roquefort

She's right of course, it was the BoE's ineptitude that caused interest rates to briefly spike. They came down again pretty quickly, until 'Rachel from accounts' came along and managed to push them even higher than they were under Truss.

The CIA also set up Lee Harvey Oswald as the fall guy for JFK's assassination. The CIA is a an evil, immoral and corrupt organisation that has carried out its dirty tricks all over the world (and in the US) for the last 80 years.

Ah, the Magic Money Tree theory. Unfortunately it's not true. Most US debt is owed to foreign or domestic lenders, including banks, mutual funds and pension funds. So assuming you want your pension to continue paying out in your retirement (not to mention social security, Medicare etc) it is a huge problem. https://www.pgpf.org/article/the-federal-government-has-borrowed-trillions-but-who-owns-all-that-debt/

Ah, the Magic Money Tree theory. Unfortunately it's not true. Most US debt is owed to foreign or domestic lenders, including banks, mutual funds and pension funds. So assuming you want your pension to continue paying out in your retirement (not to mention social security, Medicare etc) it is a huge problem. https://www.pgpf.org/article/the-federal-government-has-borrowed-trillions-but-who-owns-all-that-debt/

"Blinken has remained steadfast in advocating Biden’s vision of strong, proactive diplomacy as the solution to the world’s most pressing issues." Diplomacy is all about talking to your enemies, not your friends. Blinken has achieved precisely nothing in four years. The world is in a far more unstable and dangerous situation than when he came into office.

EU Commission, NATO, IMF are revolving door dumping grounds for failed national politicians. Can't hack it as a minister? Go and run an unelected supranational quango.

The annual interest on the US national debt is already higher than its military budget. By 2050 it will consume more than the entire US federal budget. It's a doom loop.

The idiots don't even realise that their 'green' EVs are produced in Chinese factories powered by coal-fired energy!

Wkipedia is actually an even better example of woke bias than the BBC, despite its grandiose claims to have a "neutral point of view". I happened to look at the Wikipedia entry for a political commentator I'd come across called Carl Benjamin. It has almost nothing about his actual views, pretty much limited to one line describing him as an anti-feminist, advocate of Brexit, and critic of Islamic immigration to the UK (all quite reasonable opinions to hold in my view). However, there is page after page of criticism of him from left-wing media such as the Guardian, the Independent and the New York Times, with numerous quotes labelling him as far-right, alt-right, anti-progressive and a conspiracy theorist. All the usual slurs used by the wokerati against people whose opinions they don't like.

Most people have a very clear idea of what 'woke' means. It is rapidly being abandoned in the corporate world, with the end of DEI and net zero orthodoxy. It is still to be eradicated in academia, which continues to churn out bright, young indoctrinated graduates with an inability to think critically about any narrative fed to them by the establishment. It is from this cohort that BBC staff mostly originate, so the statement that "The BBC has long since lost its reputation as as an honest and unbiased reporter of world news" is perfectly valid. As for BBC Verify, who checks the fact checkers?

But those who supported the lab leak theory, including the FBI as the article point out, were ignored, censored by the media and finally suppressed from any debate on the issue. The only acceptable narrative was the one put forward by Fauci and the US government. That is the premise of the article, so why exactly is is it irrelevant?

Please leave us Nigel. The last bastion against a tide of wokery.

Surely you mean a good septic?

Since sarcasm clearly goes straight over your head, I'll say that your comment is totally wrong. EU members do not pay taxes to their home countries wherever they live. The USA is the only country in the world that taxes its citizens on the basis of nationality, not residence.

Not a word about this on the BBC website. What a surprise. Their headline is obviously far more important news: 'I won £18k in online prize draw - but haven't seen a penny'

Probably best not to comment unless you know what you're talking about.

"However, some concerns were hard to dismiss." Seems like the WSJ and most other media dismissed them (or covered them up) for four years.

From the headline I thought he was a professional footballer.

Because the number of complaints against the BBC's woke/left wing bias would be off the scale. They'd have to create a new quango (probably called F... Ofcom) to get rid of them.

Thai record maybe. Once took 3 hours to do 300m in Jakarta.

Pot, kettle, black.

Oh, so they can tell all the bare-faced lies they want as long as they're not in the manifesto? What a bizarre view of political integrity.

I stand corrected. It was Cameron then who introduced the inappropriate use of the word. Please feel free to interrupt my flow. I won't be offended.

Increased spending every year has been the policy of governments of all colours (including New Labour) for many years. As to the inappropriate use of the word austerity I suspect it was the media rather than Cameron himself who first used it. I note you have carefully avoided replying to the second part of my comment concerning a long-standing Labour council.

Austerity? Perhaps you don't come from the post-war generation that knows the true meaning of the word and remembers food and petrol rationing. A reduction in the rate of increase of government spending is not austerity by any definition. Since you're so keen on governments spending other people's money, perhaps you'd care to comment on the outrageous salaries paid to these 'councillors' and particularly the 190k to Mr Dosunmu, apparently to fund his alcohol and drug habit.