Best Of

Saying Rayner connects Labour with the chav class is exactly the kind of comment that shows the attitude of some Tories hasn’t changed.

She may not be a Prescott but she has an authenticity and genuinely interesting background that few politicians do nowadays. The same with Bridget Phillipson.

I know the Tories aren’t looking to connect with that kind of voter based on comments the other day which is fine but to actively repel voters and say you don’t want them strikes me as exactly where Labour went wrong in 2019.

I think SKS is in a lot of trouble and is edging towards being a one term PM but these kinds of attitudes make me question if the Tories are actually interested in winning or instead just shouting at the electorate.

I like Rayner. I think she’d be a far better leader than Starmer and she’d choose a much better Chancellor than the dreadful Reeves

They must be panicking in Labour HQ by now. The polling is terrible and now the economic data is trickling in and it’s scarily bad

They aren’t panicking in Labour HQ. They have years left before it is terminal. Anything else is wishcasting on the level of the left after the 2019 loss.

And much of this forum is totally of the view the government will surely collapse any day. It isn’t going to and Starmer isn’t going anywhere.

But is Starmer doing well. No.

Is Starmer doing terribly. Also no.

Why did so many people want to shut down any discussion of the possibility that the virus may have come from a Wuhan lab? I still don't get it.

1. A bunch of Americans slyly funded the Wuhan coronavirus research: Fauci, Collins, the NIH

2. This was arguably against US law brought in by Obama, which forbade "gain of function" virology, precisely because it is so dangerous (Fauci is actually on record on video saying this GOF research is "risky, but worth it")

3. They knew from the start Covid probably came from the lab ("it is so friggin likely") and they panicked

4. They were terrified they'd get lynched for killing 25 million people

5. They "genuinely" feared that being honest would jeopardise co-operation, on many fronts, with China

6. A lot of them rely on Chinese funding and goodwill, see point 5

7. They "genuinely" feared that being honest would reduce the public trust of science, and science journals etc

8. Naked cowardice

Add it all up, and you have LOTS of people, in the USA and China (and also the UK, Holland, etc) with mighty motivations to deny the obvious, and to overtly lie in this cause (eg the Lancet Letter, now utterly discredited)

The nasty fringe on here who attack the “lazy” public sector on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, and with no reference to any of the work done on why “public sector productivity” metrics are bollocks, do annoy me. The myth of the “efficient private sector” crumbles instantly if you’ve worked in or with it at senior levels.

Large private firms are at least as inefficient and prone to error, but don’t have to disclose those errors as much, even when publicly traded, so pretend they are not. Small firms are often quite efficient, but also doing something quite simple and niche, where it’s a lot easier to do that.

In fact there are almost no private sector firms attempting to do anything half as complex as a Government Department or the NHS, or managing their way through as much ambiguity and change.

BBC saying John Prescott has died.

I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.

Somewhere I have a 1997 election pledge card signed by him and given out by him personally at a campaign stop in Loughborough.

Prescott was a flawed individual, as we all are, but was key to the New Labour project. Blairism can only go so far in its technocratic managerial approach, and Starmerism is a pale imitation of New Labour without the Prescott it needs. Much the same applies to Kamala and the Democrats.

There needs to be some irrational soul and passion alongside the pragmatism, and Precott embodied that in 1997. He was that most unusual thing, a Centre-Left Populist.

A moving and worrying take on assisted dying: https://conservativehome.com/2024/11/20/sarah-mcculloch-we-already-know-how-the-nhs-will-mishandle-assisted-dying-trust-me-i-work-for-it/

The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.

Don’t worry. After this government is finished with us no one is going to have any money

As I have written about, when my mother was dying in hospital, a nurse openly wanted her dead. Because she was terminally ill.

There’s a reason why people who’ve studied the history of ethics don’t want the same people treating patients and “assisting” suicides.

Even silly comedies like Scrubs touched upon people in hospitals becoming callously desensitised to older, ill people taking up time and attention rather than just dying.

Yes, it is one of a number of reasons that I am not keen on the Euthanasia* Bill.

I have seen it too many times, and sometimes in myself. It's not just being glad that someone's suffering is over, but also often relief that you won't be called to see them again. There is relief for staff too when someone dies. The journey from bereavement counselling to Ash Cash is a short one.

* let's call it what it is rather than use the term "Assisted Dying"