Unlike the massive army they already have aimed at Seoul, oh no wait a minute...
Unlike the massive army they already have aimed at Seoul, oh no wait a minute...
They're cowardly shitbags though.
So what's the problem then? They aren't suddenly going to invite complete immolation by nuking the South, like pretty much everything else this is purely for posturing.
Kim Jong Un would be an awesome Civilisation player.
If they ever develop a missile capable of delivering their truck-sized warheads into the middle of Seoul, they would be lucky to take out a hundred-thousand people. That isn't really all that much in the grand scheme of things, seeing as South Korea would invade and annihilate them in response. The shitness of their technology basically deters them from using it, which must be a first.
He wouldOriginally Posted by Henry
Of course they're not, their leaders are well minded, reasonable people. It's not like they'd force their entire male population to emulate the leader's haircut or anyt...oh.
No-one will dispute how crazy the regime is but it's a bit of leap from haircuts to thermonuclear war. A major offensive against Seoul would get them creamed out of existence whatever they did it with so having new weapons doesn't really make any difference.
Same with Iran, whatever else they are they aren't suicidal.
Fission, not fusion mate.
Even if you gave them the benefit of the doubt on all counts, and assumed they wouldn't get smashed in response, what would be the fucking point of nuking Seoul?
I guess it would cheer me up for a few hours, but that aside.
I don't know, but rest assured such devastating weaponry is not a good thing at all at the hands of such an unstable, erratic and ill-minded autocracy.
You could see the logic of some sort of 'Doomsday Device' rigged to blow up North Korea (and possibly more) if anybody invaded; but for that to be a worthwhile deterrent you would need the sort of heavy-duty megaton weapons that they don't have a hope of developing or manufacturing in the numbers required without some serious outside help from either Russia or China.
I think Kim is just bored.
What a gent.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35243133
Was that it? Fucking hell.Apparently this was the 'disloyalty' wot did for Pat McFadden:
Seumas Milne's utterly bizarre fingerprints all over it.
There'll be about 10 people left in the Labour party eligible for the front bench by the time he's finished.
This is amazing to watch.
Long may it continue. The look on their faces when Labour gets whittled down to about 85 seats at the next election.
'But at least we stood up for our principles.'
Jeremy's approval among Labour voters is down to 45% (from 64% the week before Christmas).
Pat McFadden produced the quote above, sacked for disloyalty.
John McDonnell praised the IRA, gets made Shadow Chancellor.
As if Dave got grief for calling these morons 'terrorist sympathisers'. For those of us who have been lolling at Seumas Milne articles for years it's like that shite made flesh. Amazing really. And Ken Livingstone is now in charge of reviewing their position on Britain's NATO membership! Oh, my sides.
This is very good on the Labour right.
I thought it embraced capitalism but looked to redistribute the spoils more equitably, a thought which basically won St Tony three elections. There's lots of ground being given by the Tories on that front too, but Tony's post premiership appallingness has basically undermined any good he may have done in office and meant anyone sensible in the party is now 'Blairite scum'.
Even the author there falls victim to meaningless words like 'empowerment' and 'openness'. They need to be talking less about that stuff and more about hospital car parks.
I thought this bit was good on why there's such a lack of talent:
The three who opposed Corbyn in the leadership election didn't really seem to send out much of a message about embracing capitalism but redistributing the spoils more effectively. Miliband kind of did that (although his message was always a bit confused and a bit crap).The problem isn’t that they are technocrats: it’s that they are bad technocrats. They use the word “electable” not as a way of describing how to be actually elected, but as the whine of over-entitled narcissists upset that Corbyintes have taken away their toys.
The problem, here, however, is an old one: Gordon Brown spent years plotting to be prime minister, only for us to discover that he didn’t know what to do when he got there. And given that so many Labour MPs’ path to the Cabinet consisted in impressing a mentor rather than in developing outside support or independent thought, it’s small wonder that they should have lost contact with those outside the Westminster Bubble, or even with the ability to think for themselves.
Also, there's been fuck all coverage of the housing bill that the Tories are pushing through. It's a disgrace.
"Housing" is a bit boring, so I have trouble reading the articles about it. What are they doing?
These few paragraphs of this article sum it up pretty well.
Among the bill’s scores of proposals are a few that cut straight to the heart of what council housing has traditionally been all about. For a start, the government wants to end the system of permanent council tenancies – which was cemented while Margaret Thatcher was in power – and replace it with arrangements that will be reviewed every two to five years, meaning that for new tenants, council housing will no longer represent anything secure or dependable, let alone be passed between generations.
There are also plans to introduce a policy for council tenants known as pay to stay, whereby households that collectively earn more than £30,000 a year (£40,000 in London) could be presented with a choice: either move out, or be charged rents “at market or near market levels” (or, weirdly enough, work less). At the same time – and this is where it all gets almost comically complicated – so as to subsidise housing associations that will now have to sell houses and flats under a newly extended right-to-buy scheme, councils are to be forced to sell their highest-value homes as soon as they become vacant.
No one is sure how any of this will work, and the government seems to making things up as it goes along: on Monday, for example, David Cameron announced that for every high-value council house sold in London, two supposedly “affordable” homes would be built – but there was no suggestion of any kind of like-for-like replacement. The essential story, then, seems pretty clear: a drastic attack on council housing, which will become not just less secure, but restricted to an ever smaller share of the population, just when Britain’s housing crisis has never been more acute.
