If I were Starmer, I'd keep my powder dry on policy for now and follow his 'don't scare the horses' approach, win the election, implement a range of progressive policies, reform taxation, and then change the voting system from FPTP to PR so the Tories (and Labour tbf) can never rule again in isolation.
Just saying.
Labour MPs elected under FPTP when Labour win a clear majority are not going to vote to lose their seats via PR transferring them to LDs and Greens
That's why they didn't introduce it after 1997. They should have done because it probably would have allowed them to stay in power after 2010.
It wouldn't as the LDs under Clegg would still have had the balance of power and still have gone with Cameron's Tories
I don't agree.
A Tory/Lib Dem coalition was the only credible Government that could be formed in 2010. As a coalition, it had a very comfortable majority of over 70 (and indeed was a very stable Government, certainly compared with the years since 2015, but really by any historical standards. In terms of the so-called "alternative", even a bare majority of one would have required a coalition involving Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, plus some selection of more than one of Plaid, SDLP, Green and NI Alliance. Such a coalition could not possibly have survived for more than months and, with bond auctions failing all around us, would've precipitated a financial meltdown (as would no coalition at all).
Whilst it is true that Clegg personally was more comfortable with Cameron, many of his colleagues (led by Cable but others too) were not. PR would have resulted in a genuine choice of coalition partners for the Lib Dems, and the party simply wouldn't have stomached the Tory option. Recall that it did have to go to a special conference of the party on 16th May 2010. The party only really held their noses and went for it on the basis there genuinely wasn't any other show in town. Had Clegg gone in on the basis "well, we could equally go in with Labour but I personally quite like Dave" (as he'd have needed to had 2010 been under PR) he'd have had no chance.
"The Conservatives have been controlled for 20 years by a cabal known as the “movement”, which brought down Boris Johnson as prime minister, Nadine Dorries has claimed in the latest extract from her new book."
Sounds like Mad Nad's book is going to be very illuminati
I'll stop there.
When the Mail's first extract is headlined
Shadowy Tory No10 fixer who had pet rabbit butchered in mafia style warning to his ex girlfriend
one has to wonder.
It seems like the Mail has abandoned its Tory Cheerleader role for the coming election. When even the DM has given up the Tories are in very deep do-do.
The Mail wants to see the Tories move right in opposition
So do I: right off the end of the electability spectrum.
To be fair, they are already off the end of that spectrum, as the polls indicate, but I am quite happy to see them drift further off into the wilderness. Hopefully never to return.
If the economy is poor under a Labour government however even a hard right Tory leader can win, as Thatcher did in 1979
Thatcher was in no way “hard right”
She was fairly moderate and, even liberal on social matters, but wanted to reform the economy
Section 28?
She was of her time. And attitudes to gays moved very very quickly.
But she also did that infamous sermon on the Good Samaritan. And I don't think that included a bit about foreigners making bad lifestyle choices.
What is inaccurate about this comment?
No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.
Theologically speaking, just about everything.
For one thing, the money was incidental to the main point of the parable.
Also, as it was a parable you shouldn't remember the main character but rather the message of it.
I predict many on here will simply play the man but he raises a lot of good points. Firstly the inquiry is essential. We saw the most draconian clampdown on liberties we've ever known, it cost huge sums of money and many people died or otherwise had their lives badly damaged. A fully open-minded inquiry is a first order priority. Is this what we are getting? Or has the inquiry basically started from an assumption of what should have been done and is now just trying to confirm the established (establishment?) consensus by joining the dots. The KC focusing on rude whatsapp messages involving the Prime minister and his closest advisers being the main highlight.
Heneghan bemoans that he had his credentials questioned, had his written submission ignored and that most of the focus of the session was on the 'Great Barrington Declaration' which he didn't even sign. Nearly 4 years on we can look at analysis from all different countries to assess what may have been the most efficacious approach. However the fact is that the only notable person I've seen on social media sharing information from the inquiry is Alastair Campbell, unsurprising as he's someone who gets up every morning to hate the Tories more but doesn't seem to be offering anything more enlightening than Dominic Cummings' foul mouth. Maybe that should tell us something?
Perhaps the plan is to give the establishment a clean bill of health and point out that any mistakes that were made were due to 'populist right' forces that had entered Downing St. The idea that we were dealing with a very difficult situation and so mistakes were inevitable isn't really acceptable nowadays so I can understand the mentality, not least in the general consensus (groupthink?) of the scientific advisers.
The main thing we have learnt from the enquiry is that civil servants and advisors were legends in their own minds as much as the politicians
The actual events and decisions are too toxic for all involved to want to talk about.
I haven't learned that.
I knew it already.
Although I do hope that the enquiry will invite Susan Acland-Hood to explain herself.
When I say “learnt” I actually meant “I kinda knew from second hand evidence, but now we *know*. Because they condemned themselves out of their own mouths, while thinking they were praising themselves. So we *know* it to the level of The Laws Of Motion, now”.
"The Conservatives have been controlled for 20 years by a cabal known as the “movement”, which brought down Boris Johnson as prime minister, Nadine Dorries has claimed in the latest extract from her new book."
Sounds like Mad Nad's book is going to be very illuminati
I'll stop there.
When the Mail's first extract is headlined
Shadowy Tory No10 fixer who had pet rabbit butchered in mafia style warning to his ex girlfriend
one has to wonder.
It seems like the Mail has abandoned its Tory Cheerleader role for the coming election. When even the DM has given up the Tories are in very deep do-do.
The Mail wants to see the Tories move right in opposition
So do I: right off the end of the electability spectrum.
To be fair, they are already off the end of that spectrum, as the polls indicate, but I am quite happy to see them drift further off into the wilderness. Hopefully never to return.
If the economy is poor under a Labour government however even a hard right Tory leader can win, as Thatcher did in 1979
Thatcher was in no way “hard right”
She was fairly moderate and, even liberal on social matters, but wanted to reform the economy
Thatcher most certainly was hard right, certainly by the standards of the 1970s. On economics she was the most small state, low tax leader the Tories had had since universal suffrage and even on social issues she was well to the right of Sunak now.
She was considered unelectable in 1975 against Wilson and Callaghan after ousting the more centrist Heath to become Conservative leader, only Labour's poor economic management saw her win
Yes, Thatcher famously wanted a return to 'Victorian values', which was code for the reversal of the social liberalism of the 1960s/70s permissive society.
I predict many on here will simply play the man but he raises a lot of good points. Firstly the inquiry is essential. We saw the most draconian clampdown on liberties we've ever known, it cost huge sums of money and many people died or otherwise had their lives badly damaged. A fully open-minded inquiry is a first order priority. Is this what we are getting? Or has the inquiry basically started from an assumption of what should have been done and is now just trying to confirm the established (establishment?) consensus by joining the dots. The KC focusing on rude whatsapp messages involving the Prime minister and his closest advisers being the main highlight.
Heneghan bemoans that he had his credentials questioned, had his written submission ignored and that most of the focus of the session was on the 'Great Barrington Declaration' which he didn't even sign. Nearly 4 years on we can look at analysis from all different countries to assess what may have been the most efficacious approach. However the fact is that the only notable person I've seen on social media sharing information from the inquiry is Alastair Campbell, unsurprising as he's someone who gets up every morning to hate the Tories more but doesn't seem to be offering anything more enlightening than Dominic Cummings' foul mouth. Maybe that should tell us something?
