Verbal

For any entrepreneurs out there, this thread would do a roaring trade in incontinence pants.

Because it doesn't say the opposite at all. I made no claim about supplying GPS coordinates to the Russians or Syrians. That would be mad, given their murderous attacks directly on hospitals. The hospitals were nonetheless clearly marked and known about, not least because many have been there for decades. Here's the one I was referring to in Aleppo, that was targeted directly. It was clearly marked as a hospital. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/syria-un-security-council-must-step-up-pressure-to-end-attacks-on-hospitals-as-hundreds-killed-in-aleppo/

Take the hospitals out of it though. They are run and only run outside of regime or IS control by two sets of people: Syrian doctors and/or Medicins san Frontieres. If it's high-tech - as this hospital was - it's more likely the latter (although Syrian medics are very highly trained and well regarded). An MSF hospital was also bombed two months ago, killing medical staff and patients. There has never been a shred of evidence that hospitals in these war zones are part of rebel or militant combat operations, and they are all very clearly marked and notified as hospitals. Any targeting of them therefore is almost certainly intentional - and the intention is to inflict maximum pain on civilian populations, thereby inflating the refugee crisis. On the more general point about the happiness of people under Assad and Saddam, it's important to know that there's a key distinction between the behaviour of the dictators and that of IS. IS learned all its savagery from Assad and Saddam's enforcers (the latter are one and the same), but IS took it one (insignificant) step further by making torture videos out of it all and broadcasting them to the world. Saddam and Assad and their goons had a habit of making the same videos - they just circulated them much less widely. They were meant as entertainment for themselves and their mates, and they are, if anything, worse than the worst of IS's death-porn. In both cases - IS and Assaddam - you became a victim not by rebelling against them necessarily but merely by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. All of this is lost in the 'post-fact' noise - the Russians, with RT and social media bots, and the Syrians with the SEA, have run effective campaigns in trying to undermine any of the overwhelming evidence of war crimes and savagery. Some in the West fall for it - I see a few links to RT on here from time to time, which is depressing because it shows depths of conspiracist-cretin gullibility I didn't think were possible. I'm not suggesting you're one of these, but I'd say the people to listen to for reliable information are MSF, some of the citizen-journalist groups like Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, and journalists, like Jeremy Scahill, with a long track record of independent reporting in the region.

As Assad hasn't actually made this argument - not least because the perpetrators were probably the Russians - I have no idea why you feel the need to come up with a vicious dictator's excuses for him. You seem unaware, too, that it's a war crime to bomb hospitals, period.

What would you do about it?

What would you do about it?

And so it begins... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/29/labour-rebels-plan-to-elect-own-leader-and-create-alternative-gr/

Damn this Muslim to hell. How dare he... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/father-of-a-muslim-soldier-killed-in-action-tells-donald-trump-you-have-sacrificed-nothing-and-no-a7161466.html

Some perspective is in order. The causes of death in the US in 2015, which was a bad year for Islamic terrorism, were: Suicide 43,000 Motor accidents 32,000 Gun homicide 13,286 Domestic violence 1,600 Islamic Terrorism 19 Oh, and Sharks 1.

Aside from the referendum, nothing's actually happened yet to cause the collapse. Cameron didn't press the nuclear Article 50 button on 24 June, as he promised he would (a broken promise, certainly, but a devilishly clever political move too). It's only when we're on the A50 road to hell that things will get seriously bad. As it stands, the once distinctly minority view that A50 won't happen any time soon has grown more widespread, and we seem to have settled into a period of uncertain certainty. There are, though, plenty of longer-term anxieties about the economy because of the vote, which will feed in to lower growth or even a recession. But the real collapse won't start until A50 is actually triggered. In the meantime, interesting to note that the EU has appointed just about the most hostile and politically skilled negotiator available to handle the UK/EU split. The Three Buffoons are absolutely no match for Michel Barnier (BoJo can't handle detail, Davis hasn't a clue about what the rules of trade negotiation even are, and who the **** knows what Fox is doing, given that he can't even talk to anyone about bilateral in any substantive way until at least 2019). So just wait - you'll get your economic crash and your emergency budget. It'll happen as soon as A50 gets triggered, and Barnier instantly knocks out the Three Buffoons' inevitable demand for access to the internal market without free movement. No wonder the Tories are hoping to drag this out until after the 2020 election.

Given Scotland is now wiped out for Labour, that kind of poll lead for the Tories would give the execrable Corbyn the historic defeat he's looking for - far bigger than the Thatcher landslide against Foot in 1983. Polling 29% against a profoundly unpopular Tory party is astounding.

Don't forget the striking similarities in political rhetoric and actual policy pronouncements. It's both alarming and fascinating to see a real live fascist competing for political power and being so close to it. It's like the 1930s never happened.

