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Morning all

As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.

Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.

We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.

It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.

It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.

Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.

They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.

On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon
and One Nation Tories.

Not with their family farm tax
and NI rise on employers and bungs to train drivers and GPs and removal of hereditàry peers they don't. Labour under Starmer are basically back to Brown Labour not even Blairites.

There is a case to say Davey's LDs are Cameroon but not Labour

I don't know how to break this to you, but the Tories did a whole stack of things - including big tax rises - that they now decry Labour copying. Watching Coutinho slag off the policies she herself was doing as SofS is particularly amusing.

This cloth-eared tendency may be a good part of why you are so low in the polls...

The UK is finished and there is no polite way to put it. What was once called a developed nation has become a playground for corrupt politicians, greedy corporations, and parasitic landlords feeding on people who are simply trying to survive. The working class has been gutted from the inside out. People are working full time, even taking on second jobs, and still cannot cover the basic cost of living. It is not about laziness or poor budgeting. It is that the system itself has been designed to bleed every last drop of effort, money, and dignity from the average person.

Everything that once made this country liveable has been dismantled. A home that cost £700 a month a decade ago now costs £1,500 or more, often for damp, mouldy, low quality flats. Food prices have exploded to the point where a hundred pounds barely fills two carrier bags. Council tax, gas, electricity, fuel, water, and insurance all rise year after year while wages remain frozen. It no longer feels like you are earning money. It feels like you are temporarily renting it before it gets snatched away through endless hidden charges and taxes.

The government taxes income, property, spending, savings, fuel, and even death. You are taxed to live and taxed to die. Nothing is free and nothing is fair. Meanwhile the people who create nothing and contribute nothing keep pocketing bonuses, handouts, and expense claims that could feed entire families for a year. The rich buy influence, politicians sell out, and the rest of us are left fighting over scraps while being told to “tighten our belts.”

https://x.com/zthoupaul/status/1976892490247503997

Thing is Dimitri that in your country you get your oil refineries blown up by drones. Saying that we are finished just makes us laugh at you more.

Spencer Hakimian
@SpencerHakimian
·
2h
I have never seen a protest this large in New York in my entire life.

I've lived here my entire life.

https://x.com/SpencerHakimian/status/1979594998627860936

This is Washington: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:z6rujpf4u56jfie7aqic2nfg/post/3m3ibpdshq22y?ref_src=embed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstories%2F2025%2F10%2F18%2F2349211%2F-No-Kings-Rally-LiveBlog

Its a hell of a lot bigger crowd than turned up for you know who's inauguration.

Voldemort?

No, someone with far fewer redeeming features.

Damn, my wife says we are NEVER getting to America.

"I would like to have seen Montana..."

IIUC Imgur has retreated from the UK due to the Online Safety Act. This results in things like this, where the maps are simply not visible

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/maximum-extension-version-of-russian-dominated-customs-union-in-20th-century.566028/

It's not the Online Safety Act.

Online, UK users speculate that this is due to the Online Safety Act, which went into effect in July. The act has resulted in wide-ranging age verification, requiring users to submit identification, such as a government ID or undergo a facial recognition scan, in order to access explicit and sometimes non-explicit sites.

However, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which regulates data protection in the UK, released a statement on Tuesday that "Imgur's decision to restrict access in the UK is a commercial decision taken by the company."

The ICO launched an investigation of Imgur in March (as well as TikTok and Reddit) to examine how the site handles children's personal information and how it verifies users' ages. On September 10, ICO issued a notice of intent to fine Imgur's parent company MediaLab, ICO's interim executive director, regulatory supervision, Tim Capel, wrote in a statement. He also said that, "Our findings are provisional and the ICO will carefully consider any representations from MediaLab before taking a final decision whether to issue a monetary penalty."

"We have been clear that exiting the UK does not allow an organisation to avoid responsibility for any prior infringement of data protection law, and our investigation remains ongoing," Capel continued, also stating that no further details about the investigation will be given at this time.

https://mashable.com/article/why-imgur-is-blocked-in-the-uk

Why is Imgur forced to verify user's ages if not because of the OSA?

I, an adult, am not allowed to view a map of a theoretical Russian Customs Union because Starmer, a twelve-year-old boy in a man costume, wants the entire internet to be child-safe.

I hate to be pedantic* but wasn’t it Sunak’s government that brought the bill in?

*I realise this is the most unconvincing lie since Cummings claimed he drove to Barnard Castle to test his eyesight.

Oxford Union faces financial crisis over Charlie Kirk scandal
Donations on hold and high-profile speakers pulling out, sources say, after president-elect appeared to celebrate influencer’s shooting
...
“How can you have a free speech society where the incoming president celebrates the death of a free speech activist?”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/18/oxford-union-university-financial-crisis-charlie-kirk-death/ (£££)

Questions from next year's exams...

Sadly, life has become incredibly nuance-free.

Nobody should be celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk, irrespective of their political views.

At the same time, one should have to now 'agree with Charlie' on everything (or anything) just because he was killed.

No one is saying you should have to agree with Kirk with regard to the Oxford Union debacle. But there was no 'appearance' in what the president-elect tweeted. He was clearly laughing at the death. Now of course to take the whole debate to it's natural conclusion, it is Abaraonye's right to say and tweet what he wants as a point of free speech. It is also the right of those funding the Union and those who might go to speak there to decide to no longer support it. Abaraonye laughed at someone getting murdered because of free speech but then cries when he risks losing his position for his own comments. If nothing else he is a bloody hypocrite.

Oxford Union faces financial crisis over Charlie Kirk scandal
Donations on hold and high-profile speakers pulling out, sources say, after president-elect appeared to celebrate influencer’s shooting
...
“How can you have a free speech society where the incoming president celebrates the death of a free speech activist?”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/18/oxford-union-university-financial-crisis-charlie-kirk-death/ (£££)

Questions from next year's exams...

Sadly, life has become incredibly nuance-free.

Nobody should be celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk, irrespective of their political views.

At the same time, one shouldn't have to now 'agree with Charlie' on everything (or anything) just because he was killed.