Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

One of these tweets is a spoof, can you guess which one? – politicalbetting.com

24

Comments

  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,572
    I don't know about anyone else, but I cannot wait to see the end of this government.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,907
    nico679 said:

    Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

    Rudy Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy after two election workers sued him for defamation and won $148.1m in damages.

    Reuters reported that court documents show Giuliani, Donald Trump’s former attorney and former mayor of New York, filed for bankruptcy protection.

    Earlier in the day a Washington DC judge allowed the two Georgia election workers who successfully sued Giuliani to immediately collect their millions in damages.

    The workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, would typically have to wait 30 days before they can start attempts to collect payments, but Beryl Howell agreed that Giuliani has “proven himself to be an unwilling and uncooperative litigant”.


    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/21/giuliani-148-million-damages-georgia-lawsuit?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    Good I hope he has to beg for loose change . Sadly he won’t , he will have hidden assets . Awful man , anyone who enables Trump is beneath contempt .
    Seems a bit steep for defamation.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,347

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    I hate to rain on your parade, but plenty of Northern voters are right wing, and (if they remember the 80’s), do so fondly.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,373

    I don't know about anyone else, but I cannot wait to see the end of this government.

    We can already see lots of ends with this government.

    Well, many arses are on display.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,137
    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    It's called SAWDTY:

    Stock, Aiken and Waterman Direct To You
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    edited December 2023

    I don't know about anyone else, but I cannot wait to see the end of this government.

    Ask a former MP for Wellingborough nicely and I am sure he will only be to happy to wave it at you, allegedly.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631
    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,618
    rcs1000 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    It's called SAWDTY:

    Stock, Aiken and Waterman Direct To You
    If you want a vision of the future, imagine a personalised version of I'd Rather Jack being downloaded into the human brain - forever.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6VBE1oboK8
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,130
    rcs1000 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    It's called SAWDTY:

    Stock, Aiken and Waterman Direct To You
    If I like any of it I'll be very pissed off with myself.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,870
    Foxy said:

    pm215 said:


    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Given that the 80s were now more than 30 years ago, a fair chunk of those voters in fact did not live through the 80s; more if you don't start counting until somebody is old and politically aware enough to notice that kind of thing.
    Yes but the Leave vote wasn't thirtysomethings, it was sixty somethings so they have no excuse.
    The leave vote in other words came from those that voted stay in 1975 and have seen the most of the evolution into the eu and decided they made a mistake whereas those that never knew better preferred the status quo
  • Jonathan said:

    Why are Tories trying to throw the election? What do they know that we don’t? No one is this rubbish. It has to be a stitch up job..

    They probably can.

    Any party that's this far into government tends to be a bit light on the new talent front, and that's without the regular revolutions and purges.

    Sunak and Gove are clearly Cabinet calibre, and Dave is a special case, but how many others would have had a sniff of a Cabinet position pre-2019?

    Talking of which, here's the Health Secretary. Even if it's true, even if you think it's true, you don't go out of your way to piss people off like this.

    'Doctors in training as I prefer to call them walked out of our negotiations'

    Health Secretary Victoria Atkins spoke to #BBCBreakfast about the 72 hour junior doctors strike in England


    https://twitter.com/BBCBreakfast/status/1737742766719848628
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,873
    Evening all :)

    Survation has done one if its "small sample" polls (fewer than 800). The last one of these was in July (sample 838) and the changes from that are Conservative unchanged, Labour down one and LDs down two with Reform up three. The Lab/LD/Green vs Con/Ref split is 57-36 which is telling - only 56-36 with Savanta by the way.

    The truth remains very little has changed this year and the Conservatives go into 2024 trailing Labour by around 15 points.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631
    Pagan2 said:

    Foxy said:

    pm215 said:


    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Given that the 80s were now more than 30 years ago, a fair chunk of those voters in fact did not live through the 80s; more if you don't start counting until somebody is old and politically aware enough to notice that kind of thing.
    Yes but the Leave vote wasn't thirtysomethings, it was sixty somethings so they have no excuse.
    The leave vote in other words came from those that voted stay in 1975 and have seen the most of the evolution into the eu and decided they made a mistake whereas those that never knew better preferred the status quo
    Yep the oldies inflicted a permanent rift with their children.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    edited December 2023

    Jonathan said:

    Why are Tories trying to throw the election? What do they know that we don’t? No one is this rubbish. It has to be a stitch up job..

