Bashar el- Assad on top form

From Paris Match:

Paris Match: If you sign an agreement with the Kurdish “People’s Protection Units,” and the army enters that region and recovers all this land, you’ll find that there are prisons, and in these prisons, there are 400 French Jihadists. What are you going to do with them?

Assad: Every terrorist in the areas controlled by the Syrian state will be subjected to Syrian law, and Syrian law is clear concerning terrorism. We have courts specialized in terrorism and they will be prosecuted.

Paris Match: So, you don’t intend to repatriate them to Europe as Recep Tayyip Erdogan has done, for instance?

Assad: Erdogan is trying to blackmail Europe. A self-respecting man doesn’t talk like this. There are institutions and there are laws. Extraditing terrorists or any convicted person to another state is subject to bilateral agreements between countries; but to release people from prison knowing that they are terrorists and sending them to other countries to kill civilians - this is an immoral act.

Fun Online Polls: Russia/Syria & North Korea

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Should the G7 impose further sanctions on Russia because of Assad's nerve gas attack in Syria?

Yes - 7%
No - 93%

Good, I was with the majority on that.

There was some scepticism in the comments as to whether Assad's regime was behind the attack and whether there was actually a nerve gas attack. I would add, even if there was and Assad's forces were behind it, how are the Russians to blame (the people as opposed to Putin) and even if Putin were somehow to blame, what difference would it make, apart from pushing up our domestic gas prices and making Putin even more delusional?

Thanks to all 81 who took part.
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This week, let's stick with the big issues.

"How would you prefer Donald Trump to deal with North Korea?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Government guidelines for physical activity & Imposing sanctions on Russia

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Do you achieve the government's guidelines for physical activity every week? Multiple answers allowed.

As it happens I do, I like to keep fit - 20 votes
Yes, I take government guidelines very seriously - 0 votes
Don't know, don't care - 38 votes
No, probably not - 16 votes
No, certainly not - 8 votes
None of their business - 52 votes
Kraft durch Freude! - 4 votes
Other, please specify - 1 vote

Which is, reassuringly, pretty much what I expected. Thanks to all 102 who took part.
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Daft idea of the week was floated by Boris Johnson at a G7 meeting:

Boris Johnson has failed to secure the backing of the G7 nations for swift sanctions against Russia and Syria, leaving the US-UK plan to pressurise Vladimir Putin in tatters.

Germany and Italy vetoed the idea of targeting Russian and Syrian military leaders until an investigation has been carried out into who was to blame for last week’s nerve gas attack in Idlib province.

I think the link between Russia, Assad and the actual nerve gas attack is far too tenuous to justify sanctions, even if there was any chance of them 'working' i.e. persuading Putin to change his mind (which appear to be zero).

Which reminds me, the EU imposed limited sanctions on Russia because of the Ukraine/Crimea annexation thing three years ago and what difference has that made? These were recently extended by another six months without anybody even noticing.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll: "Should the G7 impose further sanctions on Russia because of Assad's nerve gas attack in Syria?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Compare and contrast

Emailed in by MBK, a good article in The Spectator about the differences of language used to describe the battles in Aleppo and in Mosul. In Aleppo, the occupiers are rebels being besieged by a dictatorial regime; in Mosul, the occupiers are Islamic terrorists and the town is being liberated by government forces. In fact, the occupiers are in both cases exactly the same kind of IS/Al Qaeda nutcases, and so on.
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The stories about George Osborne now being paid out for all the support he gave the banking sector remind me of Tony Blair who did the same thing.

JP Morgan paid him £2 million for services rendered while Prime Minister but apparently he has collected £60 million in total, presumably for services rendered to the armaments industry, Halliburton and the like.

The missing bit is Gordon Brown, who was responsible for the massive bank bail outs. Osborne was only throwing small change at them after that. Does anybody know why the banks aren't now 'hiring him as a consultant' or paying him for 'after dinner speeches'? Or are they, and we just don't know about it?

