The rest is politics - “The Taliban took over the country and it's much safer”

[HiggledyPiggledy33]

Just outraged at what I’ve just heard in the rest is politics.

They are discussing why aren’t we boycotting Afghanistan, and I can’t believe what Rory is saying.

“For the first time in over 20 years, you can travel safely through the country.”

Well maybe you can Rory, but I don’t think women can - is that fine? Throw half the population under the bus, as long as you’re OK.

“The Taliban have very repressive views on women, but they've also in other ways changed”
oh well that’s ok then.

“We're in a culture now where it really suits a lot of people, particularly on the far right, to emphasise Muslim countries where women are not treated correctly”
Women not being treated correctly is the problem. Once that’s sorted, let’s look at any sensitivity about muslims.

From The Rest Is Politics: Question Time: Assad’s People - Syria, Torture, and Justice, 9 Jan 2025

@OldCrone we know also that they both read extensively. Why haven’t either of them bothered to read Kathleen Stock, say, or Helen Joyce. They would learn so much in just a few hours.

What makes you think that? It's not like he's a teenager. He's 52. Is it common for men of that age to suddenly recognise that women are human when they've spent their whole life behaving as though women are some sort of inferior sub-species?

AC makes a big deal of 'listening to the women in his life', which basically means he's getting bien pensant luxury beliefs from his lefty partner and omnicause-espousing, unfunny comedian of a daughter.

No other women need apply. Or indeed count.

@HermioneWeasley I think that Alastair’s wife and daughter play a huge role in his life and thinking (which I like), but on some issues he simply hasn’t considered that they might in fact be wrong.

@teawamutu But Kattie Kay does make annoying and ignorant references to gender identity theory, influenced, I suspect, by her children.

Really? I've not caught those - all I really picked up was her pointedly not disagreeing with the Mooch when he denounced it.

@SmudgeHughes totally agree with you, AC seems
terrified that his daughter might think he’s “uncool”.

I see RS has had a little spat with JD Vance, Vance has accused him of having an IQ of 110 while imagining he has an IQ of 130. Most enjoyable.

Oh good god. These men are such sad little willy-wavers 🙄

I read Vance's book and it's genuinely excellent. Very hard to reconcile Veep Vance with the author.

It was glorious to watch JD Vance tear Stewart the woman hater a new one, I'm very impressed by the incoming government and their commitment to women's rights.

Ironically the whole 'I only see the women who are my property' mindset is very 'right wing' according to most. So I guess on this at least AC is right wing!

in today's Spectator, JD Vance talking about RS
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: the problem with Rory and people like him is that he has an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130. This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years.

👀

Except in this instance, Rory was absolutely right and Vance was wrong.

Did you see the ratio and comments on X, Stewart got made to look like a fool.

I think Rory falls into a common trap that many do, and I'm far from immune to it. He spent a lot of time being the smart person in the room, and then starts to think he's the smart person in any room.

I'd put him in the area "Top Ten Thoughtful Tory" and it is almost damning with faint praise rather than an accolade

I thought the comment above "living embodiment of Dunning Krueger" was harsh but mostly fair.

Rory is an anywhere and doesnt understanding the concept of loving the deplorables in his own country over anyone in the world.

This is why we have lots of the social problems across the west we have today.

The problem isnt that rory is the smartest person in the room, its that he more than likely thinks exactly the same as everyone he finds himself in a room with.

Not sure why the ratio or comments are important. The fact that a lot of people think something doesn't make them right.

It was thrashed out in the digital town square and Vance was the victor making Stewart look ridiculous.

Quote from Another Talk Board (just the talk) about Stewart from user "basil seal":

"I know a couple of people who worked with Stewart at the FO, their assessment was that he was difficult to work with, prone to eccentric behaviour like breaking off in the middle of a meeting with staff to do push ups, and flying into rages where he threw chairs around his office, but, "at least he understood the brief".

Understanding your job is perhaps a low bar for a minister of state, but i guess that's just where we are now."

Tbf given his boss was liz truss who most definitely didn’t understand the brief, I’d have probably been tempted to throw chairs too

anyway back on topic. AC won’t reverse until his wife and daughter do and then he’ll fall over himself to say ‘how he just didn’t really know and anyway as it’s a topic primarily about women it wasn’t really his place to have an opinion”. Rory stewart as far as I can tell from reading his biography has quite a narrow range of things he’s really interested in - foreign aid, rural issues, prisons - and the other things like women’s rights, health, local government are of no interest to him at all so he doesn’t think about them

how nice to have the extensive privilege of never worrying as to whether an incoming government or military coup is coming for your rights as a sex class

Vance looks a fool as he is saying he knows Stewart’s IQ. Vance is also a fool because an IQ of 130 doesn’t actually mean you will be the ‘best’. IQ is an overall measure of a set of proficiencies. Both politicians are likely to have an excellent verbal reasoning component (can argue their point so it comes across well) which could bump up an overall IQ score but it isn’t a measure of other qualities such as emotional intelligence or actual knowledge. I think Vance should know this and that 130 isn't genius level. If he had not used the term IQ his argument would have been stronger. There is a problem with Elites and using their connections to gain power in both countries.

As for Stewart’s argument, we may not have travelled to the country but as women, we have actual knowledge of what makes women unsafe. We also have the intelligence and common sense to understand why women are so fearful under such a regime.

@Lalgarh I too know people who have worked with him intimately and have never heard any suggestion that he’s thrown anything in anger. Eccentric and demanding, yes, out of control, no. (Gordon Brown, on the other hand, was a thrower.)

He doesn't give those kind of 'anger' vibes, it has to be said. More that he's a bit of an oddball.