Sunder,

Perhaps you missed that LibCon was rather supportive of Dave’s sudden outbreak of honesty over Pakistan.

The answer is a many as he likes because iioalayaac.

It is ok as long as you are a conservative.

Iran has got the nuke, though. And why not? I quite like Iran – reckon there’s a nice bit of political strength underneath the MSM’s representations of it. The Turkey thing was clearly bollox, though, and, unfortunately, that was the strategic target, D’oh – fail!

He’s just really, really thick. And has such a sense of snobbish entitlement that he thinks he can get away with whatever he wants.

Apparently, Cameron said a few contrary words about Iran becoming a nuclear state. Off script non-diplomacy by politicians is normal. For which we employ diplomats to smooth over the waters.

UK and US readers are told to read that Cameron has spoken against Iranian nuclear development; elsewhere the message is different; within Cabinet the message will be different.

Martin Coxall@1
I don’t have to agree with other LC posts, but the opening two paras take a fairly similar view of “inconvenient truth-telling”. (The off the cuff point is simply to make a different distinction – the contexts make it clear that the Gaza comment was deliberate and on-script; the Pakistan answer to an audience question did not seem to be, and was not intended to create the impact it did)

@4 – nope, he’s not. I staffed the lad at a Cammo Direct gig for a bit, just doing microphones and keeping the locals from agitating too much but he ain’t thick. Daft, maybe. He must be absolutely cream crackered and because his missus is up t’duff, he’s trying to get all the shite over and done with before dealing with actual shite. No, he’s done alreet. Bit upsetting having to deal with the agenda in front of him, but, shit happens. Could be worse, could be Zardawi (sp – soz).

The Turkey argument was spot on. The Gaza argument spot on.

The Pakistan point was spot on as well. Just a week ago, US Secretary of State said the exact same thing in Kabul, and Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s Special Envoy said it more categorically in an interview with an Indian channel.

The Iran thing was probably an error – or maybe reminding people that there is a real threat from a really vile regime. So may be he is craftier than we give him credit for.

At least he has got a foreign secretary who does not go and piss off world leaders like Robin Cook or even David Miliband. And I like David Miliband.

China gave the nuke technology to Pakistan to undermine India – and it has not made the world a safer place and almost all recent terror activities in India, US, UK had some sort of Pakistani linkage. So, all the comments the Prime Minister made were not only right but apt.

So, Mr. Pill, you may call the PM thick – but I think Sunder is playing the partisan game to some extent – and expect more of this for the next few weeks – Cameron’s 100 days are almost here – and it started off with a piece by Mehdi Hasan in New Statesman. Very well written and argued but factually wrong when he writes Gordon Brown had tried to reduce the size of the state.

Sunder is the General Secretary of the Fabian Society – his command over nuance is no less than Mehdi’s – so expect some more of this for the next few weeks.

But I doubt you are is audience because you seem to really clever

Not as big a gaffe as the Iraq war, eh Sunder? Washed the blood out of your Labour-supporting hands yet?

@8&9 – fair play, go for the messenger but just because other shit has happened, don’t attack the message. I think all support for political parties is nuanced and should be treated as conditional. I was watching some Cammo Direct thing from dawn sarf today and some special constable piped up and had a whinge and all of a sudden she’s meeting the copper minister; not gainst it in principle but ffs, a bit of professionalism never hurt. I think events like that can be safely side-tracked. Fair play for doing ‘em and stuff but…. I genuinely think the lad is working to his kids’ timetable now and too right. Labour lost – it was a bloody and long campaign being Tory too – respect your adversary but we kinda won. Do hang about blogs quite a lot and, yer know, like me constitutional preceadent and stuff – yeah, Tories won. Enjoy your summer lads – get back to fighting in autumn, eh?

Dick –

heh heh.

@7&8

What I mean is he lacks social mores – he seems to think it’s ok in international politics to say that Trident is needed because of China, Iran has the bomb, Pakistan are sponsoring terrorism*, the UK were a “junior partner” to the US in 1940(!)… it’s not rocket science. It’s not even GCSE political science.

