[davidjay]

Honestly not sure where I thought he'd stand on Israel/Palestine. I could see him being racist on either side of the equation. I suppose now he's largely an irrelevance it's just nice to get out of the house.

Enabling a fascist again.

[kettle]

??

[davidjay]

??

You're never exactly over-critical of the fash.

[Youngian]

Anne Applebaum’s war on populism is insightful like Rory Stewart as she grew up politically with these people. Tons of weight in this government to her assertion that populism is crewed by talentless mediocre chancers who wouldn’t get a top job with anyone else.

Anne Applebaum can look at the wreck of democratic politics and understand it with a completeness few contemporary writers can match. When she asks who sent Britain into the unending Brexit crisis, or inflicted the Trump administration on America, or turned Poland and Hungary into one-party states, she does not need to search press cuttings. Her friends did it, she replies. Or, rather, her former friends. For if they are now embarrassed to have once known her, the feeling is reciprocated.

For the Americans, she was a child of the Republican establishment. Her father was a lawyer in Washington DC and she was educated at Yale and Oxford universities. Now her Republican friends are divided between a principled minority, who know that defeating Trump is the only way to save the American constitution, and the rest, who have, to use a word she repeats often, “collaborated” as surely as the east Europeans she studied as a historian collaborated with the invading Soviet forces after 1945.

Applebaum offers an overdue corrective. She knows the personal behind the political. She understands that the nationalist counter-revolution did not just happen. Politicians hungry for office, plutocrats wanting the world to obey their commands, second-rate journalists sniffing a chance of recognition after years of obscurity, and Twitter mob-raisers and fake news fraudsters, who find a sadist’s pleasure in humiliating their opponents, propelled causes that would satisfy them.

Their leaders weren’t from small towns full of abandoned shops and drug-ridden streets. They were metropolitans, with degrees from Oxford in the case of Johnson and Dominic Cummings. The men and women Applebaum knew were not loyal drones but filled with a dark restlessness. They may pose as the tribunes of the common people now but they were members of the intellectual and educated elite willing to launch a war on the rest of the intellectual and educated elite. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/ ... and-brexit

[Spoonman]

Meanwhile from their bedfellows on the other side of the Atlantic...

[Spoonman]

And another American Alt-Right personality sucking up to the Taliban, intentionally or not...

...it's reminding me of one of "The Onion's" pieces from a few years back 'reporting' that a majority of rural white American's would prefer Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to to rule over them than Barack Obama, so convincing that Iran's state news agency didn't realise that The Onion's report was satire.

While I haven't checked yet, I would not be surprised if there was someone closer to home on the Alt-Right/Alt-"lite" spectrum that is having similar emotional attachment issues concerning the Taliban.

[MisterMuncher]

Fatwa envy is very much a thing.

[Youngian]

Fatwa envy is very much a thing.

You get great sex with a fatwa

[Boiler]

Tee hee.

Proud Boys leader sentenced for burning Black Lives Matter flag

[Bones McCoy]

Honestly not sure where I thought he'd stand on Israel/Palestine. I could see him being racist on either side of the equation. I suppose now he's largely an irrelevance it's just nice to get out of the house.

Yaxley-Lennon will go with the side that pays highest.
He'll only break that rule if it risks queering his pitch at the US market.

[Cyclist]

I see Waxy-Lemon is in the news again

Tommy Robinson has been given a five-year stalking protection order after he shouted abuse outside the home of a journalist and threatened to repeatedly return to her address.

The founder of the English Defence League, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, went to the property of the Independent’s home affairs correspondent Lizzie Dearden and her boyfriend, Samuel Partridge, in January of this year.

Westminster magistrates court heard he stood outside Dearden’s house and shouted unsubstantiated allegations about Partridge.

The deputy chief magistrate Tan Ikram said Robinson’s behaviour “crossed the line between mere harassment and stalking” at a hearing on Wednesday...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... journalist

[Samanfur]

The phrase "mere harassment" makes me very uncomfortable. It makes me wonder what the judge considers permissible.

[Cyclist]

I think in this context the magistrate was pointing out Y-L's offence was the next level up from harassment (which is a specific offence), rather than implying harassment is ok. I think he could have worded it better.

[Samanfur]

I suspect so, too. But it's a very loaded and potentially ambiguous way of putting it, even if it's not been done consciously.

I'd be lying if I said I'm not cynical when it comes to judges' sentencing remarks.

[mattomac]

Yeah he could have suggested reading Dickens.

[Cyclist]

Whoever's funding the British Freedom Party and their ghastly Jayda Fransen must love tipping money down the drain...

Conservatives have confirmed eight candidates have expressed interest in running in a by-election to find a replacement for MP Sir David Amess.

Nigel Holdcroft, president of Southend West Conservatives said they were keen that someone familiar with the area should be chosen for the MP's Southend West constituency.

Those who had so far shown interest were all local residents, he said.

The Conservative Party said it did not comment on selection processes.

"The [by-election] procedure hasn't actually started yet, and we've no intention of starting it until after Sir David's funeral," Mr Holdcroft said.

The Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green parties have already stated they will not be contesting the seat out of respect to Sir David, who was fatally stabbed in Leigh-on-Sea on 15 October.

The British Freedom Party said its leader, Jayda Fransen, would stand in the by-election...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-59048551

Another deposit lost.

[Youngian]

Hope Fransen doesn’t stand on an anti-sewerage alliance platform, she might get elected. Know a man who should

[davidjay]

Whoever's funding the British Freedom Party and their ghastly Jayda Fransen must love tipping money down the drain...

Conservatives have confirmed eight candidates have expressed interest in running in a by-election to find a replacement for MP Sir David Amess.

Nigel Holdcroft, president of Southend West Conservatives said they were keen that someone familiar with the area should be chosen for the MP's Southend West constituency.

Those who had so far shown interest were all local residents, he said.

The Conservative Party said it did not comment on selection processes.

"The [by-election] procedure hasn't actually started yet, and we've no intention of starting it until after Sir David's funeral," Mr Holdcroft said.

The Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green parties have already stated they will not be contesting the seat out of respect to Sir David, who was fatally stabbed in Leigh-on-Sea on 15 October.

The British Freedom Party said its leader, Jayda Fransen, would stand in the by-election...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-59048551

Another deposit lost.

The sad truth is that it'll be money well spent. She'll get more than £5,000 worth of publicity.

[Cyclist]

Poor old Tommeh. How dare people refuse to serve him? After all, he's only an objectionable cunt with objectionable views. Nobody can object to that, surely?

English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson was kicked out of a chicken shop after he complained about being discriminated against by staff refusing to serve him.

The 38-year-old activist - real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon - invited his followers to leave reviews of Wing Kingz in Milton Keynes following the incident..


...I’ve come in here I’ve got my table booked with my children. People have a problem with me, probably something to do with my politics, yeah? I’m not going to take discrimination on that level yeah?”...

Asked by Robinson to explain why, she says: “I’m pretty sure you know why. My staff are not happy to serve you, any of my staff all of them. I don’t need to spell it out to you.”

Another man steps in and says: “Please leave. We are full up.”

Robinson later complained to his followers that a “minimum-wage waitress” should not be able to dictate who is allowed in after the confrontation on Sunday lunchtime.

“What I’m shocked at, is that the biggest snowflakes in Milton Keynes …can’t handle someone having a different opinion.”...


https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/tomm ... 7.html?amp

Who's actually the snowflake, Steve-o? If you can't handle people having different opinions to you maybe you should think about not being such a cunt.

[Andy McDandy]

From Newsnight to Wing Kingz, how have the mighty fallen.