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[Moosichu]

Apparently the Tories have started trotting out an 'I told you so' narrative about how we should have bombed Syria three years ago. Let's just hope no one remembers they wanted to intervene on the side that became Islamic State.

Source (see George Osborne talking about the "terrible mistake" the House made in the video). I can't believe Labour/the media are letting them get away with this huge u-turn on which side they want to bomb.

Yeah, Labour really need to take the Tories' stance on this and slap them silly about it.

 

[Jezbollah]

McDonnell been signing things again. Today it was a document signed last year saying people should be able to opt out of any of there tax money being used on military spending. (Source is Sunday politics)

I'm guessing he forgot to read that one to.

oooh Financial opt-outs/ins. A hot topic, especially when it comes to union contributions

 

[CyclopsRock]

The "anti-Assad" side has morphed and changed though, right? There certainly was a time when the people fighting Assad were not ISIS.

 

[Lirlond]

Since when has the truth stopped the opposition criticising the government?

 

[Saiyar]

The "anti-Assad" side has morphed and changed though, right? There certainly was a time when the people fighting Assad were not ISIS.

ISIS were by far the biggest group at the time of the commons vote. Bombing Assad would certainly have been of benefit to them.

 

[Jezbollah]

Looks like we'll be getting a Syria vote this week, folks.

 

[Spaghetti]

front page of the sun today is disgusting. murdoch media doing the work of isis.

 

[Moosichu]

http://www.theguardian.com/business...t-40bn-pounds-autumn-statement-george-osborne

Austerity increasing budget deficit.

 

[N7Commander95]

front page of the sun today is disgusting. murdoch media doing the work of isis.

Its straight up racism, I have no idea how they havent been sued for hate speech

 

[Par Score]

front page of the sun today is disgusting. murdoch media doing the work of isis.

It really is absolutely disgraceful, and totally misleading.

The headline specifies sympathy for "jihadis", but the poll question just talks about going to fight in Syria, not on which side.

It also finds a lower level of sympathy for these people from Muslims than has been found from non-muslims or the general population in other, similar polls.

It's utter bollocks designed to gin up hatred. Fuck The Sun.

 

[Jezbollah]

front page of the sun today is disgusting. murdoch media doing the work of isis.

Haven't seen it, is this the "one in five muslims support ISIS" that the Mirror have (quite rightly) shat on it for?

 

[Nicktendo86]

Haven't seen it, is this the "one in five muslims support ISIS" that the Mirror have (quite rightly) shat on it for?

It is. I don't know why they need to stoop to such levels, I really don't. I read that the result for non Muslims almost mirrored the results of Muslims exactly.

 

[RobotNinjaHornets]

The question didn't even mention ISIS.

 

[JonathanEx]

It is. I don't know why they need to stoop to such levels, I really don't. I read that the result for non Muslims almost mirrored the results of Muslims exactly.

While not done at the same time so it can't be taken as a control group, it was 30% of non-muslims. So close - but technically higher. If you wanted to be pedantic, you could use these numbers to show they're better than the rest of the population!

Poor survey, poor reporting, yet they'll defend it to the heavens like the prats they are.

 

[kmag]

Looks like to pay for the SDSR, 12000 civilian MOD jobs will go. T-26 order reduced from 13 to 8. F-35 order reduced again as well to 28 F-35B's at a cost of £100m per plane making it the most expensive single engine plane ever purchased.

The Ministry of Defence has avoided providing regular updates on the cost of renewing Trident but the strategy document put the cost of the four submarines at £31bn, up from £25bn nine years ago.

£31bn just for the boats. £7.75bn (est) add about 20% for the usual BAE inflation and you'll be around £9bn per boat (over double the estimate for US Ohio class successor which is currently pegged at $6 billion or £4 billion)

 

[Uzzy]

It's amazing how the F-35 was originally conceived as a low cost option. Buying the Boeing P8s makes perfect sense, so that's good.

These new strike brigades are one of those things that'll sound good in the papers tomorrow but can easily be modified or removed. Maybe ISIS will wait ten years, and then we can actually occupy and hold the ground they lose after ten years of airstrikes. Good stuff.

 

[Kuros]

At Cameron's strategic defence review statement tonight. This photo is lighting up twitter.

Corbyn literally on the front bench by himself. Almost like he's been abandoned. How's that for optics.

Cameron completely obliterated him in his speech as well. Dark Dark times for Labour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1OVtNBSktI

Also apparently the Syria vote will be Dec 2nd.

 

[Nicktendo86]

It's almost sad now. Almost.

Labour mps told bit to talk to journalists outside the PLP meeting tonight.

 

[Moosichu]

Some of the footage that has come out looks not bad.

McDonnel said that the PLP meeting was good, let's hope he means it and lets see what comes out of the autumn statement.

 

[Nicktendo86]

This sums things up perfectly

YouGov: 57 per cent of Labour members think Mr Corbyn should take the party into the next election, against 28 per cent of the public.

