blandy

"Mixed" is one way of describing it. As you say, a state with multiple and severe, human rights issues and one that has been the subject of some (token - as in they have no impact on anything ) parliamentary motions from some parliamentarians, including Jezza. Then after condemning them, he takes a paid role on their media in which he fails to challenge any of these human rights violations (as far as the records show), while staying silent, on air, while anti-semitic tripe is aired (though looking uncomfortable). I can't think of many clearer examples of hypocrisy, failing to live up to your words or slippery double standards.

praising Iran's history of inclusivity, tolerance and acceptance of different faiths, traditions and ethnic groupings...!!!! That's the same Iran, the Islamic state, that has the death penalty for conversion from Islam, persecutes Bahá'ís, has policies on women, homosexuals, ...etc. etc...which are not "tolerant" However, anti-semitism and holocaust denial is tolerated and seems de-rigeur. There's the whole Shia/Sunni issue...their treatment of prisoners generally - political imprisonment (Boris's victim, Zagari-Ratcliffe, for example).

The hypocrisy. The utter hypocrisy. again. This man of principle, this campaigner for anti racism, tolerance and fairness, praising Iran for it's tolerance lack of religious bigotry and openness etc, while on the other hand you say signing parliamentary motions condemning it for the opposite of that. The hypocrisy of him taking money (£5 grand a pop) for going on their state telly, mentioning nothing about intolerance (as far as records show),

I know, absolutely scathing he's been. Here he is in London, slagging them off for their intolerance. In fact, so scathing has he been that he kept going on their state telly and getting paid for it, in order to, er, deny them, um, legitimacy, satan USA....socialsim...er... man of principle innit, see. But yeah, sign a motion....saintly.

what snot to like?

#JesuisSerena. Also it's blasphemous to depict the profit like that. M' gonna riot and put out a fat wah! Waahhh

Tubbs, Pidge, Binger, Punter, Slats, Tugga,...Aussies are (I know it's a low bar) probably better at nickos than Poms.

For a cartoon, in which exaggeration is often a key part, I think that's a tad unfair. She is Slim and blonde haired (sort of) wearing black kit. The cartoon is pretty dumb, mind.

Yeah. Good point. I dunno what would happen to the individual politicians, but it would surely improve the overall standard through natural selection. Job for life, safe seat a-holes would largely disappear.

Last sentence - absolutely agree. Middle para - there's a wealth of evidence and information regarding Russia's behaviour. Not just on Skripal, but over the Putin era. The US and other nations implemented this Magintsky rule as a direct consequence. The UK hasn't quite got round to it, for some reason. I don't suppose the preponderance of Russian billionaire's settling in the UK and various political donations has anything to do with it...wan't there that leaked memo about "don't do anything here, they fund the Tory party"? or have I misremembered? But from the panama papers, to the testimony of exiles, to intelligence and many other sources, there's a whole lot of stuff about the utter corrupt state of Russia. Specifically about the use of nerve agents or radioactive isotopes, the Litvinenko trial presented a wealth of evidence. Obviously there's yet to be a Skripal trial and there probably never will be. The Russia Today state TV video - doesn't amount to much at all. The army man says May will have had intelligence material not available publicly, that the route taken and passports used are/could well be a deliberate signal...that the true identities of the two people are not publicly known and probably not known to the intelligence services, or not wanted to be revealed. Again, yes there is not a full and comprehensive picture of everything available to the public, or (probably) known privately. But while questions and unknowns exist, alternative remotely credible explanations are lacking. That doesn't make the official account right, or totally doubt free, but it does offer the most credible version of events. Scepticism is fine, healthy even. As I repeatedly say, I prefer people to apply the same scepticism and questioning to alternative versions too. Maybe I'm looking at things not as "me" being judge and jury to a legal standard, but seeking to understand which version of events seems the best supported by background, by available info and by motive and so on. If (say) you're looking to use UK legal standards in terms of a "prosecution" then (I think) questions are good and right and "conviction" isn't possible on what's available. So if that leads to "acquittal" in (say) your mind, I'd ask who you would point the finger at and what's the evidence there? Different takes on it, maybe.

