Best Of

Morning all

I realise this will get me the ban hammer, but it's all George Osborne's fault.

The oft-quoted "austerity", backed, unfortunately, by the LDs in Coalition, continues to resonate through our society. From 2010, while some parts of the public sector (health, education) were left unscathed, other areas suffered savage cuts. Local Government suffered badly with over one million posts lost and savage cuts to services leaving councils vulnerable to the rise of social care demand.

We now see the impacts of the dreadful decisions implemented by Theresa May at the Home Office aided and abetted by idiots like Boris Johnson when Mayor of London. It wasn't just the cuts to Police numbers but the selling off of operational Police offices which effectively distanced law enforcement from the general public but also the closure of court buildings such as Magistrates Courts.

Labour, a decade and a half later, are paying the political consequences for the failings of their predecessors but that's how politics works and they've been left holding the hand grenade. The problem, as we know, is spending money on courts and lawyers isn't popular while making extravagant promised about recruiting more Police (Kemi Badenoch and before her Susan Hall when campaigning to be Mayor of London) are what the public (whose perceptions of criminality are often at huge variance to the facts) want to hear.

Who are the Telegraph employing these days?

Javier Milei’s far-right party wins Argentina’s midterm elections
The libertarian party won a landslide victory with voters backing Milei’s free-market reforms and deep austerity measures

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/10/27/javier-mileis-wins-argentinas-midterm-election/

So is he far-right or libertarian? They are quite different things.

Landslide is rather overdoing it!

LLA have exceeded their target of stopping veto overrides, but do fall short of 50% so will need to rely on the Conservative PRO party in order to pass legislation.

At 41% of the vote for LLA it was at the top end of polling predictions, though not as good as the 55% that Milei got in the second round Presidential election in 2023.

So Milei is in a stronger position for his reforms to go though, but still needs to build allies and relationships outside his party.

Atrention now goes to the Peso/USD rate band.

I think "far-right" is somewhat overdoing it as well.

Indeed in some ways the Peronists are more right wing. Argentinian politics dont map very well to the UK.

Milei has no truck with protection of pensions or for tariffs for example. He is happy to trade with China, where 2/3 of exported beef goes, and now soybeans too.

I don't think the political spectrum is particularly helpful in classifying an eccentric like Milei. He's as much an authoritarian as he is a libertarian, for example.

Also "landslide" is a slightly inaccurate description of getting 41% of the vote (though not as ridiculous as Starmer's "landslide").

And do we have any real indication of how great an effect Trump's $40bn bribe/blackmail might have had on the vote ?

Probably the best result for Argentina's economy - Milei becoming a lame duck, and Trump pulling financial aid would have meant chaos - but harder to say what it means for the future of democracy there.

I don't really see that materially Trump's baillout is a bribe. Any Government giving a baillout would want measures in place to ensure it came with a programme of reforms and cutbacks. Those are Millei's reforms and cutbacks. It was just expressed in a Trumpy way.

Trump stating that aid was contingent on the electorate backing Milei was precisely that.

Why would any Government commit to bailing out a Peronist Government that was going to splash the cash? A no-strings bailout like that would be completely irresponsible. The bailout depended, quite understandably, on the Millei programme being carried out.

The BBC are utterly obsessed with this sex pest migrant who seems to have been set free very much against his will. No doubt they’ll be reporting shortly on pitchfork wielding vigilantes inspired by their hysteria.
Anyone on the darker side of the racist colour chart should avoid carrying a shopping bag decorated with avocados.

It's totally ridiculous.

"The Etheopian"

An Etheopian English teacher decides to migrate to the UK. He arrives in a small boat and is put in a detention centre

Bored he sits on a wall outside the centre and makes small talk with a couple of bored local school girls.

He makes a lewd joke

The police are called

Word gets out and a far right mob mob mobilise and threaten the centre

The man is charged with an attemted grope and is jailed for 12 months

The prison authorities mistakenly release him after two

He asks if he can serve the rest of his sentence as he has no place to go

The prison authorities say no.