That already seems out-of-date. Even Juncker, who was issuing 'hurry up and **** off' threats in the hours after the referendum, is now fully signed up to the 'take as long as you want' approach to the UK's triggering of Article 50. Something has changed on both sides of what's still not even a negotiation. Whatever has changed has happened because the new May government have been talking to various parts of the EU. I wonder what would happen if a version of what's being leaked from the EU's higher echelons were to be true: that the UK would be offered 'brakes' on immigration provided it remains in the EU, but not if it leaves and wants access to the single market (which, headbangers here notwithstanding, it most certainly does). It's certainly the case that the long grass is growing longer. The Tory party chairman Patrick McLoughlin suggested at the weekend Article 50 would be triggered 'by 2020'. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/article-50-2020-mcloughlin_uk_5794e41de4b02508de4697bb Which will all the more puzzling for Brexit enthusiasts, because the basic terms that the UK wants to set for its future are simply not dependent on recruiting armies of trade negotiators. The terms themselves - in or out of the EEA/EFTA, 'red lines' on immigration, etc - will necessarily be the result of broad political decisions, not the technical minutae of trade negotiation. And there are enough Brexiteers in the relevant ministries to have agreed those terms by now. Slip sliding away...

What a weird kipper fantasy. You're saying that the Tories, with 330 seats in the Commons, face instant and certain defeat from the leaderless UKIP, with their one (rather liberal for UKIP) MP. And you're saying this because May would somehow have failed to deliver on a question that was never actually in the referendum, despite your (putting it politely) nativist magical thinking leading you to think it was. You also seem to have completely ignored that some of the leading Brexiteers, including the great hero BoJo, explicitly offered the Norway model as a way to go - that is, full membership of the EEA, with full access to the single market. Whether you like it or not, and should it ever happen, that counts as a withdrawal from the EU. It just so happens that to have that access we will be required to sign up to the 'four freedoms' (one of which is essential if the British economy is not to be trashed - freedom of movement of services, including passporting rights). Another one is freedom of movement of people, which may have certain 'brakes' applied, but which will remain a key red line for the EU. I don't doubt that what Matthew Parris I think aptly calls 'headbangers' - including you and a perennial awkward squad on the right fringes of the Tory party - will scweam and scweam that this is not what you wanted, and you have been at least consistent in making your silly ultimatums. But the reality is that May has far more pressing electoral problems than the headbangers and those further out on the nativist fringes. She has to steer away from a constitutional crisis to keep the Scots and others on board (and it won't be easy to resist a second Scots independence referendum on such a slim majority), and she has to steer a way around huge pressure from British business, who frankly will be screaming much more loudly and effectively than you if we have to spend the next x number of years digging our way back into the largest single market in the world. So either give up the fantasy or go and find something to bang your head against. You aren't going to get your way.

Then there are only two possibilities. Either what you've written here is a straight-out lie designed to cover up your Jew-hating sentiment expressed when defending another Jew hating comment. Or you were too stupid to realise that the original remarks were Jew-hating. Either way, I'm surprised you've not found yourself in a spot of trouble with the mods on this - or double-trouble. One, because Jacob Rothschild is still alive, and therefore to make or defend the anti-semitic remark about his (your words "A Jew") manipulating the conspiracist's wet dream of a "New World Order" is a slam-dunk libel. (Of course, "NWO" conspiracy theories, like yours, all resolve with the blame being laid at the door of those damn filthy Jews, singular or plural.) And two, because anti-semitism - including the defence of anti-semitic ideas - is commonly classified as racism, and that's against the rules of this forum. I'd rather focus on the post-Brexit debate, but so long as you post here I'll keep hoping you do the decent thing and retract.

Got any evidence for this kipper T? How does a news programme "salivate"? Or is this just evidence for your paranoid delusions about meejah beaming directly into people's brains? Only a conpiracist schmuck would say that the Beeb was propagandising for remain, rather than reporting both sides of the story. You just want your want your paranoia confirmed, and search for it in the tiniest example of expert reports being covered that might hint at a downside to Brexit. As with your steadfast defence of a Jew-hating libel - and your hilarious suggestion that these ideas were no more antisemitic than those of virulently Jew-hating Corbynistas now fronting the Labour party - you really seem to have departed from sane political debate.

Please provide a single piece of evidence that the government "have a plan" - you'll struggle as the government themselves have admitted there isn't one. Other than after 2016, please provide a single piece of evidence that they have an idea about when to trigger Article 50. On a positive note, here's something you can get behind. No doubt along with the 66% of the UK who want access to the single market to be the priority of any negotiation - as against 31% who think it should be about restricting the movement of people - you and all the other Brexiteers on here will support this: http://savethesingle.market I mean, if you don't, there'll be a bloody revolt on the streets, etc., etc.