*[Whether they are or not is moot; it's how he presented himself in India of all places.]

And Shamit, I’m not claiming to be clever. But I’m not the fucking PM.

Dear Mr S Pill – why not have a pop at China? Why not have Trident aimed directly at them? They instigate Taiwan, Korea & Kasmir, moving slowly into Somalia, Nigeria and also buying Liverpool Football Club. Why the fuck not fight China?

@13 hmmm if it weren’t for the fact that we’d be flattened out of existence within about half an hour, you’d have a point..

@14 – so would they.

truth be told, i’m a bit fed up with the Chinese. I’m all for internal politics and stuff, terratorial dominion, regional hegemony; call it what you like but now that they’re all of a sudden manipulating their currency at the expense of both their own & our citizens, yet concurrently not govong two hoots for the ramifications of their aggresive commosity acquistion mission – well, not too impressed. Seen it before, many times and was bored before. Screw ‘em.

In this brave new pussy world that is the EU we’re meant to talk to people, negotaite, ask them about their sick mothers and stuff. Screw that. China are clever, have a legitimate beef and are quite patient. How come the Japs don’t get excited? We’re too busy giving a shit over the middle east to watch the far east go breakdown. Is it up to us to fix Korea? China can go fuck itself until it learns to cope with consequence. State is different from government – they haven’t learned that yet.

@15

China – population est. 1,300,000,000 / landmass – 9,640,821 km²
Blighty – population est 61,000,000 / landmass – 243,610 km²

I think they have a higher chance of survival. Not to mention that North Korea’s warheads would be a-coming over to flatten France just in case (Russia & the US would play their old cold war games again). Interestingly both China and the UK have a similar number of nuclear bombs.

(Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of the Chinese gov. I just don’t reckon we should nuker ‘em 8) )

Washed the blood out of your Labour-supporting hands yet?

Blanco I wouldn’t start crowing if I was you. The minute some big foreign policy issue blows up, the Libdems aren’t likely to be covered in glory.

Am in no way wanting to nuke ‘em but their track record for the last few hundred years has been a bit crap. I’m all for a resurgent China – about time they took care of business. I remember writing essays on democray having a limit and, fuck me, 1.3 billion – that’s administrativly (sp) tiresome and, if Sheffield or Glenrothes are owt to go by; a waste of time anywho. China need to be trated with respect to be sure, but it kinda helps if you’re holding a gun to their head. I prefer silence and their’s has truly been golden over this Korea shit. Big time respect. China can sometimes exhibit grace, their major influence is Japan. I worry, sometimes, about Japan. North Korea are amateurs in comparison!

All Anglo-Sino relations are through the prism of Japan and then China. China got fucked big style in the 2nd world war to be sure but there’s a bit of a stream that we got involved intheir little domestic. Japan treated our PoW’s like shit; not invoking memory or owt but it exists – given a choice, Japan can tickle. It’s usually quite easy being a Yorkshireman with Oirish Catholic understanding but the Orientals have got their own gig. They seem to have a point to prove, which seems odd. Apparently booze doesn’t fit with their genotype! Saki is just distilled drivel (and me being an alcoholic should, err, does know about these things – rice wine! Fuckle off). I think any reference to Blighty, if in any way accurate, should bear witness to the Jock, the Taffs, The Miks & the fucking Joe’s – that the Taffs have won us every single modern war should make the Japs sit up, be afraid and watch warriora go about their business. I’ll happily fight Taffs but I’m from Yorkshire so our mum’s will have already fixed it and we’ll get tea & cake chucked at us. I dunno – I just see wars in their location, I see shit in its location – as long as it ain’t happenin’ here then mainanna (sp).

I genuinely do love this blog Mr Hundal and think it offers value to the great unwashed; but frankly, seems often like talk is cheap.

Love & hugs!!