I can't stand Brown any more than I can stand Blair or Osborne, i.e. not at all, but judged by the standards of the kleptocracy, it still seems a bit incongruous and hence a tad unfair on the Broonster. Or does he have principles?

Fun Online Polls: Refuelling Russian warships & That Article 50 judgment.

The results to last week-and-a-half's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Would it particularly bother you if Spain allowed a Russian warship to refuel in a Spanish-controlled port?

Yes - 7%
No - 89%
Other, please specify - 4%

Good, it appears that I'm with the majority on that one.

Top comment:

SlightlyChilly: War Back in the GODs there was a face off between two Superpowers. Nowadays, arguing about who should refuel a museum piece rustbucket from an economically irrelevant backwater is a transparent nonsense.
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And on to that Court decision on whether the govt can trigger Article 50 without a vote in the House of Commons or a new Act of Parliament, about which millions of words have been written, mainly by non-experts which includes me so I wont bother adding to it. I did one or two units of constitutional law on my law degree and AFAICS they just make it up as they go along.

What is interesting is that the decision itself appears to be unclear what the government is now supposed to do.

Let's see if we can guess what will happen next…

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Syria & poverty and inequality

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll:

If the UK bombs ISIS targets in Syria, this will…

Make us safer from terrorist attacks - 1%
Make us more a more likely target - 17%
Not make any measurable difference - 14%
Be a waste of money better spent controlling our borders and combatting domestic terrorism - 63%
Other, please specify - 5%

A clear majority for common sense from a good turnout of 150 votes. Thank you everybody who took part.

Suggestions for "other" included:

Graeme: Wouldn't it be nice if the people who want to go bombing thought instead about ways of stopping the flow of funds and weaponry to Isil?

Yes, I should have added that to the list of sensible ways of spending money, but Pollcode has a limit on how long the answers can be. And, if we have absolutley fair to Cameron, it appears that the RAF is bombing primarily oil wells, which is one way of doing it.

And slightly more left field:

Enola Gay: The problem is not the bombing. The problem is that the bombs will be sub-atomic.
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This week, as a follow up to point 6 of Ben Jamin's recent post…

Which is the most relevant measure of poverty or inequality:

Total income
Total assets
Total assets excl. value of main residence*
Total income minus tax and housing costs

There's no "other" because we'd just end up with endless permutations.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

* The third option might sound a bit weird, but is the basis for many means tested benefits. For example, if you have a low income but £16,000 or more cash/investments, you get no Housing or Council Tax benefit or Pensions Credit (or their localised replacements and I know that the rules are slightly different for each and there's a Pension Credit Savings Credit to mitigate this). But if you have a low income, no savings and live in a £1 million home, you can still claim Council Tax Benefit and Pensions Credit.

To sum up: a tenant with a low income and £16,000 savings can fuck off, he is not considered to be poor. A home-owner with a low income and no savings and a £1 million house is a charity case and gets all the goodies.

Fun Online Polls: Islamic State, again.

The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

What is the most likely cause of Islamic State?

The usual violent Islamic tendencies and outside meddling in Syria - 74%
Climate change - 0%
The Killer Cornflake Conspiracy - 10%
Other, please specify - 15%

So no takers for 'climate change' then. It appears that more people would give credence to the 'Killer Cornflake Conspiracy', which is something equally fictitious.

As to 'outside meddling', from the comments it appears that people interpret this to mean Western meddling. That's only a part of it - the Iranians, the Saudi Arabians and possibly the Turks are just as guilty if not more so.
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Being a democratic blog, it's a free vote this week with no party whip this week:

If the UK bombs ISIS targets in Syria, this will…

Make us safer from terrorist attacks
Make us more a more likely target
Not make any measurable difference
Be a waste of money better spent controlling our borders and combatting domestic terrorism
Other, please specify.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Pies and Syria

I have been a bit out of action the last few days, so slightly belatedly: the results to last week's Fun Online Poll:

Does a pie need pastry on the top and bottom to qualify as a pie?