I don't mind her, generally, but her interviewing is "not the best", it almost always seems a bit forced - she never seems to relax, so how can the interviewee relax? kind of thing.

It's all the stuff about nationality of passports, route, cctv etc that many people have pointed out is not something that sits easily with how spies operate. Isn't it? How do they know? and regardless, I mean who was that fella they poisoned with plutonium or whatever it was? Very similar "sloppiness" and botched attempts etc. As we have discussed previously, that act brought no consequences. Why would Russia think it would be any different this time? The UK, and May in particular has been very reticent about taking any serious action, other than the symbolic, previously. Even this time, there's been expulsions of some diplo's, some "tough talking" and ....nothing else. Nothing of actual consequence. No implementing of financial penalties and checks against all the looted, laundered money and all the rest. There remain a number of questions about this whole Salisbury thing. What these unresolved things don't do is point to an alternative narrative, that it was the AMericans, or the UK, or was not a sanctioned Russian attack. It's not quite Occam's razor, but its not far off.

There's a slight difference between the PM (however lamentable she is) standing up in the HoC, or the Police Chief of the Major Crime unit, or the Home Secretary giving a formal statment on the identity, route taken, photographic evidence, CCTV trail, airline and flights used etc. etc. and a blogger writing something on the internet. Official statements are not "hearsay". By all means challenge the veracity of content, using evidence, they don't always have to be wholly believed, necessarily. It doesn't make one true and one untrue, but to treat the blogger's version with little or no scepticism, despite the lack of sources etc. but yet to take the UK Gov't/Police detailed stuff as "dodgy" would be, if not a "unique" outlook, one that would certainly be indicative of a particular, conspiratorial bent.

Ooh! Must look at calendar. Ta.

That seems to be something of an assumption - a leap of bad faith, perhaps. I mean when you think about it, it doesn't really stand up to any scrutiny at all. Because (as you hinted at earlier) it's quite possible for the media to report on associations with Orbis, or any other entity and still acceded to the request not to reveal "identities of intelligence agency personnel". The media is very adept at using phrases such as "someone close to...", " a senior official " or (hypothetically) "Skripal is suspected of having been recently providing information to intelligence agency personnel". Though then again, it's not "fact", it's hearsay. Maybe that's got something to do with it (the limited reporting)?

...and also Sparks... and SFA... and Ultravox

Family of Aliens, Teleman Edit I just realised they're like a re-incarnation of mid-early 1980's Talk Talk. So that's why I like them so much. v

Bostin'

So you're saying that Johnson has consumed an acid-blooded xenomorph? Anyway, anyone seen Theresa May recently?

Probably you are, yes. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way. I mean that your alleged "golden age" is a myth. The UK media has always generally respected D / DA / DSMA notices. It's rare indeed that they haven't in any age. I can't think of any examples, off the top of my head where they haven't. Certainly examples are not 10 a penny, not from now, not from any age. The media as a collective has always tended towards "reporting" the "official line" with some parts asking questions based around scepticism. We've always had a media which is broadly pro the UK establishment view, but with some parts being sceptical. There's often, also the genuine need for these requests to the media, because there is a risk of harm, injury, death etc. to people or a risk of disrupting anti-terror or anti-crime operations. It's sometimes, for example the case that the notices are issued with a promise of "hold off for now, and we'll provide a lot of information after the arrest, or after the attack is thwarted..." so it's not the same as an authoritarian state, such as Russia or N. Korea, Burma or China who simply lock up or kill journalists they don't like. In the case of the Skripals who have just survived an attempt to kill them, and before the identities and motives of the assassin(s) were known, is it really that authoritarian of the Gov't to ask the media "not to report details of other people who they were working with"? given the possible obgoing threat? - and that's what the notice would have been, by the way - not a "do not say that Pablo Miller was talking to them" - that's an assumption (maybe right) of a named individual by a blogger. So more generally, what's different, perhaps, today is the internet. If someone wanted to find any take at all on any matter at all, they could go to the internet and find extreme right wing, extreme left wing, conspiracy theories, state propaganda, non-expert experts, people with chips on their shoulder, people seeking hits to make money, genuine investigative alternative media, foreign news networks, satire.....the list is endless. It's like there's an a-la -carte selection of sources to suit any palate. "Does sir fancy a bit of pro-Russian, anti-Western story today?" - May I direct Sir towards "sputnik or RT or for morsels, perhaps the Russian MFA on twitter". "We also have a selection of free range useful idiots, if sir would prefer a more individual feed from the East" "Would you prefer, perhaps, a right wing conspiracy theory, for dessert ? " - Infowars is highly recommended for a barmpot take on the USA." And when you've got that choice to go anywhere and feed any prejudice, any desire for conspiracy, or proof of the evil of the East/West/Deep State/whoever... then it's easy to get caught up in those views and miss a broader appraisal of matters.