DtP

Forgot to mention the ANZACS; whoopys whoops. If an antipodeon’s mum or wife says ‘make yerself at home’ then it’s game over.Only one place to fight those lads and they usually have sarnies and stuff; NZ kicked Oz arse in the rugby last week – quite seriously delivered a whoppin’!

I genuinely do love this blog Mr Hundal and think it offers value to the great unwashed; but frankly, seems often like talk is cheap.

You just realised now talk is cheap??
Why do you think I’m constantly asking people to get involved etc etc?

Sunny
Well done
For keeping right wingers busy (dick, pagar, cjcjc, shamit, dave, tim j and w , watchman, flowerpower, falco and the many others) At least they are not starting their own school.
The Ayn Rand High for egoists
I like Dick , he can be the head.

As or Cameron his foreign policy it is just chinese whispers.
His comments about Pakistan means nothing unless you stop providing military hard ware
No one gives s flying f*** what a UK PM says, left or right apart from the saddos on blog sites .
As for keeping trident because of China.
Discuss.

Rhys makes me laugh. He writes just like Dick the Prick, but where DTP is a right wing idiot, Rhys is his left wing mirror. Are they the same person?

Harvey Dent, much?

Sorry egoism

Blanco
Chill out man
Your in power.
Also who said I am left wing.
The left is dead.
The political landscape consists of different types of right wingers fighting for the scraps.
The only thing you had in common was a hate for lefties. Hence the pointless posts by the many right wingers to an obscure, sorry Sunny, left of centre blog. It is just to reassure yourself there is an enemy.
You will be in power for at least 20 years.
Enjoy

So China is the reason we keep trident.
A country that relies on the west for markets and if they did cause trouble the US might do something about it.
But little UK must stand up to the Chinese hordes.
Getting rid of public sector jobs, kicking council tenants out of their homes, upsetting a few luvvies.
Easy
Responsive public, a pliant press, from the Guardian to the telegraph backing you up . the feral right wing dominated blogosphere.
EASY
Take on the military, take on the armchair admirals, take on the Telegraph
NOT so easy.
So we won’t get rid of Trident.
If the Orange bookers Lib dems want a bone to Hughes and Ashdown maybe this is the time to get rid of the useless system

Not to mention that North Korea’s warheads would be a-coming over to flatten France just in case

Err, you do realise that their best launch vehicle would be lucky to reach Alaska?

29. They could photoshop it to reach at least Poland though.

Can someone explain what right wing is? Im starting to think its anyone who disagrees even slightly with Rhys or Sally.

A country that relies on the west for markets

Not sure that logic worked – last time we invaded China, it was precisely because, in the views of the imperial decision-makers, we needed to keep access to the markets that we relied on. Something about them imposing restrictive sanctions on certain recreational goods.

One thing to be said in favour of nuclear weapons is they do tend to make it a lot harder to make that kind of business case for a war. The cost of invading the UK must be up in the trillions, way above any potential returns, or the amount of money anyone is likely to want to spend on a prestige project.

What are you then Dave ?
Please link me to an area where you disagree with the Tories.
Also I am not left wing

Soru
Sorry I forgeot the opium wars when the UK was free market drug pusher

So now I am on the right side of the political divide –

And those on the right say I am on the left of the political divide -

Well for clarification – I choose my positions based on what I think is correct – i don’t buy into the tribalism and I define myself as “left of centre”.

Shamit
There is no left of centre that creed died in 1979.

Bloody hell Rhys, you’re in a bad mood today man. The future sure looks bleak but that doesn’t mean we just give up and let the old Etonians screw us. Don’t forget, a majority of the country did vote for the alternative to the Tories’ slash’n'burn policies (even if Clegg had changed his mind before the election, he didn’t tell us…). Once Labour has a new leader and Osborne has clarified more cuts around October time, that’s when the real fight will begin.

Sorry Phil,
I am not in bad mood just accepting the facts
On the topic of Pakistan.
Cameron is now going back on his statement about Pakistan. I suppose it is little different actually telling the leader of that country face to face , better to do it on a talk show.