Yes, both 76%
No, a pastry lid is sufficient 24%

Good, we are three-quarters of the way to common sense. The correct answer is bottom and sides are most important. The upper crust, as per usual, is pretty superfluous.

Full write up over at Pub Curmudgeon's.
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Yes, we know that The Guardian have been saying that global warming caused the civil war in Syria for ages, but what's a bit worrying is that somebody who would like to be an unelected head of state is parroting this bullshit (while whizzing round in a private helicopter and living in several fully-staffed castles).

From the first article which is still rational, yes, if does appear likely that the drought in Syria was one of the indirect causes of civil unrest, as starving farmers moved to towns where people are more likely to start revolutions, that's happened quite often in history. But you can just extend this simple connection several steps in both directions.

So this is probably true:

Drought -> civil unrest

But you can't just keep extrapolating and end up with this:

Driving a car -> CO2 emissions -> global warming -> either floods or droughts, depending on what suits your argument -> civil unrest -> violent Islamists (which we've had for four decades) -> terrorism.

So is he right? Or is it more likely The Killer Cornflake Conspiracy?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Assad and ISIS

From the Daily Mail:

One in five Syrians prefer living under the rule of Islamic State terrorists rather than President Bashar al-Assad's regime, according to new research.

Or to put it another way, 4/5ths of Syrians prefer living under Assad's regime. In which case, why are we pissing and crying about what Assad is doing rather than arming him to the teeth like Putin is doing?

Fun Online Polls: Syrian refugees & Central heating

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll - on a good turnout of 102 - were as follows:

You're a Muslim fleeing the war zone in Syria or Iraq. What's the obvious destination?
Safer areas in Syria or Iraq - 20%
A neighbouring Muslim country 25%
A Muslim country which can be reached overland - 19%
North-west Europe, a society quite alien to you, via a highly risky journey across the Mediterranean 36%

Although the general perception is that they are all coming over here, those hundreds of thousands are just the tip of the iceberg and people on the ground are responding pretty much as you would expect.

Graeme left the following comment:

As far as I know, the numbers are:
Total refugees 12m
Refugees displaced within Syria 8m
Refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan 3.75m
Refugees in Europe 0.25m

Facts which could be used to justify a hardening of the European line: "if fleeing to Turkey etc is good enough for 98% of them, it must be good enough for the other 2%"; or it could be used to justify a softening: "oh, it's only a few of them who actually want to come here".

But these arguments are self-cancelling: if the line hardens, even fewer will try to come here, which then justifies a softening; if the line softens, more will try to come here, which will justify a hardening etc.
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Turning to more topical matters, have you turned on your central heating yet?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: The global financial crisis & Muslim migrants

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

What caused the global financial crisis which has seen the UK mired in recession for the last seven years?

The global land price and credit bubble, mortgage backed securities etc. - 81%
UK government deficits of a few percent of GDP in the years before the crisis - 5%
People under 25 claiming benefits rather than looking for a job - 4%
Other, please specify - 10%8

Correct. So treat the cause, not the symptoms.

Which is the opposite of what UK governments (of whatever party) have been doing for the last seven years.
* Taking away benefits from the under-25s is something the Tories are doing quite ruthlessly (aka 'bayonetting the survivors). Despite the fact that most of them were still at school back in 2007-08 and thus can be absolved of any blame.
* If government deficits were a minor or secondary cause, then why have they run a cumulative total deficit of over fifty per cent of GDP over the last seven years? (considerably higher than what Labour was doing until 2008).
* Seeing as the land price/credit bubble was the actual cause, why have UK governments done their level best to prop up house prices and prop up speculation and banks by depressing interest rates?

Strikes me, they are making things worse and just delaying the inevitable. Perhaps until 2025-26?
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Muslim migrants have been in the news a lot recently. History shows that they are not very good at fitting in Western/non-Muslim countries and tend to stay "within their own communities", so we can assume that Muslims prefer to live among other Muslims.

