Chomper Higgot

What a coincidence 🙂 Lidls, you know it? A very good cycling club, super friendly and put in a very good time trial that ran up the hill from Hanwell, up the hill to Arlescote and back down via Edgehill to Wroxton. Fabulous cycling country.

It’s not precise enough to back up your earlier claim: Bias you say?!

Banbury.

I didn’t count, but in would say half a dozen. Oxfordshire.

The last time I was in England I witnessed firsthand the morning drinkers, 7:00am Supermarket opens, 7:15am alcoholics standing in the supermarket car park guzzling cider. Addiction is not a choice, but it a profit driver for England’s supermarkets.

I do hope that’s not you trying to be more precise.

I think there is a clue in the OP. The upcoming G20 Summit is to be held in South Africa. It’s not a matter of South Africa ‘suddenly becoming important’, rather a matter of South Africa being the host of the G20 Summit and having obligations under the Rome Statute.

South Africa are not taking the moral high ground. They are simply signaling their intention to abide by their obligations under Article 59 of the Rome Statute. They’ve diplomatically not invited Putin thereby avoiding a diplomatic incident. It’s a sad indictment of your own outlook that you regard a nation signaling its intent to abide by the International Statutes to which it is a signatory as ‘trying to take the moral high ground’.

I agree.

South Africa signaling its intent to adhere to its duties under the Rome Statute is to be commended. South Africa is demonstrating that as a sovereign nation it abides by the statutes it signs regardless of how other nations treat their responsibilities. International statutes and treaties would have no meaning if signatory nations were to engage in conflating matters under statues and treaties, or worse still engage in whataboutary. Article 59 of the Rome Statute makes South Africa’s duties clear, just as clear as it is that South Africa takes its duties under the International Statutes it signs seriously. Its a shame on some nations that they do not.

It’s a smart move by South Africa avoid the inevitable diplomatic furor by not inviting Putin. In the event Putin did enter South Africa jurisdiction then South Africa would be bound under Article 59 of the Rome Statute to arrest him: https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/2024-05/Rome-Statute-eng.pdf

South Africa is correct, as a signatory to the Rome Statute it must comply with the arrest warrant, not inviting Putin is a diplomatic means of avoiding having to do so. Of course South Africa’s response to the arrest warrant issued for Putin is not related in anyway to any other matter before the ICJ. It’s a separation of issues that applies to all signatories to the Rome Statute and is not at all difficult to understand.

The closure of Israel’s Dublin Embassy is regrettable but naturally there is a ready market for such a prime property in that fine city: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/12/16/palestinian-museum-founder-inquires-about-leasing-site-of-closed-israeli-embassy-in-dublin/#:~:text=Following Israel's decision to,its doors in April 2018.

You’ll have to be more precise.

It was Cameron, Conservative Party Conference 2009: The second part of your post started with an assumption on your part of my views, I figure you just make them up on my behalf so so had no wish to interrupt your flow. https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/journals/cadaad/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Vol11.2-8-Evans-and-Walker.pdf

Yes growth is a problem, all the more reason for a trade deal with the largest developed integrated market right across the channel.

Are you trying to pretend ‘Austerity’ was not a key policy of the Tory Government’s commencing with Cameron? If you have a problem with the use of the word wit respect to the fiscal policies of the past 14 years, take it up with Cameron and Osborne, it is they who reintroduced it into national finance planning.

I’m not obtuse but I am one of those ‘libs’ you obsess over and I have never once claimed the SCOTUS ruling gives Trump (or the Presidency) power. I do hold the view that it places Presidential acts above the law and is therefore fundamentally in breach of the separation and balance of powers.

I see a Presidential Pardon in the not too distant future.

What part of democracy has Starmer disregarded? He’s the Prime Minister and head of the elected Government, nothing he has said with respect to the ECJ and trade with Europe breaks with anything that has been voted for by the electorate, not in the past election (the one that matters) or in any referendum. Moreover, given your continual, complaints about Starmer, Labour and allegations of ruining the economy, why would you not welcome the UK improving trade with the largest integrated developed market in the world? Improving relations and trade with the EU is good for the UK.

Don’t want to be tried before a New York Court, don’t commit crimes in New York.

And yet still the crimes for which the Jury found him guilty have zilch to do with any Presidential duty.

As is often the case context and a broader view of facts matter. https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-investment-2024/china

Labeling low traffic neighborhoods and cycle lanes as ‘climate change initiatives’ is a bit of a stretch, both have significant positive impacts on increasing road user safety and improving health of residents. Cycle lanes in particular have multiple positive impacts regardless of the reduction in carbon emissions they enable. Perhaps local council funding is the issue, as it is in councils across the nation. Another product of 14 years of slashing funding under the guise of ‘austerity’.

What is disingenuous about the observation that the crime for which Trump has been convicted was not part of any Presidential Duty?