Action records haul, new Luluc (listening now) plus, Teleman and Anna Calvi They’re all good. Nourishment fut lugoils.

Yeah, me too. As not exactly a fan, I was still stunned at the level of apparent, well, almost negligence.

Sorry, it's not a "conclusion". I was attempting to follow any kind of logic from your post as to why the media hasn't made more of claims made in the media that Skripal was talking to the Spanish services, or that the blogger made about a D notice and this Pablo Miller. One claim seems to be along the lines of Skripal told Miller some stuff that Miller then told to Steel, that Steel then put in a dossier that the FBI was given and that shows Trump is beholden to Russian state via kompromat and financial connections etc. If that were so, and we don't know it is so, then what conclusions would you draw about how Russia/Putin might react to other Russians undermining his hold over the US President? Particularly considering Putin is concerned, enormously with alleviating Magnitsky rules which inhibit his and his cronies kleptocracy.

Perhaps so. I wonder if the combo of the claim about the D notice and the general gist that it would logically tend to support the case against Russia anyway just means it’s mostly given a bit of a wide berth by the U.K. media, and isn’t of that much interest to foreign media. i mean if info from Skripal found its way via a former spook into the Trump dossier, the one which indicates Russia has hold over Trump, that perhaps lends extra to that dossier, or perhaps not, but as you say, stories that Skripal was revealing more details about Russia’s “activities” whether to Orbis, or to Spain does tend to provide renewed motive to Russia to have him silenced.

This, this, and then some more of this. 100% the limitations of his management methods and style have been completely exposed. Where he’s good is in his rapport and relationships with players, media too and also fans generally like him as a bloke. He’s determined, committed and works hard, he’s a good egg. But, I go back to when he was at Sunderland and something that really stuck in my mind from that time. He was being interviewed after a game. He looked really ill, he was puffy faced, bloated, very red and looked like a prime candidate for a heart attack or stroke, which was alarming and concerning. Putting that together with the longer record of his teams being at best “functional” in style and exhibiting not the slightest sign of being able to adjust to circumstances, or disruption, just led me to think that Villa was not a good match, or vice versa, perhaps. There have been some highlights of course and probably more lowlights, but there has never looked like being anything that’s the seeds of something to come, the start of a renewal. He’s been excellent with Jack, but then Sherwood was too, and he’s no manager. Bruce did his best, didn’t get us up and under normal circumstances should have been gone in the summer. He hung around one way or another, but he’s clearly in the last chance saloon this season. I’d love to be proved wrong, but he’s never gonna get us up and never was likely to. The best chance has gone. He’s done “OK”. not terrible, not great, just ok. Stabilised and turned round the club, but he’s still scattergun, like the team, from one week to the next. There’s always a visible flaw, a crack that everyone can see will widen and fracture, the reliance on one or two players, the reliance on “hopefully someone will do something” rather than being set up so everyone does something collectively, under a coached , practised, ingrained reflexive way of playing. What’s he built?