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So this explains the Rwanda obsession – politicalbetting.com

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  • Options
    ydoethurydoethur Posts: 67,513
    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Taz said:

    The Post Office Scandal just gets worse.

    Surely there has to be criminal prosecutions as a result of it.

    https://x.com/tomwitherow/status/1734556868993855657?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ

    There should be, but there won't be. Too many powerful people in politics, government and the legal service are too deeply implicated. If they throw the small time crooks like Wilson, Singh and Vennells to the wolves, there's a very good chance the ravening pack will devour them too.
    Everyone down below was just following orders. And everyone up above was focused on the big picture and too busy to be telling those down below precisely what to do.

    It’s a situation with which history is sadly not unfamiliar.
    Ve vere only obeying ze orders?

    Well, it didn't work at Nuremberg, but then the judges were not themselves implicated in the Holocaust.
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 5,087
    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Jeez what’s the world coming to . I give up !
  • Options
    williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 48,216
    https://x.com/hurryupharry/status/1734641892380352940

    HAPPENING NOW WATERLOO

    The mob has followed Labour officials to a meeting in Waterloo where they stand outside shouting

    "Labour Party Zionist Party, Labour Party Zionist Party"

    And then

    "Labour Party Racist Party"
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,561

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,682

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    But, as someone once said, they're being Gaylording Ponceybootses about this.

    We have a governing party prepared to pass a "Black Is White" law. There's no getting around it, and that's absurd.

    For this scheme to work, it needs to be "We don't give a stuff, we're knowingly sending valid asylum claimants to a hellhole whilst taking the dodgy one back into the UK" law. Say it out loud, if it's what you really think.

    As for the rest of it, acknowledge that you've screwed up. By making an economy that only works if you import workers. And having an asylum system that you can't be bothered to make function, so is utterly gummed up.

    But no government can do that. So.like a teacher who has lost control of their Year 9 class, they shout ever more blood curdling threats ever more loudly.

    It doesn't work.
    It would help if you could write, then I might get beyond the 2nd sentence
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,629
    Bill passes its second reading. Well done Roshi.
  • Options
    ydoethurydoethur Posts: 67,513

    https://x.com/hurryupharry/status/1734641892380352940

    HAPPENING NOW WATERLOO

    The mob has followed Labour officials to a meeting in Waterloo where they stand outside shouting

    "Labour Party Zionist Party, Labour Party Zionist Party"

    And then

    "Labour Party Racist Party"

    Well, if they were members of it at one time there's not much doubt about the racism.
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,629
    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
  • Options

    https://x.com/hurryupharry/status/1734641892380352940

    HAPPENING NOW WATERLOO

    The mob has followed Labour officials to a meeting in Waterloo where they stand outside shouting

    "Labour Party Zionist Party, Labour Party Zionist Party"

    And then

    "Labour Party Racist Party"

    Labour is very close to government.
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 5,087

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
    Still works out cheaper than the child being in the UK in terms of the extra resources needed. The Tories have been a dismal failure on immigration and it was pitiful to see the spineless gimp blaming everyone else .
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,454

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Except of course that the Government have not lost control of legal immigration at all. They have all the controls they need. They are simply choosing to have the levels of legal migration we are seeing. They are controlling it and accepting it. Indeed through their policies and the way they are using the rules they have at their disposal they are encouraging the levels of legal immigration we are seeing.

    This is a choice made by the Government and solely by the Government. And then because they are embarrassed by it and don't want to be 'blamed' they are trying to claim that the real issue is illegal migration.
    Quite and so many of those choices they should be proud of. The refugees from Ukraine that we have admitted and supported. The refugees from Hong Kong to whom we owe at least moral duties. The success of our further education sector, one of more important export sectors. The staff recruited for the NHS and the care sector. The continuing growth of financial services in London.

    But no, lets talk about boats. Which even this farce in Rwanda simply will not stop.
  • Options
    TazTaz Posts: 11,373
    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Jeez what’s the world coming to . I give up !
    ‘Breaking’, an article that’s nearly two and a half years old.

    Hot off the press, 😂😂😂😂
  • Options
    ydoethurydoethur Posts: 67,513
    Taz said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Jeez what’s the world coming to . I give up !
    ‘Breaking’, an article that’s nearly two and a half years old.

    Hot off the press, 😂😂😂😂
    Naan so deaf...
  • Options
    TazTaz Posts: 11,373

    https://x.com/hurryupharry/status/1734641892380352940

    HAPPENING NOW WATERLOO

    The mob has followed Labour officials to a meeting in Waterloo where they stand outside shouting

    "Labour Party Zionist Party, Labour Party Zionist Party"

    And then

    "Labour Party Racist Party"

    Don’t be stupid
    Be a smarty
    Come and Join
    The Labour Party.
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,561
    Taz said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Jeez what’s the world coming to . I give up !
    ‘Breaking’, an article that’s nearly two and a half years old.

    Hot off the press, 😂😂😂😂
    Is the problem yet resolved?
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 40,056
    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Taz said:

    The Post Office Scandal just gets worse.

    Surely there has to be criminal prosecutions as a result of it.

    https://x.com/tomwitherow/status/1734556868993855657?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ

    There should be, but there won't be. Too many powerful people in politics, government and the legal service are too deeply implicated. If they throw the small time crooks like Wilson, Singh and Vennells to the wolves, there's a very good chance the ravening pack will devour them too.
    Everyone down below was just following orders. And everyone up above was focused on the big picture and too busy to be telling those down below precisely what to do.

    It’s a situation with which history is sadly not unfamiliar.
    And the latest posting from the POS website is just up.

    https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/garys-years-of-hurt/

    Not a happy story, either, this one.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,454

    https://x.com/hurryupharry/status/1734641892380352940

    HAPPENING NOW WATERLOO

    The mob has followed Labour officials to a meeting in Waterloo where they stand outside shouting

    "Labour Party Zionist Party, Labour Party Zionist Party"

    And then

    "Labour Party Racist Party"

    The wrong kind of racists?
  • Options
    ydoethur said:

    Taz said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Jeez what’s the world coming to . I give up !
    ‘Breaking’, an article that’s nearly two and a half years old.

    Hot off the press, 😂😂😂😂
    Naan so deaf...
    Beens on Naan?
  • Options
    kle4 said:

    ydoethur said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    I am reminded of the Soviet pessimist and the Soviet optimist.

    A Soviet pessimist says, 'Things are so bad they cannot possibly get worse.'

    An optimist says, 'they will, they really will.'
    The best Soviet joke.