(...And posted on the correct thread!) Time for kipperderry et al to write RAGING BTL comments under this article in The Independent, mysteriously entitled 'Why it's time the accept the fact that Brexit may never happen.' Kipper plus mates had practice here (and failed) but might want to tackle a familiar problem: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/why-its-time-to-accept-the-fact-that-brexit-may-never-actually-happen-a7148816.html

Time for kipperderry et al to write RAGING BTL comments under this article in The Independent, mysteriously entitled 'Why it's time the accept the fact that Brexit may never happen.' They've had practice here (and failed) but might want to tackle a familiar problem: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/why-its-time-to-accept-the-fact-that-brexit-may-never-actually-happen-a7148816.html

As services make up 80% of the British economy, I suspect there's a very good reason indeed he's excluded it. Financial services are a big part of that 80%, and the bad news for him is that the City isn't going to give up passporting rights or other hard-won business - which means access to the single market, which means no limits on freedom of movement. As for what actually happens with manufacturing ith kipperderry's favoured tack of a disorderly exit from the EU and a reliance simply on WTO, here's the Brexiters' favourite rabid economist, Patrick Minford: So almost no manufacturing, which currently employs 2.6 million people. And services, with a present trading surplus with the EU, would be seriously hobbled by no single market access, yet expected to pick up all the slack. It's a ludicrous fantasy, well explained here: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-britain-alone-scenario-how-economists-for-brexit-defy-the-laws-of-gravity/ Kipperderry should also be threatening Johnny Bog with dire RAAAGGGEEE!! at the latter's suggestion that the Brexit deal should include for now freedom of movement. That's the problem with Brexiters: there are so many varieties of them, many in simple denial that the referendum question asked wasn't the one they thought it was. Slip sliding away...

Is this level delusion common among your Brexity friends? We absolutely did not vote to come out of the single market. The vote was about the EU. There are other, non-EU, countries with access to the single market (and all that implies regarding free movement) - and these were referenced as 'models' by leading Brexiteers throughout the referendum campaign. The government has given no indication that it thinks abandoning the single market is anything other than patently stupid - even Chief Brexiteers like BoJo: Which of course means that those entitlements apply to any EU citizens wanting to do the same in the UK. Or, in short, free movement. I suspect your reply is going to include another blood-curdling threat that UKIP's one MP will be joined by hundreds of other kipper MPs after an election of RAAAGGGEEE!! if you don't get your way on free movement. But the truth is, you can't have what you want, no matter how the Brexit cake is sliced.

As this is the officially 'way forward' thread, could one of you clever Brexiteers answer the question I've now asked several times? How are we going to square the British government's need to be in the single market with the EU's red line on freedom of movement? Anyone? I actually felt sorry for Theresa May this afternoon - Merkel was clearly baffled that the British government has not the faintest idea of how to answer that question themselves. As someone else said, Brexiteers are like a dog catching a bus - it has not a clue what to do next.

Well, it seems we Remainers were wrong all along! The Brexiteers do have a plan! And here it is in full: the Brexit Manifesto (© D. Davis, 2016, all rights reversed). https://medium.com/@mrjasonmehmet/the-brexit-manifesto-f9a421fa3313#.463anxf7q It fills me with confidence that our national administration, with its massive contractual successes including PFI, major IT projects, and pretty much every large-scale defence contract - all of which will rob us blind for decades - will be in full command of a process that dwarfs all of those thousands of times over. And it will do it from a standing start of having precisely zero trade negotiators, and zero actual workable ideas from the Three Brexiteers supposedly in charge of it all. Brilliant!

This pro-Trident speech from Labour MP John Woodcock is getting a lot of praise. His delivery is rather nervous - understandable, really, given the truly bizarre circumstances of having to defend official Labour party policy in the teeth of opposition from his own leader and the unedifying clique around him. But the arguments he makes needed to be engaged with. Listen to the speech, though, to find out what this 'engagement' amounted to from Corbyn et al. Incidentally, the woman sitting just to the left of him is Ruth Smeeth, the Jewish MP who, while being abused at the anti-semitism report press conference, was 'defended' by Corbyn with the sum total of a knowing smirk.

Interesting legal case began today. A Government QC from David Davis's Brexit Dept has told the court that Article 50 won't/can't be triggered before the end of the year. Which of course contradicts what Davis said only last week. The judge (Leveson), pressed the government QC to give a clear summary of the government's position on A50. He couldn't - which wound the judge up no end, demanding that the QC "articulate in the language that is clear." https://twitter.com/JoshuaRozenberg Slip sliding away...