steviewevie

Sharon Graham has been elected as new gen sec of Unite.

lol

what a ridiculous idea.

stats for lefties. 😆

yeah, well that is one luxury of being in opposition.

eh? Johnson will be kicked out because labour has no alternative? Johnson will stay put until he makes one cock up too many and becomes an electoral problem for the tories, but at moment they've still got a comfortable lead in the polls, and I can't see that changing unless the pandemic suddenly gets a lot worse or the economy collapses. Afghanistan looks bad on the news, but do most people give a shit? Not sure.

Probably not

Labour mainly just saying what a fuck up the whole thing is and that we should take more refugees.

Going Greenman this weekend, wondering whether to be one of those people you see going for a run at a festival?

I don't know, all just seems very sad, such a massive loss of life over not very much.

I'm not against intervention always, Kosovo where it happened, Rwanda and Syria where it didn't, maybe earlier intervention in Germany in the late 30s would have stopped a whole lot of bother? Spanish civil war when many from UK went anyway... etc. But, Afghanistan and Iraq always seemed reckless and not thought through. In Afghanistan if were going to build a new govt of course they should include the Taliban, not just a bunch of dodgy warlords and pro western Afghans on the make. Anyway, it's done now and I expect we will see less of this from the US for some time now, America first and all that.

Initially it wasn't about human rights, it was retaliation.

I expect a lot of centrists/moderates/blairites opposed the Iraq war, not so sure about Afghanistan. But I expect a lot of people in this country actually supported the invasion, especially working class red wallers. I actually opposed it, although less enthusiastically as the Iraq invasion, and didn't vote labour in the election in 2005 as my little protest.

To be fair the Taliban were never a terrorist group were they? They were a bunch of Afghan refugees in Pakistan who formed to take Afghanistan back from various warlords and were actually welcomed by some as they brought relative stability and order. The big problem for then was allowing Al Qaeda training camps to be based there and then 9/11 which was always going to bring retaliation from the US. I doubt Taliban will make that mistake again, but who knows.

Parliament sitting today to talk Afghanistan and apparently starmer and May ripping into Johnson and Raab.

Far left are all over the shop because the Tories are tapping into a rising right wing zenophobia and nationalism in this country so just spend all their energy attacking something called centrists.

yeah...once the world isn't watching so much. I did read that Taliban are quite popular in some rural areas...they're a bit like our red wall areas I guess.

maybe...hopefully...Taliban have changed for the better.

NATO bloke also pointing the finger at Afghan leaders for how quickly and easily Taliban took over. Same script as Biden.

Hindsight and all that.

I wonder how this is going down with US voters? Mid terms next year, if as republicans get a majority that will screw up a lot of biden's plans .. including on cutting carbon emissions etc.