In todays news...

[Dodgy69]

Did Sir K mention more doctors and nurses, more NHS dentists, (ours is going private inJanuary), more help for the poor, more teachers, more doctors, more hospitals, more prisons, more road investment, tighter border control and some nice juicy tax cuts.

[irie]

Those sorts of new build exec housing estates sell like hot cakes, and to be fair it's what we chose when our kids were young.
We wanted a nice estate where the kids could all socialise, the houses were all reasonably expensive so it kept riff-raff out, energy efficient, no maintenance because they're new and close to town for work.

We're old now and want the opposite, well away from any estates, old house with character and rural landscape.

Yup. Everything that's been completed is occupied. It's on the edge of the new country park so they know 'Phase 2' won't suddenly appear and the location generally isn't bad at all. The new places on the other side of the park are much nicer designs though and much less densely packed. (They're all on the flood plain though, but the others were all tanked and have shuttable vents etc). Wouldn't even mind one of the others myself.

If anyone thinks house building isn't happening they need to visit Horsham, they've pretty much added a New Town onto it. I suppose things aren't the same everywhere though. If there are jobs/££ things will sell.

Not difficult to see what's going to go wrong there.

[irie]

Did Sir K mention more doctors and nurses, more NHS dentists, (ours is going private inJanuary), more help for the poor, more teachers, more doctors, more hospitals, more prisons, more road investment, tighter border control and some nice juicy tax cuts.

It'll all go tits up and the Gen Z's will be up in arms about it being someone else's fault. But Starmer et.al. are obviously trying to avoid the disastrous 1992 mistake of saying where the money will come from.

[demographic]

Did Sir K mention more doctors and nurses, more NHS dentists, (ours is going private inJanuary), more help for the poor, more teachers, more doctors, more hospitals, more prisons, more road investment, tighter border control and some nice juicy tax cuts.

Dunno, but he did mention investigating government ministers corruption and holding them to account.
I'm all for that cos the Conservatives might do the same when they eventually get into power again.
With luck doing that might lessen the industrial scale of governmental corruption we've been seeing with the free ports, covid PPE contracts and HS2 land buying and selling.

One can only hope eh?

[MingtheMerciless]

Those sorts of new build exec housing estates sell like hot cakes, and to be fair it's what we chose when our kids were young.
We wanted a nice estate where the kids could all socialise, the houses were all reasonably expensive so it kept riff-raff out, energy efficient, no maintenance because they're new and close to town for work.

We're old now and want the opposite, well away from any estates, old house with character and rural landscape.

Yup. Everything that's been completed is occupied. It's on the edge of the new country park so they know 'Phase 2' won't suddenly appear and the location generally isn't bad at all. The new places on the other side of the park are much nicer designs though and much less densely packed. (They're all on the flood plain though, but the others were all tanked and have shuttable vents etc). Wouldn't even mind one of the others myself.

If anyone thinks house building isn't happening they need to visit Horsham, they've pretty much added a New Town onto it. I suppose things aren't the same everywhere though. If there are jobs/££ things will sell.

The Broadbridge Heath estate at Horsham (Wickhurst Green I thin they coined it as), was about 2,000 houses. The new estates north of Horsham are going to be 4,000+ houses. They're promising a new train station to serve the area (the estates will basically join Horsham to Crawley), but they keep changing where they're planning to put it!

It's already called Crawsham (Horshley was too close to Horley).

[Dodgy69]

They ain't arf good at saying what we want to hear. Thing is, after a lifetime you get to realise it's all bollox. Look out of the window.

[Count Steer]

It's already called Crawsham (Horshley was too close to Horley).

There were armed police looking for a stabby sort of person in Horsham recently.

Nextdoor.com exploded in accusation and counter-accusation that gangs from Crawley were invading Horsham or gangs from Horsham were invading Crawley. I was impressed by the number of people that wanted to tell the world how lovely, peaceful and generally bonzer Crawley is.

(Mind you, having spent an evening in central Horsham a while ago, they may have a point!).

[irie]

So what is Israel going to do in Northern Gaza after (presumably) civilians have evacuated to the south?

FWIW (which as I said previously is probably not very much) what I think they're going to do is a variation of what the Russians did in Mariupol.

Under Northern Gaza there is a huge labyrinth of underground tunnels which must contain large numbers of Hamas fighters and communication and supply systems. It would be suicidal for IDF forces to try to clear out these tunnels. So what I think the IDF will do is, after having evacuated as many remaining civilians and hospitals as possible, raze the buildings to the ground. Then sit and wait for those in the tunnels to run out of food, water and other supplies. Then as they surface if they surrender take them prisoner, if they come out fighting kill them. There are obviously many underground supply routes into Northern Gaza but these could be closed down as they are discovered.

Or flood the tunnel system perhaps, but they'd all have to be interlinked ...

[MingtheMerciless]

They’ve been using bunker busters on the tunnel systems (according to the Twitter/X link I watched on SNAFU-Solomon’s blog).

[Hot_Air]

So what is Israel going to do in Northern Gaza after (presumably) civilians have evacuated to the south?

What do you think was Hamas’s game plan? Hamas deliberately caused maximum horror, such as live-streaming atrocities and cutting babies’ throats. Hamas knew Israel would react with angry force. Why would Hamas want to cause this (entirely predictable) Israeli reaction? Iranian involvement?

It’s desperately sad for the innocent civilians on all sides.

