8 June

[JohnL]

Guy in the audience tries to lead a standing ovation (conveniently right in front of camera) but gets stranded alone and has to sit down

Embarrassing and possibly a plant

[Earl Aelfheah]

Paxman lost IMO. His brand of 'interviewing' is tiresome and hackneyed.

[miga]

malumbu Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> He has been a bit of knob (JP), but there again

> that it why he is there.

>

> I was actually more struck by the ad for on-line

> bingo after Corbyn. What have we become?

>

> I may have a slight adiction to social media, but

> I am not losing my shirt. That would be a good

> question, not would you get rid of the monarchy?

> (where I am with Corbyn, agreeing that this is a

> low priority) but what would you do to control

> on-line betting? Oh and payday loans? Oh and cheap

> alcohol? I'm on a roll.

Bingo. Darn sight better than the Falklands.

[Earl Aelfheah]

What was May thinking calling this election now. The whole thing is so fecking dispiriting.

[Borky]

May is not very clever is she? For those who actively participate in this gerrymandered so called democracy, you really have been spoiled with by charming smart people running the show over the years. Seriously.

[JohnL]

She really will get done over by the EU negotiators I think - unless Boris or Davis can help somehow.

Can't see how they can go well - as Paxman said (in so many words) - they know she has a history of U turning if things don't go well.

[jaywalker]

The obvious nightmare is that (as the polls suggest) she will now only gets a small majority (if she loses her majority she will be finished). She will then continue, but be beholden to her own right wing: and Brexit will mean hard Brexit: catastrophic. The union will of course then break up entirely, led by N Ireland and Scotland who will not vote for closed borders and terminal economic decline.

I see that house prices near Dublin are still quite reasonable, and their government seems quite enlightened .... and I'm still hoping the EU might make a unilateral offer of citizenship to the cosmopolis.

[Jules-and-Boo]

so when May steps down, who will step up?

[titch juicy]

A friend of a friend is a journalist and filmmaker from Beirut, currently living in Istanbul had this to say on Corbyn's foreign policy.

"Firstly, Paxman was f'ing crap, let's get that out of the way. Looks like his race is run, time for him to retire.

Secondly, remember when Donald Trump said he was going to make a deal with the Israelis and Palestinians for peace? Remember how he was mocked for this? Remember how his words weren't just accepted but they were also scrutinised and found to be total bollocks? Yeah, Corbyn does that on Syria and he gets a loud round of applause.

Again, I'm going to break this down into tiny detail so the sceptics among you can understand what is being said.

Firstly Jeremy Corbyn's approach to combating ISIS abroad is to "cut of arms and funding" for ISIS. Let's start unpacking that. The international coalition against ISIS have been "cutting off arms and funding" for ISIS since the very beginning of their campaign against them. What people do not seem to understand, no matter how many times it is plainly explained, is that Islamic State do not receive huge amounts of external funding.

The vast majority of IS wealth comes from robbery, extortion, oil revenue, taxation and kidnapping. Less than 5% of Islamic State's revenue comes from donations, those donations are from private citizens and are very difficult to trace. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are categorically not funding Islamic State, they are part of the anti-IS coalition and are actively fighting Islamic State. Anyone found guilty of financing Islamic State in one of those countries would be imprisoned for a very long time. So talking about arms deals to Saudi Arabia doesn't change anything with regards to ISIS, no matter how many times leftists write articles about it.

Now onto arms, ISIS have a lot of weaponry, the vast majority of it stolen. They have stolen it from the US-backed Iraqi army, they have stolen them from Gulf-armed rebel groups, they have stolen them from the Russian backed Assad regime. There are no large convoys of arms coming in to Islamic State territory from neighbouring governments. If there were, it would require air strikes to destroy those convoys, air strikes which Jeremy Corbyn has promised to end.

Therefore the idea that Jeremy Corbyn is going to stop ISIS by stopping fantasy revenue funds it does not receive and arms shipments that do not exist is as fanciful as trying to chop down an oak tree by strangling it. It will not work, it is not grounded in reality. However instead of mocking his answers the British public loudly applaud him because they do not understand this. Then, when this is pointed out by those who understand the situation, they are then called Tories or imperialists or war mongers simply for pointing out the facts.

NEXT, Syria.

We are back in the realms of Donald Trump's fantasy peace deal in Israel here. Jeremy Corbyn's frequent positions on Syria are as follows, 1) he wants a negotiated settlement and the restarting of the peace process which includes Iran. 2) He thinks all action should be carried out through the UN.