So fair enough, people are fleeing the war zones (I know that I would), but that's only part of Syria/Iraq. Surely your easiest option is to move to a more peaceful area in Syria/Iraq; your next option is move to a neighbouring Muslim country; your next option is the easy overland route to a Muslim country further afield (from the Atlantic to Pakistan, if you gloss over Malaysia/Indonesia).

From Wiki:


So why are so many of them taking the most difficult journey across continents and oceans to north-west Europe, where they will never fit in anyway? And yes, that is more or less a rhetorical question.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Abroad and The News

The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Abroad. All very grim, all very tricky.

Waves of migrants in the Mediterranean - 44%
Isis and Syria - 16%
Iran nuclear deal - 11%
Grexit or not - 7%
Ukraine-Russia war - 5%
Ebola - 5%
Chinese islands - 4%
Other, please specify - 7% (4 votes)

Going by the headlines, it's the waves of migrants which are people are concerned about most. My approach is the same as on anything else, the UK government should do whatever is in the best interests of the existing British population/electorate as a whole.

It appears that people still haven't quite got the hang of the "Other, please specify" option. Four people voted for it but only one person made a suggestion.
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This week's Fun Online Poll:

"What were you doing when you heard the news?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

It's a Fry and Laurie one-liner, I think.

Fun Online Polls: Bank holiday weather; bombing raids on Iraq and Syria

Apologies for blogging hiatus, we went on a last minute holiday to Legoland Billund, all good fun and very interesting from a town planning/land value perspective, more anon.
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The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Is it more likely to rain on a Bank Holiday?

No - 3%
Probably not, but you notice it more - 69%
Definitely - 27%
Other, please specify - 2%

Derek neatly squared the circle with this: "In the UK April and May tend to be drier months; August, December and January tend to be wetter. Since more bank holidays fall in the wetter months, there's a greater chance of rain on a bank holiday than on other days of the year."
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The Independent reports a ComRes poll with the headline: "Majority of Britons opposed to bombing Isis in Iraq and Syria but David Cameron leaves the door to action open".

Ho hum, what ComRes actually reported was that opinions were evenly divided between attack; support anti-IS forces; leave well alone; and 'don't know'.

But let's do our own Fun Online Poll on the same topic anyway and see.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Ukraine & Syria/radicalisation

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

What's the less-bad option for Ukraine?

Remain a satellite of Russia - 72%
Align itself with the EU - 28%

Henry Law suggested: "Have a referendum and split the country." which appears to be what is now happening anyway, only as per usual the Russians have pre-empted a referendum and are just occupying the bits they think they can hold on to.
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Two articles on Syria and radicalisation caught my eye this morning:

From the BBC:

An ex-member of al-Qaeda has said the UK government must clearly explain why it has not intervened in Syria - or risk more Muslims becoming radicalised.

Woah dude! The 'west' has a terrible record for interfering in/invading Islamic countries, which the Islamists have used as a pretext for radicalisation and pointless terrorist attacks. Now this man is trying to tell us that the fact we are not interfering in Syria will lead to even more radicalisation? You can't win with these people.

Also from the BBC:

Muslim children who risk radicalisation by their parents should be taken into care, Boris Johnson has said.

Writing in his weekly Daily Telegraph column, the London mayor said such children were victims of child abuse. Mr Johnson said they should be removed from their families to stop them being turned into "potential killers or suicide bombers".

I'm not really sure what level of reality he is operating on here, so what does everybody else think?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Syria & The cost of the 2012 Olympics

The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

What do you think the UK government 'should' do about Syria?

Absolutely nothing, steer well clear - 89%
Enforce a no-fly zone, set up safe havens - 4%
Join in a full-scale invasion - 2%
Sell arms to "the rebels" - 1%
Fire off a few high precision missiles at selected targets - 1%
Other, please specify - 4%

That seems pretty conclusive to me. There was a high turnout for this one, thanks everybody who took part.
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This week's poll relates to The Stigler's post about the Olympics.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Choosing where to buy petrol & Syria

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

What factors do you take into account when deciding where to buy petrol or diesel?

