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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Iain Dale declared on Newsnight that we are now a colony of the EU because they are worried about our being obstructive if they carry on letting us have extensions. He knows his history. That is exactly how the Matabele Wars started.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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The EU are not worried by Britain, but are really worried by Trump.

Trump is angling for a trade war with the EU after he has dealt with China.

Trump wants Johnson in and Britain out. This is why the EU want to keep May for now. (May's out in December, as a new election for leader will be triggered. Johnson will probably win )

The main priority for the EU is to conclude a deal with Britain, which would then tie the Brits into the economic fight with them, in any future trade war against Trump.

The question for this colony is which block do you want to be on?

Who do you think will win?
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Mick Harper
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If you really think states indulge in this degree of strategising, you are sadly mistaken. As would they be if they ever attempted to do so.

The EU are not worried by Britain, but are really worried by Trump.

The EU is neither 'worried' nor 'not worried'. These are just two standard problems in the in tray which will probably solve themselves given time. But if not, do the usual, lob a few sanctions, have a few lobbed back, agree to take them off when the music dies. This Boeing business has come at just the right time. Who'd have predicted that? After twenty years of bickering about who's giving more state support to civilian aircraft manufacture.

Trump is angling for a trade war with the EU after he has dealt with China.

Trump angling. That's a good one. I'm going to write that one down.

Trump wants Johnson in and Britain out.

I doubt he's ever thought about it but, yes, this would be most in line with his current enthusiasm for bashing the Old World Order.

This is why the EU want to keep May for now. (May's out in December, as a new election for leader will be triggered. Johnson will probably win )

I can't follow this. Perhaps the mandarins at the EU can.

The main priority for the EU is to conclude a deal with Britain, which would then tie the Brits into the economic fight with them, in any future trade war against Trump.

The main priority is to get Britain to do something, that's for sure.

The question for this colony is which block do you want to be on?

I don't like to break it to you, Wiley, but America wants out of blocks and we want out of the Europe block and there aren't any others I know of relevant to us. Not relevant to their members very much either, if truth be told. It's all very ad hoc. Rhymes with bloc.

Who do you think will win?

I'm going for Canada Plus.
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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Is it symbolic?

The EU offered a six month extension until 31st October 2019, the day before a new EU Commission take their seats, and presumably coincidentally, All Hallows’ Eve.


Who exactly will be doing the EU {Trick or Treat}'ing on 31st October 2019?

Will all-Hell break loose?

Meanwhile, May has been in detention again.

The Prime Minister was made to sit outside for the majority of the meeting while the heads of government of the EU27 deliberated for hours.


You're a very naughty girl. Don't let me catch you doing that again.
I won't
Won't what?
Let you catch me ... sir.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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I did say that suing the government of the Embassy, that was actually providing him sanctuary for (err) breaching his human rights, was a tad unwise.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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The thing that most interested me was would you prefer
a) seven years in an Ecuadoran embassy or
b) two years in a Swedish prison.
Vary until the tipping point is reached.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
I must be living on a different planet, Grant. On mine, the execution of innocent people has come in at number 47 among reasons advanced for why capital punishment should be abolished. The AEL has no position on capital punishment but that doesn't mean it permits its members to use phoney correlation claims. Or for that matter phoney lists of reasons for and against whatever it is.


The question is why capital punishment has been (not should be) abolished. The use of capital punishment is a highly effective deterrent particularly in stopping more minor crimes. You don't hang men for stealing horses, you hang men so that horses will not be stolen. etc. However, once a general deterrence has been established, concerns over rough justice, added to more effective forms of defence representation, bring a clamour for the number of crimes punishable by death to be reduced and an increase in alternative punishments. Jails historically were places where you (I mean you) were incarcerated pending trial, not where you were punished after trial..... For a while there is balance then, human nature being what it is, some folks come up with the idea that you can go further, and stop capital punishment altogether.....I reckon it's allied to better representation, rules favouring the defence, disclosure, you cant mention previous crimes etc.... and notions of scientific doubt....there is a collective amnesia that capital punishment is highly effective, as we live in an age of low crime due to..... the successful use of capital punishment in reducing minor crimes.
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Mick Harper
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The question is why capital punishment has been (not should be) abolished. The use of capital punishment is a highly effective deterrent particularly in stopping more minor crimes.

Just not true. Several hundred ‘minor crimes’ got the death penalty in the eighteenth century, they were being committed by the zillion.

You don't hang men for stealing horses, you hang men so that horses will not be stolen. etc.

That is one of the purposes of criminal justice. Undoubtedly the most important one but not the only one.