Both of these positions are based on fallacies, neither of them are ever properly scrutinised by the British press. Firstly, Corbyn has been talking about involving Iran in the peace process since the very start of the crisis as if they have not been involved. In reality, Iran has been involved in the Syria "peace talks" for many years now, in fact, they run the show. Iran and Russia are the bulwark against international accountability for the Assad regime, they are as intransigent on diplomacy re:Assad as ISIS would be re: Baghdadi.

Iran and Russia are in Syria to preserve the Assad regime. While Corbyn says there is "no military solution in Syria", Assad, Putin and Tehran disagree and are pushing forward with their plan to cleanse all of Syria. Understanding this is important, the issue isn't negotiating peace in Syria, it is negotiating what a future Syria will look like and what process the international community can take to hold parties accountable to those agreements.

People seem so quick to forget that the Russians negotiated an aid convoy into Aleppo and then bombed it before it could enter. This is what we are dealing with there, this is not a case of the British government being bad at diplomacy, it is about the international community being paralysed by continuously trying to talk their way out of a conflict in which the party holding the power has no intention of talking about anything.

Furthermore, Corbyn has repeatedly refused to call for Assad to step down or transition out of power. This is why the rebels are fighting, they want Assad gone. There is no reality in which rebels will surrender to Assad and live happily under Assad. If Corbyn has no position on Assad's future, unlike the British government who are still insistent on a transition and refusal to normalise relations, then Corbyn won't be negotiating for peace in Syria, he will be negotiating a victory for the Assad regime. A victory for Assad will not ensure peace but will instead fuel the fires of extremism and war for many decades to come.

The last point is the UN, and this is critical. Corbyn continues to push the fallacy that any military action must be decided through the United Nations. Corbyn rejected and still opposes the Libya No Fly Zone. The Libya No Fly Zone was UN security council mandated. So, in the last example of the UN backing military action, Corbyn opposed. He would oppose UN backed military action in Syria too. Most importantly, if Corbyn was prime minister he would have a veto at the UN. He can't have a neutral position on military action, he is either for it or against it and Britain's vote in the UNSC is critical to that action. Therefore there can be no UN-backed military action unless Jeremy Corbyn either votes for it or abstains.

This also fails to include the fact that Russia, which backs Assad and commits near-daily war crimes in Syria, also has a veto at the UNSC and have been vetoing any and all meaningful UN action on Syria, including against chemical weapons, for nearly 7 years. Pushing Syria towards the UN is essentially Corbyn giving Vladimir Putin veto powers over the entirety of British foreign policy in the Middle East.

Look, you might not care about this stuff, which I can accept. But what I can't accept is the mindless circus applause as if we were all seals waiting by the side of the pool for someone to throw us a fish. These are dangerously naive positions to hold at best and criminally neglectful positions to hold at worse.To see people who genuinely don't understand the conflict continue to push his foreign policy words as "principled" is deeply frustrating. I know many of you have your hearts in the right places, but what you are endorsing is not only stupid but also massively counterproductive. It is also not in line with the frequent statements put out by human rights organisations such as Amnesty International.

I know you all care more about what you think will happen to the NHS and schools and that's fine, I understand, but that does not give you the right to start pushing this insidious nonsense to people when you don't even have the facts to back it up. Please, for the love of god, scrutinise this man like you would any other politician.

Just because you talk a strong game about "peace" doesn't mean your policy approach won't make things worse both at home and abroad.

And, if we have anything to go off, after Donald Trump carried out a barely significant strike against an Assad air base, Corbyn asked his own shadow defence secretary Nia Griffith how the Labour party should respond. Griffith allegedly said that Labour should support a proportionate response, Corbyn overruled this and condemned the strikes. Corbyn is overruling his own defence secretary because he thinks he knows best when he clearly doesn't. This is a troubling precedent to set."

[Jules-and-Boo]

So what does your friend of a friend say about May's foreign policy?

Why is he/she not providing a balanced view (journalist should be unbiased, surely?).

[malumbu]

Thanks - a helpful reality check.

From my understanding the west has been pretty impotent - perhaps this is where Clinton was at her finest in trying to take on Russia and once she had stood down to contest the election, and obviously someone who appeared more pro-Russia won, then Russia thought they had an open door to do what they liked.

Would Corbyn have the final say if he was PM? Thatcher didn't negotiate with terrorists. But of course she did in an attempt to bring peace to Northern Ireland. Would Corbyn in power be a realist?

The whole political scene, general election, Brexit, a divided country, is rather frightening and I want to be four again playing in my sand pit.