    They probably can.

    Any party that's this far into government tends to be a bit light on the new talent front, and that's without the regular revolutions and purges.

    Sunak and Gove are clearly Cabinet calibre, and Dave is a special case, but how many others would have had a sniff of a Cabinet position pre-2019?

    Talking of which, here's the Health Secretary. Even if it's true, even if you think it's true, you don't go out of your way to piss people off like this.

    'Doctors in training as I prefer to call them walked out of our negotiations'

    Health Secretary Victoria Atkins spoke to #BBCBreakfast about the 72 hour junior doctors strike in England


    https://twitter.com/BBCBreakfast/status/1737742766719848628
    Is she thick?

    I daresay Foxy can put me right on this, but isn't "Junior Doctors" a generic term for qualified doctors who could have been in service for up to a dozen years or so?
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,870
    Foxy said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Foxy said:

    pm215 said:


    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Given that the 80s were now more than 30 years ago, a fair chunk of those voters in fact did not live through the 80s; more if you don't start counting until somebody is old and politically aware enough to notice that kind of thing.
    Yes but the Leave vote wasn't thirtysomethings, it was sixty somethings so they have no excuse.
    The leave vote in other words came from those that voted stay in 1975 and have seen the most of the evolution into the eu and decided they made a mistake whereas those that never knew better preferred the status quo
    Yep the oldies inflicted a permanent rift with their children.
    Not my son he hated the eu even more than I did, I was in two minds he was hell no from the start of the campaign
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,413

    Jonathan said:

    Why are Tories trying to throw the election? What do they know that we don’t? No one is this rubbish. It has to be a stitch up job..

    They probably can.

    Any party that's this far into government tends to be a bit light on the new talent front, and that's without the regular revolutions and purges.

    Sunak and Gove are clearly Cabinet calibre, and Dave is a special case, but how many others would have had a sniff of a Cabinet position pre-2019?

    Talking of which, here's the Health Secretary. Even if it's true, even if you think it's true, you don't go out of your way to piss people off like this.

    'Doctors in training as I prefer to call them walked out of our negotiations'

    Health Secretary Victoria Atkins spoke to #BBCBreakfast about the 72 hour junior doctors strike in England


    https://twitter.com/BBCBreakfast/status/1737742766719848628
    Sunak is junior minister material at best. He was a crap COE and a crap PM.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    And the new labour government did precisely what for them? These are places that have been electing the red squad for decades only to be ignored who can blame them for trying something different.

    A starmer government will also do precisely sweet fa for them as no on in london, which is most mp's give a shit about anything outside london
    People should engage their brains if they have any before they stupidly just vote on vacuous sound bites . Too many excuses are made for thick low information voters who should instead stay home and watch Jeremy Kyle repeats and spare us their idiocy on Election Day .
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,907
    rcs1000 said:

    FPT

    Sean_F said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.

    Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
    Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
    Israel have murdered very few (though still more than they should have, which is zero).

    Hamas set out to murder: to kill Jews - any of them, children, the elderly, women, whatever. That was their objective. That is what murder is.

    Israel did not set out to kill Palestinians (other than Hamas fighters, who are a legitimate target in war). That Palestinian civilians have died in the conflict was always going to be an inevitable consequence of urban fighting. That is not murder. (FWIW, I think Israel has been reckless in its actions and has paid insufficient attention to civilian casualties at times. Still a different thing though).

    By using the same language for the two, you're creating a legal and moral equivalence - and to cite those numbers in that framing is to legitimise Hamas or delegitimise Israel. Or both.

    Think carefully.
    I disagree.