Also

Westminster voting intention:
CON: 40% (+2)
LAB: 29% (-4)
UKIP: 11% (+1)
LDEM: 8% (-)
GRN: 3% (-)
(via ComRes / phone method)

 

[Deleted member 231381]

It's also ComRes, same as the last bad one for Labour. They're still experimenting with methodology, and their current method applied to their samples from before the last election would have had Labour with an 11 point lead - i.e., exactly the same as this. I think most of the evidence so far suggests that Corbyn has had absolutely no effect on Labour voting intention (although that's a pretty worrying thing in and of itself).

 

[phisheep]

It's also ComRes, same as the last bad one for Labour. They're still experimenting with methodology, and their current method applied to their samples from before the last election would have had Labour with an 11 point lead - i.e., exactly the same as this. I think most of the evidence so far suggests that Corbyn has had absolutely no effect on Labour voting intention (although that's a pretty worrying thing in and of itself).

?? I did a double-take there ??

 

[Deleted member 231381]

?? I did a double-take there ??

er-hem, the Conservatives.

 

[Par Score]

That horrific hit-piece on Muslims by The Sun just keeps getting worse somehow.

A poll purporting to show that one in five British Muslims had “sympathy for jihadis” was constructed by calling people with “Muslim surnames” in an effort to complete an affordable survey of opinion in the week after the Paris terror attacks.

Survation – the polling company used by the Sun – said it had picked out likely respondents using the help of an academic expert on naming, a method that rival polling companies said did not necessarily amount to a representative sample of the British Muslim population.

Survation was approached by the Sun because the paper’s regular pollsters, YouGov, “didn’t want to do the poll”. YouGov said it did not want to carry out the study because it could not be confident that it could accurately represent the British Muslim population within the timeframe and budget set by the paper.

A spokesperson said: “To survey Britain’s Muslim population, particularly at a time of such heightened sensitivities, requires the kind of time, care, and therefore cost, that is beyond a newspaper’s budget.”

Fuck The Sun.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Here is someone who is paid to tell you what I tell you for free:

New Statesman - New poll shows Jeremy Corbyn going nowhere.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2015/11/new-poll-shows-jeremy-corbyn-going-nowhere

That means that a “Stop Jeremy” candidate will have to be a) able to, in the words of one insider, “unite the party from Lisa Nandy [on the soft left] to Wes Streeting [on the right]”. b) secure an electoral result that was, if nothing else, no worse than the 2015 election, and c) defeat Jeremy Corbyn among members.

You might as well add d) be able to transmute iron to gold or e) feed 5,000 with just five loaves and two fish. No politician with those qualities exists within the parliamentary Labour party. Corbyn is going nowhere, which means that if a reckoning is on its way, it is the Labour leader’s opponents who will be the worse off.

Other findings now include that Corbyn has a higher approval rating among people eligible to vote in the Labour party elections than he did when he was elected - quite significantly so, a 7 percentage point rise - and has also risen in approval among those who identify with Labour.

Hmm.

 

[Walshicus]

"Maybe the west’s approach is right. After all, if you’ve got a massive fight in, say, a pub car park, the best way of solving it is clearly standing well back and randomly lobbing in fireworks."

Pretty funny op piece from Frankie Boyle.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/23/frankie-boyle-fallout-paris-psychopathic-autopilot


I don't know, I just despair at wasting more money on Syria now. We're not going to fix it, we're going to make it worse. We're going to make ourselves less secure.

If we really cared about saving lives we'd take the money from the Brown Person Death Fund (or whatever they call it) and put it straight into the NHS. Or public roads.

Isn't anyone else fucking bored of all this security theatre bullshit?

 

[ruttyboy]

Isn't anyone else fucking bored of all this security theatre bullshit?

Beyond words.

 

[kmag]

Pretty funny op piece from Frankie Boyle.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/23/frankie-boyle-fallout-paris-psychopathic-autopilot


I don't know, I just despair at wasting more money on Syria now. We're not going to fix it, we're going to make it worse. We're going to make ourselves less secure.

If we really cared about saving lives we'd take the money from the Brown Person Death Fund (or whatever they call it) and put it straight into the NHS. Or public roads.

Isn't anyone else fucking bored of all this security theatre bullshit?

While we have a bit of capability that the Yanks don't have with the brimstone missiles capability to reduce collateral damage over the US's equivalent weapons (although at £175,000 a pop it's a pretty expensive way to eliminating someone)* other than a gesture of solidarity there's little reason for us to get involved. Our 8 Tornadoes aren't adding much the US and France don't have.

*having said that with the Brimstone 2 becoming operational, we have a cache of original Brimstones we probably could do with using up.

 

[Par Score]

Now even The Sun's pollster is condemning the way it's work has been used:

The wording of the question on “sympathy with young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria” was not chosen by The Sun newspaper but was chosen by Survation in order to be completely comparable with previous work we have done, both among Muslims and non-Muslims and therefore enable meaningful and proper comparisons to be drawn.

However, there is a distinction between the work we do and how clients chose to present this work. Survation do not support or endorse the way in which this poll’s findings have been interpreted. Neither the headline nor the body text of articles published were discussed with or approved by Survation prior to publication.

