Best Of

With the Conservatives exhausted & lacking credibility after years in government, and Labour apparently much the same after one year in government & years in Opposition, it's very likely indeed that vast numbers of voters will be looking towards parties on the fringe.

The next GE may be a spoiled ballot for me.

The only thing that can save Labour is a change of leadership, losing Starmer. Then declare an amnesty for Corbyn and Sultana and get them back in the party. People didn't vote Labour for this Starmer/Reeves bland Toryism.

There's finally something in this country to rail against -the disgusting rise in the far right -yet there's no party doing it.

I think you're right. It can only be Labour with a non Tory leader but I wouldn't get excited about Corbyn. He's just a wrecker.

I don't think Corbyn or Sultana should be leader, but the party should have room for them (and Abbott) in a broader tent. Even Tony Blair recognised that.

Corbyn should be President or some other figurehead title. He is an exceptional speaker, cutting through to groups of people ignored and unreachable by other politicians. But he's no leader. Neither is Zarah Sultana. So they need someone with a bit of umph to come over.

Their problem is that they're obsessed with Palestine and they need to be obsessed with social justice instead.

Only Israeli apologists think that. Labour are at their best when they have a cause and there are few injustices ongoing that rank with the injustice being meted out to the Palestinians at the moment. It is a horror show in broad daylight.

And also the injustice being meted out to the Ukrainians is as bad, yet Corbyn has been a Russian apologist. You should be against all genocide and all wars of aggression.

One is a war on an army. The other a war on a civilian population. To blow up a building killing 118 people would have made the news all over the world if it happened in Ukraine. I doubt you've even heard of it thanks to the BBC not wanting to be thought prejudiced.

The Russians aim their missile attacks against civilian population areas, in Ukraine. Because that's how they do business.

The targeting of civilians in Ukraine was happening from day one. Complete with the usual trenches full of dead people with bound hands - the photographs that seem to be standard for every atrocity merchant, since photography got going.

We shouldn’t have to choose which offensive to condemn.

Too many here and elsewhere, particularly the edgelords of the left and right, seem to think that condemning one criminal enterprise requires one to downplay the other.

Both Putin and Netanyahu are committed to eliminating an entire national identity and the foundations of statehood.

With the Conservatives exhausted & lacking credibility after years in government, and Labour apparently much the same after one year in government & years in Opposition, it's very likely indeed that vast numbers of voters will be looking towards parties on the fringe.

The next GE may be a spoiled ballot for me.

The only thing that can save Labour is a change of leadership, losing Starmer. Then declare an amnesty for Corbyn and Sultana and get them back in the party. People didn't vote Labour for this Starmer/Reeves bland Toryism.

There's finally something in this country to rail against -the disgusting rise in the far right -yet there's no party doing it.

I think you're right. It can only be Labour with a non Tory leader but I wouldn't get excited about Corbyn. He's just a wrecker.

I don't think Corbyn or Sultana should be leader, but the party should have room for them (and Abbott) in a broader tent. Even Tony Blair recognised that.

Corbyn should be President or some other figurehead title. He is an exceptional speaker, cutting through to groups of people ignored and unreachable by other politicians. But he's no leader. Neither is Zarah Sultana. So they need someone with a bit of umph to come over.

Their problem is that they're obsessed with Palestine and they need to be obsessed with social justice instead.

Only Israeli apologists think that. Labour are at their best when they have a cause and there are few injustices ongoing that rank with the injustice being meted out to the Palestinians at the moment. It is a horror show in broad daylight.

And also the injustice being meted out to the Ukrainians is as bad, yet Corbyn has been a Russian apologist. You should be against all genocide and all wars of aggression.

One is a war on an army. The other a war on a civilian population. To blow up a building killing 118 people would have made the news all over the world if it happened in Ukraine. I doubt you've even heard of it thanks to the BBC not wanting to be thought prejudiced.

Robbie Gibb's BBC have been very selective on their Gaza reporting. It is a shame because those like Jeremy Bowen have an authoritative understanding of the region. Bowen seems little used, presumably because of his critical reporting of Bibi and the IDF.

I think the full horror of Gaza starkly reported by the broadcast media, together with the horrors of the Ukraine war, are causing the public to switch over to other channels, not because they are not sympathetric but that it is so hard to watch and neither Netanyahu or Hamas seem to accept civilians are not and never will be an acceptable casualty of war

This diabolical war is highly asymetrical. Personally I think Israel's strategy is in the end to remove and replace the population of Gaza. That Gaza is to be reduced to rubble is already done and continuing.

The policy of Hamas in not surrendering in a situation they cannot contain or win, thereby giving Israel cover for their actions and intentions is a mistake.

That Israel's policy is a mistake is of course also true, but I think it is their mistake which will prevail for now.

(It's a tough world for us wet centrists who just support the interests of good people on all both sides).

Depends on what Hamas' aims are.