    The current Israeli leadership have set out to murder. They may not have murdered as many innocent people as Hamas (though they have certainly 'killed' far more innocents than Hamas) but this is not a numbers game. Murder is murder and both Hamas and Netenyahu's cabal should be rotting in jail - or preferably Hell.
    Netanyahu and his clique should indeed be in gaol. He's been a cancer in Israeli politics for 30 years.
    In July 1995, Netanyahu led a mock funeral procession featuring a coffin and hangman's noose at an anti-Rabin rally where protesters chanted, "Death to Rabin".[10][11] The chief of internal security, Carmi Gillon, then alerted Netanyahu of a plot on Rabin's life and asked him to moderate the protests' rhetoric, which Netanyahu declined to do.[8][12]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin
    The current Israeli security minister called for the death of Rabin at the time.
    Ben-Gvir is every bit as racist as anyone Hamas can throw up. Why he doesn't get designated a terrorist is one of the great US/Israeli mysteries

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/25/far-right-extremist-itamar-ben-gvir-to-be-israel-national-security-minister

  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,870
    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    And the new labour government did precisely what for them? These are places that have been electing the red squad for decades only to be ignored who can blame them for trying something different.

    A starmer government will also do precisely sweet fa for them as no on in london, which is most mp's give a shit about anything outside london
    People should engage their brains if they have any before they stupidly just vote on vacuous sound bites . Too many excuses are made for thick low information voters who should instead stay home and watch Jeremy Kyle repeats and spare us their idiocy on Election Day .
    Ah I see they are too thick to vote....tells you a lot about your ideology. I see you don't address the fact labour governments and mps did fa for them...much the reason labour finally got kicked out of scotland....somehow they owe you votes because labour
  • Jonathan said:

    Why are Tories trying to throw the election? What do they know that we don’t? No one is this rubbish. It has to be a stitch up job..

    They probably can.

    Any party that's this far into government tends to be a bit light on the new talent front, and that's without the regular revolutions and purges.

    Sunak and Gove are clearly Cabinet calibre, and Dave is a special case, but how many others would have had a sniff of a Cabinet position pre-2019?

    Talking of which, here's the Health Secretary. Even if it's true, even if you think it's true, you don't go out of your way to piss people off like this.

    'Doctors in training as I prefer to call them walked out of our negotiations'

    Health Secretary Victoria Atkins spoke to #BBCBreakfast about the 72 hour junior doctors strike in England


    https://twitter.com/BBCBreakfast/status/1737742766719848628
    Is she thick?

    I daresay Foxy can put me right on this, but isn't "Junior Doctors" a generic term for qualified doctors who could have been in service for up to a dozen years or so?
    Yup- broadly anyone between medical school and being a consultant. And yes, they're still training and taking exams in their specialism. But training is good, isn't it?

    But even if you think it's technically true, you don't snark like that out loud. Because it pushes the end of the dispute a bit further into the future... for what benefit?

    There's a useful lesson for a politician in training.
  • Roger said:

    nico679 said:

    Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

    Rudy Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy after two election workers sued him for defamation and won $148.1m in damages.

    Reuters reported that court documents show Giuliani, Donald Trump’s former attorney and former mayor of New York, filed for bankruptcy protection.

    Earlier in the day a Washington DC judge allowed the two Georgia election workers who successfully sued Giuliani to immediately collect their millions in damages.

    The workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, would typically have to wait 30 days before they can start attempts to collect payments, but Beryl Howell agreed that Giuliani has “proven himself to be an unwilling and uncooperative litigant”.


    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/21/giuliani-148-million-damages-georgia-lawsuit?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    Good I hope he has to beg for loose change . Sadly he won’t , he will have hidden assets . Awful man , anyone who enables Trump is beneath contempt .
    Seems a bit steep for defamation.
    I think he balled the judge off during the trial, and then made the mistake of further defaming the claimants on the steps of the courthouse while the amount of the damages was still under consideration.

    Anyone, one assumes that the bill will be met by Trump's mate, Vladimir, so Rudy should be alright in the end.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    edited December 2023

    It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    This was the Johnson trump card. It fell a little flat when he road tested Savile before, but if the Tories are desperate it's a fantastic means of discrediting Starmer. If they could suggest he was mates with Savile even better.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487217/Jimmy-Savile-harassed-music-boss wife-Chequers-dinner-party-hosted-Tony-Blair.html

    Or

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2366576/Revealed-Lady-Thatchers-FIVE-attempts-secure-knighthood-Jimmy-Savile.html

    Or

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/06/prince-charles-repeatedly-sought-jimmy-savile-advice-documentary-claims
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 6,813
    edited December 2023

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    I don’t blame them. The truth is they’ve been let down by governments of every colour for decades. So why not take a punt on something new?

