Best Of

A Green Party ad suggests why they are doing well in the polls.

Zero* policy, but very well done emotional appeal.
https://x.com/AaronBastani/status/2037197492631036043

*Not net zero; just zero.

Well, not zero. The video specifically opposes the racism and division that so much of our politics is about. It speaks for our common humanity.

@NickPalmer has observed in the past that people choose their vote much more via vibe than by totting up a balance sheet of policies and cooly comparing to other parties.

They ask themselves "is this a party that matches my values? Is this a party that gets my issues and will speak for me?"

That is how Polanski is doing so well. The message is a very positive one, of hope, and one unafraid to speak for pluralism and modern Britain. This is a unique approach in current politics.

He isn't doing that well, his party won one seat even Corbyn won in 2019 and in most polls is polling less than 20%. He is just making a shameless pitch for the Muslim vote over conflicts in the Middle East and his anti Israel and anti Trump stance despite the fact on social issues the Greens and conservative Muslims disagree on virtually everything

Most polls put the Greens on par or ahead of the Tories, a party that has seen itself as the natural party of government for centuries.

To me that looks like doing pretty well.

The growth of both Reform and the Greens show that people have simply lost all faith in the mainstream parties. They are simply not delivering and haven't for a long time. People are exasperated and lashing out. That reluctance to make "tough" decisions that @Taz mentioned at the end of the previous thread has caused something approaching a disaster, a State that works for those employed by it and for very few others.

Both Labour and the Tories (the Lib Dems are a lost cause) need to wake up and start to deal with reality or reality will finish with them.

I think there is still a way forward for something I can only really term “radical centrism” and indeed I think it’s the only thing that can really get us out of our current predicament.

I don’t think a majority of the electorate really want the divisive rhetoric of Reform or the Greens but they do want things to be done differently to how they have been - and both parties promise that. They’ve been let down so much by the two main parties that they are looking for an alternative.

What we really need is someone who is unafraid of making big, bold, reforming decisions but who does not subscribe to the divisive viewpoints. I think the public will broadly accept reform of institutions like the NHS, planning and regulatory system, welfare state, asylum and immigration system, relationship with Europe, defence spending etc etc so long as they feel that the person behind it has a bold vision and a plan to make things better - on the centre right or centre left. Of course, such figures are sadly lacking from our politics at the moment. But it’s the emergence of figures like these that are what western economies really need in the next decade.

We need to invest and trade our way out of the mess. So much of the high cost low value nature of so many sectors is because of partisan bickering moving the goalposts. This happens because we have completely lost our way as to who we are and where we want to go.

More trade does not mean selling off everything. We need to get back to actually having British industrial giants capable of building the stuff we need. Start with steel, then car, train and shipbuilding, electronics, consumer goods etc. Harnessing both whats left of the north sea fossils and the growing wind & solar capacity. With turbines built here.

It means that we need to actual educate, train and equip my kids generation to go out and compete with the world. All we equip them with today is debt that is almost impossible to repay. And don't get me started on the NHS bonfire where we can't propose to axe the endless layers of administrators because aren't our nurses marvellous? Not that we train nurses anymore.

The challenge is "where do we get the money". To which my answer remains CAPITALISM. Borrow. Invest. ROI. Today we borrow and throw it on the bonfire. Throw a little less into the flames and buy a fire hose. An increase in cost briefly to greatly decrease it longer term.

It just needs vision, to accept that we're in a mess and a change is needed. I cited 3 great reforms - Liberal, Labour, Tory. We need a 4th, and it won't be from those daft fukers in Reform or the Islamo-Commies in Green... Trade is the solution to the gulf mess, to the American mess, to the refugee mess.

Trade. Free fucking trade. Make stuff. Sell stuff. The Rest Will Flow.

Yep. Trade is good, which is why Brexit is and remains a ball and chain around our ankle. We are the nation that sanctiond ourselves, then complain about the lack of trade.

Rubbish, since by my calculations the end of net EU contributions and additional regulatory and public spending freedoms roughly cancel out the hit to trade with the EU. I have posted those numbers on here before, and nobody seriously disputed them.

Leaving the EU was neither a ball and chain nor a huge boost - much closer to a non-event for the economy overall, no matter what the impact on individual sectors.

The real ball and chain have been the tax-waste-regulate governments we've inflicted on ourselves for the last few decades, at the national and European levels.

It's about values.

Economics is a proxy war.

The growth of both Reform and the Greens show that people have simply lost all faith in the mainstream parties. They are simply not delivering and haven't for a long time. People are exasperated and lashing out. That reluctance to make "tough" decisions that @Taz mentioned at the end of the previous thread has caused something approaching a disaster, a State that works for those employed by it and for very few others.

Both Labour and the Tories (the Lib Dems are a lost cause) need to wake up and start to deal with reality or reality will finish with them.