If they are to protect the Gazan people, yes, it's stupid.

If it's to make Israel so hated that in the long term it cannot survive, their actions are logical.

As they have never shown the slightest concern for the people of Gaza and are ultimately backed by Iran, my money's on B.

Meanwhile, Tory MSP quits, calling out the party for reactionary politics

https://x.com/spectator/status/1958781285930840204

That's quite the declaration from Jeremy Balfour.

I can see others following, The party has lost whatever was left of its mind.

Can't read more thana bit of the speccy and there's no full reportbut his specific concern seems to be that ther ScoTories don't give a shit aboujt society's vulnerable people.

Ah, better to inform us, here is his letter:

https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,jeremy-balfour-msp-quits-reactionary-scottish-conservatives

Edit: Which also noitably accuses the party of only being interested in the rural areas and being anti the urban areas.

Fair play for putting his head above the parapet, but has he been paying attention during his three decades of membership?

Seriously, you are going to have a dig at a politician from an Opposition party when far too many SNP politicians have been turning a blind eye to the many scandals engulfing the SNP Government at Holyrood over the last eighteen years?! Maybe if far more of them had not only been paying attention but had also grown a backbone then the party might not be in the mess it is today!

Always good to get advice from a supporter of a party that hasn’t managed to win majority support in Scotland for 60+ years, and is now on the verge of extinction.

Always good to see a fan of the SNP dish it out to others while never reporting or reflecting on the growing intray of huge scandals engulfing the SNP Government at Holyrood. I see that this week was another good one to bury yet more bad news about the SNP's inability to run a whelk store competently far less an administration at Holyrood while it is in recess and Nicola Sturgeon is flogging her memoirs and trying to settle old grievances with some of the individuals that did dare to stand up and call her out while she was FM.

I really think you should take the trouble to read Sturgeons book before you continue your misleading critique of it. I makes you sound foolish

Good God Roger, PBers don't need to read books to have an opinion on it! A headline in the Express and a J.K. Rowling tweet covers it.

If you're a Labour supporter, I believe you have a duty to support Starmer and Reeves. They won the election with a majority of 170+.

A duty is a moral or legal responsibility. There is no duty to support a political party or party leaders.

On the other hand, a political leader has a duty or moral responsibility to deliver what they promised.

I am a LibDem but I have no duty to support them.
In a Lab/Con or Lab/Ref marginal I would vote Lab.
In a Lab/Corbyn marginal I would vote Corbyn.
I am very disapppointed in Starmer. He is ultra timid and Tory Lite.
He should nationalise water.
Join the Customs Union.
Cut arms supplies to Israel - or better still, lead a South African style boycott.
Stop buttering up Trump and help create an independent European defence force.
Put up income tax, stop protecting wealthy pensioners, reintroduce SureStart etc.
I could go on.
My political slogan is "Do the right thing and sod the consequences". I think that is appealing.

I see @MaxPB was telling you all the obvious truth on the prior thread, yet he was predictably ignored or criticised by the PB Centrist Dads

If we want racism and associated unhappiness, in the UK, to go back to the pleasantly low levels of the Noughties - WHICH WE ALL DO - then we need to

1. Bring net migration down to under 100,000. It will hurt, but we now have no choice if we want a stable, prosperous country

2. End asylum as we know it. Stop the boats

3. Start huge deportations, and make sure the Boriswave doesn't get Leave to Remain, so they go home

That's it. If we do that we will return to the relative harmony of Yore. Why? Because British people are not racist. They are some of the most tolerant and accepting people on the planet, it is what we do - Live and Let Live. Don't bother me I won't bother you. We've been like this, in the UK, since Elizabeth the First refused to "make a window into men's souls"

To bring back the tolerant Britain we all knew and loved, we need to be really tough on migration and integration. They are doing exactly this in Denmark, and it is working. We can do it too

Remember, readers, that this is a lie. Leon is a racist. He has repeatedly voiced his view that there are significant genetic differences in things like intelligence between different supposed "races" around the world. He wants a country with more white babies. He touts nativist policies that would discriminate against immigrants, the children of immigrants and the grandchildren of immigrants.

Racists pretend that if we just have a few slightly racist policies, then they'll be quiet and everything will be lovey-dovey. In practice, you give them some racist policies, they just want more, as we've seen with Trump.

lol

One of the upsides of a Reform government is that swathes of these bureaucrats who hate the country will be sacked and untouchable. If Reform don't have a clearout of these people who very clearly loathe everything about this country and are egging on the boat invasion of third worlders then they will fall at the first hurdle. They need to find people like this and purge them from the civil service immediately and from any other public body.

No they won't.
You're laughably naive.
See the number of Council officers fired since May.
It's a very round number.

I've not met many bureaucrats, but of all the ones I've met, none hated the country. They generally seemed to quite like it.

The people who do hate the country are Reform UK supporters, always telling us that everything's gone to the dogs.