course, not just Dave, and would probably been no better if Ed had been in charge. But he does need to look at himself re the policy on the refugees. He was a leading voice in the 'if we scale back search and rescue they won't come' policy adopted last year. Clearly whoever advised him and the other countries' decision makers massively underestimated the sheer desperation of the refugees to get away from where they were, and the determination of the traffickers to help them do it. That (collective) decision can be argued to have lead to more deaths, which is presumably why it's been reversed.The Italian coastguard, along with civilian merchant and fishing vessels, who can't allow themselves to stand by and watch these terrified people drown, have my unconditional respect.

It will be a real shame if this becomes an 'Ed said something nasty about Dave' 2 day news story, diverting us from the real human disaster. I'm told that, thanks to Dave, we have a fantastic economy, the strongest in Europe, and loads of jobs. Do you think we should help out our weaker friends and offer to provide some shelter for some of these unfortunates? Apparently we have taken 134 Syrians (Germany has 20,000).

 

There has sadly been a sharp rise in the number of reasons people go this route - it's no longer just for economic or political freedom, the rise of ISIS and Al-Shabab in Africa has made general life in the region far less stable, and the ebola crisis threw an already unstable future into further chaos. No wonder more and more people are choosing to rist this route rather than stay where they are, and there are more and more people willing to cash in on the problem.

It desperately needs resolving properly, but that should never be picked up as an electioneering platform by one party leader against another.

As to why we have so few Syrians compared with Germany? It will have a lot to do with the fact that they go through many countries to get to us, and so the numbers will - or should - be fewer, and most genuine migrants will get to a nation like Germany, Italy etc, and then stop. Those determined to get to the UK because of our soft welfare system will keep going, and then rock up at the refugee camp the French handily built right by the channel tunnel depot to wait their chance.

 

Not debating the points. Ad Hominems instead

Watching Stan reduce the right-wing rabble on here to a dithering mess is quite amusing. Its such a mismatch I find myself almost feeling sorry for them!

Why have I always thought conservatives the World over are kind of anti-intellectual, especially, in my experience, in the United States? I know its probably wrong for me to say this but they often come across as slightly stupid?

Am I being unfair to this demographic?

 

Just woke up from my siesta......stoking up the fire again Swords?

 

I'm not "a bit cross" at all, but thanks for your concern. I do get a bit fed up with being preached at though.

"Makes my blood boil" is a saying.......as in I very much disagree with.
You said that you wondered if we would have gone to war with Argentina if the Falklands people weren't British and white. I find that a ridiculous statement and it is rather typical of the liberal attitude that tends to look for any kind of prejudice, whether it is there or not.
To answer your question, the sovereignty of The Falklands is important to me because it is inhabited by people who wish to remain British and live in British Sovereign territory. When that territory was invaded by a foreign power, I believe we were right to go and take it back and so do the people of The Falklands. I couldn't have cared less if each and every one of them was mixed race with pink spots!
I certainly didn't agree with the handing over of Hong Kong.

I simply don't have the same World view as you and we'll have to agree to differ.

 

How many other possessions of Empire did you want to hold onto?

 

In God´s eyes all men (women) are equal and so I suppose God was a Liberal, unfortunately we are not all equal, some are born wealthy, some are born poor, some work hard, some don´t work at all, some are black, some are white, some are straight, some are gay....you know where this is going, everyone is different, everyone has their own skill set and defects, the only real common denominator is that we are all human, even though we can very easily act inhumanely. Stan obviously has spent a lot of time around liberal/left leaning politics and appears to be an authority, me, well my skills/defects lie elsewhere but my opinions and views are just as valid as the next person´s. Swords at times you post some readible stuff but you do really get your kicks from getting under people´s skin, but hey that´s how you are remember we are all different. I come on here because some of the posts make me laugh and some irritate me but at the end of the day it can be very intriging that people that come from completely different backgrounds with different political and social values are united by a football team (and not a good one at that!). p.s I still think we will go down.

 

That post was a good 'un Pedro. Would you believe there's a poster who, despite what topic he posts about, gets under my skin on a daily basis?

And you know what? I've recently realised why. The individual concerned is loud, aggressive, irritable, has strong opinions and doesn't take kindly to others disagreeing with him (but is actually an okay bloke otherwise). Remind you of someone?

It is often said that those who get under our skin most is because they are actually very like ourselves.

 

Bingo........

 

Hard to disagree with that.

btw. the individual you speak of could be quite a number of posters on here both left and right!!

 

Swords is always good value, we need to get him to The C&S if he hasn't been already

 

I've been trying unsuccessfully to find a transcript of what Miliband actually said in his foreign policy speech. The best I can find is the following quote:

"David Cameron was wrong to assume that Libya was a country whose institutions could be left to evolve and transform on their own," he said.

"The tragedy is that this could have been anticipated. It should have been avoided.

"And Britain could have played its part in ensuring the international community stood by the people of Libya in practice rather than standing behind the unfounded hopes of potential progress only in principle."

Where does he blame Cameron for drowning refugees?

Cameron told the Libyans that 'their friends in Britain (and France) would stand with them as they built their democracy'.

We didn't.

 

Let's put it like this:

Fallon accused Ed Miliband of being disloyal to his brother in a leadership fight.

Miliband is accusing David Cameron of personal responsibility for mass killings.

The accusation was more blatant in the Labour Party press release put out last night according to the media. Miliband "rowed back" from these accusations in his speech today according to LBC

Evening Standard:

"Labour issued a briefing that its leader, in a speech on foreign policy, would say the refugee crisis and recent tragic scenes in the Mediterranean were in part a “direct result” of the failure of post-conflict planning for Libya after the overthrow of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. David Cameron was wrong to assume that Libya’s political culture and institutions could be left to evolve and transform on their own."

 

Well, Fallon said he can't be trusted with the nation's defence because he challenged his brother for the Labour leadership. Not a link I can make easily.

As it happens on this one I agree with William Hague, who noted that it's a bit late to start criticising the post Gadaffi Libya policy now, when Labour has had plenty of opportunity to put ideas forward and has produced nothing over the last couple of years. And also Menzies Campbell, who said that, as it's a tribal society that was held together by a dictator, it's hard to see what could have been done. Though he missed taking it to the logical conclusion - Libya is a made up country which only exists because it was convenient for Europeans (in this case the Italians I think) to draw some lines in the desert years ago.

But both 'accusations' are banal, and the hysterical shreiking that they have resulted in is boring. Man up politicos, ffs.

 

You put it like that. Like Stroller I find nothing of the sort. Perhaps you can attach a link where he said that? Right now it seems like you are all to happy to swallow and over dramatise typical right wing media distortion.

 

LBC suggesting Miliband made these accusations to take the attention of English voters away from fears over SNP powers over a Labour Government. Call me cynical but I see Alastair Campbell's fingerprints all over this

 

I've supplemented my original note. Miliband pulled back from what he was originally going to say, and which was the subject of a press release distributed last night. The press report refers to the drownings being a "direct result" of the failure of post conflict planning and that David Cameron made wrong assumptions on Libya's culture and institutions. It's in the Evening Standard that you can find online

 

Durbar, I now Baptise thee: DIMEBAR

Go forth and do not multiply