I think there is still a way forward for something I can only really term “radical centrism” and indeed I think it’s the only thing that can really get us out of our current predicament.

I don’t think a majority of the electorate really want the divisive rhetoric of Reform or the Greens but they do want things to be done differently to how they have been - and both parties promise that. They’ve been let down so much by the two main parties that they are looking for an alternative.

What we really need is someone who is unafraid of making big, bold, reforming decisions but who does not subscribe to the divisive viewpoints. I think the public will broadly accept reform of institutions like the NHS, planning and regulatory system, welfare state, asylum and immigration system, relationship with Europe, defence spending etc etc so long as they feel that the person behind it has a bold vision and a plan to make things better - on the centre right or centre left. Of course, such figures are sadly lacking from our politics at the moment. But it’s the emergence of figures like these that are what western economies really need in the next decade.

We need to invest and trade our way out of the mess. So much of the high cost low value nature of so many sectors is because of partisan bickering moving the goalposts. This happens because we have completely lost our way as to who we are and where we want to go.

More trade does not mean selling off everything. We need to get back to actually having British industrial giants capable of building the stuff we need. Start with steel, then car, train and shipbuilding, electronics, consumer goods etc. Harnessing both whats left of the north sea fossils and the growing wind & solar capacity. With turbines built here.

It means that we need to actual educate, train and equip my kids generation to go out and compete with the world. All we equip them with today is debt that is almost impossible to repay. And don't get me started on the NHS bonfire where we can't propose to axe the endless layers of administrators because aren't our nurses marvellous? Not that we train nurses anymore.

The challenge is "where do we get the money". To which my answer remains CAPITALISM. Borrow. Invest. ROI. Today we borrow and throw it on the bonfire. Throw a little less into the flames and buy a fire hose. An increase in cost briefly to greatly decrease it longer term.

It just needs vision, to accept that we're in a mess and a change is needed. I cited 3 great reforms - Liberal, Labour, Tory. We need a 4th, and it won't be from those daft fukers in Reform or the Islamo-Commies in Green... Trade is the solution to the gulf mess, to the American mess, to the refugee mess.

Trade. Free fucking trade. Make stuff. Sell stuff. The Rest Will Flow.

Yep. Trade is good, [cliche] which is why Brexit is and remains a ball and chain around our ankle [hackneyed metaphor] . We are the nation that sanctiond ourselves [hackneyed metaphor], then complain about the lack of trade.

It's always funny reading remoaner arguments.
There's never any figures, there's not even a simple explanation of how x has resulted in y. Just a heap of meaningless metaphors and cliches loosely held together by wounded spite. They cannot make a proper argument because there isn't one.

Brexit created barriers to trade. There, that's your simple explanation of how x has resulted in y.

I need to send food samples UK to NL. Parcel Farce would send it to the moon by accident. DHL won't do food to EU because paperwork. USP will - but its faff - for £££

Long Weekend away to NL - probably as quick and as cheap as the other options.

@chadbourn.bsky.social‬

Disgraced former Prime Ministers are going full-on bonkers to show the world what the UK endured over the last few years.

Liz Truss gave a swivel-eyed speech at CPAC saying Britain had been taken over by Islamists and the shadowy global elite.

And Boris Johnson is on GB News reciting sonnets.

And oor Tone.
Apparently if the UK had suffered an Oct 7th we would have fllattened wherever those responsible came from, presumably killing proportionately 500k civilians, and Blair would be just fine with it (which I wouldn't doubt for a minute).

Elvis Buñuelo
@Mr_Considerate
Tony Blair in The Free Press, is it.

https://x.com/Mr_Considerate/status/2037304369649955146?s=20

I missed us razing West Belfast and Dublin from the 1960s onwards.

A Green Party ad suggests why they are doing well in the polls.

Zero* policy, but very well done emotional appeal.
https://x.com/AaronBastani/status/2037197492631036043

*Not net zero; just zero.

Well, not zero. The video specifically opposes the racism and division that so much of our politics is about. It speaks for our common humanity.

@NickPalmer has observed in the past that people choose their vote much more via vibe than by totting up a balance sheet of policies and cooly comparing to other parties.

They ask themselves "is this a party that matches my values? Is this a party that gets my issues and will speak for me?"

That is how Polanski is doing so well. The message is a very positive one, of hope, and one unafraid to speak for pluralism and modern Britain. This is a unique approach in current politics.

Really?

At the Spring Conference the Greens are voting on a motion opposing the government's proposals to fight racism and anti-semitism in the NHS. Who's that positive and hopeful for? Racists and anti-semites presumably. It's certainly representative of a very unpleasant aspect of modern Britain - the way anti-semitism has become embedded in once respectable organisations and professions.

Polanski has also refused to condemn members of the public going from door to door canvassing for a boycott of Israel and its goods, and noting down those who disagree. He did not understand why this might seem frightening and sinister to Jewish people. And no this is not like normal political canvassing.

