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#1
Off the Record / Re: Go Persians, go!
Last post by Tonitrus - Today at 06:09:09 PMAnd I am much more skeptical that a "snatch and grab" operation of Ali Khamenei would work out as well either. For us or for them.
#2
Off the Record / Re: Go Persians, go!
Last post by Tonitrus - Today at 06:07:30 PMI have enough low opinion of the current US government mafia that I suspect Venezuela 2.0 might be exactly what they're thinking.
However, I also suspect the Iranian ayatollahs are not as pliable as it seems Maduro's successors turned out to be, even if they are bombed.
However, I also suspect the Iranian ayatollahs are not as pliable as it seems Maduro's successors turned out to be, even if they are bombed.
#3
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 06:06:35 PMQuote from: garbon on Today at 07:25:12 AMReform has picked up Suella. Good luck with that?*Pikachu surprised face*
On the one hand the party that is losing MPs is probably not doing well - on the other hand I'm really not sure that losing some of the least popular and most divisive figures of the last few governments hurts them and I'm not really sure that helps Reform.
I'd also note that Farage has never really been very good at working with a wider party - and Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick have a history of being spectacularly disloyal. So that may be an interesting dynamic.
Separately Badenoch's personal approval ratings and the Tories ratings have improved (since party conference when she did well and Jenrick flopped, ending the leadership speculation). I think she has the right strategy and it is showing. It's only one poll but one out today that showed them just one point behind Reform - and I'd add that Reform having plateaued at about 30% have now fallen back to about 25%.
Struck again at just how strident and personal Tory comms are on this. I fully get that politics is a contact sport - but a little uncomfortable with the line about her "mental health" and being "clearly very happy". I think they have now retracted - but not nice:
Meanwhile in Labour think there's a lot to this piece in the Times:
QuoteKeir Starmer can block Andy Burnham but can't save his premiership
The prime minister's move lays bare a leadership increasingly at odds with its party, fearful of voters and running out of time
Patrick Maguire, Chief Political Commentator
Sunday January 25 2026, 7.45pm, The Times
It looks weak because he is weak and the choice was between different expressions of weakness. There was no good option for Sir Keir Starmer on Sunday because good options ceased to present themselves to his government a long time ago. He did what he could do, what he wanted to do, and used the remnants of his power over the Labour Party to block Andy Burnham from returning to Westminster as MP for Gorton & Denton.
He was strong enough to do that and only that. The prime minister and Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff, remain in control of Labour's internal bureaucracy. Their steamroller veto of Burnham's candidacy by eight votes to Lucy Powell's desultory one proves that much. They are increasingly at odds with its prevailing culture, inspire resentment among many of its people and have shrunk its electorate in the country — and so it is doubtful that they are strong enough to weather the consequences.
That this experimental era in Labour politics probably wasn't going to end well was already obvious. If Burnham had been allowed to stand, he might have hastened that end with a challenge to Starmer's leadership within a short few months. They have stopped him from doing that — for now, at least — but in doing so have started another debate they lack either the political vocabulary or authority to win. Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary and chairwoman of Labour's ruling national executive committee, saw this coming. Uneasy, she made sure to shield herself from what is to come by exercising her right to abstain and lavishing Burnham with praise on the BBC.
Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham speaking at the Labour Party conference.
Her colleagues will not be so lucky. Latent but deep resentment over the Starmer-McSweeney school of political management is what unites every faction of the Labour Party beyond that which is employed by Downing Street or the microscopic one whose members count the prime minister as a personal friend. The Burnham veto is the purest, pithiest expression of everything the party hates about its leadership: autocratic, unilateral, narrowly self-interested. You don't have to want Burnham to be prime minister to think that. Starmer's critics will say that Downing Street has thrown Nigel Farage an eighth MP to buy themselves another few months in charge. Those critics are right.