    A man queues for meat for 6 hours. When he reaches the head of the line - no meat.

    He starts to rant and rave -“The Party has failed us!”

    A man in a leather jacket pulls him to one side - “Careful, Comrade. In the old days…” and makes a pistol gesture with his fingers.

    Late that night, the man’s wife comes home to find him sitting in the dark, staring at the wall

    “What’s wrong dear? No meat again?”

    “It’s much worse. They have run out of bullets.”
    And the era that spawned those jokes is somehow seen positively by the current cabal in the country.
    At least for Putin to (try to) emulate Stalin makes some, albeit twisted sense.

    But righwing Republicans and HUNGARIANS embracing neo-commi Russia?
  • Options
    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
  • Options
    TazTaz Posts: 11,373
    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Jeez what’s the world coming to . I give up !
    ‘Breaking’, an article that’s nearly two and a half years old.

    Hot off the press, 😂😂😂😂
    Is the problem yet resolved?
    It’s hardly breaking.

    We’ve had reports of shortages of curry chefs for many years.

    They could always train people to do the job domestically. Cooking a curry BIR style is hardly an onerous task.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,454

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    Most of them are too busy making money. Indians are amongst our highest earning subgroups and have no interest in their children taking over the family curry shop. They want them to be professionals or at the very least rich.
  • Options
    ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 2,977

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    No. None. Not a single one. Hence the need to allow X-thousand new chefs each year who all stop being able to make a curry within a year.

    Oh, unless you paid them an ok salary of course.

    But... sheesh. Madness.
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,561
    edited December 2023
    DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    Most of them are too busy making money. Indians are amongst our highest earning subgroups and have no interest in their children taking over the family curry shop. They want them to be professionals or at the very least rich.
    They can’t all be prime minister.

    Anyhow, aren’t most Indian restaurant staff actually from Pakistan?
  • Options
    turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 15,436

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    Why do they have to be Asian? Anyone can cook curries.
  • Options
    TazTaz Posts: 11,373
    ydoethur said:

    Taz said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Jeez what’s the world coming to . I give up !
    ‘Breaking’, an article that’s nearly two and a half years old.

    Hot off the press, 😂😂😂😂
    Naan so deaf...
    Boom boom
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,719

    kle4 said:

    ydoethur said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    I am reminded of the Soviet pessimist and the Soviet optimist.

    A Soviet pessimist says, 'Things are so bad they cannot possibly get worse.'

    An optimist says, 'they will, they really will.'
    The best Soviet joke.

    A man queues for meat for 6 hours. When he reaches the head of the line - no meat.

    He starts to rant and rave -“The Party has failed us!”

    A man in a leather jacket pulls him to one side - “Careful, Comrade. In the old days…” and makes a pistol gesture with his fingers.

    Late that night, the man’s wife comes home to find him sitting in the dark, staring at the wall

    “What’s wrong dear? No meat again?”

    “It’s much worse. They have run out of bullets.”
    And the era that spawned those jokes is somehow seen positively by the current cabal in the country.
    At least for Putin to (try to) emulate Stalin makes some, albeit twisted sense.

    But righwing Republicans and HUNGARIANS embracing neo-commi Russia?
    Dugin (the philosopher of Putins party) -

    “by no means the racist and chauvinist aspects of National Socialism that determined the nature of its ideology. The excesses of this ideology in Germany are a matter exclusively of the Germans ... while Russian fascism is a combination of natural national conservatism with a passionate desire for true changes."

    "Waffen-SS and especially the scientific sector of this organization, Ahnenerbe," was "an intellectual oasis in the framework of the National Socialist regime"
  • Options

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    Why do they have to be Asian? Anyone can cook curries.
    Of course!
  • Options

    kle4 said:

    ydoethur said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    I am reminded of the Soviet pessimist and the Soviet optimist.

    A Soviet pessimist says, 'Things are so bad they cannot possibly get worse.'

    An optimist says, 'they will, they really will.'
    The best Soviet joke.

    A man queues for meat for 6 hours. When he reaches the head of the line - no meat.

    He starts to rant and rave -“The Party has failed us!”

    A man in a leather jacket pulls him to one side - “Careful, Comrade. In the old days…” and makes a pistol gesture with his fingers.

    Late that night, the man’s wife comes home to find him sitting in the dark, staring at the wall

    “What’s wrong dear? No meat again?”

    “It’s much worse. They have run out of bullets.”
    And the era that spawned those jokes is somehow seen positively by the current cabal in the country.
    At least for Putin to (try to) emulate Stalin makes some, albeit twisted sense.

    But righwing Republicans and HUNGARIANS embracing neo-commi Russia?
    Is right-wing politics the new Communism?
  • Options
    TazTaz Posts: 11,373
    IanB2 said:

    DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    Most of them are too busy making money. Indians are amongst our highest earning subgroups and have no interest in their children taking over the family curry shop. They want them to be professionals or at the very least rich.
    They can’t all be prime minister.

    Anyhow, aren’t most Indian restaurant staff actually from Pakistan?
    By us they’re Bangladeshi.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,454
    edited December 2023
    Carnyx said:
    One of the more trying things in Crown Office is ex members explaining how there were only half as many ADs back in their day. To which my response is that is because you never prosecuted any sex crimes back then and we are constantly playing catch up with the stuff you never got near a court.
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,561
    Taz said:

    IanB2 said:

    DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    Most of them are too busy making money. Indians are amongst our highest earning subgroups and have no interest in their children taking over the family curry shop. They want them to be professionals or at the very least rich.
    They can’t all be prime minister.

    Anyhow, aren’t most Indian restaurant staff actually from Pakistan?
    By us they’re Bangladeshi.
    Once known as East Pakistan, I think?
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,682
    Taz said:

    IanB2 said:

    DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    Most of them are too busy making money. Indians are amongst our highest earning subgroups and have no interest in their children taking over the family curry shop. They want them to be professionals or at the very least rich.
    They can’t all be prime minister.

    Anyhow, aren’t most Indian restaurant staff actually from Pakistan?
    By us they’re Bangladeshi.
    Yes, Bangladesh is the most common origin of curryhouse workers


    Relatedly. the most popular baby names of 2023 have been revealed. The number one boy's name is Muhammad

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/67694955
  • Options
    GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,930
    Andy_JS said:

    Not a single Tory MP voted against the government. Most overhyped rebellion ever.