However, once a general deterrence has been established

Which it hasn’t. It is the getting caught that is the deterrence. No actual punishment (even Community Service) is worth the gains of the offence that has been committed.

concerns over rough justice, added to more effective forms of defence representation, bring a clamour for the number of crimes punishable by death to be reduced

You’re mixing up too many different factors here. What is rough justice? A hungry youth being hanged for stealing a loaf of bread might or might not be considered rough justice. There was no ‘defence’, effective or otherwise, for most of history. The prosecution just had to prove its case. It is often alleged that juries started acquitting loaf-stealing hungry youths because they didn’t think being hanged was a suitable punishment but I don't really believe that to be true. The state just isn't that dumb.

and an increase in alternative punishments.

Most of the time the hanging bit was commuted to other fairly dreadful (by our standards) punishments.

Jails historically were places where you (I mean you) were incarcerated pending trial, not where you were punished after trial.

That is true. It was just too expensive. There was branding, mutilation, the cat, the rod, the stocks, the cart ride, impressment, transportation etc. Presumably hanging was to some extent a matter of economics. It always seems foolish to me that, since prison is more expensive than Eton, more effective ways to use the money is not discussed by either left or right, who instead are content to differ strictly on the basis of 'be nastier' or 'be nicer'.

For a while there is balance then, human nature being what it is, some folks come up with the idea that you can go further and stop capital punishment altogether....

Not ‘some folks’, that is the point. For most of history it was no folks, then some folks, then most folks and presumably at some point in the future all folks. You cannot dispute, Wiley, that long term the trend is all one way.

.I reckon it's allied to better representation, rules favouring the defence, disclosure, you can't mention previous crimes etc.... and notions of scientific doubt....

Yup, that’s the ticket.

there is a collective amnesia that capital punishment is highly effective, as we live in an age of low crime due to..... the successful use of capital punishment in reducing minor crimes.

Certainly the amnesia of any of this has affected me.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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I reckon the fictional witnesses of the charters are the early jurists, so really notions of capital punishment develops alongside fictional land rights. That's why it had to be a disproportionate death penalty, because it was contested land. And very effective it was too in settling (sic) claims.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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The Vikings are a funny old lot, not only were they going around setting fires to churches looting etc they also saw fit to implement a proto version of the Scandi jury system, in the bits of England they controlled. If convicted you became an outlaw. (outside the protection of the law) cast into nature, like an animal, free to be hunted.

Pretty amazing really.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Good to see that MPs are finding time to write to the Home Secretary about to whom Julian Assange is extradited, Sweden or the US.

There won't be a consensus. We will probably get a indicative vote.

Personally I can't see why he isn't just deported to Australia. He has broken the law here and has a Aussie passport.

But you just know that loads of wonga will be wasted, trying to do something clever that goes Pete Tong , and will end up with Assange finally living out his time in .......that well known Police State, the UK, in a council flat, on benefits, with a care package and 17 cats.
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Mick Harper
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He looked well on the way, didn't he? Allowing himself to be dragged out like that was a PR disaster. I heard on CNN that the charges he faces in the US only carry a five year sentence so I will have to update my à la carte Julian Assange Choose Your Own Poison tariff

seven years in an Ecuadorian embassy
two years in a Swedish gaol
twenty eight years in a Middlesbrough B & B hostel
five years in a US penitentiary

Though as I understand it, this last one may be changed to five years arguing his case up to the Supreme Court then a lethal injection. On the gurney of course, not à la carte.

Too early?
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Mick Harper
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However it is an opportune moment to take stock. Just because Mr Assange personally makes me feel ill and his liberal supporters make me physically sick should not disguise the fact that he is a great hero of mine. What he did was absolutely critical in exposing the foreign policy shenanigans of the US (and others, though not admittedly either Russia or China). Plus, as his lawyer pointed out on CNN, nobody died.

No, come on, Javed, show us your true colour and Middlesborough, roll out the red carpet.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Despite what is being written, I think the US is (legally) going to go after Assange not because he exposed wrong doing, (leaked) but because he encouraged and conspired with Manning to get the docs. If Chelsea had collected the information himself/herself and given it to Assange, and he had then leaked/published it......he might not be in the same bother.

The Supreme Court has previously upheld the right of journalists to publish illegally obtained information, journalists however cannot participate in, or conspire to, break the law themselves. Which is why Rusbridger will not be extradited along with Assange.

I reckon that is why they the US are focussing on the alleged password cracking?
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Mick Harper
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There was a lot of confusion among the CNN experts on this. I got the impression that the password business was more about ensuring Chelsea's anonymity rather than getting access, which after all Chelsea had done plenty of entirely on his/her ownio. Mind you, conspiring to pervert the course of US justice will get you plenty. (Theoretically, a life sentence in the UK.) But I do not believe Britain will extradite Assange to the US under any circumstance. It will be a laugh-a-minute if Sweden eventually does. Australia might -- they have a share-all intelligence pact with the Americans and a relative lack of liberal scruple.

By the way, why is Assange in the frame over the Hillary hacks? I can't believe he was allowed to be the guiding light of Wikileaks while holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy.
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