The prime minister was also right, in his impassioned speech to the officers of the Labour NEC, to highlight the risk of the mayoral by-election in Greater Manchester that would have followed Burnham's election to parliament. Starmer said it would cost his party money it does not have at a time it can ill afford to be outspent "ten-to-one" by Reform UK, whose return on that investment would be one of the most powerful offices in England.
If you want a more elevated explanation than self-preservation, there is no shame in going along with that, but what, exactly, does it amount to? Under my leadership, Starmer was admitting, this party is too broke and too unpopular to risk asking the voters of Greater Manchester — Greater Manchester! — for a mandate. The other half of the No 10 defence is the accurate observation that the public hate political psychodrama and punish those who create it. What is most striking is that they have conceded, albeit indirectly, that the same public hates the prime minister most of all.
That much will be revealed when the Gorton by-election comes. Only Burnham could have won it for Labour. Starmer's critics now fear the party will not only lose it, but forfeit their claim to challenge Reform entirely, as was the case in Caerphilly last October when Plaid Cymru galvanised progressive opposition to both the government and Farage. This time it is Zack Polanski's insurgent Greens who stand to benefit. "A Reform win would be terrible," said a sometime adviser to the leadership. "But a Green win would be existential." Already imperilled by one unwinnable test of his electoral appeal in May, Starmer has chosen to contrive another in February.
It will deplete the dwindling reserves of goodwill in a parliamentary party with no appetite to take political pain on behalf of its leader: just listen to what they're saying about reforms to special educational needs provision. It puts Starmer at odds with the deputy leader of the Labour Party, dozens of his MPs, several trade unions, Ed Miliband, Sir Sadiq Khan, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting, whose own criticisms of the leadership's imperious style now sound a little more resonant.
It radicalises MPs who neither know nor like Burnham but know they do not like Starmer's style of leadership. It vindicates those already inclined to think the worst of the prime minister and alienates at least some of those who, against their better judgement, had elected to give him the benefit of the doubt for a little while longer. It makes a martyr of Burnham, rather than the nuisance he might have been. It surely shortens Labour's wait for this premiership to end.
And apropos of nothing
(I think the three comparisons from the 1979-83 parliament are quite interesting.)
But the main thing is the correct faction of the Labour Party are maintaining control of the party bureaucracy.
#4
Off the Record / Re: The China Thread
Last post by Tonitrus - Today at 06:05:37 PMMy fear is that a PRC move on Taiwan won't really be as much of a struggle/fight as we think it will (coming off the Ukraine experience).
The big unknowns in a hypothetical assault on Taiwan are (in my view):
- Will the US get involved.
- Will Taiwan be capable/willing to resist in any great degree.
Starting in reverse: Ukraine had ~8 years of low-level warfare against Russia/proxies to get used to the idea of having to engage in a real fight...and the capacity/outside help to sustain it. And a big factor I think is the easy access of outside help, by land through Europe. Taiwan won't have that...they'll have to fight with only what they have on hand. A PLAN blockade will close any assistance right away, regardless of how well their invasion force does.
I also almost wonder if a mass/improvised PRC paradrop into the middle of Taipei might end things within day or two...though the Battle of Hostomel might have put paid to any idea of a quick decapitation move by the PRC as a strategy).
On the "Will the US intervene" question...I see the PRC having two strategic options:
- "The US will certainly intervene.", so blast every US asset/base in the region right from the onset. think (hope?) this would stir enough of a Pearl Harbor memory that we'd definitely fight it out...and Japan would inevitably be involved as well. Then it'd be a messy naval/aerial slugfest for all sides (and hard to say how things on the ground in Taiwan would unfold).
- "The US might/might not intervene?", ignore the US military assets, focus everything on attacking/blockading Taiwan, while throwing up enough international political chaff "Taiwan is a part of China...everyone, including the US recognizes that...it is an internal matter" such that international response becomes mostly paralyzed while they do their thing. I suspect just about every other nation , outside of maybe the US would accept that, or be too gun-shy to act in any significant degree. And if the US dithers/doesn't act, then well....job done...we'll all cheer on the brave Taiwanese while they fight to their inevitable doom. After which we can remove any sanctions we might have been brave enough to throw up during the conflict and get back to business as usual.