    I don't know why the media continue to take attention seekers like Mark Francis seriously.
  • Options
    isamisam Posts: 41,033
    edited December 2023
    ….
  • Options
    Oh well, Rishi actually won a vote :lol:
  • Options
    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    IanB2 said:

    DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    Most of them are too busy making money. Indians are amongst our highest earning subgroups and have no interest in their children taking over the family curry shop. They want them to be professionals or at the very least rich.
    They can’t all be prime minister.

    Anyhow, aren’t most Indian restaurant staff actually from Pakistan?
    By us they’re Bangladeshi.
    Once known as East Pakistan, I think?
    Or East Bengal pre-47.
  • Options
    TazTaz Posts: 11,373
    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    IanB2 said:

    DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    Most of them are too busy making money. Indians are amongst our highest earning subgroups and have no interest in their children taking over the family curry shop. They want them to be professionals or at the very least rich.
    They can’t all be prime minister.

    Anyhow, aren’t most Indian restaurant staff actually from Pakistan?
    By us they’re Bangladeshi.
    Once known as East Pakistan, I think?
    Not for over half a century.
  • Options
    viewcodeviewcode Posts: 19,108
    ohnotnow said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    No. None. Not a single one. Hence the need to allow X-thousand new chefs each year who all stop being able to make a curry within a year.

    Oh, unless you paid them an ok salary of course.

    But... sheesh. Madness.
    No, it's spelt "Madras"

    😃
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,682
    edited December 2023
    The violent attack on that Turkish refereee is quite extraordinary

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67691038

    It turns the stomach in a peculiar way. Just so fundamentally WRONG
  • Options
    ydoethurydoethur Posts: 67,513
    Taz said:

    ydoethur said:

    Taz said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Jeez what’s the world coming to . I give up !
    ‘Breaking’, an article that’s nearly two and a half years old.

    Hot off the press, 😂😂😂😂
    Naan so deaf...
    Boom boom
    Just joshing.
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,216
    One for @Sunil_Prasannan, I ticked off this station tonight:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eindhoven_Stadion_railway_station

    They must have upgraded the signalling as we were straight off to Amsterdam rather than back to the main Eindhoven station.
  • Options
    isamisam Posts: 41,033
    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    IanB2 said:

    DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    Most of them are too busy making money. Indians are amongst our highest earning subgroups and have no interest in their children taking over the family curry shop. They want them to be professionals or at the very least rich.
    They can’t all be prime minister.

    Anyhow, aren’t most Indian restaurant staff actually from Pakistan?
    By us they’re Bangladeshi.
    Yes, Bangladesh is the most common origin of curryhouse workers


    Relatedly. the most popular baby names of 2023 have been revealed. The number one boy's name is Muhammad

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/67694955
    Whoever would have thought it?
  • Options
    squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,390
    IanB2 said:

    DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    Most of them are too busy making money. Indians are amongst our highest earning subgroups and have no interest in their children taking over the family curry shop. They want them to be professionals or at the very least rich.
    They can’t all be prime minister.

    Anyhow, aren’t most Indian restaurant staff actually from Pakistan?
    I understood that most were Bangladeshi.
  • Options
    TazTaz Posts: 11,373
    viewcode said:

    ohnotnow said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    No. None. Not a single one. Hence the need to allow X-thousand new chefs each year who all stop being able to make a curry within a year.

    Oh, unless you paid them an ok salary of course.

    But... sheesh. Madness.
    No, it's spelt "Madras"

    😃
    Shouldn’t it be renamed Chennai ? 🤔
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,629
    edited December 2023
    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
    Still works out cheaper than the child being in the UK in terms of the extra resources needed. The Tories have been a dismal failure on immigration and it was pitiful to see the spineless gimp blaming everyone else .
    I agree. But PB's Labour-aligned commentors have been making a lot of this fact whilst also being very upset about how inhumane the raising of the wage requirement is. Which I don't get.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,682
    Meanwhile the greatest talent in English rugby will now be unavailable for England until 2026, at the earliest

    What a disaster

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/67695323

    "Henry Arundell: England wing absent from England duty until 2026 after new Racing deal"

    CHANGE THE RULES
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 5,087

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
    Still works out cheaper than the child being in the UK in terms of the extra resources needed. The Tories have been a dismal failure on immigration and it was pitiful to see the spineless gimp blaming everyone else .
    I agree. But PB's Labour-aligned commentors have been making a lot of this fact whilst also being very upset about how inhumane the raising of the wage requirement is. Which I don't get.
    The policy on spouses is horrific . The Tories are breaking up families and it’s really quite despicable when this is a minor part of immigration.
  • Options
    NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,380
    Taz said:



    It’s hardly breaking.

    We’ve had reports of shortages of curry chefs for many years.

    They could always train people to do the job domestically. Cooking a curry BIR style is hardly an onerous task.

    When I was briefly on JSA and had a Job Centre interview, the man at the next desk was an unemployed cook. He said he'd heard there was a shortage of curry chefs and asked if he could continue to get benefit while going on a short course to acquire the skill. The Job Centre adviser said no, he needed to get on with applying for jobs with his current skill set, even if it was inadequate, and not waste time doing training.

    The Job Centre isn't supposed to work like that, but I suspect it often does.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 40,056
    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:
    One of the more trying things in Crown Office is ex members explaining how there were only half as many ADs back in their day. To which my response is that is because you never prosecuted any sex crimes back then and we are constantly playing catch up with the stuff you never got near a court.
    AD meaning, erm, please?
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,454
    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
    Still works out cheaper than the child being in the UK in terms of the extra resources needed. The Tories have been a dismal failure on immigration and it was pitiful to see the spineless gimp blaming everyone else .
    I agree. But PB's Labour-aligned commentors have been making a lot of this fact whilst also being very upset about how inhumane the raising of the wage requirement is. Which I don't get.
    The policy on spouses is horrific . The Tories are breaking up families and it’s really quite despicable when this is a minor part of immigration.
    The problem is that it isn't. Our neighbours children have all married spouses from the subcontinent and they in turn over time have brought relatives over with them. If you accept this, with our current immigration base, you are building in six figures of immigrants a year before you even start.
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,629
    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
    Still works out cheaper than the child being in the UK in terms of the extra resources needed. The Tories have been a dismal failure on immigration and it was pitiful to see the spineless gimp blaming everyone else .
    I agree. But PB's Labour-aligned commentors have been making a lot of this fact whilst also being very upset about how inhumane the raising of the wage requirement is. Which I don't get.
    The policy on spouses is horrific . The Tories are breaking up families and it’s really quite despicable when this is a minor part of immigration.
    Perhaps, but are the same despicable Tories not being critiqued for allowing too many dependents in?
  • Options
    numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 5,528
    edited December 2023
    Reasons why Sunak is strategically incompetent no 438:

    We all know this policy will not find its way through parliament. If it clears the Commons, it ain’t clearing the Lords.

