Best Of

Hard to argue with this


"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.

2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.

3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.

4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.

5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.

6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.

7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.

No wonder young people are leaving.

We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."

https://x.com/albieamankona/status/1932072006444290069

If it wasn't for the unpleasant and unnecessary racial dogwhistles that detract from the point, I would have liked that.

1. There’s no racist dog whistles

2. The guy that wrote the tweet is black

Other than that, good point

1. Point 5 and "We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals" are racist dog whistles.

We're treated with contempt compared to relatively wealthy retirees, absolutely, but not compared to asylum seekers who are forbidden to work and given a pittance to live on.

2. Are you claiming black people can't be racist?

Attitudes like yours - "shut up, you racist" - are precisely why Reform is leading the polls, and is gaining ground, every day, with younger Britons

I never said shut up, but yes claiming to be treated worse than asylum seekers is an absurd falsehood/dog whistle.

Would you like to be forbidden from working and obliged to live off £49.18 per week?

I would not.

I would not wish it on you.

I would not wish it on anyone.

There are ways to critique the system and the amount spent without resorting to such hyperbole.

Spencer Hakimian
@SpencerHakimian

Leaving aside the politics of it all for just one moment.

33% of California’s labor force are immigrants.

It’s closer to 50% in Los Angeles. It’s estimated that 10-20% of LA’s workforce is illegal. And that’s a very conservative estimate.

That means that 5-10% of Los Angeles entire labor force is illegal and could be deported by ICE at any moment.

Could you imagine if 10% of the workforce of the 2nd largest economy in the country is deported over the next few weeks?

The sheer amount of economic chaos that it would cause.

https://x.com/SpencerHakimian/status/1932135106581319990

Perhaps California would not be facing that predicament, had its government not decided to be a magnet for illegal immigration,

Doesn't california host a lot of "sanctuary cities"

Very much so.

Almost every single person in LA is a migrant if you do two or three generations.

FFS.

America was built by wave after wave of migrants. Many or even mostly economic migrants.

Trump himself has a Scottish western isle mother and a German grandfather.

Drumpf, as his real name is. Farage, ofcourse, is a Huguenot immigrant.

I spoke not a word of English when I first arrived in the UK in 1976. But then again, I was only four months old.

Then you said your first word

"Train"

Interesting intro to the 75th year anniversary release of 1984.

Reads a bit like a trigger warning.

https://x.com/edwest/status/1932100076559884414?s=61

Sounds like we should cancel 1984:

Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."

He literally says "for someone like me". He's not saying you can't read it; he's saying it doesn't connect with him. God forbid people should have opinions on books!

She’s (I think) pretty stupid if she can’t understand what 1984 is all about simply because there’s no black characters in it.

I know what she means - I cannot for the life of me understand any of Shakespeare because I am not an 17th century Elizabethan.

On topic, I was surprised how toxic the original WFA cut proved to be - it's a relatively small hit to pensioners' incomes, especially given how much the state pension has risen over the last two years, and the poorest were protected. Personally, I'd have ridden it out. However, electorally toxic it was, and the U-turn, although politically embarrassing, is politically astute. The backlash should be fairly short-lived, and I don't think it will now be an issue at the next GE.

I think its disastrous.

This was a sensible reform they did, one I repeatedly defended.

Now they've gone back on it, its the worst of all worlds.

They've taken the hit on the reform, yet not kept the economic advantages - and worse, politically, they've shown themselves to be spineless and willing to cave to any pressure even if they're doing the right thing.

Expect the moaning from anyone hit by any comparable reform now to be turned up to 11 as they've shown that's what gets results.

Utterly pathetic and no way to run a country. And weak, weak, weak from a government just elected by a landslide to u-turn on their first "difficult decision".

I see that Hamas chief Sinwar's body has been found, in a tunnel underneath a hospital. With journalists being taken to the tunnels underneath the hospital.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62veqrq3yzo

I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.

Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.

War crimes are being committed by both sides. Of the two, the greater are now those being committed by Israel, which appears to have a policy of, at the minimum, expelling the Palestinian population of Gaza and, perhaps, given the starvation blockade, simply killing off 2 million people or a substantial proportion of them.

For those who say 'but it's a war; nasty stuff happens', yes: that's why there are rules under international law. Sometimes innocent civilians get killed in wars, especially urban wars and even more so urban wars where one side is using civilian infrastructure as shields (and the other doesn't care that they are). That is to be expected and, while deaths should be minimised where possible, armed forces still have to be able to engage the enemy. However, the deliberate starvation of a nation is a war crime and occupying powers - which Israel now is - have duties to the civilians under their control.

Yet no-one gets worked up about the Russians doing much worse in Ukraine, most bizarre.

The excessive focus on Palestine compared with other wars is a bugbear of mine too. Still, human rights there matter as much as anywhere.

Yes, the Russians are doing and have done dreadful things in Ukraine. I have been consistent on the need for Russia to be defeated in that war in no small part because of those actions (which would be applied elsewhere in Russia's next war if they get away with it in Ukraine), and once Russia is kicked out, the need for a deRussification of the recovered country.

People should be very careful about what they wish for in respect of pits and mines: do we really want Wales to dominate world rugby again? https://genius.com/Max-boyce-the-outside-half-factory-lyrics

Max Boyce's best Welsh rugby joke was after they lost to Papua New Guinea in the WC.
'I was so depressed I called the Samaritans in Cardiff- they were closed!'

My favourite welsh rugby joke may well originate from Max Boyce. Two old boys, great rugby players in their youth, make a pact. Whoever dies first promises to come back and tell the other about heaven.
So when the first dies, the other waits expectantly. And sure enough his friend comes back in ghostly form.
His friend asks ‘Tell, me - is there rugby in heaven?’
The ghost say ‘There’s good and bad news. The rugby is glorious, you are young again and can play forever. All the greats are there too.’
That sounds amazing! What could possibly be the bad news?’
His ghostly friend pauses and then says ‘You’re playing outside centre next Saturday…’