Perhaps the plan is to give the establishment a clean bill of health and point out that any mistakes that were made were due to 'populist right' forces that had entered Downing St. The idea that we were dealing with a very difficult situation and so mistakes were inevitable isn't really acceptable nowadays so I can understand the mentality, not least in the general consensus (groupthink?) of the scientific advisers.
I agree 100% with this. The only real point of an inquiry should be to establish whether successive lockdowns were the right thing to do, or whether they did more harm than good.
We already know the situation meant we pretty much had to do them The question is more whether we could have avoided the situation by better planning and governance.
"The Conservatives have been controlled for 20 years by a cabal known as the “movement”, which brought down Boris Johnson as prime minister, Nadine Dorries has claimed in the latest extract from her new book."
Sounds like Mad Nad's book is going to be very illuminati
I'll stop there.
When the Mail's first extract is headlined
Shadowy Tory No10 fixer who had pet rabbit butchered in mafia style warning to his ex girlfriend
one has to wonder.
It seems like the Mail has abandoned its Tory Cheerleader role for the coming election. When even the DM has given up the Tories are in very deep do-do.
The Mail wants to see the Tories move right in opposition
So do I: right off the end of the electability spectrum.
To be fair, they are already off the end of that spectrum, as the polls indicate, but I am quite happy to see them drift further off into the wilderness. Hopefully never to return.
If the economy is poor under a Labour government however even a hard right Tory leader can win, as Thatcher did in 1979
Thatcher was in no way “hard right”
She was fairly moderate and, even liberal on social matters, but wanted to reform the economy
Section 28?
She was of her time. And attitudes to gays moved very very quickly.
But she also did that infamous sermon on the Good Samaritan. And I don't think that included a bit about foreigners making bad lifestyle choices.
What is inaccurate about this comment?
No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.
Theologically speaking, just about everything.
For one thing, the money was incidental to the main point of the parable.
Also, as it was a parable you shouldn't remember the main character but rather the message of it.
The widow’s mite is perhaps more relevant to the point that you are making.
But she is unfairly attacked on this example. She wasn’t saying to be selfish (as it is portrayed) but that simply a country has to be rich enough to afford good welfare support networks
I’ve not noticed much difference in TwitterX since the purchase, to be honest. Yet everyone else seems to have. Perhaps because I ignore the “for you” thing and just look at accounts I follow. I purged my feed of anything overly shouty or tribal, left or right, and that seems to help.
I don’t think it’ll be replaced in its target generation (gen x and older millennials) as they are too embedded, as are the boomers in Facebook. But my children’s generation hardly use it at all. They’re on various other networks I scarcely even know about.
Unbelievable BBC ran footage from Hamas crisis actor last night...this particular guy is so famous for this he is literally a meme now across social media for how shit he is at it i.e. going from patient to doctor in the same day. Obviously BBC verify had gone home early....
Do you have a source with evidence for this? There have been a lot of claims of “crisis actors”, but news agencies have dismissed them as false. See:
I'm sure false accusations exist, but in this case it's fairly clear cut:
This is the chap BBC showed in their opening news montage yesterday.
The "revived corpse" is from a Halloween costume in Thailand some years ago.
We are in a hall of mirrors. Both "fake news" and fake accusations of "fake news" are all around us. People using these images can be either.
There are enough pieces of correct footage of dead and injured civilians on both sides to only use the real thing. The truth is so horrible as to not need elaboration.
TwitterX is so full of fake stuff as to have lost nearly all utility now.
Why does the war correspondent one have a helmet that says PISS?
I quick search on Twitter will turn up another version of this image without the body bag & with a helmet that says PRESS.
It’s very odd. Maybe this version contains obviously wrong elements in order to cast doubt on the “genuine” versions? Maybe the genuine versions are also false (look hard enough & you’ll find people that look fairly similar anywhere you go).
The onslaught of fake footage during this conflict makes it ever more difficult to tell what’s actually going on. Internet OSInt takes time & the old saying about lies & boots sadly applies
Several other images in the montage are either other people, or taken at times before the current troubles. See the twitter thread here:
I am surprised that Visegrad hasn't deleted the tweet. It discredits them as a reliable source.
It turns out that, apart from the two which have been identified as other people, these are of the same guy, who seems to be running the whole thing as some kind of Instagram Influencer shtick? Maybe?
That would explain the two press helmets, PISS & PRESS: both are done for the Instagram likes in different short videos.
There are plenty of horrible images out there. By sharing a set of deliberate fakes from an Instagram Influencer, mixed in with some other images which have nothing to do with Gaza at all but look plausible, the pro-Israel side is implying that all of these other images are also fake.
"accusations of “Pallywood” serve a uniquely insidious purpose. “It allows people the mental space to disregard real evidence of civilian harm,”"
One thing about Musk and Meta spreading so much lies on Social Media may well be people not willing to trust sources other than proper certified journalism.
The seppukko of TwitterX may well be to the benefit of real journalism, though real journalists will need to do careful fact checking to retain credibility themselves.
Has TwitterX committed seppuku? (Not "seppukko" - lol)
I'm not seeing it. Users are down but they might be bots. Ad spend is definitely down but then Musk knew this was the risk, and TwitterX still seems to be the go-to place for political debate, it is less slanted to the left than it was. Is all
The one big stupid mistake Musk did make was changing the name to "X". Ridiculous. He had a great brand-name and fecked it up
Interestingly, during the Sunak interview he seemed to acknowledge this
Musk has lost between 50 and 90% of its monetary value in a year, while simultaneously trashing TwitterX as a reliable news feed*.
*the lists function works well still and is easy to set up.
I have one tab for UK medicine, another for PB and xPB posters and polling, etc. As these are my own lists I only see posts from people that I have entered in the list. The general algorithm feed is useless now.
*
I've got this weird feeling Twitter will survive the haughty disdain of a no-mark provincial quack in Leicester
As I still use it in modified form then it may well do. Or it could go the way of AOL, FriendsReunited or askjeeves. Things happen quickly in the modern tech world.
There isn't an obvious alternative at present as both mastodon and blue-sky are very clunky, but social media is marked by platforms both booming and becoming history. By making it such a sewer of hate and misinformation Musk has created an opportunity for another entrepreneur.
It is not a sewer of hate and misinformation (or, at least, no more than before), he has simply removed the filters that prevented so many rightwing voices from being heard, and now you are exposed to them
For us rightwingers, it was a toilet of Woke leftwing shite BEFORE he took over, but we tolerated because it is the best at what it does
So it goes
Sure, if you like a sewer of right wing conspiracy and hate, then it is right up your street. Enjoy.
Why are you focusing on right wing?
Are you suggesting there is no left wing disinformation on there? Or was that always there anyway? And if so is it more tolerable?
Because that is what @Leon was expressing interest in.
Yes, the amount of left wing antisemitism etc has increased too.
The 15x jump in antisemitism since the Gaza mess started is probably not the EDL/Combat 18/etc partying.
The incident the other night wasn’t.
The 2x jump in islamaphobic incidents might well be Fascists - does anyone know?
It is certainly interesting how there seems to be so little data on who is responsible, that I can find.
Unbelievable BBC ran footage from Hamas crisis actor last night...this particular guy is so famous for this he is literally a meme now across social media for how shit he is at it i.e. going from patient to doctor in the same day. Obviously BBC verify had gone home early....