Furthermore, Survation categorically objects to the use of any of our findings by any group, as has happened elsewhere on social networks, to incite racial or religious tensions.

For clarity: Fuck The Sun.

 

[twobear]

Pretty funny op piece from Frankie Boyle.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/23/frankie-boyle-fallout-paris-psychopathic-autopilot

obviously, since he isn't advocating bombing everyone with a muslim surname, he just hates the west

 

[RobotNinjaHornets]

Isn't anyone else fucking bored of all this security theatre bullshit?

I've installed a word filter plugin for Firefox at home so I can change any instance of "Trident" to "Metal Gear"

Should make it at least a bit more entertaining for a while

 

[Moosichu]

I've installed a word filter plugin for Firefox at home so I can change any instance of "Trident" to "Metal Gear"

Should make it at least a bit more entertaining for a while

Hahahah

 

[QuicheFontaine]

While we have a bit of capability that the Yanks don't have with the brimstone missiles capability to reduce collateral damage over the US's equivalent weapons (although at £175,000 a pop it's a pretty expensive way to eliminating someone)* other than a gesture of solidarity there's little reason for us to get involved. Our 8 Tornadoes aren't adding much the US and France don't have.

*having said that with the Brimstone 2 becoming operational, we have a cache of original Brimstones we probably could do with using up.

Do we need to use them up? Do they go off, like milk?

 

[Sir_Crocodile]

Do we need to use them up? Do they go off, like milk?

they start smelling

like brimstone

 

[Saiyar]

So it turns out that HMS Ocean, our current flag ship and only assault ship, is to be scrapped in 2018 despite just getting a £65 million refit. This fact was conveniently left out of the defence review.

 

[Nicktendo86]

McGarry has resigned the SNP whip, that's two MPs since the election now.

 

[Lirlond]

McGarry has resigned the SNP whip, that's two MPs since the election now.

She resigned over claims of corruption though.

 

[kmag]

She resigned over claims of corruption though.

So did the other one. The SNP's vetting for candidates was a mess, too many seats where when the process began they thought they didn't have a chance, too many new faces from the wider independence movement. Add to that the affirmative action quotas and it was a recipe for disasters like this to happen.

On the other hand, with two MP's independent is now the 2nd largest party in Scotland!

 

[Deleted member 231381]

So did the other one. The SNP's vetting for candidates was a mess, too many seats where when the process began they thought they didn't have a chance, too many new faces from the wider independence movement. Add to that the affirmative action quotas and it was a recipe for disasters like this to happen.

On the other hand, with two MP's independent is now the 2nd largest party in Scotland!

By definition, if you're independent you're not in a party.

#pedant

 

[Hellers]

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...osborne-spending-review-2015-autumn-statement

George Osborne will announce big cuts in spending for the police, social care, local government, further education, renewable energy and welfare as he is forced to finally spell out how he plans to have reduced spending in key government departments cumulatively by nearly 50% since the Conservatives came to power in 2010.

After weeks of media focus on protected Whitehall departments, the chancellor will detail how the cuts will fall across the rest of government departments.

 

[Lirlond]

With all this anti terror gung-ho how can he justify cutting police spending?

 

[Jezbollah]

With all this anti terror gung-ho how can he justify cutting police spending?

As usual, it depends on where the cuts are being made.

 

[kmag]

Ah George. Looks like he's going to breach his welfare cap, you know the 'trap' he set for the Labour party.

Not that it'll matter with the current state of the Labour party, but the evidence is mounting up that Osborne well is really just a bit shit. He'll be struggling to be Tory leader at this rate unless he manages to pull a rabbit or two out of the hat, however it looks increasingly likely that the economy is starting to falter.

 

[jimbobsmells]

Going to be an interesting day I think. I can't see how he can avoid raiding housing benefit.

 

[Jezbollah]

Ah George. Looks like he's going to breach his welfare cap, you know the 'trap' he set for the Labour party.

Not that it'll matter with the current state of the Labour party, but the evidence is mounting up that Osborne well is really just a bit shit. He'll be struggling to be Tory leader at this rate unless he manages to pull a rabbit or two out of the hat, however it looks increasingly likely that the economy is starting to falter.

The problem is with such weak opposition it's not going to take an outstanding leader of whoever is Cameron's successor to be elected PM..

 

[Moosichu]

The problem is with such weak opposition it's not going to take an outstanding leader of whoever is Cameron's successor to be elected PM..

A lot can happen in 5 years.

 

[Jezbollah]

A lot can happen in 5 years.

I hope you're right. We need an effective opposition right now.

 

[Moosichu]

I hope you're right. We need an effective opposition right now.

I hope so too.

 

[Nicktendo86]

War in Syria, a potential for disaster between Russia and Turkey, a still on-going migrant crisis and Corbyn leads with... renewable energy.

 

[jimbobsmells]

War in Syria, a potential for disaster between Russia and Turkey, a still on-going migrant crisis and Corbyn leads with... renewable energy.

Get those big hitting questions in early.