    Dispassionately, and divorcing myself from the merits (or lack thereof) of the policy I can see a reason to get Rwanda blocked by the Lords and then use this as a GE issue - I.e, I need the public to back me on this so I have a mandate to get this into law.

    BUT

    This gambit is only effective if people can be persuaded your policy works. I.e, the exact policy a sizeable wing of your party has just been telling all and sundry won’t work.

    If Sunak wants a dividing line on this policy, he has to go Rwanda Max, with everything that entails. I don’t believe he wants that. But if he didn’t, this whole episode since the court case was one of the biggest strategic political blunders in modern times. And there’s quite a few to choose from.
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 5,087

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
    Still works out cheaper than the child being in the UK in terms of the extra resources needed. The Tories have been a dismal failure on immigration and it was pitiful to see the spineless gimp blaming everyone else .
    I agree. But PB's Labour-aligned commentors have been making a lot of this fact whilst also being very upset about how inhumane the raising of the wage requirement is. Which I don't get.
    The policy on spouses is horrific . The Tories are breaking up families and it’s really quite despicable when this is a minor part of immigration.
    Perhaps, but are the same despicable Tories not being critiqued for allowing too many dependents in?
    The issue is the HO is a shambles and haven’t clarified whether this will be retrospectively applied . It could mean Brits spouses who are in the country already will be forced to leave . Even if they have children they could be forced to all leave the country or have children split from one parent .
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 5,087
    DavidL said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
    Still works out cheaper than the child being in the UK in terms of the extra resources needed. The Tories have been a dismal failure on immigration and it was pitiful to see the spineless gimp blaming everyone else .
    I agree. But PB's Labour-aligned commentors have been making a lot of this fact whilst also being very upset about how inhumane the raising of the wage requirement is. Which I don't get.
    The policy on spouses is horrific . The Tories are breaking up families and it’s really quite despicable when this is a minor part of immigration.
    The problem is that it isn't. Our neighbours children have all married spouses from the subcontinent and they in turn over time have brought relatives over with them. If you accept this, with our current immigration base, you are building in six figures of immigrants a year before you even start.
    I’m specifically talking about just spouses . Not extended family .
  • Options
    TimSTimS Posts: 9,896
    I’ve found the cause of our ever expanding cost of health and social care.

    Choir rehearsal this evening in Guy’s hospital chapel. The heating was turned up so high in that cavernous space that everyone was stripping off coats and jumpers.

    Wes Streeting, there’s an early saving for your list.
  • Options
    Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,012
    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Except of course that the Government have not lost control of legal immigration at all. They have all the controls they need. They are simply choosing to have the levels of legal migration we are seeing. They are controlling it and accepting it. Indeed through their policies and the way they are using the rules they have at their disposal they are encouraging the levels of legal immigration we are seeing.

    This is a choice made by the Government and solely by the Government. And then because they are embarrassed by it and don't want to be 'blamed' they are trying to claim that the real issue is illegal migration.
    Quite and so many of those choices they should be proud of. The refugees from Ukraine that we have admitted and supported. The refugees from Hong Kong to whom we owe at least moral duties. The success of our further education sector, one of more important export sectors. The staff recruited for the NHS and the care sector. The continuing growth of financial services in London.

    But no, lets talk about boats. Which even this farce in Rwanda simply will not stop.
    It’s a feature of this government, that even when they have a reasonable story to tell (eg boat crossings, students, Ukraine), they still fuck it up.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,904
    edited December 2023
    ohnotnow said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    No. None. Not a single one. Hence the need to allow X-thousand new chefs each year who all stop being able to make a curry within a year.

    Oh, unless you paid them an ok salary of course.

    But... sheesh. Madness.
    To be fair all cuisines have a high turnover of kitchen and waiting staff. In the UK it is considered a job, not a career, and to move on ASAP.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,454
    nico679 said:

    DavidL said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
    Still works out cheaper than the child being in the UK in terms of the extra resources needed. The Tories have been a dismal failure on immigration and it was pitiful to see the spineless gimp blaming everyone else .
    I agree. But PB's Labour-aligned commentors have been making a lot of this fact whilst also being very upset about how inhumane the raising of the wage requirement is. Which I don't get.
    The policy on spouses is horrific . The Tories are breaking up families and it’s really quite despicable when this is a minor part of immigration.
    The problem is that it isn't. Our neighbours children have all married spouses from the subcontinent and they in turn over time have brought relatives over with them. If you accept this, with our current immigration base, you are building in six figures of immigrants a year before you even start.
    I’m specifically talking about just spouses . Not extended family .
    Hence my references to our neighbour's children's spouses. 4 from 4. It was clearly deliberate. At least one of the girls found out she was marrying someone from Pakistan 2 weeks before it happened. They now have 3 children of their own.
  • Options
    darkagedarkage Posts: 4,803
    DavidL said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
    Still works out cheaper than the child being in the UK in terms of the extra resources needed. The Tories have been a dismal failure on immigration and it was pitiful to see the spineless gimp blaming everyone else .
    I agree. But PB's Labour-aligned commentors have been making a lot of this fact whilst also being very upset about how inhumane the raising of the wage requirement is. Which I don't get.
    The policy on spouses is horrific . The Tories are breaking up families and it’s really quite despicable when this is a minor part of immigration.
    The problem is that it isn't. Our neighbours children have all married spouses from the subcontinent and they in turn over time have brought relatives over with them. If you accept this, with our current immigration base, you are building in six figures of immigrants a year before you even start.
    I find it quite sad how only well off people can marry someone they met overseas and bring them here to live.

    The problem with the massive net migration figures are to do with decisions about Hong Kong and Ukraine and not thinking through the likely political consequences.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,904
    TimS said:

    I’ve found the cause of our ever expanding cost of health and social care.

    Choir rehearsal this evening in Guy’s hospital chapel. The heating was turned up so high in that cavernous space that everyone was stripping off coats and jumpers.

    Wes Streeting, there’s an early saving for your list.