Do you have a source with evidence for this? There have been a lot of claims of “crisis actors”, but news agencies have dismissed them as false. See:
I'm sure false accusations exist, but in this case it's fairly clear cut:
This is the chap BBC showed in their opening news montage yesterday.
The "revived corpse" is from a Halloween costume in Thailand some years ago.
We are in a hall of mirrors. Both "fake news" and fake accusations of "fake news" are all around us. People using these images can be either.
There are enough pieces of correct footage of dead and injured civilians on both sides to only use the real thing. The truth is so horrible as to not need elaboration.
TwitterX is so full of fake stuff as to have lost nearly all utility now.
Why does the war correspondent one have a helmet that says PISS?
I quick search on Twitter will turn up another version of this image without the body bag & with a helmet that says PRESS.
It’s very odd. Maybe this version contains obviously wrong elements in order to cast doubt on the “genuine” versions? Maybe the genuine versions are also false (look hard enough & you’ll find people that look fairly similar anywhere you go).
The onslaught of fake footage during this conflict makes it ever more difficult to tell what’s actually going on. Internet OSInt takes time & the old saying about lies & boots sadly applies
Several other images in the montage are either other people, or taken at times before the current troubles. See the twitter thread here:
I am surprised that Visegrad hasn't deleted the tweet. It discredits them as a reliable source.
It turns out that, apart from the two which have been identified as other people, these are of the same guy, who seems to be running the whole thing as some kind of Instagram Influencer shtick? Maybe?
That would explain the two press helmets, PISS & PRESS: both are done for the Instagram likes in different short videos.
There are plenty of horrible images out there. By sharing a set of deliberate fakes from an Instagram Influencer, mixed in with some other images which have nothing to do with Gaza at all but look plausible, the pro-Israel side is implying that all of these other images are also fake.
"accusations of “Pallywood” serve a uniquely insidious purpose. “It allows people the mental space to disregard real evidence of civilian harm,”"
One thing about Musk and Meta spreading so much lies on Social Media may well be people not willing to trust sources other than proper certified journalism.
The seppukko of TwitterX may well be to the benefit of real journalism, though real journalists will need to do careful fact checking to retain credibility themselves.
Has TwitterX committed seppuku? (Not "seppukko" - lol)
I'm not seeing it. Users are down but they might be bots. Ad spend is definitely down but then Musk knew this was the risk, and TwitterX still seems to be the go-to place for political debate, it is less slanted to the left than it was. Is all
The one big stupid mistake Musk did make was changing the name to "X". Ridiculous. He had a great brand-name and fecked it up
Interestingly, during the Sunak interview he seemed to acknowledge this
Musk has lost between 50 and 90% of its monetary value in a year, while simultaneously trashing TwitterX as a reliable news feed*.
*the lists function works well still and is easy to set up.
I have one tab for UK medicine, another for PB and xPB posters and polling, etc. As these are my own lists I only see posts from people that I have entered in the list. The general algorithm feed is useless now.
*
I've got this weird feeling Twitter will survive the haughty disdain of a no-mark provincial quack in Leicester
As I still use it in modified form then it may well do. Or it could go the way of AOL, FriendsReunited or askjeeves. Things happen quickly in the modern tech world.
There isn't an obvious alternative at present as both mastodon and blue-sky are very clunky, but social media is marked by platforms both booming and becoming history. By making it such a sewer of hate and misinformation Musk has created an opportunity for another entrepreneur.
It is not a sewer of hate and misinformation (or, at least, no more than before), he has simply removed the filters that prevented so many rightwing voices from being heard, and now you are exposed to them
For us rightwingers, it was a toilet of Woke leftwing shite BEFORE he took over, but we tolerated because it is the best at what it does
So it goes
Correlated though because most hate and misinformation comes from rightwing voices.
Because you'd never hear anybody in Labour referring to "Tory scum", right?
"The Conservatives have been controlled for 20 years by a cabal known as the “movement”, which brought down Boris Johnson as prime minister, Nadine Dorries has claimed in the latest extract from her new book."
Sounds like Mad Nad's book is going to be very illuminati
I'll stop there.
When the Mail's first extract is headlined
Shadowy Tory No10 fixer who had pet rabbit butchered in mafia style warning to his ex girlfriend
one has to wonder.
It seems like the Mail has abandoned its Tory Cheerleader role for the coming election. When even the DM has given up the Tories are in very deep do-do.
The Mail wants to see the Tories move right in opposition
So do I: right off the end of the electability spectrum.
To be fair, they are already off the end of that spectrum, as the polls indicate, but I am quite happy to see them drift further off into the wilderness. Hopefully never to return.
If the economy is poor under a Labour government however even a hard right Tory leader can win, as Thatcher did in 1979
Thatcher was in no way “hard right”
She was fairly moderate and, even liberal on social matters, but wanted to reform the economy
Section 28?
She was of her time. And attitudes to gays moved very very quickly.
But she also did that infamous sermon on the Good Samaritan. And I don't think that included a bit about foreigners making bad lifestyle choices.
What is inaccurate about this comment?
No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.
Theologically speaking, just about everything.
For one thing, the money was incidental to the main point of the parable.
Also, as it was a parable you shouldn't remember the main character but rather the message of it.
The widow’s mite is perhaps more relevant to the point that you are making.
But she is unfairly attacked on this example. She wasn’t saying to be selfish (as it is portrayed) but that simply a country has to be rich enough to afford good welfare support networks
Good intentions plus £2:50 means you can buy a street dweller a sandwich.
I’ve not noticed much difference in TwitterX since the purchase, to be honest. Yet everyone else seems to have. Perhaps because I ignore the “for you” thing and just look at accounts I follow. I purged my feed of anything overly shouty or tribal, left or right, and that seems to help.
I don’t think it’ll be replaced in its target generation (gen x and older millennials) as they are too embedded, as are the boomers in Facebook. But my children’s generation hardly use it at all. They’re on various other networks I scarcely even know about.
It’s rather like WhatsApp - I’ve never subscribed to the mass broadcast groups there, so stayed away from that cesspool.
"The Conservatives have been controlled for 20 years by a cabal known as the “movement”, which brought down Boris Johnson as prime minister, Nadine Dorries has claimed in the latest extract from her new book."
Sounds like Mad Nad's book is going to be very illuminati
I'll stop there.
When the Mail's first extract is headlined
Shadowy Tory No10 fixer who had pet rabbit butchered in mafia style warning to his ex girlfriend
one has to wonder.
It seems like the Mail has abandoned its Tory Cheerleader role for the coming election. When even the DM has given up the Tories are in very deep do-do.
The Mail wants to see the Tories move right in opposition
So do I: right off the end of the electability spectrum.
To be fair, they are already off the end of that spectrum, as the polls indicate, but I am quite happy to see them drift further off into the wilderness. Hopefully never to return.
If the economy is poor under a Labour government however even a hard right Tory leader can win, as Thatcher did in 1979
Thatcher was in no way “hard right”
She was fairly moderate and, even liberal on social matters, but wanted to reform the economy
Section 28?
She was of her time. And attitudes to gays moved very very quickly.
But she also did that infamous sermon on the Good Samaritan. And I don't think that included a bit about foreigners making bad lifestyle choices.
What is inaccurate about this comment?
No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.
Theologically speaking, just about everything.
For one thing, the money was incidental to the main point of the parable.
Also, as it was a parable you shouldn't remember the main character but rather the message of it.
The widow’s mite is perhaps more relevant to the point that you are making.