It's rare that any technocrat isn't a bad one. Somebody like Lord Kitchener could run the Sudan single-handedly by working sixteen hours days and repressing his gayness, but pretty much everybody else is doomed to failure, so that isn't it. They're just insubstantial people generally, and the intellectuals/committed (whether to a cause or an asylum) get pushed to the sidelines.
I you're earning 30k and can't afford to pay normal rent then you're doing something drastically wrong.
The tin hats are well and truly out.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35269160
It's a shame Corbyn's got no clue what he's doing as I fancy his principles and beliefs would have gone down reasonably well with the electorate.
Is he ill? Either way: Grace Petrie is BACK.
This was before the reshuffle too. Still. MANDATE.
This week has been a real smorgasbord of comedy gold, and yet they're definitely going do outdo it at least four or five times before the elections in May. The BBC/Kuenssberg thing has outed Seumas Milne as one of the most incompetent men ever to work in top line politics.
I'm surprised Gideon is actually able to stop himself from lolling in public.
I saw Grace Petrie supporting Billy Bragg. Not a big fan.
Surprised on those Corbyn numbers. I thought Labour folk thought he'd done well at the PMQs, at least.
The return of Red Wedge.
Reg, Labour members probably think he has done ok. But his job isn't to appeal to them, it's to be seen as a prospective PM by the wider electorate. LOL.
I think the real question is whether they all ride together between venues on that tour.
They're probably living together in a fucking commune.
Bopping up the M1 to 'We all dream of a bench of Jez Corbyns...', with John McDonnell banging the roof and shouting 'A WHAT?!' in between each line.
That wouldn't work. You can't split on a tour bus.
Was just reading up on Red Wedge after Lee's post.
I bloody love Wikipedia sentences like that.After the 1987 election produced a third consecutive Conservative victory, many of the musical collective drifted away.
The Mirror have got stuck into Corbyn today.
That said, Cameron's walking into trouble over Europe as expected. Apparently as many as two-thirds of their MPs favour 'Brexit'.
That's the first time I've seen that Brexit word but a Google tells me it's an actual thing. Who the fuck came up with that? Are politicians actually using it when they're talking about it?
Grexit was a thing so why not?
It was? I can understand idiot journalists but do politicians actually use it?
https://medium.com/@Alison_McGovern/...3dd#.bs48p74da
A "hard right" organisation. What are they hoping to achieve with this and having a go at the BBC? "Real opposition" indeed.
What did the Mirror say?
As for Europe, Cameron's clearly going to muff it.
They seem to be trying to exterminate most of their own party. I'm baffled.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...ar-out-7150140
So not only do his MPs have to learn to live with him, Mr Corbyn also has to learn how a modern party head should act.
Nothing better illustrates his lack of readiness than the shambolic manner in which he conducted his reshuffle...
Today the Sunday Mirror reveals the inside story of the damp-squib reshuffle.
It does not make pleasant reading for anyone who wants a strong, effective Labour party that can expose and fight this disgraceful Tory government...
Mr Corbyn has a big mandate to lead but he needs to sort out a modern, professional, organised leader’s office – not the ragbag of aides he has surrounded himself with, who not only share his opinions but also his lack of experience and ability for running things.
Cameron knows what he's doing. Remain will win comfortably and the Tory Eurosceptics then have to shut up.
Can't see it myself, but we'll see.
One assumes they see it as a genuine "once in a generation" opportunity to impose their ideology on the wider party. The hard left had drifted into irrelevance prior to "Corbynmania", and this unexpected platform for their views is one they're not prepared to let slip. They're presumably trying to intimidate the so-called moderates MPs into siding with them (or at least not disagreeing with them and thus legitimising the current leadership) for fear of being dubbed a Blairite or a Tory. Ken Livingstone has been particularly good at this, by suggesting deselections, that Corbyn sack Hilary Benn or that the defence review will encompass a review of NATO membership. It's quite difficult for Labour MPs to do anything about his statements, or those of the wider pro-Corbyn elements, because then they have McDonnell et al attacking them for being "hard right", Blairites or Tories with the ever-lingering fear of deselection.
The concern for Labour MPs, I think, is that there's only so much longer this can go on before the Labour position is irrecoverable. Corbyn is performing significantly worse than Miliband was at the equivalent point in time, and the gaps on the economy and security are only going to increase given the ease with which the Conservatives can attack Labour, both on past performance and on stated-views from the current leadership "clique". One assumes they need a poor electoral performance e.g. the local elections, but Sadiq Khan will probably win the Mayoral race and that gives Corbyn more time. He needs to resign as well, because the mechanics of the leadership mean that Labour MPs need him not to automatically stand for re-election so they can control the ballot. One assumes they'll need to effectively cull the current membership to protect themselves from this sort of "insurgency" in future, although maybe they'll have more common sense than to "lend" their vote to anyone again.
I'd be amazed if people vote to leave. People don't care that much about Europe as an issue which leaves us with the personalities. The electorate trust Cameron and Osborne who are opposed by the laughable Farage. The only thing I could see making it close is Johnson going for leave but I reckon he'll play nice in return for a big job when he relinquishes the mayoralty.
The whole thing is a sham, really. There will be no renegotiation but Cameron will get enough that he can claim some sort of victory and people will believe him anyway.
Further stories around immigration / lack of control of the EU's borders similar to last summer may push it close if they happen at the "right" time, but ultimately I suspect you're right. People will get nervous when they hear "loss of jobs" or "massive adverse impact on the economy" etc. and will most likely vote for the status quo. It would need a significantly game changing event for Leave to win, I would think.
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