Price and convenience - 54%
Price alone - 23%
Convenience alone - 9%
The brand. Some brands are better than others - 8%
Other, please specify - 5%

Two respondents speficially mentioned Shell VPower. Lola (who ought to know about this stuff, being a hobby racing driver and everything) said that it "is very good indeed" and StevenL said he buys it "every couple of months in case the additives actually do anything".

I go for price-and-convenience myself, glad to see I'm in the majority again.
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About a million words have been written about what we should or shouldn't do about Syria.

I have no particular insight or knowledge about that particular country and have nothing to add to the debate, but I do know that there is a general rule that invading or attacking countries is nearly always counter-productive. You have to be really, really bloody sure about the outcome before you even think about doing so. Or at least really sure about what will happen if you don't attack.

But your opinion's as good as mine.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Bush, Blair: Sorry, did we say "Iraq"? We meant "Syria".

From the BBC:

Former US President George W Bush has spoken out to justify his 2003 invasion of Iraq, admitting that his poor grasp of written Arabic in intelligence reports led him to confuse the two neighbouring Arab states.

"We knew there were chemical weapons round there somewhere," said Mr Bush, "Our satellites can't actually recognise state borders, so give or take a few hundred miles, there were chemical weapons exactly where we thought they were."

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair interrupted his hectic speech-giving and fund-raising schedule to point out that his claim that the UK was "45 minutes away from mass destruction" was in fact understating the case.

"Syria is closer to Europe than Iraq, so strictly speaking we were only about 41 minutes away from mass destruction. People say I sent in our troops to invade the wrong country? As a Prime Minister with our country's best interests at heart, I feel I did what was right."

Mr Blair also hastened to underline the Iraq invasion's humanitarian credentials: "Assad has shown the terrible death and suffering which WMDs can cause when used on innocent civilians. If our liberation of Iraq helped prevent a single such incident, then it will have been worthwhile."

Fun Online Polls: Syria & Indian Bicycle Marketing

The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Is arming the Syrian 'rebels' a good idea or a bad idea? Multiple selections allowed.

Bad idea - it will only benefit our arms manufacturers - 20 votes
Good idea - it will be good for our arms manufacturers - 18 votes

Bad idea - Arabs will just end up killing each other - 42 votes
Good idea - violent Arabs will be killing each other - 36 votes

Good idea - they will overthrow a dictator - 5 votes
Bad idea - the weapons will end up with Al Qaeda - 74 votes

Opinions on whether the first two likely outcomes - that this will (only) benefit our arms manufacturers and Arabs will just end up killing each other even more - are in themselves A Good Thing or A Bad Thing appear to be evenly split and thus both sides cancel out and can be ignored.

Which leaves us with the tie-breaker question of whether arming the Syrian 'rebels' will lead to the overthrow of a dictator (good) or just fall into the hands of Islamists (bad) and on this one the answer is crystal clear.

There you go, that's how you formulate pragmatic foreign policy. Sorted.

Total number of people taking part = 120, total number of options chosen 195, average 1.6 each. Thank you everybody who took part.
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Today marks another high point for the Indian Bicycle Marketing practised by the three main UK political parties.

They have now all timidly suggested that some universal pensioner benefits be "looked at" or means-tested or that wealthier pensioners simply waive their entitlement, and been duly lambasted by the other parties for their callousness. Bonus points to the Tories - IDS suggested it, his leader dismissed it, and two months later the Chancellor proposed it again, e.g.

September 2012 Nick Clegg: wealthy elderly should lose winter fuel allowance and other benefits

April 2013 Iain Duncan Smith calls for wealthy pensioners to hand back benefits

Later the same day in April 2013: Cameron dismisses Duncan Smith's idea that well-off pensioners should hand back bus passes, winter fuel payments and TV licences

Early June 2013: Labour would cut winter fuel payments for rich, says Ed Balls

Late June 2013: George Osborne to review winter fuel allowances for the elderly

The whole thing is a joke of course.