But she is unfairly attacked on this example. She wasn’t saying to be selfish (as it is portrayed) but that simply a country has to be rich enough to afford good welfare support networks
Good intentions plus £2:50 means you can buy a street dweller a sandwich.
But not a nutritious, organic and pesticide free sandwich
Unbelievable BBC ran footage from Hamas crisis actor last night...this particular guy is so famous for this he is literally a meme now across social media for how shit he is at it i.e. going from patient to doctor in the same day. Obviously BBC verify had gone home early....
Do you have a source with evidence for this? There have been a lot of claims of “crisis actors”, but news agencies have dismissed them as false. See:
I'm sure false accusations exist, but in this case it's fairly clear cut:
This is the chap BBC showed in their opening news montage yesterday.
The "revived corpse" is from a Halloween costume in Thailand some years ago.
We are in a hall of mirrors. Both "fake news" and fake accusations of "fake news" are all around us. People using these images can be either.
There are enough pieces of correct footage of dead and injured civilians on both sides to only use the real thing. The truth is so horrible as to not need elaboration.
TwitterX is so full of fake stuff as to have lost nearly all utility now.
Why does the war correspondent one have a helmet that says PISS?
I quick search on Twitter will turn up another version of this image without the body bag & with a helmet that says PRESS.
It’s very odd. Maybe this version contains obviously wrong elements in order to cast doubt on the “genuine” versions? Maybe the genuine versions are also false (look hard enough & you’ll find people that look fairly similar anywhere you go).
The onslaught of fake footage during this conflict makes it ever more difficult to tell what’s actually going on. Internet OSInt takes time & the old saying about lies & boots sadly applies
Several other images in the montage are either other people, or taken at times before the current troubles. See the twitter thread here:
I am surprised that Visegrad hasn't deleted the tweet. It discredits them as a reliable source.
It turns out that, apart from the two which have been identified as other people, these are of the same guy, who seems to be running the whole thing as some kind of Instagram Influencer shtick? Maybe?
That would explain the two press helmets, PISS & PRESS: both are done for the Instagram likes in different short videos.
There are plenty of horrible images out there. By sharing a set of deliberate fakes from an Instagram Influencer, mixed in with some other images which have nothing to do with Gaza at all but look plausible, the pro-Israel side is implying that all of these other images are also fake.
"accusations of “Pallywood” serve a uniquely insidious purpose. “It allows people the mental space to disregard real evidence of civilian harm,”"
One thing about Musk and Meta spreading so much lies on Social Media may well be people not willing to trust sources other than proper certified journalism.
The seppukko of TwitterX may well be to the benefit of real journalism, though real journalists will need to do careful fact checking to retain credibility themselves.
Has TwitterX committed seppuku? (Not "seppukko" - lol)
I'm not seeing it. Users are down but they might be bots. Ad spend is definitely down but then Musk knew this was the risk, and TwitterX still seems to be the go-to place for political debate, it is less slanted to the left than it was. Is all
The one big stupid mistake Musk did make was changing the name to "X". Ridiculous. He had a great brand-name and fecked it up
Interestingly, during the Sunak interview he seemed to acknowledge this
Musk has lost between 50 and 90% of its monetary value in a year, while simultaneously trashing TwitterX as a reliable news feed*.
*the lists function works well still and is easy to set up.
I have one tab for UK medicine, another for PB and xPB posters and polling, etc. As these are my own lists I only see posts from people that I have entered in the list. The general algorithm feed is useless now.
*
I've got this weird feeling Twitter will survive the haughty disdain of a no-mark provincial quack in Leicester
As I still use it in modified form then it may well do. Or it could go the way of AOL, FriendsReunited or askjeeves. Things happen quickly in the modern tech world.
There isn't an obvious alternative at present as both mastodon and blue-sky are very clunky, but social media is marked by platforms both booming and becoming history. By making it such a sewer of hate and misinformation Musk has created an opportunity for another entrepreneur.
It is not a sewer of hate and misinformation (or, at least, no more than before), he has simply removed the filters that prevented so many rightwing voices from being heard, and now you are exposed to them
For us rightwingers, it was a toilet of Woke leftwing shite BEFORE he took over, but we tolerated because it is the best at what it does
So it goes
Sure, if you like a sewer of right wing conspiracy and hate, then it is right up your street. Enjoy.
Why are you focusing on right wing?
Are you suggesting there is no left wing disinformation on there? Or was that always there anyway? And if so is it more tolerable?
Because that is what @Leon was expressing interest in.
Yes, the amount of left wing antisemitism etc has increased too.
The 15x jump in antisemitism since the Gaza mess started is probably not the EDL/Combat 18/etc partying.
The incident the other night wasn’t.
The 2x jump in islamaphobic incidents might well be Fascists - does anyone know?
It is certainly interesting how there seems to be so little data on who is responsible, that I can find.
I predict many on here will simply play the man but he raises a lot of good points. Firstly the inquiry is essential. We saw the most draconian clampdown on liberties we've ever known, it cost huge sums of money and many people died or otherwise had their lives badly damaged. A fully open-minded inquiry is a first order priority. Is this what we are getting? Or has the inquiry basically started from an assumption of what should have been done and is now just trying to confirm the established (establishment?) consensus by joining the dots. The KC focusing on rude whatsapp messages involving the Prime minister and his closest advisers being the main highlight.
Heneghan bemoans that he had his credentials questioned, had his written submission ignored and that most of the focus of the session was on the 'Great Barrington Declaration' which he didn't even sign. Nearly 4 years on we can look at analysis from all different countries to assess what may have been the most efficacious approach. However the fact is that the only notable person I've seen on social media sharing information from the inquiry is Alastair Campbell, unsurprising as he's someone who gets up every morning to hate the Tories more but doesn't seem to be offering anything more enlightening than Dominic Cummings' foul mouth. Maybe that should tell us something?
Perhaps the plan is to give the establishment a clean bill of health and point out that any mistakes that were made were due to 'populist right' forces that had entered Downing St. The idea that we were dealing with a very difficult situation and so mistakes were inevitable isn't really acceptable nowadays so I can understand the mentality, not least in the general consensus (groupthink?) of the scientific advisers.
I agree 100% with this. The only real point of an inquiry should be to establish whether successive lockdowns were the right thing to do, or whether they did more harm than good.
Lockdowns are no longer that interesting, absent a Tardis. We do need to know more about the science and, relatedly, the modelling; more about preparation and utilisation of resources; even more about SAGE and iSAGE reliability/ But I would agree that the barrister's obsession with who called whom what 4-letter words is misplaced.
Unbelievable BBC ran footage from Hamas crisis actor last night...this particular guy is so famous for this he is literally a meme now across social media for how shit he is at it i.e. going from patient to doctor in the same day. Obviously BBC verify had gone home early....
Do you have a source with evidence for this? There have been a lot of claims of “crisis actors”, but news agencies have dismissed them as false. See:
I'm sure false accusations exist, but in this case it's fairly clear cut:
This is the chap BBC showed in their opening news montage yesterday.
The "revived corpse" is from a Halloween costume in Thailand some years ago.
We are in a hall of mirrors. Both "fake news" and fake accusations of "fake news" are all around us. People using these images can be either.
There are enough pieces of correct footage of dead and injured civilians on both sides to only use the real thing. The truth is so horrible as to not need elaboration.
TwitterX is so full of fake stuff as to have lost nearly all utility now.