Nor has he condemned his deputy, Mothin Ali, who attacked a Jewish university chaplain, forcing him to go into hiding and whose wife received rape threats. Ali recently attended a demonstration protesting against attacks on the Iranian regime which has slaughtered tens of thousands of its citizens, is executing children as young as 14, rapes women prisoners as a matter of course and did this so violently to two nurses who helped those wounded by the regime that they lost part of their intestines and, in one case, their uterus.

Perhaps this is what some have called the Green Party’s “fresh new ideas”. To this jaded eye, they rather resemble some older, very sour ideas, whose impact on ordinary people is well-described in Sally Carson’s novel “Crooked Cross”, written in the 1930’s after her time in Germany. She wrote that as a warning, not a manual to be followed.

As you should know. You recommended it.

It isn't anti-semitic to oppose the Israeli government or boycott Israeli goods.

@chadbourn.bsky.social‬

Disgraced former Prime Ministers are going full-on bonkers to show the world what the UK endured over the last few years.

Liz Truss gave a swivel-eyed speech at CPAC saying Britain had been taken over by Islamists and the shadowy global elite.

And Boris Johnson is on GB News reciting sonnets.

And oor Tone.
Apparently if the UK had suffered an Oct 7th we would have fllattened wherever those responsible came from, presumably killing proportionately 500k civilians, and Blair would be just fine with it (which I wouldn't doubt for a minute).

Elvis Buñuelo
@Mr_Considerate
Tony Blair in The Free Press, is it.

https://x.com/Mr_Considerate/status/2037304369649955146?s=20

An estimated 1 million civilians died in Iraq and Blair was fine with it, so what's 500k between friends?

This is one of your touchstones for Israel did OK in Gaza isn't it.

Yet there is a clear difference between "Israel directly bombed, shot and killed 60k civilians" and "in total in Iraq around 300k* were killed by wars and civil insurgencies, including a small proportion at the hands of allied forces". The latter can be attributed indirectly back to the West to failures in national building and planning, the former is much more direct killing.

I've never quite seen the direct equivalence you have consistently tried to make.

My rule of thumb for Israel overdoing it in Gaza at the beginning was that the place should not end up looking like Aleppo. By that score, from all I've seen, Israel clearly failed.

*a middle ground in the estimates, you take the most extreme estimate to make your point.

Don't know how accurate this is, but it seems things might not be going well for the Mullahs militia:

An IRGC cultural official told state media that the IRGC has lowered the minimum recruitment age to 12.[27] This decision follows reports that the IRGC is facing difficulties with recruiting new personnel and managing broader operational disruptions. The official said that the IRGC is recruiting individuals to support patrols, checkpoints, and logistics.[28] Unspecified informed sources told anti-regime media on March 12 that IRGC efforts to mobilize reserve forces failed because many individuals did not report to military centers.[29] CTP-ISW assessed on March 19 that Israeli strikes on Iranian internal security forces, including decapitation strikes, have likely caused shock and confusion within the internal security apparatus and disrupted operations to some extent.[30]

https://understandingwar.org/research/middle-east/iran-update-special-report-march-26-2026/

In much more important news Civilisation, otherwise known as Wendys has arrived at the Dundee frontier. They apparently have special treats like loaded baconator fries and the double baconator burger, the latter being 2 square burger patties, cheese slices and loads of bacon (sounds like a heart attack on a plate to me). People also apparently partake of something called a vanilla Frosty and, incredibly, despite this being a dessert, dip their chips in it.

On the plus side we may see the cost of pensions falling sharply but the short term consequences for the NHS are alarming. Do people really eat this stuff?

Only two politicians have actually taken this seriously over the last decade, and it’s telling that both were Conservative Chancellors: Osborne with the sugar tax and Sunak with the ban on smoking.

Nudge to save the NHS

When the company I worked for starting using the Vitality private health insurance product from Prudential, even the most hardcore I-Never-Exercise types were walking the dog until the poor things feet were sore. For those who haven't encountered it - in addition to cut prices for gym and gym gear, it gives you rewards for doing exercise*, losing weight, having a full health check etc. Stuff like free cinema tickets.

Apparently, the cost of the scheme was more than offset by the reduction in claims on the private health insurance.

*As measure by Garmin/Apple Watch etc. Which you had purchased cheap through the scheme.

Hence my £100 tax refund idea for healthy BMI/5K under 30 mins/average over 10,000 steps. It would pay for itself over the long term.

Not quite good enough.

Part of the genius of the original Vitality scheme was that it had lots of different stuff in it - so rather than one simple way to get "points", lots of things to discuss, ponder over. Which sucks people in.

A simple, small refund for steps wouldn't have that day-to-day involvement.

Personally, I would hire the people behind the original scheme and ask them to build one for the NHS.