The big unknowns in a hypothetical assault on Taiwan are (in my view):
- Will the US get involved.
- Will Taiwan be capable/willing to resist in any great degree.
Starting in reverse: Ukraine had ~8 years of low-level warfare against Russia/proxies to get used to the idea of having to engage in a real fight...and the capacity/outside help to sustain it. And a big factor I think is the easy access of outside help, by land through Europe. Taiwan won't have that...they'll have to fight with only what they have on hand. A PLAN blockade will close any assistance right away, regardless of how well their invasion force does.
I also almost wonder if a mass/improvised PRC paradrop into the middle of Taipei might end things within day or two...though the Battle of Hostomel might have put paid to any idea of a quick decapitation move by the PRC as a strategy).
On the "Will the US intervene" question...I see the PRC having two strategic options:
- "The US will certainly intervene.", so blast every US asset/base in the region right from the onset. think (hope?) this would stir enough of a Pearl Harbor memory that we'd definitely fight it out...and Japan would inevitably be involved as well. Then it'd be a messy naval/aerial slugfest for all sides (and hard to say how things on the ground in Taiwan would unfold).
- "The US might/might not intervene?", ignore the US military assets, focus everything on attacking/blockading Taiwan, while throwing up enough international political chaff "Taiwan is a part of China...everyone, including the US recognizes that...it is an internal matter" such that international response becomes mostly paralyzed while they do their thing. I suspect just about every other nation , outside of maybe the US would accept that, or be too gun-shy to act in any significant degree. And if the US dithers/doesn't act, then well....job done...we'll all cheer on the brave Taiwanese while they fight to their inevitable doom. After which we can remove any sanctions we might have been brave enough to throw up during the conflict and get back to business as usual.
#5
Off the Record / Re: Go Persians, go!
Last post by Legbiter - Today at 05:51:56 PMQuote from: Jacob on Today at 05:24:28 PMThe number of dead is horrendous... but sadly, not out of character for the regime.
Does it look like the US will take any action?
They have a lot of kit assembled in-theater but what would a sustained bombing campaign even do? You can bomb leadership targets, the lower rank move up but facts on the ground remain the same. If the US seizes/blows up Kharg Island on day 1 then I'll believe they're serious about tossing the Islamic Republic out. Unless the opposition is armed with weapons on the ground this is like Venezuela 2.0
#6
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by Jacob - Today at 05:51:52 PMIt reminds me a bit of the first act of the BC Conservative Party in BC. I don't know if it'll follow the same trajectory though.
#7
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by Legbiter - Today at 05:44:12 PMQuote from: Tamas on Today at 07:48:31 AMQuote from: garbon on Today at 07:25:12 AMReform has picked up Suella. Good luck with that?
Like, what's the point?
I dunno. Care home for failed Tories?
#8
Off the Record / Re: US - Greenland Crisis Thre...
Last post by Legbiter - Today at 05:24:29 PMQuote from: Jacob on January 25, 2026, 06:49:11 PMI just read that the Hungarian military was not invited to the NATO exercises in Greenland for some reason.
The practical reason is they don't have any (completing a course or 2 in Norway or Alaska is nice but you're a burden otherwise unless you live and breathe in that terrain).
The real reason is of course mostly political, Hungary is a russian traitor fifth columnist state run by mafia-style oligarchy centered around Orban and an EU charity case. Which is something given it's central location and overall high human capital.
#9
Off the Record / Re: Go Persians, go!
Last post by Jacob - Today at 05:24:28 PMThe number of dead is horrendous... but sadly, not out of character for the regime.
Does it look like the US will take any action?
Does it look like the US will take any action?
#10
Off the Record / Re: ICE misconduct megathread ...
Last post by DGuller - Today at 05:14:46 PMSocial media allows us to see some crimes of a government that was elected with the big help of social media.