Why does the war correspondent one have a helmet that says PISS?
I quick search on Twitter will turn up another version of this image without the body bag & with a helmet that says PRESS.
It’s very odd. Maybe this version contains obviously wrong elements in order to cast doubt on the “genuine” versions? Maybe the genuine versions are also false (look hard enough & you’ll find people that look fairly similar anywhere you go).
The onslaught of fake footage during this conflict makes it ever more difficult to tell what’s actually going on. Internet OSInt takes time & the old saying about lies & boots sadly applies
Several other images in the montage are either other people, or taken at times before the current troubles. See the twitter thread here:
I am surprised that Visegrad hasn't deleted the tweet. It discredits them as a reliable source.
It turns out that, apart from the two which have been identified as other people, these are of the same guy, who seems to be running the whole thing as some kind of Instagram Influencer shtick? Maybe?
That would explain the two press helmets, PISS & PRESS: both are done for the Instagram likes in different short videos.
There are plenty of horrible images out there. By sharing a set of deliberate fakes from an Instagram Influencer, mixed in with some other images which have nothing to do with Gaza at all but look plausible, the pro-Israel side is implying that all of these other images are also fake.
"accusations of “Pallywood” serve a uniquely insidious purpose. “It allows people the mental space to disregard real evidence of civilian harm,”"
One thing about Musk and Meta spreading so much lies on Social Media may well be people not willing to trust sources other than proper certified journalism.
The seppukko of TwitterX may well be to the benefit of real journalism, though real journalists will need to do careful fact checking to retain credibility themselves.
Has TwitterX committed seppuku? (Not "seppukko" - lol)
I'm not seeing it. Users are down but they might be bots. Ad spend is definitely down but then Musk knew this was the risk, and TwitterX still seems to be the go-to place for political debate, it is less slanted to the left than it was. Is all
The one big stupid mistake Musk did make was changing the name to "X". Ridiculous. He had a great brand-name and fecked it up
Interestingly, during the Sunak interview he seemed to acknowledge this
Musk has lost between 50 and 90% of its monetary value in a year, while simultaneously trashing TwitterX as a reliable news feed*.
*the lists function works well still and is easy to set up.
I have one tab for UK medicine, another for PB and xPB posters and polling, etc. As these are my own lists I only see posts from people that I have entered in the list. The general algorithm feed is useless now.
*
I've got this weird feeling Twitter will survive the haughty disdain of a no-mark provincial quack in Leicester
As I still use it in modified form then it may well do. Or it could go the way of AOL, FriendsReunited or askjeeves. Things happen quickly in the modern tech world.
There isn't an obvious alternative at present as both mastodon and blue-sky are very clunky, but social media is marked by platforms both booming and becoming history. By making it such a sewer of hate and misinformation Musk has created an opportunity for another entrepreneur.
It is not a sewer of hate and misinformation (or, at least, no more than before), he has simply removed the filters that prevented so many rightwing voices from being heard, and now you are exposed to them
For us rightwingers, it was a toilet of Woke leftwing shite BEFORE he took over, but we tolerated because it is the best at what it does
So it goes
Sure, if you like a sewer of right wing conspiracy and hate, then it is right up your street. Enjoy.
Why are you focusing on right wing?
Are you suggesting there is no left wing disinformation on there? Or was that always there anyway? And if so is it more tolerable?
Because that is what @Leon was expressing interest in.
Yes, the amount of left wing antisemitism etc has increased too.
The 15x jump in antisemitism since the Gaza mess started is probably not the EDL/Combat 18/etc partying.
The incident the other night wasn’t.
The 2x jump in islamaphobic incidents might well be Fascists - does anyone know?
It is certainly interesting how there seems to be so little data on who is responsible, that I can find.
"The Conservatives have been controlled for 20 years by a cabal known as the “movement”, which brought down Boris Johnson as prime minister, Nadine Dorries has claimed in the latest extract from her new book."
Sounds like Mad Nad's book is going to be very illuminati
I'll stop there.
When the Mail's first extract is headlined
Shadowy Tory No10 fixer who had pet rabbit butchered in mafia style warning to his ex girlfriend
one has to wonder.
It seems like the Mail has abandoned its Tory Cheerleader role for the coming election. When even the DM has given up the Tories are in very deep do-do.
The Mail wants to see the Tories move right in opposition
So do I: right off the end of the electability spectrum.
To be fair, they are already off the end of that spectrum, as the polls indicate, but I am quite happy to see them drift further off into the wilderness. Hopefully never to return.
If the economy is poor under a Labour government however even a hard right Tory leader can win, as Thatcher did in 1979
Thatcher was in no way “hard right”
She was fairly moderate and, even liberal on social matters, but wanted to reform the economy
Section 28?
She was of her time. And attitudes to gays moved very very quickly.
But she also did that infamous sermon on the Good Samaritan. And I don't think that included a bit about foreigners making bad lifestyle choices.
What is inaccurate about this comment?
No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.
Theologically speaking, just about everything.
For one thing, the money was incidental to the main point of the parable.
Also, as it was a parable you shouldn't remember the main character but rather the message of it.
The widow’s mite is perhaps more relevant to the point that you are making.
But she is unfairly attacked on this example. She wasn’t saying to be selfish (as it is portrayed) but that simply a country has to be rich enough to afford good welfare support networks
True, which is why I'd go with infamous rather than inaccurate. I've heard worse exegesis in sermons.
But going back to the text, the point of the parable is everyone is your neighbour, you have responsibilities towards everyone, not just those around you or those whose lifestyle choices you approve of. (And no, you can't meet them all, but the highness of the ethical bars is one of Christianity's features.)
That's where the current generation of cosplay Thatcherites have crossed the line compared with their supposed heroine.
I’ve not noticed much difference in TwitterX since the purchase, to be honest. Yet everyone else seems to have. Perhaps because I ignore the “for you” thing and just look at accounts I follow. I purged my feed of anything overly shouty or tribal, left or right, and that seems to help.
I don’t think it’ll be replaced in its target generation (gen x and older millennials) as they are too embedded, as are the boomers in Facebook. But my children’s generation hardly use it at all. They’re on various other networks I scarcely even know about.
Kids have never used Twitter as a trad social medium like TokTok or FB
It's always been journalists, activists, news-junkies, academics, writers, etc
And from what I can see, young journalists (at least) are still joining Twitter as they begin careers, because it is so useful for reaching out to others, gathering stories, and so forth
If I were Starmer, I'd keep my powder dry on policy for now and follow his 'don't scare the horses' approach, win the election, implement a range of progressive policies, reform taxation, and then change the voting system from FPTP to PR so the Tories (and Labour tbf) can never rule again in isolation.
Just saying.
Labour MPs elected under FPTP when Labour win a clear majority are not going to vote to lose their seats via PR transferring them to LDs and Greens
That's why they didn't introduce it after 1997. They should have done because it probably would have allowed them to stay in power after 2010.
It wouldn't as the LDs under Clegg would still have had the balance of power and still have gone with Cameron's Tories
I don't agree.
A Tory/Lib Dem coalition was the only credible Government that could be formed in 2010. As a coalition, it had a very comfortable majority of over 70 (and indeed was a very stable Government, certainly compared with the years since 2015, but really by any historical standards. In terms of the so-called "alternative", even a bare majority of one would have required a coalition involving Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, plus some selection of more than one of Plaid, SDLP, Green and NI Alliance. Such a coalition could not possibly have survived for more than months and, with bond auctions failing all around us, would've precipitated a financial meltdown (as would no coalition at all).
