Danny
Member
Posts: 10,457
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Post by Danny on Oct 19, 2023 5:11:35 GMT
Some providers offer social tariffs for those on benefits. These are cheaper broadband and phone packages for people claiming Universal Credit, Pension Credit and some other benefits. Some providers call them ‘essential’ or ‘basic’ broadband. They’re delivered in the same way as normal packages, just at a lower price, as little as £15). I seem to recall some dicussion of this, that the running costs of internet and phone companies are very low compared to their prices. So its a capital investment cost, which many would think ought to be paid off by now. BT still manages most of the network and they recently reported their future plans to sack loads of workers once they have finished their latest wave of switchover to fibre optic cables. But internet costs ought to be going the same way as mobile phone contract costs, dropping not rising. |
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Danny
Member
Posts: 10,457
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Post by Danny on Oct 19, 2023 5:13:11 GMT
*** ADMIN *** ***HOWEVER***, I have to warn Danny that I (and others) have already pulled him up on a previous post that was anti-semitic (and therefore the earlier post was a rule breach on hate speech). and that he should think very carefully before posting in the future. Sorry? What post was that as I have no idea? The only messages you have sent me are about covid posts. None about antisemitism. Are you muddling me up with someone else? You did personally reply in thread about a post, I seem to remember, but that would not be any kind of adminstrative warning? The current war in palestine dates back to 1914 and the british goal of stirring up rebellion in the region against Ottoman rule, by helping the minority Jews. Since then both sides have been busily killing each other, first one then the other. This is absolutely nothing to do with antisemitism, its a simple civil war. One we created, and then the US kept going by coming in on the side of Israel for its own imperial reasons. It has been so successful for Israel they are now the majority population dealing with an obviously infuriated and dispossessed minority. This situation is very similar to the English problems after the invasion, occupation and settlement of Ireland. Which was only finally resolved by first creating an Irish free state (ie handing back most of the land), and then giving full equal rights to republicans living still within Irish UK. Israel was offered this sort of settlement post ww2, which was already pretty generous considering they had started out as the minority population with no state. Ok, they have always been threatened as a state, but they have no intention whatever of rolling back their de-facto conquest of palestine, while their policy remains the same as English government's original plan for acquisition and then settlement of Ireland. This has gone on for all my lifetime, half a century. Israel recently suffered an attack similar in nature to the 9/11 attack in the US. The biggest impact was not the immediate damage or death but shock that such was possible. In both cases there seems to have been complacency that such an attack could even be possible, which then allowed it to happen or made the outcomes worse. Much has been made of 'killing babies'. Everyone kills babies in warfare, usually of course incidentally, and I see no evidence Hamas set out to specifically kill Israeli babies, they just happened to be there. The aim seems to have been to kill anyone they could find. I have to say I do not find this different in kind to Israel bombing Gaza in retaliation, which has been claimed to be a war crime similarly. The concept of war crimes is deeply dubious and rather a modern invention, because its really only the application of power by the strongest against weaker opponents to impose conduct upon them. In the final analysis all nations boxed into a corner will do similar things, and while thy may indeed seek to minimise non combatant destruction, fundamentally all citizens contribute to the war effort. Israel has just called up its part time army, in a state where almost everyone gets military training. Those who died in the Hamas raid were to the best of my knowledge settlers who were contributing to the expansion and consolidation of Israeli control on what was once arab controlled land. As a state becomes more desperate, then more and more chivalrous behaviour falls by the wayside. Desperate people do what they must. That spirit is now seen amongst the rulers of Israel who are now punishing gaza for what happened. There is no difference between the sides. Or any sides in any war. Ukraine/Russia may come to this, Russia has already behaved barbarically and Ukraine may yet if the war goes badly enough. The bottom line historically is that lives are cheap but land lasts forever. So what have we got here? There is a civil war which most likely would have ended 50 years ago had not the US chosen to sponsor Israel. This is really yet another of those legacies of empire where western powers imposed divisions on local people. The post ww2 arbitrations could have been enforced by those external powers, but they didnt want to do that and instead it became another stepping stone in israeli expansion. Well OK, but then what we should do is acknowledge we believe it is in our interest to strengthen the state of Israel. But of course we will not do that because it pushes us towards angering the arabs. Not those in palestine but more powerful ones elsewhere. So we continue this covert expansion of Israel. Its not the tiniest bit surprising Hamas recently attacked Israel. Its no different to what the IRA were doing, which eventually gained them civil rights in Northern Ireland, and significant reunification of Ireland under the EU umbrella. We still dont know if Brexit has been enough to destabilise that and potentially bring us back to attacks against civilians here in Britain too. Its not surprising Israel will use this as an opportunity to further reduce the rights of Gazans, I think take more territory into Israel, but at minimum make life harder for any remaining Gazans so they are under more pressure to emigrate anywhere they can, thereby solving the problem that way. The outcome will be decided by external powers once again. On which note I would chip in the recent success claimed by Ukraine using the latest US supplied longer range missiles. This is absolutely typical of western interventions anywhere. Dribbling in military aid just enough to keep your side going. Its almost as if the goal is to keep the conflict going as long as possible because that ties up your enemies and their sponsors, rather than in any sense wanting an end to hostilities. Israel has kept the arabs busy for 100 years. Who cares how many have died on either side. Certainly not the imperial powers, however much their leaders may wring their hands in public. |
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Post by hireton on Oct 19, 2023 8:16:16 GMT
An Anglo-centric comment that should rightly enrage our Celtic contingent.  I have been thinking about davwel too. Hopefully, he is just reading and will start posting again soon. |
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Post by leftieliberal on Oct 20, 2023 13:18:04 GMT
Yes, but I think that Starmer was swayed by another related issue. The level of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party under Corbyn's leadership (even if he personally was blameless) was significant. Starmer has successfully neutralised that, but it has has led to him leaning more to the Israeli side than the Palestinian side. Objectively, he should have been more even-handed, but to move in that direction now, would open up his flank to the right-wing newspapers decrying him for allowing anti-Semitism to rise again. It doesn't matter that it isn't true; what matters is it might persuade wavering ex-Tory voters not to switch their vote to Labour. In this, the small number of Jewish voters is irrelevant, as you say they primarily vote Conservative anyway, but to come out with a statement that is portrayed as pro-Muslim could also alienate Hindu voters and I know from first-hand experience how effectively Bob Blackman used that particular issue. Indeed. Nor should we overlook that Starmer's wife being Jewish, with Israeli relatives, likely means that this hits him more emotionally than it does someone like me who has no connections to the area. This is very obviously the case with Humza Yousaf and his wife in respect of Gaza. Politicians are human too. Nevertheless, given the sensitivity, everyone has to be very careful in what they say. Re the Hindu vote, which has been moving in a Conservative direction recently, I wonder if having Sunak as leader will accelerate that at the next election (which will probably be the only one he gets to fight.). Also Layla Moran, whose mother was born in Jerusalem. She is the great-granddaughter of Wasif Jawhariyyeh (which I didn't know until I checked her Wikipedia page). |
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