altus

A similar article by Gaby Hinsliff appeared in The Guardian yesterday too. Whatever your view of the Israel-Hamas war, rape is rape. To trivialise it is to diminish ourselves

So, having gone on and on and on about Hunter Biden's business dealings and potential links his dad might have to them Raskin rips GOP for not agreeing to open hearing for Hunter Biden The GOP have nothing. They know they have nothing. They don't want it proved they have nothing so they can continue with their "Woo. Hunter Biden's laptop" nonsense.

What about the responsibility of the Tory politicians who were overseeing him? If it wasn't for the Tory brexit ultras in the ERG blocking deals on multiple occasions there wouldn't have been any question about a possible second referendum. The Tory party couldn't agree within itself what it wanted from brexit. The vote was to leave, it didn't specify a hard core version, and so parliament as a whole was under no obligation to support one. The 'problem' with the UK's position was that it spent too long asking for something that the EU were never going to allow (the undermining of the single market). That and triggering article 50 before we were ready, forcing immovable time pressures, is what weakened the UK's position. Ultimately, the Tories were in charge, they are responsible.

But not contentious enough to renegotiate it. Lets be clear about who was involved in the negotiations. From Brexit negotiations Only three of those were civil servants, the rest being Tory MPs. One of those civil servants, David Frost, was lauded by brexit supporters as 'Frosty the no man', has since held positions in the cabinet and is now a Tory peer. Even not withstanding that, nobody told the civil servants to negotiate any deal they wanted. They were instructed on what the UK's aims were, red lines, etc. and will have been in daily discussions with politicians about how the negotiations were going. Even if the Tories had left brexit negotiations entirely up to civil servants, as the politicians in charge of the UK leaving the EU, they would have been responsible for whatever was negotiated. The fact that Tory politicians were intimately involved in those negotiations demonstrates that your assertion that problems caused by brexit are down to civil servant is laughable. The funniest thing about all this is that every attempt you make to blame the consequences of brexit on someone other than the Tory Party is an implicit admission that you know brexit is bad for the country.

There was no point in renegotiating the non-contentious bits. Boris only renegotiated the bits the extreme brexiters didn't like. It's irrelevant anyway - they were all Tories and so the Tories are responsible for the consequences.

Those strong leave supporting Tory Party members got rid of May and did end up negotiating the brexit we have now. It doesn't matter if some Tory Party members wanted a softer brexit, or even none at all, it was the Tory Party who negotiated the brexit deal we ended up with and so it is the Tories who are responsible for it.

People didn't vote for brexit based on the warnings of the remain campaign, most of which leave campaigners dismissed as project fear, they did so based on the promises of the leave campaigns. But the vote is long over and so, despite Axe's attempts to deflect from the issue being discussed, that's irrelevant. The form of leave we got was decided and negotiated by leave supporting members of the Tory Party. It's the Tory Party who are responsible for any resultant consequences, positive or negative.

The options on the ballot paper were remain and leave - nothing about what form leaving should take. Arguing that the brexit we ended up with was the one people wanted is ridiculous given the fighting after the vote even just within the Tory Party about the form it should take. Your desperation to claim the brexit we ended up with was not solely down to the Tories, in an attempt to deflect blame for the consequences, merely demonstrates how badly you think it has been for the country.

Which party defined what form brexit would take?

It's an attempt to hide the additional costs of brexit as part of the costs due to the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine.

If you read my post a bit more carefully you'll see I put "or did you, like the rest of us, rely on the reporting from multiple, independent, news sources?" I was pointing out your hypocrisy. You're quite happy to believe media reports when it suits you but reject them when you disagree with them.

How do you know that the people who attacked Israel on 7th Oct were members of Hamas? Did you interview them all to get to know their political leanings or did you, like the rest of us, rely on the reporting from multiple, independent, news sources? Same with knowing the protesters/looters in Ireland were far right.

As has been pointed out to you multiple times, the form of brexit implemented is entirely down to the Tories. They excluded the other parties from deciding the form it should take because they wanted to take all the credit for it, so they get to take all the blame for it too.

Have a think about what events might have lead to that change to being made. It doesn't matter what you think, you aren't a person with experience of running emergency call centres and so can't make anything other that wild suppositions based on whatever you imagine the frequency and impacts of the problems they face to be. As I said in my previous post: He's complaining he can't prevent his phone from dialling the emergency number when it's in his pocket.

You're demonstrating your inability to view things from anything other than your own perspective again. Imagine someone's been in an accident, are concussed (so not operating at full mental capacity) and have injured hands (so don't have your normal manual dexterity). Or even imagine you've been in an accident, you're OK but your phone has been bust/lost and the only available phone belongs to someone else who is unconscious. How are you going to swipe an unlock pattern in those circumstances. Those who have to deal with responding to false emergency calls, the ones who actually know the impacts of false calls versus the impacts of people not being able to call in a real emergency, think it's better to have to deal with false calls rather than have people die because they can't call. They are the ones with the expertise and they are the ones who have to deal with the consequences. I'll trust their judgement over yours. If you're that bothered about it get a flip phone. The world isn't going to change itself just to fit your foibles.