Whilst it is true that Clegg personally was more comfortable with Cameron, many of his colleagues (led by Cable but others too) were not. PR would have resulted in a genuine choice of coalition partners for the Lib Dems, and the party simply wouldn't have stomached the Tory option. Recall that it did have to go to a special conference of the party on 16th May 2010. The party only really held their noses and went for it on the basis there genuinely wasn't any other show in town. Had Clegg gone in on the basis "well, we could equally go in with Labour but I personally quite like Dave" (as he'd have needed to had 2010 been under PR) he'd have had no chance.
Clegg made quite clear he would not go with Brown as the Tories had won most seats. In 2010 even under PR the Tories and LDs would have combined comfortably had a clear majority, a Labour and LD coalition would not and barely scraped more than 50%.
Clegg ideologically was closer to Cameron than Brown too, if a special conference supported going into government with the Tories under FPTP anyway of course it would have done the same under PR.
If not, the LDs probably would have split under PR, with Clegg and most of the Orange Book Liberals leaving the Party to do a deal with the Tories while the social democrat wing dealt with Labour
Unbelievable BBC ran footage from Hamas crisis actor last night...this particular guy is so famous for this he is literally a meme now across social media for how shit he is at it i.e. going from patient to doctor in the same day. Obviously BBC verify had gone home early....
Do you have a source with evidence for this? There have been a lot of claims of “crisis actors”, but news agencies have dismissed them as false. See:
I'm sure false accusations exist, but in this case it's fairly clear cut:
This is the chap BBC showed in their opening news montage yesterday.
The "revived corpse" is from a Halloween costume in Thailand some years ago.
We are in a hall of mirrors. Both "fake news" and fake accusations of "fake news" are all around us. People using these images can be either.
There are enough pieces of correct footage of dead and injured civilians on both sides to only use the real thing. The truth is so horrible as to not need elaboration.
TwitterX is so full of fake stuff as to have lost nearly all utility now.
Why does the war correspondent one have a helmet that says PISS?
I quick search on Twitter will turn up another version of this image without the body bag & with a helmet that says PRESS.
It’s very odd. Maybe this version contains obviously wrong elements in order to cast doubt on the “genuine” versions? Maybe the genuine versions are also false (look hard enough & you’ll find people that look fairly similar anywhere you go).
The onslaught of fake footage during this conflict makes it ever more difficult to tell what’s actually going on. Internet OSInt takes time & the old saying about lies & boots sadly applies
Several other images in the montage are either other people, or taken at times before the current troubles. See the twitter thread here:
I am surprised that Visegrad hasn't deleted the tweet. It discredits them as a reliable source.
It turns out that, apart from the two which have been identified as other people, these are of the same guy, who seems to be running the whole thing as some kind of Instagram Influencer shtick? Maybe?
That would explain the two press helmets, PISS & PRESS: both are done for the Instagram likes in different short videos.
There are plenty of horrible images out there. By sharing a set of deliberate fakes from an Instagram Influencer, mixed in with some other images which have nothing to do with Gaza at all but look plausible, the pro-Israel side is implying that all of these other images are also fake.
"accusations of “Pallywood” serve a uniquely insidious purpose. “It allows people the mental space to disregard real evidence of civilian harm,”"
One thing about Musk and Meta spreading so much lies on Social Media may well be people not willing to trust sources other than proper certified journalism.
The seppukko of TwitterX may well be to the benefit of real journalism, though real journalists will need to do careful fact checking to retain credibility themselves.
Has TwitterX committed seppuku? (Not "seppukko" - lol)
I'm not seeing it. Users are down but they might be bots. Ad spend is definitely down but then Musk knew this was the risk, and TwitterX still seems to be the go-to place for political debate, it is less slanted to the left than it was. Is all
The one big stupid mistake Musk did make was changing the name to "X". Ridiculous. He had a great brand-name and fecked it up
Interestingly, during the Sunak interview he seemed to acknowledge this
Musk has lost between 50 and 90% of its monetary value in a year, while simultaneously trashing TwitterX as a reliable news feed*.
*the lists function works well still and is easy to set up.
I have one tab for UK medicine, another for PB and xPB posters and polling, etc. As these are my own lists I only see posts from people that I have entered in the list. The general algorithm feed is useless now.
*
I've got this weird feeling Twitter will survive the haughty disdain of a no-mark provincial quack in Leicester
As I still use it in modified form then it may well do. Or it could go the way of AOL, FriendsReunited or askjeeves. Things happen quickly in the modern tech world.
There isn't an obvious alternative at present as both mastodon and blue-sky are very clunky, but social media is marked by platforms both booming and becoming history. By making it such a sewer of hate and misinformation Musk has created an opportunity for another entrepreneur.
It is not a sewer of hate and misinformation (or, at least, no more than before), he has simply removed the filters that prevented so many rightwing voices from being heard, and now you are exposed to them
For us rightwingers, it was a toilet of Woke leftwing shite BEFORE he took over, but we tolerated because it is the best at what it does
So it goes
Correlated though because most hate and misinformation comes from rightwing voices.
Unbelievable BBC ran footage from Hamas crisis actor last night...this particular guy is so famous for this he is literally a meme now across social media for how shit he is at it i.e. going from patient to doctor in the same day. Obviously BBC verify had gone home early....
Do you have a source with evidence for this? There have been a lot of claims of “crisis actors”, but news agencies have dismissed them as false. See:
I'm sure false accusations exist, but in this case it's fairly clear cut:
This is the chap BBC showed in their opening news montage yesterday.
The "revived corpse" is from a Halloween costume in Thailand some years ago.
We are in a hall of mirrors. Both "fake news" and fake accusations of "fake news" are all around us. People using these images can be either.
There are enough pieces of correct footage of dead and injured civilians on both sides to only use the real thing. The truth is so horrible as to not need elaboration.
TwitterX is so full of fake stuff as to have lost nearly all utility now.
Why does the war correspondent one have a helmet that says PISS?
I quick search on Twitter will turn up another version of this image without the body bag & with a helmet that says PRESS.
It’s very odd. Maybe this version contains obviously wrong elements in order to cast doubt on the “genuine” versions? Maybe the genuine versions are also false (look hard enough & you’ll find people that look fairly similar anywhere you go).
The onslaught of fake footage during this conflict makes it ever more difficult to tell what’s actually going on. Internet OSInt takes time & the old saying about lies & boots sadly applies
Several other images in the montage are either other people, or taken at times before the current troubles. See the twitter thread here:
I am surprised that Visegrad hasn't deleted the tweet. It discredits them as a reliable source.
It turns out that, apart from the two which have been identified as other people, these are of the same guy, who seems to be running the whole thing as some kind of Instagram Influencer shtick? Maybe?
That would explain the two press helmets, PISS & PRESS: both are done for the Instagram likes in different short videos.
There are plenty of horrible images out there. By sharing a set of deliberate fakes from an Instagram Influencer, mixed in with some other images which have nothing to do with Gaza at all but look plausible, the pro-Israel side is implying that all of these other images are also fake.
"accusations of “Pallywood” serve a uniquely insidious purpose. “It allows people the mental space to disregard real evidence of civilian harm,”"
One thing about Musk and Meta spreading so much lies on Social Media may well be people not willing to trust sources other than proper certified journalism.