    Hospital heating systems are either hot or off, there being no middle. Legionella loves tepid water.
  • Options
    Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,012
    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
    Still works out cheaper than the child being in the UK in terms of the extra resources needed. The Tories have been a dismal failure on immigration and it was pitiful to see the spineless gimp blaming everyone else .
    I agree. But PB's Labour-aligned commentors have been making a lot of this fact whilst also being very upset about how inhumane the raising of the wage requirement is. Which I don't get.
    The policy on spouses is horrific . The Tories are breaking up families and it’s really quite despicable when this is a minor part of immigration.
    Perhaps, but are the same despicable Tories not being critiqued for allowing too many dependents in?
    The issue is the HO is a shambles and haven’t clarified whether this will be retrospectively applied . It could mean Brits spouses who are in the country already will be forced to leave . Even if they have children they could be forced to all leave the country or have children split from one parent .
    No, existing married couples are not going to be forced to leave. That would be a very obvious breach of the HRA.
  • Options

    Reasons why Sunak is strategically incompetent no 438:

    We all know this policy will not find its way through parliament. If it clears the Commons, it ain’t clearing the Lords.

    Dispassionately, and divorcing myself from the merits (or lack thereof) of the policy I can see a reason to get Rwanda blocked by the Lords and then use this as a GE issue - I.e, I need the public to back me on this so I have a mandate to get this into law.

    BUT

    This gambit is only effective if people can be persuaded your policy works. I.e, the exact policy a sizeable wing of your party has just been telling all and sundry won’t work.

    If Sunak wants a dividing line on this policy, he has to go Rwanda Max, with everything that entails. I don’t believe he wants that. But if he didn’t, this whole episode since the court case was one of the biggest strategic political blunders in modern times. And there’s quite a few to choose from.

    And Rishi can't afford to go Rwanda Max. Forget touchy feely types, hard nosed allied countries won't let him. And unless the UK is prepared to go full on "Ourselves, alone", that matters. Hint: very few people in Britain would be willing to pay that price.

    Since the Rwanda Scheme was invented, it's been a lie, a bluff. And bluffs and lies are powerful things. They can win, and keep winning, for quite a long time.

    But not forever.
  • Options
    TimSTimS Posts: 9,896
    Labour have tweeted their small boats plan:

    https://x.com/jreynoldsmp/status/1734680195146350615?s=46

    Sensible politics to have something you can just retweet every time someone in government says “Labour has no plan”.

    But the copywriter was having an off day. I mean, “Have new agreements with France”. “Have”. Don’t start a sentence, particularly one articulating an important plank of policy, with “have”.
  • Options
    Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,012

    IanB2 said:

    DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    Most of them are too busy making money. Indians are amongst our highest earning subgroups and have no interest in their children taking over the family curry shop. They want them to be professionals or at the very least rich.
    They can’t all be prime minister.

    Anyhow, aren’t most Indian restaurant staff actually from Pakistan?
    I understood that most were Bangladeshi.
    Even Denis Nielsen could make curry. It’s hardly rocket science.
  • Options
    TimSTimS Posts: 9,896
    Foxy said:

    ohnotnow said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    No. None. Not a single one. Hence the need to allow X-thousand new chefs each year who all stop being able to make a curry within a year.

    Oh, unless you paid them an ok salary of course.

    But... sheesh. Madness.
    To be fair all cuisines have a high turnover of kitchen and waiting staff. In the UK it is considered a job, not a career, and to move on ASAP.
    My brother in law - Yorkshire born, white working class - has worked as a chef for just over a decade and as head chef in a decent restaurant until earlier this year, but the lifestyle and hours have broken him physically. Now recovering from months in hospital, homeless, and on incapacity benefit.
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 5,087
    The One Nation Tories are more grating than the right wing .

    The Rwanda Bill would in the past have been jaw dropping in what it wants to do and yet they’re pretending it’s some sane middle ground solution . Its a constitutional horror show and yet the Mary Poppins brigade are either in denial or just don’t care . The right wing just don’t care how many international laws are broken and are upfront about it .

    We all know the One Nation Tories will fold like a cheap suit and still find a way to vote for the Bill even if it’s amended .

    The ones who had a spine are long gone after the Brexit dramas .
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 5,087
    Sean_F said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
    Still works out cheaper than the child being in the UK in terms of the extra resources needed. The Tories have been a dismal failure on immigration and it was pitiful to see the spineless gimp blaming everyone else .
    I agree. But PB's Labour-aligned commentors have been making a lot of this fact whilst also being very upset about how inhumane the raising of the wage requirement is. Which I don't get.
    The policy on spouses is horrific . The Tories are breaking up families and it’s really quite despicable when this is a minor part of immigration.
    Perhaps, but are the same despicable Tories not being critiqued for allowing too many dependents in?
    The issue is the HO is a shambles and haven’t clarified whether this will be retrospectively applied . It could mean Brits spouses who are in the country already will be forced to leave . Even if they have children they could be forced to all leave the country or have children split from one parent .
    No, existing married couples are not going to be forced to leave. That would be a very obvious breach of the HRA.
    Well why don’t the HO just make it clear what’s happening . There have been conflicting briefings .
  • Options
    Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 33,254
    ...
  • Options

    Reasons why Sunak is strategically incompetent no 438:

    We all know this policy will not find its way through parliament. If it clears the Commons, it ain’t clearing the Lords.

    Dispassionately, and divorcing myself from the merits (or lack thereof) of the policy I can see a reason to get Rwanda blocked by the Lords and then use this as a GE issue - I.e, I need the public to back me on this so I have a mandate to get this into law.

    BUT

    This gambit is only effective if people can be persuaded your policy works. I.e, the exact policy a sizeable wing of your party has just been telling all and sundry won’t work.

    If Sunak wants a dividing line on this policy, he has to go Rwanda Max, with everything that entails. I don’t believe he wants that. But if he didn’t, this whole episode since the court case was one of the biggest strategic political blunders in modern times. And there’s quite a few to choose from.

    And Rishi can't afford to go Rwanda Max. Forget touchy feely types, hard nosed allied countries won't let him. And unless the UK is prepared to go full on "Ourselves, alone", that matters. Hint: very few people in Britain would be willing to pay that price.

    Since the Rwanda Scheme was invented, it's been a lie, a bluff. And bluffs and lies are powerful things. They can win, and keep winning, for quite a long time.

    But not forever.
    They’re addicted to drama. Make it loud, make it bold, make it make absolutely no f**king sense, so long as it’s duping enough people enough of the time.

    They need to be excised of this tendency. Only opposition may (may) cure them of it.
  • Options
    isamisam Posts: 41,033
    edited December 2023
    Coman the Bavarian makes it 1-0 at Old Trafford
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,454
    Well, its taken longer than I feared but that is surely that.
  • Options
    For all you tech-heads out there . . .

