Tag Archives: us presidential election 2024

Tom Arms’ World Review – 22 September 2024

By Tom Arms | Sun 22nd September 2024 - 8:30 am

What next in the Lebanon?

Destruction of your enemy’s communications is usually a prelude to an all-out attack. But so far Israeli ground troops appear to be focused on Gaza.

Such an attack could provoke a violent response from Hezbollah. But so far they have been relatively restrained. Hezbollah’s 64-year-old leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday that the exploding pagers and walkie talkies was a “severe blow” and that Israel had crossed a “red line.” But he made no explicit threats.

It is thought that the Israeli government is trying to decouple the tit for tat missile attacks on the Israeli-Lebanese border from the Gaza War so that it is not fighting on two fronts.

Hezbollah launched its attacks in support of Hamas on 8 October, the day after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. It said the missile attacks would continue until a permanent ceasefire is agreed in Gaza. The resultant tit-for-tat missile exchanges has led to the evacuation of 80,000 Israelis from the north of Israel and 90,000 Lebanese from the south of Lebanon.

Decoupling would imply that the Israeli government believes that Hezbollah could be persuaded through violence to stop its missile attacks. Based on past performance, the opposite seems more probable.

Posted in Europe / International | Also tagged israel hamas war, lebanon and political violence | Leave a comment

Welcome to my day: 22 January 2024 – so, about those Presidential primaries…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 22nd January 2024 - 7:45 am

Well, that was unexpected. Ron DeSantis is gone, and has endorsed Donald Trump. And, unless Nikki Haley gets a respectable showing in New Hampshire, it’s surely all over in the absence of any other opponent. Biden versus Trump it is then…

Meanwhile, nearer to home, the Post Office Horizon scandal continues to unfold. For what it’s worth, I do wonder whether or not the various ministers involved were persuaded that there was nothing wrong by the evidently unwise presumption that public officials will tell you the truth when pressed. After all, the Civil Service Code has at its core the values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality and, in my personal experience, most of us live up to that every day – we tend to take a dim view of those that are found to have fallen short. And politicians should be able to take that for granted – they need civil servants to provide them with a picture of what’s going on in their departments and of the impacts of political decisions, both before and after the event, and should be able to rely upon the advice they give, even if they don’t accept it.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged political activism and post office scandal | 1 Comment

US Presidential Election 2024: seconds out, round one…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 15th January 2024 - 10:45 am

The long-awaited (albeit nervously) US Presidential campaign gets underway in earnest today, with the Iowa caucuses, the first step in a winnowing process that formally ends in the US Virgin Islands on 8 June. It’s only the Republicans who are taking part this week, as the Iowa Democratic primary takes place on “Super Tuesday”, 5 March. There are 40 delegates up for grabs (out of 2,467 available overall) but it isn’t winner takes all – delegates are allocated according to the share of the vote achieved. So, what are we watching out for?

The opinion polling that has taken place in Iowa has shown Donald Trump polling steadily well ahead, with a strengthening of his position in recent months. FiveThirtyEight suggests that his average poll score is over 50%, with many individual polls showing him doing even better. But Iowa is a socially conservative state with a strong evangelical influence, where Trump lost to Ted Cruz in 2016 – will Iowa Republicans waver in the face of his legal problems? And, if they do, at what percentage does he begin to look vulnerable?

Posted in Europe / International | Leave a comment

Welcome to my day: 15 January 2024 – trying a little harder…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 15th January 2024 - 7:30 am

Today is, apparently Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. But not here at Liberal Democrat Voice. Whilst Christmas is just far enough behind us now to be becoming a distant memory, the shops are full of Valentines stuff and Easter eggs, and there are at least two more by-elections for the opposition parties to get their teeth into (with a double dip in Blackpool still to come?). The Conservatives continue to find ways of tripping over their own biases and the Telegraph (yes, really) seems determined to add to their woes with polling that suggest that Rishi …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged opinion polling and ukraine | 3 Comments