The seppukko of TwitterX may well be to the benefit of real journalism, though real journalists will need to do careful fact checking to retain credibility themselves.
Has TwitterX committed seppuku? (Not "seppukko" - lol)
I'm not seeing it. Users are down but they might be bots. Ad spend is definitely down but then Musk knew this was the risk, and TwitterX still seems to be the go-to place for political debate, it is less slanted to the left than it was. Is all
The one big stupid mistake Musk did make was changing the name to "X". Ridiculous. He had a great brand-name and fecked it up
Interestingly, during the Sunak interview he seemed to acknowledge this
Musk has lost between 50 and 90% of its monetary value in a year, while simultaneously trashing TwitterX as a reliable news feed*.
*the lists function works well still and is easy to set up.
I have one tab for UK medicine, another for PB and xPB posters and polling, etc. As these are my own lists I only see posts from people that I have entered in the list. The general algorithm feed is useless now.
*
I've got this weird feeling Twitter will survive the haughty disdain of a no-mark provincial quack in Leicester
As I still use it in modified form then it may well do. Or it could go the way of AOL, FriendsReunited or askjeeves. Things happen quickly in the modern tech world.
There isn't an obvious alternative at present as both mastodon and blue-sky are very clunky, but social media is marked by platforms both booming and becoming history. By making it such a sewer of hate and misinformation Musk has created an opportunity for another entrepreneur.
It is not a sewer of hate and misinformation (or, at least, no more than before), he has simply removed the filters that prevented so many rightwing voices from being heard, and now you are exposed to them
For us rightwingers, it was a toilet of Woke leftwing shite BEFORE he took over, but we tolerated because it is the best at what it does
So it goes
Correlated though because most hate and misinformation comes from rightwing voices.
Do you have data on that? Reports that state media in Russia, China and Iran are sharing Hamas memes which are all over twitter. Now Hamas might be seen as 'right wing' if you are in Gaza but this kind of content seems popular among those who are left wing in the west.
"The Conservatives have been controlled for 20 years by a cabal known as the “movement”, which brought down Boris Johnson as prime minister, Nadine Dorries has claimed in the latest extract from her new book."
Sounds like Mad Nad's book is going to be very illuminati
I'll stop there.
When the Mail's first extract is headlined
Shadowy Tory No10 fixer who had pet rabbit butchered in mafia style warning to his ex girlfriend
one has to wonder.
It seems like the Mail has abandoned its Tory Cheerleader role for the coming election. When even the DM has given up the Tories are in very deep do-do.
The Mail wants to see the Tories move right in opposition
So do I: right off the end of the electability spectrum.
To be fair, they are already off the end of that spectrum, as the polls indicate, but I am quite happy to see them drift further off into the wilderness. Hopefully never to return.
If the economy is poor under a Labour government however even a hard right Tory leader can win, as Thatcher did in 1979
Thatcher was in no way “hard right”
She was fairly moderate and, even liberal on social matters, but wanted to reform the economy
Thatcher most certainly was hard right, certainly by the standards of the 1970s. On economics she was the most small state, low tax leader the Tories had had since universal suffrage and even on social issues she was well to the right of Sunak now.
She was considered unelectable in 1975 against Wilson and Callaghan after ousting the more centrist Heath to become Conservative leader, only Labour's poor economic management saw her win
You just play into your opponents hands by using their terminology.
There is no question she was more on the right of the party.
But she was not “hard right” in the sense of the NF, UKIP, BUF, Bravemann, etc
"The Conservatives have been controlled for 20 years by a cabal known as the “movement”, which brought down Boris Johnson as prime minister, Nadine Dorries has claimed in the latest extract from her new book."
Sounds like Mad Nad's book is going to be very illuminati
I'll stop there.
When the Mail's first extract is headlined
Shadowy Tory No10 fixer who had pet rabbit butchered in mafia style warning to his ex girlfriend
one has to wonder.
It seems like the Mail has abandoned its Tory Cheerleader role for the coming election. When even the DM has given up the Tories are in very deep do-do.
The Mail wants to see the Tories move right in opposition
So do I: right off the end of the electability spectrum.
To be fair, they are already off the end of that spectrum, as the polls indicate, but I am quite happy to see them drift further off into the wilderness. Hopefully never to return.
If the economy is poor under a Labour government however even a hard right Tory leader can win, as Thatcher did in 1979
Thatcher was in no way “hard right”
She was fairly moderate and, even liberal on social matters, but wanted to reform the economy
Section 28?
She was of her time. And attitudes to gays moved very very quickly.
But she also did that infamous sermon on the Good Samaritan. And I don't think that included a bit about foreigners making bad lifestyle choices.
What is inaccurate about this comment?
No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.
Theologically speaking, just about everything.
For one thing, the money was incidental to the main point of the parable.
Also, as it was a parable you shouldn't remember the main character but rather the message of it.
The widow’s mite is perhaps more relevant to the point that you are making.
But she is unfairly attacked on this example. She wasn’t saying to be selfish (as it is portrayed) but that simply a country has to be rich enough to afford good welfare support networks
True, which is why I'd go with infamous rather than inaccurate. I've heard worse exegesis in sermons.
But going back to the text, the point of the parable is everyone is your neighbour, you have responsibilities towards everyone, not just those around you or those whose lifestyle choices you approve of. (And no, you can't meet them all, but the highness of the ethical bars is one of Christianity's features.)
That's where the current generation of cosplay Thatcherites have crossed the line compared with their supposed heroine.
They are not Thatcherites
I didn’t agree with Margaret on everything, but at the heart of it she was a good person
"The Conservatives have been controlled for 20 years by a cabal known as the “movement”, which brought down Boris Johnson as prime minister, Nadine Dorries has claimed in the latest extract from her new book."
Sounds like Mad Nad's book is going to be very illuminati
I'll stop there.
When the Mail's first extract is headlined
Shadowy Tory No10 fixer who had pet rabbit butchered in mafia style warning to his ex girlfriend
one has to wonder.
It seems like the Mail has abandoned its Tory Cheerleader role for the coming election. When even the DM has given up the Tories are in very deep do-do.
The Mail wants to see the Tories move right in opposition
So do I: right off the end of the electability spectrum.
To be fair, they are already off the end of that spectrum, as the polls indicate, but I am quite happy to see them drift further off into the wilderness. Hopefully never to return.
If the economy is poor under a Labour government however even a hard right Tory leader can win, as Thatcher did in 1979
Thatcher was in no way “hard right”
She was fairly moderate and, even liberal on social matters, but wanted to reform the economy
Section 28?
She was of her time. And attitudes to gays moved very very quickly.
But she also did that infamous sermon on the Good Samaritan. And I don't think that included a bit about foreigners making bad lifestyle choices.
What is inaccurate about this comment?
No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.
Theologically speaking, just about everything.
For one thing, the money was incidental to the main point of the parable.
Also, as it was a parable you shouldn't remember the main character but rather the message of it.
The widow’s mite is perhaps more relevant to the point that you are making.
But she is unfairly attacked on this example. She wasn’t saying to be selfish (as it is portrayed) but that simply a country has to be rich enough to afford good welfare support networks
True, which is why I'd go with infamous rather than inaccurate. I've heard worse exegesis in sermons.
But going back to the text, the point of the parable is everyone is your neighbour, you have responsibilities towards everyone, not just those around you or those whose lifestyle choices you approve of. (And no, you can't meet them all, but the highness of the ethical bars is one of Christianity's features.)
