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“Something that goes totally underdiscussed in the very bizarre story of the United Kingdom is its completely fucked financial situation. I struggle to think of a western nation with such a disastrous set of fiscal issues.”

Simple and disturbing thread on the YooKay’s fiscal fucked-ness

https://x.com/youngtroon/status/1958319399812616618?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

"Totally underdiscussed"

Yep, no one's even mentioned it.

I take the long view.

Compared to the vast majority of people in most times and places, the typical UK inhabitant is living in clover.

It is telling that the people who moan the loudest, have the means to comfortably move abroad and have considered doing so, rarely actually do go, and of those that do, plenty come back home quickly.

Palestine Action are without doubt, a terrorist organisation, serving the interests of powers that are hostile to this country.

Whether stupid people who support their terrorism should be prosecuted for expressing that support, is a separate issue, but that is the current state of the law.

That would be treason, not terrorism, and they should be prosecuted as such. The useful idiot defence would probably be quite effective though.

Under our laws its defined as terrorism.

Yes, that's what we are debating this morning. Well done you.

Yes, but you said they should be prosecuted for treason.

No, they should be prosecuted based on the law.

If you want to change the law there are procedures for that, but prosecutions should be based on the rule of law, not your imaginary hypothetical alternative laws that you'd prefer.

I agree and so does everyone else on PB.

You can't reconcile your thoughts on freedom of speech and your hatred of pro-Palestine protestors, so you've taken to fighting shadows instead.

FPT

Govt issues urgent appeal for 5,000 homes to,house 20,000 asylum seekers.

They should put them all in the leafy shires.

https://x.com/tonydowson5/status/1958264617928728987?s=61

seems they are offering HMO landlords extra money on top of current rents and 5 year deals to chuck their renters out and fill them with illegal immigrants. You could not make it up.

Landlords would be mad not to take it. As for the renters, oh dear how sad never mind. Many will support the asylum seekers anyway so they can live with the consequences of it.

Durham council are consulting on HMO’s at the moment with a view to making it tougher to convert a home into an HMO. More driven by students than anything else as County Durham is not really overflowing with these asylum seekers unlike Gateshead, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough who have over 8 times (proportionally) the amount of these men.

The thing I find spectacular is how bad the deals for block booking the hotels are.

We are talking about places that are going back in condition. A bit of digging would probably reveal poor occupancy. 100% guaranteed occupancy should have reduced the price to about £20 per room, per night. Especially since all the facilities apart from the kitchen were to be shuttered.

Bet they will be paying hundreds per person per night in HMOs…

I see at the Bell hotel there are 138 asylum seekers in 80 rooms. Is sharing a room with a random stranger normal in 4 star hotels?

How do you know they are not family members. A BBC puff piece on asylum seekers there interviewed a Mother and daughter.

Aren't we told by Team Nigel that they are almost all single young men looking for grey economy work?

Statistically they are predominantly young men but I’m sure the BBC has no agenda at all in presenting people who aren’t.

The BBC are equally unable to locate anyone from the group of people who cynically play the benefits system instead of working.

FPT.
Nigelb said:

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I was suggesting your obsession is with the LibDems, FWIW.

You are complaining about someone having an obsession with the Libdems on a site full of political anoraks talking about politics, betting, and mens shed TV topical issues because they happened to mention the only newsworthy thing that their party Leader Ed Davey has uttered all summer? Well its a view.

In fairness to @Nigelb it is an odd obsession. I have commented on it several times. It is regular and completely out of the blue and usually out of context and random.

I commented only the other day in a light hearted way by asking whether he was a member of the Institute of Bar Charts to be so obsessed and offended by the LDs.

PS Oh and they are not a supporter. The complete opposite. So obsessed even when there isn't any news.

Note my "FWIW".

I was having what I thought was a mild dig at Taz, in response to his saying of Davey: This moron supports them (Palestine Action) as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.

As the accusation was plain wrong, I thought a little pushback was merited.
FWIW.

No, I was not saying he supports Palestine Action, I don’t think that at all, I was saying he supports people who say they support them.

A bit like politicians in the eighties on the left who clearly didn’t support the IRA but happy to support people who did.

He should have qualified what he said and say the proscription is wrong in his view, if it is his view, and he gets the supporters but it is not right to support a proscribed group.

It may be relevant to suggest that the group has been proscribed for reasons of political theatre rather than because it is a genuine security threat. Just because the government of the day makes something illegal and then prosecutes those who are now deemed to be breaking the law does not also mean that the government is immune from profound criticism for its action in banning the thing in the first place.

The trespassers at Brize should be maximally punished, and if the PA organisation is deemed to be receiving covert support from Russia, then that should also be rooted out. However using blanket "anti terror" legislation in the way the government has chosen to do is a misuse of the legislation and profoundly corrosive to free speech and our democracy. Ed Davey is right to criticize Starmer's use of the legislation and to call him out on it.

Why is support strongest among Lib Dem voters?

If supporting liberal democracy is important to you… As they say, the clue is in the name.

Yes, and LDs are strong on internationalism. I wonder what the Greens think.

From my comrades in the party, I'd say opposed, possibly more than the Fukkers. Largely driven by an instinctive revulsion toward imperialism and a probably well founded concern that it'll turn into an incompetently managed bloodbath that achieves the exact opposite of its purpose of record.

You'd think they'd want to do something to oppose that SMO, then.

No no, not THAT imperialism.

Literally the only imperialist nation anxious to send their troops into Ukraine is Russia.
Oh, and N Korea, if they count (Joseon did after all style itself as an empire).

The includes the modern "imperialists" of the US, and the old style European imperialists - the UK; France; Germany and even Poland.

Dura's comment is either his usual high grade satire, or delusional.
Genuinely hard to distinguish.

No, I think he's correct that a lot of Greens/ Corbynites do think that.

It proves the point I made yesterday.

Many “anti-imperialists” only object to imperialistm when it’s done by people they don’t like.

Many supported the USSR, which was the most ruthless of the European empires.