[titch juicy]

It was a facebook post. Not a journalistic piece. I guess there was no need for me to mention the fact that he was a journalist

[Jules-and-Boo]

well for a balanced argument, there should be a equal critique of May's foreign policy or it's very biased.

[JohnL]

titch juicy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Firstly Jeremy Corbyn's approach to combating ISIS

> abroad is to "cut of arms and funding" for ISIS.

> Let's start unpacking that. The international

> coalition against ISIS have been "cutting off arms

> and funding" for ISIS since the very beginning of

> their campaign against them. What people do not

> seem to understand, no matter how many times it is

> plainly explained, is that Islamic State do not

> receive huge amounts of external funding.

>

> The vast majority of IS wealth comes from robbery,

> extortion, oil revenue, taxation and kidnapping.

> Less than 5% of Islamic State's revenue comes from

> donations, those donations are from private

> citizens and are very difficult to trace. Saudi

> Arabia and the Gulf States are categorically not

> funding Islamic State, they are part of the

> anti-IS coalition and are actively fighting

> Islamic State. Anyone found guilty of financing

> Islamic State in one of those countries would be

> imprisoned for a very long time. So talking about

> arms deals to Saudi Arabia doesn't change anything

> with regards to ISIS, no matter how many times

> leftists write articles about it.

>

> Now onto arms, ISIS have a lot of weaponry, the

> vast majority of it stolen. They have stolen it

> from the US-backed Iraqi army, they have stolen

> them from Gulf-armed rebel groups, they have

> stolen them from the Russian backed Assad regime.

> There are no large convoys of arms coming in to

> Islamic State territory from neighbouring

> governments. If there were, it would require air

> strikes to destroy those convoys, air strikes

> which Jeremy Corbyn has promised to end.

>

> Therefore the idea that Jeremy Corbyn is going to

> stop ISIS by stopping fantasy revenue funds it

> does not receive and arms shipments that do not

> exist is as fanciful as trying to chop down an oak

> tree by strangling it. It will not work, it is not

> grounded in reality. However instead of mocking

> his answers the British public loudly applaud him

> because they do not understand this. Then, when

> this is pointed out by those who understand the

> situation, they are then called Tories or

> imperialists or war mongers simply for pointing

> out the facts.

>

Leaked from Hillary's email server last year

?We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to Isis and other radical groups in the region.?

Looks like a direct repost to what your friend says

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hillary-clinton-wikileaks-email-isis-saudi-arabia-qatar-us-allies-funding-barack-obama-knew-all-a7362071.html

[titch juicy]

That wasn't the point of the post or the context of the discussion. It was just a criticism of Corbyn's policy and previous on Syria in particular.

I'm sure if you wanted to you could find critiques of May's foreign policy. Please post them here for us to read.

Here's a new (journalistic) piece from Paul Mason, who as you know is very pro-corbyn. But, he's also a journalist and as such also reserves some criticism for Corbyn's foreign policy, as this is a journalistic piece. His facebook posts are very pro-corbyn and don't provide balance.

"Jeremy Corbyn, although he has left behind pacifism and unilateralism, needs to facilitate the emergence of a new, positive Labour defence and security policy. It should be focused on the real threats ? a disintegrating world order and the growing unpredictability of thousands of jihadis in the UK ? not just a set of old leftwing nostrums."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/29/we-need-a-new-defence-strategy-donald-trump-has-hung-europe-out-to-dry

[titch juicy]

My post was to Jules-and-Boo.

[IlonaM]

Some light relief ...

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/liar-liar-song-about-theresa-may-soars-to-number-two-in-itunes-download-chart-a3551926.html

[titch juicy]

JohnL Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> titch juicy Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

>

> > Firstly Jeremy Corbyn's approach to combating

> ISIS

> > abroad is to "cut of arms and funding" for

> ISIS.

> > Let's start unpacking that. The international

> > coalition against ISIS have been "cutting off

> arms

> > and funding" for ISIS since the very beginning

> of

> > their campaign against them. What people do not

> > seem to understand, no matter how many times it

> is

> > plainly explained, is that Islamic State do not

> > receive huge amounts of external funding.

> >

> > The vast majority of IS wealth comes from

> robbery,

> > extortion, oil revenue, taxation and

> kidnapping.

> > Less than 5% of Islamic State's revenue comes

> from

> > donations, those donations are from private

> > citizens and are very difficult to trace. Saudi

> > Arabia and the Gulf States are categorically

> not

> > funding Islamic State, they are part of the

> > anti-IS coalition and are actively fighting

> > Islamic State. Anyone found guilty of financing

> > Islamic State in one of those countries would

> be

> > imprisoned for a very long time. So talking

> about

> > arms deals to Saudi Arabia doesn't change

> anything

> > with regards to ISIS, no matter how many times

> > leftists write articles about it.

