Best Of

I'm about to arrive at a previously Labour for life turned hater of Keir household, it will be interesting to see how they feel about Andy.

Not Corbynny enough is my guess.

The question is why your pals went off Keir Starmer. He does seem to have anti-charisma. He evokes an almost visceral hatred in many. I don't know why he does but it is futile to deny it. But the corollary is that changing the man at the top – and nothing else – might be enough.

He was known as Starmer the Charmer at university and considered very charismatic. But somehow this has been lost or does not come across in his Prime Ministering.

Burnham now refers to him as Starmer the Seat Warmer...

As we are sort of sharing family stories.

My son went to Uni to do politics at 19 and spent what I thought was too much time clubbing!

Went from Clubbing to doing part tme leafletting ( he called it marketing!!! ) for a club, got more work there and switched degrees to do Audio engineering, which he supplimented by working in their bar.

Ended up their full time, became Bar Manager, finished his degree, got his own Licence, part time DJ's and does music and has now at 24 taken over as chief sound engineer for the Club.

Helped him buy at falt as it was cheaper than Uni accomodation and have sort of written the deposit off, so he and his partner are going to take on the Mortgage next year when teh deal we got runs out..

Bought in for £120k ( Two bed Southside traditional Tennament!) now worth £150k and they'll only have a £80k mortgage.

Say what you like about Scotland, and yes the SNP constantly saying we get a raw deal, but being able to still do that, as opposed to the stories you hear about people still at home in their thirties in the Southeast and Glasgow is still very much an affordable city.

Peter.

A club has a "chief sound engineer"?

Must be one hell of a club to justify that role?

"Sean Thomas
My 20-year-old daughter can’t find a job, and the reason is infuriating
Entry-level work used to be done by our children – now it seems to be given to immigrants"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/19/my-20-year-old-daughter-cant-find-a-job-reason-infuriating/

By coincidence, my calendar's inspirational thought for the day is from PB's Leon. But he might be wrong about his daughter. A lot of entry level work in retail disappeared when high streets were boarded up, in catering when pubs and restaurants closed, and a lot of white collar entry level work has been given to AI (or at least, that's the excuse the PHBs give for not hiring). Tories will add that Labour's job taxes don't help by destroying negative differentials but if the jobs aren't there in the first place...

Assistant Manager at Dominos gets you a skilled worker visa. Other factors may be greater, but this one is real too.

TfL are getting station attendants on work visas because they claim they can't recruit here. I mean, come on.

I assume that this costs the employers time and money to do the paperwork and pay the fees to bring in someone on a visa, so why would they do that if there were available residents looking for work?

There seems to be a missing piece of information in the story.

Lower wages, or harder workers, or more docile, exploitable workers, or all three.