They drop him protesting at a local railway station with no money.

All ports and airports are alerted. A dangerous criminal is on the loose

A terrified population lock up their daughters........


What do you think Mr De Milne? Will it fly......

He tried to kiss the 14 year old. Read her testimony.

I notice your the Tory justice secretary has now raised the Ethiopian fugitive to 'Dangerous Paedophile'. Thank goodness his attempted kiss didn't land or he'd have run out of adjectives

He told the girl that he wanted to have sex with her

I know that you think she should be grateful for the attention, but you’re permanently in the wrong un column

Imagine someone coming from Ethiopia and after an horrendous journey arriving in detention in Epping

He's greeted by flag waving racists chanting 'GO HOME'outside the hotel where he is detained.

A woman befriends him and says she'll help him with his asylum application.

A few days later he's sitting on a bench and a couple of school girls sit with him. He misinterprets some banter as affection and asks the girl for a kiss. She laughs with her friend and he makes some inappropriate sexual remarks. They walk away.

The older lady who was going to help with his application reports the incident to the police.

The police arrest him.

He becomes a cause celebre with the racists and in custody he tries to kill himself.

Is he a 'dangerous paedophile' as Chris Philip describes him or an unfortunate in a foreign land knowing little of our norms or customs? Who knows.... but It certainly looks like the Daily Mail branch of PB have made up their minds

Every word of that post is untrue. And moreover, you know it is untrue because the correct information has not only been posted to but the reports concerned linked to on this thread, with you notified of them.

Which means you are lying. Or alternatively, you are Trumpian in your belief that your theories Trump (no pun intended) reality.

Either way, you are a coming across as a disgusting idiot and an apologist for child sexual abuse.

You once complained crossly that I described you as 'a lying moron.' I would suggest if you don't want to be viewed as a lying moron, don't tell moronic lies.

The U.K. delegation was a huge collection of hangers on. They went away and sent back a vast document for all the changes they wanted. According to my friend, they ranged from the idiotic to the harmful. Many were obviously from people who had no clue about electronics or the function of the box of tricks.

That sounds depressingly familiar. It's always been a problem in the UK that people who make decisions all to often have scant knowledge if the subject matter, there seems to be a bizarre culture of putting unknowledgable managers and administrators in these positions rather than someone who actually knows what's what.

Years ago I worked for an IT organisation that landed a contract with a UK government department - three months of dealing with civil servants, who knew with implacable confidence that someone with 20 years experience in the field was less capable than themselves, and I walked out and vowed never to deal with that kind of idiot again if remotely possible.

A cool headed administrator who is not an expert can work well in plenty of situations, especially since someone being an expert and a good administrator is probably rare.

But we seem instead almost suspicious of people who do know things. Like the junior civil servant in Yes Minister lamenting he will rise no higher because 'alas, I'm an expert'.

I left to set up my own company over 20 years ago not to make money but to be able to work in an organisation where my engineering capability was respected. My business is now the largest UK owned company in our sector and we employ over 70 staff mostly engineers and microbiologists. The technical competence of decision makers in the UK Government has rapidly declined over the last 20 years. Political antenna used to be important at the top of the Civil Service but this has now spread across the NHS, councils and a myriad of Quangos. At the same time those who have technical expertise are leaving in droves.

This point is completely missed by our politicians who believe that the issue of failure to execute is money. I am now of the belief that money is the worst solution as it prevents the need for reform and strengthens the power of those with political connections.

Anyone wondering why Britain has fallen behind the world in SMRs may wish to consider the questions asked in the "Great British Nuclear SMR competition".

Bidders are asked to:


Total gender parity is required not only within the bidder's own workforce but that of their suppliers.

Not only that:



This shitshow has cost £22million so far.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-is-britain-trying-to-make-our-nuclear-reactors-woke/

Even PB's wokiest of wokesters must surely acknowledge that this shit needs to be removed from British public life.