> >

> > Now onto arms, ISIS have a lot of weaponry, the

> > vast majority of it stolen. They have stolen it

> > from the US-backed Iraqi army, they have stolen

> > them from Gulf-armed rebel groups, they have

> > stolen them from the Russian backed Assad

> regime.

> > There are no large convoys of arms coming in to

> > Islamic State territory from neighbouring

> > governments. If there were, it would require

> air

> > strikes to destroy those convoys, air strikes

> > which Jeremy Corbyn has promised to end.

> >

> > Therefore the idea that Jeremy Corbyn is going

> to

> > stop ISIS by stopping fantasy revenue funds it

> > does not receive and arms shipments that do not

> > exist is as fanciful as trying to chop down an

> oak

> > tree by strangling it. It will not work, it is

> not

> > grounded in reality. However instead of mocking

> > his answers the British public loudly applaud

> him

> > because they do not understand this. Then, when

> > this is pointed out by those who understand the

> > situation, they are then called Tories or

> > imperialists or war mongers simply for pointing

> > out the facts.

> >

>

> Leaked from Hillary's email server last year

>

> ?We need to use our diplomatic and more

> traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure

> on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia,

> which are providing clandestine financial and

> logistic support to Isis and other radical groups

> in the region.?

>

> Looks like a direct repost to what your friend

> says

>

> http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hillary-clinto

> n-wikileaks-email-isis-saudi-arabia-qatar-us-allie

> s-funding-barack-obama-knew-all-a7362071.html

This piece would suggest otherwise.

While it states that wealthy families in Saudi etc. still provide a small amount of funding, good headway was made to put a stop to this.

The extent to which ISIS gets funding from elsewhere and the diversity of funding sources is rather unnerving.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/18/how-isis-makes-its-money/?utm_term=.9d2a2ea53e5e

[JohnL]

What is it with idiots asking for figures off the top of peoples head at the moment.

Right Admin - how many users were logged on here at 21 October 2013 Come on Come on :). You'd look it up not have it at the top of your head - it's the internet/syslog era.

(Edit: in response to outrage at Corbyn forgetting a figure on Woman's Hour)

[miga]

titch juicy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The vast majority of IS wealth comes from robbery,

> extortion, oil revenue, taxation and kidnapping.

> Less than 5% of Islamic State's revenue comes from

> donations,

Would love to see the evidence for this.

> Furthermore, Corbyn has repeatedly refused to call

> for Assad to step down or transition out of power.

> This is why the rebels are fighting, they want

> Assad gone.

Some are, some aren't, it's not like there is one cogent group of rebels fighting to create a western liberal democratic paradise - the most powerful anti-Assad group wants something totally different and I doubt the disappearance of Assad will make them reconsider.

[JohnL]

titch juicy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> This piece would suggest otherwise.

>

> While it states that wealthy families in Saudi

> etc. still provide a small amount of funding, good

> headway was made to put a stop to this.

>

> The extent to which ISIS gets funding from

> elsewhere and the diversity of funding sources is

> rather unnerving.

>

> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/1

> 1/18/how-isis-makes-its-money/?utm_term=.9d2a2ea53

> e5e

But how can they spend this money (unless they are self

sufficient).

You can have all the gold, oil, paper money you want but

if nobody will sell anything to you it's worth nothing.

Just put a virtual wall around IS and come back in 10 years.

[titch juicy]

miga Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> titch juicy Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > The vast majority of IS wealth comes from

> robbery,

> > extortion, oil revenue, taxation and

> kidnapping.

> > Less than 5% of Islamic State's revenue comes

> from

> > donations,

>

> Would love to see the evidence for this.

There's a fair bit on this in the Washington Post piece.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/18/how-isis-makes-its-money/?utm_term=.d404c6bd13d8

[JohnL]

Anyway back to Theresa May who has this morning been accused of demeaning the office of Prime Minister by asking people to

"imagine the Labour leader ?naked and alone? in the EU negotiating chamber."

OoohErrr

[JohnL]

Just read her replay to being accused of demeaning the office of PM

......blah blah ... This is a choice between strong and stable government and strong and stable leadership, working to get the best deal for people in Europe and a coalition of chaos with Jeremy Corbyn propped up by the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Nationalists. .... blah blah blah ...

Back to the soundbites then

[Jules-and-Boo]

oh John L, that is dirty tactics you've highlighted.

Glad to see base principles have not been overlooked in the campaign.