Universal benefits are the best kind of benefits as they are the cheapest to administer, and the Winter Fuel payments (known as Christmas Bonus in less PC days of yore) only amounts to £2 billion a year, so if we take them away from the top tenth of pensioners (ranked by current income? Total wealth? Value of home?) that would "save" £0.2 billion a year at the cost of making twelve million pensioners fill in yet another form at huge expense, so the net "saving" will end up at something like 0.1% of the annual government over-spend, but hey.

But it's a good illustration of how Indian Bicycle Marketing works, even though all three parties have a similar policy on x, y or z, they all:

a) Slag off the other parties for having such a policy, and

b) Defend their identical policy on a different but inherently flawed basis. Broadly speaking, the Lib Dems want to do it on the grounds of "fairness", Labour wants to "focus spending on the most vulnerable" and the Tories want to try and "reduce the size of the state".

Anyway sod it, vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

"Deadly new virus emerges from Middle East where it has killed 38,000 people in a year"

From The Daily Mail:

A deadly new virus that has emerged in the Middle East is thought to be more dangerous than SARS after it killed 38,000 people in a year.

More than 60,000 cases of SCWS (Syrian Civil War Syndrome) have been reported in the last year by the World Health Organisation. Most of those who have the disease, which can spread easily between Sunnis and Shiites, were in Syria, reported Fox News, with isolated outbreaks in Lebanon.

There was a global outbreak of SARS in 2003, killing 800 people, and some experts note the resemblances between the two as both spread easily between towns and cities.

Symptoms are also similar, with many homeless refugees suffering from a fever and cough that develops into pneumonia. Other symptoms include profuse bleeding from bullet wounds and in extreme cases missing limbs or instant death.

But, doctors note that the fatality rate is higher. Eight per cent of SARS patients died, while 65 per cent of SCWS cases are believed to have been fatal. However, the illness so far has not spread as quickly as SARS did.

Dr. Trish Perl a senior hospital epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine said that she thought it was a lot like SARS. She added: "In the right circumstances, the spread could be explosive.

"In fact, explosives appear to be the underlying transmission mechanism in the majority of cases."

Fun Online Polls: Tax havens, world hunger, Syria and cynicism.

The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Would shutting down tax havens help end world hunger?

Yes - because we'd have more money to spend on Third World aid - 2%
No - not unless Third World countries collect and spend their own taxes 34%
Third World countries should just collect their own taxes from land and resource rents - 57%
Other, please specify - 8%

I must admit, those responses cheer me up no end :-)

"Yes" is clearly missing the point and thus the wrong answer, "No" answers the question and is sort-of-correct, but as JQ pointed out in the comments, "Option 3 is correct, but option 2 answers the question."

In other words, it was a trick question. The full "correct" answer is something like this:

"It's the wrong question - if the governments of Third World countries were straight enough to collect the right kind of taxes in the first place, and by implication spend the revenues half-way sensibly, then there'd be a lot less hunger* in the first place, and nothing for the kleptocrats to stash away in tax havens."

* Either because they'd be using land more efficiently to grow more food, or because the absence of taxes on earnings and output means that private enterprise would flourish, so they be producing more "stuff" which they can exchange for food.
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Now, this whole idea of sending weapons to the Syrian "rebels" troubles me greatly on many levels.

A simple Fun Online Poll would ask whether you think it's A Good Idea or A Bad Idea. But your (and indeed my) opinion depends on which factors you take into account and on how idealist/utopian or self-interested/cynical you are feeling at the time.

For example, sending them loads of weapons will clearly lead to a lot more killing and destruction and might even spark a regional civil war. An idealist sees that as A Bad Thing; an Über-cynic sees that as A Good Thing.

And so on, so I've made this week's Fun Online Poll a multiple choice, you can come back a day later and vote again if you change your mind.

Sow confusion here, or use the widget in the sidebar.