    Bloomberg News (via Seattle Times)- Google’s Epic legal defeat threatens $200 billion app store industry

    Google’s legal defeat at the hands of Fortnite maker Epic Games threatens to roil an app store duopoly with Apple that generates close to $200 billion a year and dictates how billions of consumers use mobile devices.

    The loss — handed down by a San Francisco jury on Monday — is a blow to the two companies’ business model in apps, where they charge commissions of as much as 30% to software developers who typically have few other options.

    Epic has spent years railing against the practice and got a federal jury to agree that Alphabet’s Google unit had acted unfairly as a monopoly. The case is likely to accelerate the weakening of app store rules, which have already come under fire from regulators and lawmakers around the world.

    Though Apple won a similar case against Epic in 2021, that ruling was made by a single judge. The nature of the Google suit — where a jury sided unanimously with Epic — let actual consumers weigh in on the world of smartphone apps. In under four hours of deliberations, they found that Google had engaged in anticompetitive conduct, harmed Epic and illegally forced its own billing system on developers. . . .

    The battle began in 2020, when Fortnite was kicked off the Apple and Google Play app stores because the game developer had secretly installed its own payment system. The idea was to bypass the up-to-30% revenue share that the two tech giants take from in-app purchases and subscriptions on their platforms. In response, Epic sued both companies.

    Google also has drawn criticism for making side deals with big developers like Spotify where it offers lower commissions. In Monday’s decision, the jury found that Google shouldn’t require Android app developers to use its billing system for software sold through its store — and that it shouldn’t offer custom agreements to certain developers. . . .

    There’s a fortune at stake for both Apple and Google. In-app spending is forecast to reach $182 billion next year and $207 billion in 2025, according to research firm Sensor Tower. . . .

    Already, the Digital Markets Act in the European Union will spur changes. For the first time, Apple will need to allow third-party app stores and billing systems in the region.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,904
    TimS said:

    Foxy said:

    ohnotnow said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    No. None. Not a single one. Hence the need to allow X-thousand new chefs each year who all stop being able to make a curry within a year.

    Oh, unless you paid them an ok salary of course.

    But... sheesh. Madness.
    To be fair all cuisines have a high turnover of kitchen and waiting staff. In the UK it is considered a job, not a career, and to move on ASAP.
    My brother in law - Yorkshire born, white working class - has worked as a chef for just over a decade and as head chef in a decent restaurant until earlier this year, but the lifestyle and hours have broken him physically. Now recovering from months in hospital, homeless, and on incapacity benefit.
    I have had to do some pretty crap things in my life, but cleaning out deep fat fryers was possibly the worst. I spent 3 months once in a fast food job, by the end I was the most senior in terms of service. No one sticks it any longer than they have to.
  • Options
    felixfelix Posts: 15,125
    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Jeez what’s the world coming to . I give up !
    ‘Breaking’, an article that’s nearly two and a half years old.

    Hot off the press, 😂😂😂😂
    Is the problem yet resolved?
    Have they raised the wages yet?
  • Options
    tlg86 said:

    One for @Sunil_Prasannan, I ticked off this station tonight:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eindhoven_Stadion_railway_station

    They must have upgraded the signalling as we were straight off to Amsterdam rather than back to the main Eindhoven station.

    Nice!

    I went to Amsterdam by train in 2015, took the Eurostar to Brussels, and then the Thalys service to Amsterdam. Not sure we went via Eindhoven, I think it was via Rotterdam.

    Anyway, I gave you all an exclusive first peak at my Brent Cross West pics here on PB last night, but here are my definitive set uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.

    https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Sunil060902+Brent+Cross+West+2023&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image

    Maintaining my 100% record of visiting every station in London! Naturally, I also have pictures of all of the others on Commons too:

    eg.

    https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Sunil060902+Abbey+Road&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image

    https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Sunil060902+Abbey+Wood&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image

    Um, you get the picture :lol:

    Just enter Sunil060902 "station name" in the top right search box.

    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
  • Options
    BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,469
    Cheer yourselves up and watch "Easter Parade". It's on IPlayer.

    Sheer magic from Fred Astaire, with Judy Garland.

    And tunes by Irving Berlin including "We're a couple of swells".

    Ye canna beat it. Truly.
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 28,040
    Some special effort to finish bottom of that group.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,086
    edited December 2023
    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    I don't know why we're focusing on anything else when this is an issue (if still going on now). I'm dead serious.
  • Options
    dixiedean said:

    Some special effort to finish bottom of that group.

    I am sure Man U are looking forward to their game at Anfield this weekend!
  • Options
    carnforthcarnforth Posts: 3,262
    edited December 2023

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    You need them to be able to work them 80 hours a week for 40 hours minimum wage pay, and make them spend 50% of that meagre income on renting a room from your cousin. Any compliants? Fire them and/or threaten to dob then in to immigration.

    Can't get away with that with a British Asian.
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 28,040

    dixiedean said:

    Some special effort to finish bottom of that group.

    I am sure Man U are looking forward to their game at Anfield this weekend!
    Strangely that may be a value bet.
    LFC are top of the league, but haven't been exactly convincing.
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 5,087
    Man Utd really should be getting out of that group . They’ve been awful nearly all season and their league position is inflated , they could easily be much further down the table and have fluked half their league wins . As an Arsenal fan I will of course be hoping they win at the weekend but that seems to be close to a miracle needed given their current form.
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,629

    Random fact of the evening: UK debt interest (£94bn) costs more than Universal Credit (£83bn)

    image

    Other interesting fact of the evening - the UK Treasury will spend more than £100bn this year giving money to the Bank of England to fund its selloff of UK Government bonds at a loss. To no public benefit whatsoever. Wheelbarrows of money put to the flame. Which we have to borrow money and pay interest to fund. An ongoing situation that proves both that Sunak and Hunt aren't serious about making a go of the UK economy, AND that Starmer doesn't have the balls or the brains to call them out on it.
  • Options
    nico679 said:

    Man Utd really should be getting out of that group . They’ve been awful nearly all season and their league position is inflated , they could easily be much further down the table and have fluked half their league wins . As an Arsenal fan I will of course be hoping they win at the weekend but that seems to be close to a miracle needed given their current form.

    As a lifetime Man Utd supporter they are in a dreadful state and I expect a big Liverpool win at the weekend

    I also expect Ratcliffe will get rid of many players and ETH must be looking at a P45
  • Options
    nico679 said:

    The One Nation Tories are more grating than the right wing .

