Rayvin

She's probably being cloned as we speak.

I think the IRA should get behind this tbh - if Brexit goes through as shambolically as it appears to be, it'll get them a united Ireland within 10-15 years anyway.

What a mess. I bet Davis thought of this himself...

That sounds a lot like regulatory divergence to me. Also, are businesses in Northern Ireland going to be able to cope with meeting two different kinds of regulation? Feels like they will be demanding subsidies for that. Even if the UK and the EU effectively ascribe to the same regulatory principles, costs will be associated with the businesses involved in some form.

The shafting we are going to get from the Americans will be talked about for fucking generations IMO. Maybe Trump has done us a favour by declaring a trade war with the EU though, it might make people wake up to the notion that the UK has no chance whatsoever of getting a mutually beneficial trade deal with the US. If we were fucking inside of the EU, we would have a far stronger hand in this - something most of us have been saying since this all became an issue. Collective power is the only hope we have, we simply cannot compete with economies the size of China and the US. And frankly, even I have enough 'patriotic sentiments' to not want to see the once great UK bent over and fucked senseless by the USA.

Nice to see they've replicated an actual matchday attendance for him there.

It's not her writing the article tbf, but her basic premise is that women should be believed in cases of rape without due process of evidence, but that this should be mitigated by reducing the sentence to 200 hours community service (since most rapes aren't violent), and possibly an enforced branding of the rapist with an "r" tattoo on their wrist. She goes on to say that rape isn't actually a violent crime in most cases. I think this is co-opting the notion that rape has become any act of sex where the woman isn't aggressively screaming "yes, take me now". Either way, I await the Guardian response

Indeed. Though he is being interviewed by a woman! And he isn't white. Frankly I (obviously) think this sort of assessment of the state of the left is long overdue, and have been bleating about it for years now. We need a unifying message to rally behind, not a divisive one. We could work on the 'intersectional' problems in society once we actually have power.

And just cos I'm on a roll, here is an article from the Intercept about how Identity Politics divides the left: “The framework of identity reduces politics to who you are as an individual and gaining recognition as an individual, rather than your membership in a collectivity and the collective struggle against an oppressive social structure,” Haider writes. “As a result, identity politics paradoxically ends up reinforcing the very norms it set out to criticize.” https://theintercept.com/2018/05/27/identity-politics-book-asad-haider/

Germaine Greer I really hope she isn't on Twitter, for her sake: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/30/germaine-greer-calls-for-punishment-for-to-be-reduced The Guardian will be beside itself with this. " She questioned a statistic which said that 70% of rape victims had suffered post-traumatic stress disorder compared with 20% of conflict veterans. “What the hell are you saying? Something that leaves no sign, no injury, no nothing is more damaging to a woman than seeing your best friend blown up by an IED is to a veteran?”!

Really good deal. £36m to go...

Nice one. Probably the most important one to get done at this point. Any word on the fee?

Trump era politics will be something future generations look back on in the way we look back at dark age medicine.

Makes total sense for them to go that way. Nintendo will never compete for power with PS and X Box, so they may as well clean up with the most overpowered handheld they can.

In which case, as ever, the blame lies on the home front. Presumably we will see an anti-EU backlash in Romania in a generation's time. The EU really needs much better PR.

It does, tbf to the EU, reference the fact that the Romanian government has wasted many of the financial subsidies provided to them by the EU in order to expedite their development. I guess Ireland was far more responsible and put such subsidies to considerably better use? Other than that, how did Ireland manage what it achieved?

Disclaimer - I didn't just wake up today and decide to have a dig at the EU. I remain as committed to it as ever. Just read this article in the Guardian however - it's about Romanians being the second largest non-British nationality in the country. I don't care about that whatsoever, but the article also focuses on the damage this is doing to Romania itself. 3.6m Romanians (probably most of their intelligent young people) are living and working outside of their country, with only 20m remaining. That's actually a big proportion IMO. Is there an argument that while the EU has improved the lot of the individual Romanians by giving them access to better paid work and ensuring their children will grow up citizens of more prosperous countries, it has also thrown their homelands under the bus? This is actually an argument that the right seems to come up with against immigration a lot, and it's interesting to see the Guardian giving it credence. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/30/romanians-uk-tragedy-homeland-corruption-poverty

Fair enough then.

Perhaps another case of the country's rich scapegoating the EU then. Either way, it's not the people the populists are speaking to who are responsible for the shafting of their country. I do think the EU needs to form a response to these challenges because it just looks entirely unchallenged outside of perhaps academia and high brow press - but that's really just preaching to the choir.

Aye, of course they did. Has to be said, they're building him up into something far more powerful than he is capable of being alone.

I think there might be a serious contention that austerity is, but immigration is likely more their own problem from sea based arrivals. Either way, its not like the facts matter to these people - which is why, as i say, the EU has to resist the narrative or just concede the point. Narratives > Truth.

It's starting to look a little grim for the EU in Italy it has to be said... The populists command over 50% of the vote but are split between two parties. Another election in Autumn. How much longer can the EU ignore concerns about austerity and immigration, i wonder. It either has to take them apart head on, or acquiesce.

Has CT actually said he doesn't believe in climate change? In the sense that he said it and meant it, not questioned the evidence for the sake of winding people up. Denying climate change is wolfy level stuff these days, surely.

Not even 12 hours: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2018/may/29/female-critics-male-celebrities-mariella-frostrup Includes "he loves the attention really" and "you owe it to the sisterhood to objectify men" The Guardian is hopeless