Norrie MacQueen

Some of us are old enough to remember when Blair and Blunkett looked like the new authoritarians. Could we have our Overton Window back where it was then, please?

Unfair, I know; it’s just a random snap. But the image of the Home Secretary seeming like Badenoch’s bestie is very unsettling.

It would certainly add to the gaiety of the nation. But no …

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Excellent, Richard, I missed that. I’ll now read the article!

So far, it seems that the people who don’t (the Labour party) seem to base their objections to this - and pretty well everything Farage says - on practicalities. Where’s the simple moral condemnation? What we used to call ‘Labour values’?

It's the worry for next year's Scottish Government elections. Reform would have zero chance here with FPTP - but the d'Hondt system might give them a real presence at Holyrood. But it's a price that rightly has to be paid.

I seem to remember one idea for maintaining 'Scottish distinctiveness' while still getting rid of the third verdict was to re-style 'guilty' and 'not guilty' as 'proved' and 'not proved'. Or was that just in my head?

EU members 'deciding to stay silent' on Gaza - President President Michael D Higgins said some of the EU's strongest members are "deciding to stay silent in watching emaciated children in what is a human, manmade, really atrocious infliction on people".

President Michael D Higgins said some of the EU's strongest members are "deciding to stay silent in watching emaciated children in what is a human, manmade, really atrocious infliction on people" in Gaza

Never come across him before, but this Chris Sidoti is a bit of a star performer.

And tomorrow what looks like decisiveness today will probably look more like blind panic.

Except Reeves. She should be going, but she’s safe for political reasons quite divorced from her abilities and record.

Huge if true!!

Are Police Scotland and the Crown Office absolutely set on making themselves look ridiculous? They’re really working at it.

It wouldn’t take much effort with a laptop and the internet. And they’ve got Haaretz.The fact is, they don’t *want* to see the images.

There needs to be a more usable noun for pursuit of self-determination. It's too easily stigmatised as the 'nationalism' you describe.

Perth asylum hotel this morning, No pasarán!

So, you mean 80% of graduates have benefited financially from it?

And, whisper it quietly, but *UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ISN’T JUST ABOUT SALARY*

Too many caveats - and too much wriggle room for both Starmer and Netanyahu.

Absolutely no sense. Recognition has shape-shifted from long-established British policy to a threatened ‘sanction’ against Israel (which it can avoid by some sleight of hand). Very ‘Starmer’, though.

Agree with this. The interesting thing will be whether the whipless will actually want it back. The way polls look, they might have better electoral prospects without it (in some seats anyway). Look forward to your take on the 'new' party as and when there's something to go on.

My thoughts are with Portugal at this difficult time.

They need to get some high profile parliamentary defections. Abbott, McDonnell and Burgon would be the most likely. But maybe also some with less baggage, possibly of the likes of Nadia Whittome and Clive Lewis.

It’s depressing but simple: she just doesn’t know enough politics and doesn’t have the self-awareness to realise it.

Does Starmer have a Foreign Policy: progressive realism or immoral floundering? Does the UK have a clear or strategic foreign policy? Or is it best described as  muddling through,  ‘progressive realism’ or, most realistically, immoral floundering?

Does Starmer have a strategic foreign policy or is his government's backing of Ukraine, arms to Israel, seeking trade anywhere irrespective of human rights, Reform rhetoric on migration just an immoral mess? My blog
open.substack.com/pub/kirstyhu...

Ah … that makes sense.

Interesting that Cleverly is willing to accept a second-tier portfolio after his ministerial roles.

There’s the 1948 Genocide Convention. But international law has become so degraded over the past couple of years that it’s more or less meaningless.

Free buses. Nightmare!

A fine piece as usual. Of course, the ‘madman theory’ isn’t new. 50 years ago it was the ‘lunatic in the house’ theory of IR (the illustration then was Idi Amin). But with Amin as with Trump it was really just a personality disorder. Others told them it was a ‘theory’ - and they loved it.