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Questions Of The Day (Politics)
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Mick Harper
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Today's Lesson in Intelligence Tradecraft

1. Never give away useful information to the enemy just to score a quick point in the 24-hour news cycle
2. Never disclose that your sources of information are a bit shaky

"We believe there are still a small number of Americans, under two hundred, likely closer to one hundred, who remain in Afghanistan. We are trying to determine exactly how many." US Secretary of State.
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Grant



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The alternative is to pretend that all Americans are out and then spend the next fifty years answering to the conspiracy theorists
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
Today's Lesson in Intelligence Tradecraft

1. Never give away useful information to the enemy just to score a quick point in the 24-hour news cycle
2. Never disclose that your sources of information are a bit shaky

"We believe there are still a small number of Americans, under two hundred, likely closer to one hundred, who remain in Afghanistan. We are trying to determine exactly how many." US Secretary of State.


I don't remember Israel leaving their folks behind when pulling out of Gaza.
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Mick Harper
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Nor did we when we pulled out of Kabul. Not only did we get every last Brit out, we made sure all the locals facing possible retribution were taken too. What a brave sight it must have been. No CNN in those days of course.

Out of more than 16,000 people only one European and a few Indian sepoys reached Jalalabad. A hundred British prisoners and civilian hostages were later released. Around 2,000 of the Indians, many of whom were maimed by frostbite, survived and returned to Kabul to exist by begging or to be sold into slavery.
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Mick Harper
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Fact: It has been pointed out forty-seven thousand times (approx) that National Insurance is not insurance but is actually a tax
Fact: It has been pointed out forty-seven thousand times (approx) that everyone thinks National Insurance is insurance whereas it is actually a tax.
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Mick Harper
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Unlike me, people think politicians are thoroughly disreputable characters who are always breaking their promises. When one of them actually does -- for the first time I can remember -- nobody minds one little bit.
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Wile E. Coyote


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When Clegg broke his promise on tuition fees he was held to account as people saw it for what it was, an attempt to gain power. Folks don't give a fig about Johnson's promise as they realise that there has been a critical event that has changed things.
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Mick Harper
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When Clegg broke his promise on tuition fees

He entered into a coalition which meant neither party could implement its own manifesto.

he was held to account as people saw it for what it was, an attempt to gain power.

Politicians are elected in order to gain power. The arithmetic of that particular election dictated a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.

Folks don't give a fig about Johnson's promise as they realise that there has been a critical event that has changed things.

Perhaps they do, perhaps you do, but it isn't true. Johnson promised to solve the care-home problem without raising taxes before Covid had even been heard of. He can do as you say to make good the financial ravages of Covid but he has specifically said that this tax rise is hypothecated to the care sector (apart from some going to the ravaged NHS in the first three years).
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Grant



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No-one on the telly ever asks why the NHS is now in such dire straights. It can’t be COVID because the death rate in 2020 was lower than in any year of the twentieth century.
It can’t be loss of revenue because they have carried out a fraction of the work they were contracted to do whilst losing not a penny in income.
And this vast bloated organisation is now immune from any criticism from left and right.
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Mick Harper
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No-one on the telly ever asks why the NHS is now in such dire straights.

No-one in any form of media ever points out that health provision is designed to be in dire straits all the time, everywhere. It means current arrangements are meeting current needs without any excess capacity.

It can’t be COVID because the death rate in 2020 was lower than in any year of the twentieth century.

This doesn't follow at all. What's so special about death?

It can’t be loss of revenue because they have carried out a fraction of the work they were contracted to do whilst losing not a penny in income.

I don't know what this means.

And this vast bloated organisation is now immune from any criticism from left and right.

I know what this means and agree with it wholeheartedly.
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Mick Harper
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The blame game begins but fury must not be flung at India's players Andy Bull Guardian

Oh yes it should M J Harper AEL

Not being obliged to favour either non-whites or workers, I can stick to the facts

Fact: For the last eighteen months players have been desperate to avoid the coils of Covid, even to the point of defying the authorities, eg Brazilians flying from Britain to Brazil via Croatia to play against Argentina.
Fact: Said authorities have been battered from pillar to post but generally have a) tried to keep the show on the road while b) bowing to various inevitabilities and c) coping with weird behaviour from the players
Fact: India cancelled the Fifth Test at a couple of hours notice
Fact: There is no way in a billion trillion years (to use Hindu chronology) that the Indian authorities would have done this knowing the flimsiness of the excuse and the financial / political / sporting ramifications
Fact: The Indian players couldn't give a monkeys about any of this. They just wanted out of there in case their inclusion in the IPL might be put in jeopardy following a bit of Covid in the support staff
Fact: The English players did the exact same thing in South Africa, refusing to play in the one-dayers, when it looked like their plans to spend Christmas at home might be put in jeopardy following a bit of Covid in the support staff.
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Mick Harper
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Yorkshire accept Rafiq was subjected to racial harassment and bullying Guardian


* When Azeem Rafiq was playing junior cricket for Yorkshire, he was not provided with halal food at matches. (This has now been rectified.)
I'd be inclined to give them credit rather than a black mark for this

* Prior to 2010 the panel found that there were three separate incidents of racist language being used by former players which were found to be harassment on the grounds of race.
What's this got to do with Yorkshire?

* Before 2012 a former coach regularly used racist language.
What's this got to do with Yorkshire?

* During his second spell at Yorkshire between 2016 and 2018 there were jokes made around religion which made individuals uncomfortable about their religious practices.
Dressing rooms can be pretty unforgiving places but 'religious practices' and apparently without Rafiq being singled out seems forgivable

* During his second spell at the club, a former player made references to Rafiq’s weight and fitness that amounted to bullying.
What's this got to do with Yorkshire?

* In August 2018, when Rafiq raised concerns of racism, there was a failure by the Club to follow its own policy or investigate these allegations.
I'm not surprised given the above

*That on a number of occasions prior to 2018 the Club could have done more to make Muslims more welcome within their stadiums and should have dealt better with complaints of racist or anti-social behaviour within those stadiums.
Yes, all right, already.
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Mick Harper
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While we are all deploring -- necessarily but futilely -- male violence against women as PC Arsehole is weighed off, it is worth remembering that when it conflicts with some other 'liberal' principle, everyone promptly discounts it. So, for instance, when it comes to women flagging down a black cab, with an unrecorded diver and with a long record of rapists at the wheel, or booking an Uber with plenty of safeguards in place, it is the latter that gets banned for 'being unsafe'. And nobody turns a hair. Uber ticks too many other wrong boxes.
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Grant



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Just extraordinary how the press learn all the wrong lessons from seemingly everything these days.
This sad affair tells us nothing about how men and women should behave with each other. We already knew that murder is wrong.

There are two interesting points:
1) constant steroid use causes some people to commit insanely violent acts. Couzens was a bodybuilder, like Anders Brevik and Oscar Pistorius
2) people who plan deliberate murders should hang.

All the rest is just feminists and other left-wingers exploiting the case to attack the establishment
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Mick Harper
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The worst thing was the constant stereotyping of the police as being institutionally anti-women. They're institutionally men, that's what they are. And this is the first time one of them has murdered a woman when on duty since before Cressida Dick was conceived. Though no doubt some men who happened to have been policemen have done it in their time. Marina Hyde summed up the options

Can we have a joined-up plan to tackle male violence that starts in primary education and takes an ambitiously holistic approach to a problem that riddles our society with poisons, from child abuse to terrorism?

That's how bankrupt of ideas the Left is at present.
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