Noit

If you’re playing devil’s advocate then they’re not your words, you are advocating for the worst version of an argument. So why would it be a problem for be to mention satan? Unless those are actually your views, in which case you aren’t playing devil’s advocate.

You didn’t deny the holocaust, but your argument is flawed. The nazis thought of the Jewish people as a race. They attempted a genocide on that basis. They were being racist. Proudly so.

I’m not here with honest intent? Abbott was suspended from the Labour Party for what she said. Multiple organisations called them disgraceful. She herself retracted her words, hamfistedly blaming them on a drafting error, and apologised for them. But I’mm, random internet man, am the one who’s arguing in bad faith?

Now she has said that she doesn’t regret that period and clearly her apology was not in any way genuine contrition. She offered empty platitudes to crawl back into the party she claims to love while not in any way actually reflecting on the things she’s said.

Let’s look at her actual words, shall we, satan?

Tomiwa Owolade claims that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people all suffer from “racism” (“Racism in Britain is not a black and white issue. It’s far more complicated”, Comment). They undoubtedly experience prejudice. This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable.

It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice. But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote. And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.

She talks about sitting at the back of the bus. Rosa Parks took a stand in 1943. Concurrent to this event, Jewish people, of the Jewish race, were being exterminated in the holocaust. If Diane Abbott is more interested in arguing for a dictionary definition of racism that includes the suffering inflicted on black people but excludes the holocaust, than she is in trying to understand why this would be incredibly offensive to the Jewish community, she can get in the bin.

And if you’re more interested in watering down accusations of antisemitism to mere “anti-Zionism” then you too are more interested in playing with dictionary definitions than you are in calling out actual racism when it actually happens and you can do likewise.

Fortunately you’re just playing devil’s advocate, eh?

For those skimming headlines: these are the same comments that she was previously suspended for before the election, and which her retraction of was a key part of her even being allowed to run as a Labour candidate. She’s literally gone “that stuff I was kicked out for and had to grovel for forgiveness for? Actually I don’t apologise”.

I’d start to question her faculties but she’s always been a disaster.

Honestly they're a running gag on a lot of politics discussion spots. Without digging too hard, here's a recent poll they shared from Freshwater Strategy, a "reputation management" (astroturfing) company who aren't a British Polling Council member. And then they've run election forecasts based on this gibberish. Basically they'll run anything that looks bad for Starmer's Labour. And even though there's no shortage of that, they'll plumb the depths to find the least credible stuff.

They then use their "trusted source of stats" status to broadcast fairly unhinged views, such as flytipping is fine actually and criminalising it is an affront to the working poor.

TBH looking at single polls is an exercise in futility and you'll be trying to draw out data from the noise. Much better to bookmark Politico's Poll of Polls and check in on it occasionally.

Seems that Rachel Maskell should be added to that list of suspensions.

StatsForLefties has dreadful form for misrepresenting stats, taking data out of context, and general poor practice. I'd not choose to follow them unless you actively want to be misinformed.

“They can’t arrest all of us!” - People, all arrested

The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz. Makes me actively angry every time I think about it. The author throws out so many of these amazing sci-fi “what if” moral questions and then handles them in the most offhand, throwaway way, as if they’re annoyed that the question has been raised and want to get away from discussing it as soon as possible.

Examples include:

Q: is it ethical to give worms sentience, In secret and in defiance of a government that says giving creatures sentience should be discussed? A: yes, and you shouldn’t nark on the person secretly giving the worms sentience.

Q: is it ethical to genetically engineer an entire species to fulfil a role that might otherwise be done by unthinking machines? A: Yeah so long as you also genetically engineer them to enjoy that work and let them quit if they don’t like it.

Those aren’t loose interpretations of an ongoing plot. Each of those is thrown up and resolved within a few pages and then never mentioned again. Any of them could have been a great Star Trek episode. But instead they’re tossed away without discussion.

UPDATE: he's been cleared already, apparently the investigation was rushed and the deadline for submission has not yet been reached.

Can't believe that Rupert's "give me money to play pretend at doing real inquiries" might not be totally legit. Bet the inquiry will involve some really big dinners.

Yes, yes, death to FPTP...