That's where the current generation of cosplay Thatcherites have crossed the line compared with their supposed heroine.
They are not Thatcherites
I didn’t agree with Margaret on everything, but at the heart of it she was a good person
Who, with any knowledge of Thatcher, can disagree? Modern Tories are an unelectable rabble of philistines.
Interesting read, noting as many of us have that education level and social values are replacing economic values, as key determinants of voting intention.
I know someone who has backed Trump on the theory that his legal woes will fire up his voters. Your story suggests my punter is on to something.
I think it will definitely fire up primary voters, but could still go either way at the general election, depending on exactly how events play out in the next 12 months.
What’s definitely true though, is that an awful lot of Americans don’t feel better off today than they did four years ago.
Personally am feeling better off than I did four years ago.
Because Donald Trump is in the courthouse NOT the White House.
Whether or not his former supporters and voters will be fired up by his legal jeopardy remains to be seen.
I predict many on here will simply play the man but he raises a lot of good points. Firstly the inquiry is essential. We saw the most draconian clampdown on liberties we've ever known, it cost huge sums of money and many people died or otherwise had their lives badly damaged. A fully open-minded inquiry is a first order priority. Is this what we are getting? Or has the inquiry basically started from an assumption of what should have been done and is now just trying to confirm the established (establishment?) consensus by joining the dots. The KC focusing on rude whatsapp messages involving the Prime minister and his closest advisers being the main highlight.
Heneghan bemoans that he had his credentials questioned, had his written submission ignored and that most of the focus of the session was on the 'Great Barrington Declaration' which he didn't even sign. Nearly 4 years on we can look at analysis from all different countries to assess what may have been the most efficacious approach. However the fact is that the only notable person I've seen on social media sharing information from the inquiry is Alastair Campbell, unsurprising as he's someone who gets up every morning to hate the Tories more but doesn't seem to be offering anything more enlightening than Dominic Cummings' foul mouth. Maybe that should tell us something?
Perhaps the plan is to give the establishment a clean bill of health and point out that any mistakes that were made were due to 'populist right' forces that had entered Downing St. The idea that we were dealing with a very difficult situation and so mistakes were inevitable isn't really acceptable nowadays so I can understand the mentality, not least in the general consensus (groupthink?) of the scientific advisers.
I've had a bit of a downer on this inquiry since it was announced; it seems designed to generate far more heat than true light, and could hamstring future governments considerably - and in a negative way next time we're faced with a time-critical, information-light crisis.
But worst, for me, is the fact that it lets a true villain in this piece totally off the hook.
China.
I don't think Covid was an engineered disease, nor a natural one that 'escaped' from a lab, but accident or design. (*) But there can be little doubt that their attempts to cover up what was happening in late 2019 through to mid-2020 led to millions more deaths than were necessary. And our attempt to destroy politicians and others who were faced with a terrible crisis that contained impossible decisions, lets the Chinese utterly off the hook.
(*) I could change my mind on this.
It seems to be the attitude of both of the establishment and of those who love to protest that China must never be criticised for anything.
Whether that is covid, carbon emissions, oppression of Muslims, threatening neighbouring countries or anything else you can think of.
Comments
A Tory/Lib Dem coalition was the only credible Government that could be formed in 2010. As a coalition, it had a very comfortable majority of over 70 (and indeed was a very stable Government, certainly compared with the years since 2015, but really by any historical standards. In terms of the so-called "alternative", even a bare majority of one would have required a coalition involving Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, plus some selection of more than one of Plaid, SDLP, Green and NI Alliance. Such a coalition could not possibly have survived for more than months and, with bond auctions failing all around us, would've precipitated a financial meltdown (as would no coalition at all).
Whilst it is true that Clegg personally was more comfortable with Cameron, many of his colleagues (led by Cable but others too) were not. PR would have resulted in a genuine choice of coalition partners for the Lib Dems, and the party simply wouldn't have stomached the Tory option. Recall that it did have to go to a special conference of the party on 16th May 2010. The party only really held their noses and went for it on the basis there genuinely wasn't any other show in town. Had Clegg gone in on the basis "well, we could equally go in with Labour but I personally quite like Dave" (as he'd have needed to had 2010 been under PR) he'd have had no chance.
For one thing, the money was incidental to the main point of the parable.
Also, as it was a parable you shouldn't remember the main character but rather the message of it.
But she is unfairly attacked on this example. She wasn’t saying to be selfish (as it is portrayed) but that simply a country has to be rich enough to afford good welfare support networks
I don’t think it’ll be replaced in its target generation (gen x and older millennials) as they are too embedded, as are the boomers in Facebook. But my children’s generation hardly use it at all. They’re on various other networks I scarcely even know about.
The incident the other night wasn’t.
The 2x jump in islamaphobic incidents might well be Fascists - does anyone know?
It is certainly interesting how there seems to be so little data on who is responsible, that I can find.
Labour is full of hypocritical bastards.
The FSB is undoubtedly stirring the pot across Europe, on both sides.
https://x.com/tendar/status/1720822888880656440?s=46
Could be.
I would like to see some actual facts on where the hate is coming from. It would make it easier to deal with, sensibly, if nothing else.
Don't try to hit the ball out the ground, get bowled out cheaply and have endure the opprobrium that follows.
The run rate increases.
So they're then forced to try to hit the ball out the ground, get bowled out cheaply and have endure the opprobrium that follows
But going back to the text, the point of the parable is everyone is your neighbour, you have responsibilities towards everyone, not just those around you or those whose lifestyle choices you approve of. (And no, you can't meet them all, but the highness of the ethical bars is one of Christianity's features.)
That's where the current generation of cosplay Thatcherites have crossed the line compared with their supposed heroine.
It's always been journalists, activists, news-junkies, academics, writers, etc
And from what I can see, young journalists (at least) are still joining Twitter as they begin careers, because it is so useful for reaching out to others, gathering stories, and so forth
Clegg ideologically was closer to Cameron than Brown too, if a special conference supported going into government with the Tories under FPTP anyway of course it would have done the same under PR.
If not, the LDs probably would have split under PR, with Clegg and most of the Orange Book Liberals leaving the Party to do a deal with the Tories while the social democrat wing dealt with Labour
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-67321305
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/1282-thatcher-the-pm-who-brought-racism-in-from-the-cold
NEW THREAD
UK (GB), Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll:
LAB-S&D: 45% (+1)
CON~ECR: 25% (-1)
LDEM-RE: 13%
REFORM~NI: 7% (-1)
GREENS-G/EFA: 6% (+2)
SNP-G/EFA: 3% (+1)
+/- vs. 22 October 2023
Fieldwork: 29 October 2023
Sample size: 2,000
➤ europeelects.eu/uk
https://x.com/europeelects/status/1720825546567798915?s=46
If anything I’d expect Braverman’s Ebenezer Scrooge efforts of yesterday might depress the Tory polling a tiny bit further.
I didn’t agree with Margaret on everything, but at the heart of it she was a good person
Modern Tories are an unelectable rabble of philistines.
I’m sure the SPCA acted in good faith when they said it was too dangerous to organise a rescue. And yet 5 blokes and a bit of old rope hauled her up.
Because Donald Trump is in the courthouse NOT the White House.
Whether or not his former supporters and voters will be fired up by his legal jeopardy remains to be seen.
Whether that is covid, carbon emissions, oppression of Muslims, threatening neighbouring countries or anything else you can think of.