    The Rwanda Bill would in the past have been jaw dropping in what it wants to do and yet they’re pretending it’s some sane middle ground solution . Its a constitutional horror show and yet the Mary Poppins brigade are either in denial or just don’t care . The right wing just don’t care how many international laws are broken and are upfront about it .

    We all know the One Nation Tories will fold like a cheap suit and still find a way to vote for the Bill even if it’s amended .

    The ones who had a spine are long gone after the Brexit dramas .

    Yes the "sensible" middle of the road Tories are the worst because the headbangers on the right are mostly just fruitcakes and loons who genuinely believe all this halucinatory balderdash, but the Greg Hands of this world know it is all insane gibberish and go along with it anyway because nothing must interfere with the Tory party's divine right to rule, even the fact that the party has lost all remaining contact with reality. The shame should follow them to their graves.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,682
    TimS said:

    Foxy said:

    ohnotnow said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    No. None. Not a single one. Hence the need to allow X-thousand new chefs each year who all stop being able to make a curry within a year.

    Oh, unless you paid them an ok salary of course.

    But... sheesh. Madness.
    To be fair all cuisines have a high turnover of kitchen and waiting staff. In the UK it is considered a job, not a career, and to move on ASAP.
    My brother in law - Yorkshire born, white working class - has worked as a chef for just over a decade and as head chef in a decent restaurant until earlier this year, but the lifestyle and hours have broken him physically. Now recovering from months in hospital, homeless, and on incapacity benefit.
    The owner of a famous Michelin starred restaurant recently confided in me that, in her opinion, 70%+ of staff in the best kitchens are neurodivergent in some way. Especially the top chefs. Lots of autism and Asperger's, some OCD and NPD, and so forth

    Looking back at the many brilliant chefs I have met, and a few great sommeliers etc, this strikes me as almost certainly true. To get to the absolute pinnacle you have to be single-minded and bloody-minded in a way most "normal" people just AREN'T
  • Options
    carnforth said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    You need them to be able to work them 80 hours a week for 40 hours minimum wage pay, and make them spend 50% of that meagre income on renting a room from your cousin. Any compliants? Fire them and/or threaten to dob then in to immigration.

    Can't get away with that with a British Asian.
    It's true, I can't even get my wife to do the washing up!
  • Options
    turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 15,436
    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    I’ve found the cause of our ever expanding cost of health and social care.

    Choir rehearsal this evening in Guy’s hospital chapel. The heating was turned up so high in that cavernous space that everyone was stripping off coats and jumpers.

    Wes Streeting, there’s an early saving for your list.

    Hospital heating systems are either hot or off, there being no middle. Legionella loves tepid water.
    Not really the answer is it though? Central heating systems can use temperature control valves. Legionella is a huge issue in water that comes into contact with people, less so in the central heating pipes.
  • Options
    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    Foxy said:

    ohnotnow said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    No. None. Not a single one. Hence the need to allow X-thousand new chefs each year who all stop being able to make a curry within a year.

    Oh, unless you paid them an ok salary of course.

    But... sheesh. Madness.
    To be fair all cuisines have a high turnover of kitchen and waiting staff. In the UK it is considered a job, not a career, and to move on ASAP.
    My brother in law - Yorkshire born, white working class - has worked as a chef for just over a decade and as head chef in a decent restaurant until earlier this year, but the lifestyle and hours have broken him physically. Now recovering from months in hospital, homeless, and on incapacity benefit.
    The owner of a famous Michelin starred restaurant recently confided in me that, in her opinion, 70%+ of staff in the best kitchens are neurodivergent in some way. Especially the top chefs. Lots of autism and Asperger's, some OCD and NPD, and so forth

    Looking back at the many brilliant chefs I have met, and a few great sommeliers etc, this strikes me as almost certainly true. To get to the absolute pinnacle you have to be single-minded and bloody-minded in a way most "normal" people just AREN'T
    That's why working as waiting staff is such a nightmare - you're forced to deal with the two most obnoxious and difficult groups of people in the world: kitchen staff and customers.
  • Options
    FishingFishing Posts: 4,562

    kle4 said:

    ydoethur said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    I am reminded of the Soviet pessimist and the Soviet optimist.

    A Soviet pessimist says, 'Things are so bad they cannot possibly get worse.'

    An optimist says, 'they will, they really will.'
    The best Soviet joke.

    A man queues for meat for 6 hours. When he reaches the head of the line - no meat.

    He starts to rant and rave -“The Party has failed us!”

    A man in a leather jacket pulls him to one side - “Careful, Comrade. In the old days…” and makes a pistol gesture with his fingers.

    Late that night, the man’s wife comes home to find him sitting in the dark, staring at the wall

    “What’s wrong dear? No meat again?”

    “It’s much worse. They have run out of bullets.”
    And the era that spawned those jokes is somehow seen positively by the current cabal in the country.
    At least for Putin to (try to) emulate Stalin makes some, albeit twisted sense.

    But righwing Republicans and HUNGARIANS embracing neo-commi Russia?
    Dugin (the philosopher of Putins party) -

    “by no means the racist and chauvinist aspects of National Socialism that determined the nature of its ideology. The excesses of this ideology in Germany are a matter exclusively of the Germans ... while Russian fascism is a combination of natural national conservatism with a passionate desire for true changes."

    "Waffen-SS and especially the scientific sector of this organization, Ahnenerbe," was "an intellectual oasis in the framework of the National Socialist regime"
    Proof that you can be both a philosopher and an idiot.
  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 20,183
    edited December 2023
    Lots of Man Utd fans on PB who have no discernible connection to Manchester; similarly many Liverpool fans on here with no discernible connection to Merseyside.

    Funny old world.
  • Options
    Sean_F said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
    Still works out cheaper than the child being in the UK in terms of the extra resources needed. The Tories have been a dismal failure on immigration and it was pitiful to see the spineless gimp blaming everyone else .
    I agree. But PB's Labour-aligned commentors have been making a lot of this fact whilst also being very upset about how inhumane the raising of the wage requirement is. Which I don't get.
    The policy on spouses is horrific . The Tories are breaking up families and it’s really quite despicable when this is a minor part of immigration.
    Perhaps, but are the same despicable Tories not being critiqued for allowing too many dependents in?
    The issue is the HO is a shambles and haven’t clarified whether this will be retrospectively applied . It could mean Brits spouses who are in the country already will be forced to leave . Even if they have children they could be forced to all leave the country or have children split from one parent .
    No, existing married couples are not going to be forced to leave. That would be a very obvious breach of the HRA.
    Hasn't the government been talking about disapplying human rights laws for immigration rules? The reality is that nobody's rights are safe with these people in charge.
  • Options
    turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 15,436

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    Foxy said:

    ohnotnow said:

    IanB2 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    A lot of Leave voters are still in denial and can’t quite grasp that they’ve been bent over and banged mercilessly by the Tories and the Vote Leave cabal . Anyway at least you’ll always be able to find a good curry .
    Breaking:

    https://www.currylife.uk/staff-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-curry-houses/
    Aren't there already Asian people in the UK who can make curries?
    No. None. Not a single one. Hence the need to allow X-thousand new chefs each year who all stop being able to make a curry within a year.