[JackyJoll]

So what is Israel going to do in Northern Gaza after (presumably) civilians have evacuated to the south?

What do you think was Hamas’s game plan? Hamas deliberately caused maximum horror, such as live-streaming atrocities and cutting babies’ throats. Hamas knew Israel would react with angry force. Why would Hamas want to cause this (entirely predictable) Israeli reaction? Iranian involvement?

It’s desperately sad for the innocent civilians on all sides.

As you suggest, maybe they’re dreaming that other Arabs will join in.

Perhaps, according to their heat-oppressed brain, any harassment of their divinely ordinated enemy is a worthwhile end in itself and the crueller the better. If Israel replies by killing them and many of their friends and knocking their towns over, that’s just obvious proof that Israel is evil and must be attacked again.

If that lot just sounds silly to you, maybe it’s because you’re not a stupid brainwashed fanatic.

[irie]

So what is Israel going to do in Northern Gaza after (presumably) civilians have evacuated to the south?

What do you think was Hamas’s game plan?

In the final analysis it is to destroy the "Zionist" state of Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter

[Count Steer]

So what is Israel going to do in Northern Gaza after (presumably) civilians have evacuated to the south?

What do you think was Hamas’s game plan?

In the final analysis it is to destroy the "Zionist" state of Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter

It doesn't say a lot about the 2017 version of the charter, so, for those that can read more than tweet, here y'go.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hama ... ument-full

[JamJar]

What do you think was Hamas’s game plan?

In the final analysis it is to destroy the "Zionist" state of Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter

It doesn't say a lot about the 2017 version of the charter, so, for those that can read more than tweet, here y'go.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hama ... ument-full

Doesn’t make their aims look any better to be fair.

[Count Steer]

In the final analysis it is to destroy the "Zionist" state of Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter

It doesn't say a lot about the 2017 version of the charter, so, for those that can read more than tweet, here y'go.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hama ... ument-full

Doesn’t make their aims look any better to be fair.

In what way?

If, for example, the 'rest of the world' decided that England 'belonged' to the, oh I dunno, the Catholics or the Baptists and they decided that only they could live there so they kettled the rest of us in, say, Rutland and Cornwall and every time anyone fought back and tried to rectify the injustice they bombed the shit out of all of us with the support of the 'rest of the world' . How would you react (if you weren't one of the new chosen few)?

Edit: For balance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration

And if anyone wants to read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism

[irie]

It doesn't say a lot about the 2017 version of the charter, so, for those that can read more than tweet, here y'go.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hama ... ument-full

Doesn’t make their aims look any better to be fair.

In what way?

If, for example, the 'rest of the world' decided that England 'belonged' to the, oh I dunno, the Catholics or the Baptists and they decided that only they could live there so they kettled the rest of us in, say, Rutland and Cornwall and every time anyone fought back and tried to rectify the injustice they bombed the shit out of all of us with the support of the 'rest of the world' . How would you react (if you weren't one of the new chosen few)?

Edit: For balance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration

How would you react if you lived in Devon, for example?

[Count Steer]

How would you react if you lived in Devon, for example?

Slightly less bothered than if I'd lived in Cornwall?

(Tempted to nibble away at the border with a few 'settlements' into productive land perhaps if I was an expansionist Baptist/Catholic Devonian wishing to extinguish the annoying neighbours perhaps).

[JamJar]

It doesn't say a lot about the 2017 version of the charter, so, for those that can read more than tweet, here y'go.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hama ... ument-full

Doesn’t make their aims look any better to be fair.

In what way?

If, for example, the 'rest of the world' decided that England 'belonged' to the, oh I dunno, the Catholics or the Baptists and they decided that only they could live there so they kettled the rest of us in, say, Rutland and Cornwall and every time anyone fought back and tried to rectify the injustice they bombed the shit out of all of us with the support of the 'rest of the world' . How would you react (if you weren't one of the new chosen few)?

Edit: For balance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration

And if anyone wants to read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism

Don't think I would chop up babies.

[Yorick]

In a statement, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said: "At around 1pm today, police were called to reports of a collision involving a bus and a shop in Piccadilly Gardens.

I wonder which party is to blame

https://news.sky.com/story/manchester-c ... p-12985628

[Docca]

So what is Israel going to do in Northern Gaza after (presumably) civilians have evacuated to the south?

What do you think was Hamas’s game plan? Hamas deliberately caused maximum horror, such as live-streaming atrocities and cutting babies’ throats. Hamas knew Israel would react with angry force. Why would Hamas want to cause this (entirely predictable) Israeli reaction? Iranian involvement?

It’s desperately sad for the innocent civilians on all sides.

Has the baby-cutting been validated? Not that I’m after a video- but reports from the ground that were broadcast suggested this didn’t happen.

I’m finding it incredibly difficult to believe anything that’s broadcast during times of conflict anymore. The propaganda machines get cranked up to max and especially so if you’ve the budget to fluff them.

What is irrefutable is the downsizing of Palestine over several generations and a rather unhealthy view of our brothers from a darker mother by Israel.

I boycotted buying products from Israel years ago so you can take a wild guess where my sympathies land. The whole thing is fucked and the outpouring of public figures sharing unsubstantiated views of occurrences fuels a distorted rhetoric that will only serve to fan the flames of a hatred.

Sunak stated we stand with Israel. I don’t.