    Oh, unless you paid them an ok salary of course.

    But... sheesh. Madness.
    To be fair all cuisines have a high turnover of kitchen and waiting staff. In the UK it is considered a job, not a career, and to move on ASAP.
    My brother in law - Yorkshire born, white working class - has worked as a chef for just over a decade and as head chef in a decent restaurant until earlier this year, but the lifestyle and hours have broken him physically. Now recovering from months in hospital, homeless, and on incapacity benefit.
    The owner of a famous Michelin starred restaurant recently confided in me that, in her opinion, 70%+ of staff in the best kitchens are neurodivergent in some way. Especially the top chefs. Lots of autism and Asperger's, some OCD and NPD, and so forth

    Looking back at the many brilliant chefs I have met, and a few great sommeliers etc, this strikes me as almost certainly true. To get to the absolute pinnacle you have to be single-minded and bloody-minded in a way most "normal" people just AREN'T
    That's why working as waiting staff is such a nightmare - you're forced to deal with the two most obnoxious and difficult groups of people in the world: kitchen staff and customers.
    As a student I worked in my local pubs in the holidays to earn some spending money. Most customers were great, and when is was writing my PhD thesis my evening shifts were paid socialising.
    And yet there are arseholes out there. The worst kind seem to think you are stupid because you are working in a pub.
  • Options
    turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 15,436

    Lots of Man Utd fans on PB who have no discernible connection to Manchester; similarly many Liverpool fans on here with no discernible connection to Merseyside.

    Funny old world.

    Round here (Wilts) the young kids all have Man City tops now. It’s partly a consequence of most games being on TV. And kids do like to support the winning teams.
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    For Sunil, this is THE classic American railroad ballad

    Hank Snow - The Wreck of The Old 97
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNo0cGi1xZU&t=25s

    BTW, the reference to the "Black greasy fireman" was not a racial slur, as much as a tribute to a working man with a hard, dirty job - and did it well, sadly with tragic consequences.

    Possible also that the fireman was NOT African American, but a white guy covered with coal dust from shoveling the stuff to fuel the boiler. But suspect that he likely was Black as opposed to black, seeing as how the song is set in western Virginia.
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    Anyone care to guess, just how high the upcoming legal judgement against Rudy Giuliani is gonna be, following his impending guilty verdict for defamation against election workers?

    My own guess is north of $50 million. Including punitive damages (of course).

    Fact that this absurd serial scumbucket is a former United States District Attorney will NOT soften the blow. Just the opposite.
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    viewcodeviewcode Posts: 19,108
    Sean_F said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I thought sir Keir was pretty poor on Today this morning but the traffic did not have me in the most charitable of moods. It’s not often that promises of boring diligence sound attractive.

    But then I heard the Conservatives. Christ on a bike. There are morons who think Parliamentary sovereignty means we are not bound by any international agreements. There are closet racists who think that Rwanda will just do whatever they are told. There are people, struggling to find an adjective short of fascist, who think it’s ok to exclude the courts from any kind of review of executive action no matter what.

    Boring, dull and nothing beyond the normal level of incompetence started to sound better and better.

    And that's Starmer's appeal.

    I'm sure there are those on the left who are narked that he's not promising a Social Democratic Revolution. And there will be problems when some national issues don't magically vanish with a new government.

    But I'm pretty sure that it's not just me thinking "he'll have to do, whatever happens can't be worse than this."

    And provided he does, provided he stops some of this, he can be PM as long as he wants. The "Things can only get better" threshold is incredibly low right now, and all the current blue team are complicit in that.

    The Conservative Wets really have lived up to their name on this. Shame, because they're meant to be my tribe.
    Driving home, the rain and the traffic was even worse but listening to the representative of the One Nation Tory group almost had me weeping. That a Conservative seriously had to argue that the rule of law and judicial intervention are an essential part of the democratic process and acknowledge that a lot of his colleagues disagreed with him… it just beggars belief.

    The disease that infected US Republicans 6-7 years ago is here. And it frankly sickens me.
    Hysterical nonsense

    A large chunk of the Tory Party believes the government has lost all control of immigration - legal and illegal, and is incapable of rectifying this

    AND THEY HAVE A POINT

    The fact that some egregious twerps like Mark Francois are involved on the anti-government side, or that Rwanda is a debacle of a policy, does not make this observation less true
    Looking at it dispassionately, it’s difficult not to conclude that immigration is mostly driven by ‘pull’ factors - how many people we actually need - and not so much ‘push’ factors such as how many people want to come here and how the authorities try to regulate the numbers.

    Closing off the supply of young Europeans coming here prior to Brexit has simply led to much larger numbers of non-Europeans arriving.
    And the hilarious irony?

    Young Europeans were way more likely to return home. For the weekend, for the summer, forever.

    If you voted Brexit to reduce immigration and keep Britain white and Christian... Boy, did they lie to you.
    And the non-Europeans are much keener to bring across the rest of their family….
    The European ones were just content to send their progeny the child benefit cheques.
    Still works out cheaper than the child being in the UK in terms of the extra resources needed. The Tories have been a dismal failure on immigration and it was pitiful to see the spineless gimp blaming everyone else .
    I agree. But PB's Labour-aligned commentors have been making a lot of this fact whilst also being very upset about how inhumane the raising of the wage requirement is. Which I don't get.
    The policy on spouses is horrific . The Tories are breaking up families and it’s really quite despicable when this is a minor part of immigration.
    Perhaps, but are the same despicable Tories not being critiqued for allowing too many dependents in?
    The issue is the HO is a shambles and haven’t clarified whether this will be retrospectively applied . It could mean Brits spouses who are in the country already will be forced to leave . Even if they have children they could be forced to all leave the country or have children split from one parent .
    No, existing married couples are not going to be forced to leave. That would be a very obvious breach of the HRA.
    Leopards eating the face...
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