    But they have been badly let down again, and I very much doubt many will be returning the Tory fold in the coming years. Don’t underestimate the mood for change in these areas though - it’s definitely now fertile ground for parties like Reform, particularly once Labour are in power.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,870

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    I don’t blame them. The truth is they’ve been let down by governments of every colour for decades. So why not take a punt on something new?

    But they have been badly let down again, and I very much doubt many will be returning the Tory fold in the coming years. Don’t underestimate the mood for change in these areas though - it’s definitely now fertile ground for parties like Reform.
    Precisely the point labour did nothing for them, so they voted tory, tories did nothing for them....why would the return to labour when labour also failed them.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,723
    malcolmg said:

    I'm back home for Christmas and we are having a yummy vegetarian puff pastry pizza tonight. That is all.

    commiserations
    One wonders

    I don't know about anyone else, but I cannot wait to see the end of this government.

    Me too and I am a Conservative
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,873
    Interesting to see the usual old schtick Government only cares about London.

    I think if you asked most Londoners they'd say the one place the Government doesn't care about is London.
  • It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    This was the Johnson trump card. It fell a little flat when he road tested Savile before, but if the Tories are desperate it's a fantastic means of discrediting Starmer. If they could suggest he was mates with Savile even better.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487217/Jimmy-Savile-harassed-music-boss wife-Chequers-dinner-party-hosted-Tony-Blair.html

    Or

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2366576/Revealed-Lady-Thatchers-FIVE-attempts-secure-knighthood-Jimmy-Savile.html

    Or

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/06/prince-charles-repeatedly-sought-jimmy-savile-advice-documentary-claims
    Yes, by the time the Tories' attack unit has dealt with him, Sir Keir may as well wear a blond wig and jogging bottoms and go about saying 'Now then, now then'.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    And the new labour government did precisely what for them? These are places that have been electing the red squad for decades only to be ignored who can blame them for trying something different.

    A starmer government will also do precisely sweet fa for them as no on in london, which is most mp's give a shit about anything outside london
    People should engage their brains if they have any before they stupidly just vote on vacuous sound bites . Too many excuses are made for thick low information voters who should instead stay home and watch Jeremy Kyle repeats and spare us their idiocy on Election Day .
    Ah I see they are too thick to vote....tells you a lot about your ideology. I see you don't address the fact labour governments and mps did fa for them...much the reason labour finally got kicked out of scotland....somehow they owe you votes because labour
    Labour did some good things when they came in and tried to repair public services which had been trashed by the Tories . My ideology is the public shouldn’t be subjected to the results of thick low information voters deciding to go and vote when they can barely tie their own shoe laces . Sorry if that offends but that’s it .
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,870
    stodge said:

    Interesting to see the usual old schtick Government only cares about London.

    I think if you asked most Londoners they'd say the one place the Government doesn't care about is London.

    Evidence suggests the old schtick is true. London gets far more investment in infrastructure than anywhere else per head of capita
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,870
    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    And the new labour government did precisely what for them? These are places that have been electing the red squad for decades only to be ignored who can blame them for trying something different.

    A starmer government will also do precisely sweet fa for them as no on in london, which is most mp's give a shit about anything outside london
    People should engage their brains if they have any before they stupidly just vote on vacuous sound bites . Too many excuses are made for thick low information voters who should instead stay home and watch Jeremy Kyle repeats and spare us their idiocy on Election Day .
    Ah I see they are too thick to vote....tells you a lot about your ideology. I see you don't address the fact labour governments and mps did fa for them...much the reason labour finally got kicked out of scotland....somehow they owe you votes because labour
    Labour did some good things when they came in and tried to repair public services which had been trashed by the Tories . My ideology is the public shouldn’t be subjected to the results of thick low information voters deciding to go and vote when they can barely tie their own shoe laces . Sorry if that offends but that’s it .
    Your definition of too thick of course being that they dont vote labour.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,907
    Roger said:

    rcs1000 said:

    FPT

    Sean_F said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.

    Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
    Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
    Israel have murdered very few (though still more than they should have, which is zero).

    Hamas set out to murder: to kill Jews - any of them, children, the elderly, women, whatever. That was their objective. That is what murder is.

    Israel did not set out to kill Palestinians (other than Hamas fighters, who are a legitimate target in war). That Palestinian civilians have died in the conflict was always going to be an inevitable consequence of urban fighting. That is not murder. (FWIW, I think Israel has been reckless in its actions and has paid insufficient attention to civilian casualties at times. Still a different thing though).

    By using the same language for the two, you're creating a legal and moral equivalence - and to cite those numbers in that framing is to legitimise Hamas or delegitimise Israel. Or both.

    Think carefully.
    I disagree.

    The current Israeli leadership have set out to murder. They may not have murdered as many innocent people as Hamas (though they have certainly 'killed' far more innocents than Hamas) but this is not a numbers game. Murder is murder and both Hamas and Netenyahu's cabal should be rotting in jail - or preferably Hell.
    Netanyahu and his clique should indeed be in gaol. He's been a cancer in Israeli politics for 30 years.
    In July 1995, Netanyahu led a mock funeral procession featuring a coffin and hangman's noose at an anti-Rabin rally where protesters chanted, "Death to Rabin".[10][11] The chief of internal security, Carmi Gillon, then alerted Netanyahu of a plot on Rabin's life and asked him to moderate the protests' rhetoric, which Netanyahu declined to do.[8][12]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin
    The current Israeli security minister called for the death of Rabin at the time.
    Ben-Gvir is every bit as racist as anyone Hamas can throw up. Why he doesn't get designated a terrorist is one of the great US/Israeli mysteries

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/25/far-right-extremist-itamar-ben-gvir-to-be-israel-national-security-minister

    A more comprehensive profile of the fragrant Ben-Gvir

    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/27/itamar-ben-gvir-israels-minister-of-chaos
  • Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    I don’t blame them. The truth is they’ve been let down by governments of every colour for decades. So why not take a punt on something new?

    But they have been badly let down again, and I very much doubt many will be returning the Tory fold in the coming years. Don’t underestimate the mood for change in these areas though - it’s definitely now fertile ground for parties like Reform.
    Precisely the point labour did nothing for them, so they voted tory, tories did nothing for them....why would the return to labour when labour also failed them.
    Thing is, a lot of the voters we're thinking about here didn't vote at all prior to 2016 and 2019. They voted for Brexit and Boris, and both have done them over.

    They might go Reform, but there aren't enough of them to win MPs anywhere. They might also return to staying at home.

    Either way, if they fall off the Conservative pile, that's a net win for Labour, even if they don't vote for Starmer's crew.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,618
    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    And the new labour government did precisely what for them? These are places that have been electing the red squad for decades only to be ignored who can blame them for trying something different.

    A starmer government will also do precisely sweet fa for them as no on in london, which is most mp's give a shit about anything outside london
    People should engage their brains if they have any before they stupidly just vote on vacuous sound bites . Too many excuses are made for thick low information voters who should instead stay home and watch Jeremy Kyle repeats and spare us their idiocy on Election Day .
    Ah I see they are too thick to vote....tells you a lot about your ideology. I see you don't address the fact labour governments and mps did fa for them...much the reason labour finally got kicked out of scotland....somehow they owe you votes because labour
    Labour did some good things when they came in and tried to repair public services which had been trashed by the Tories . My ideology is the public shouldn’t be subjected to the results of thick low information voters deciding to go and vote when they can barely tie their own shoe laces . Sorry if that offends but that’s it .
    If you only counted the votes of ABC1s, John Major would have been reelected in 1997.

    https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-1997
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,907

    It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    This was the Johnson trump card. It fell a little flat when he road tested Savile before, but if the Tories are desperate it's a fantastic means of discrediting Starmer. If they could suggest he was mates with Savile even better.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487217/Jimmy-Savile-harassed-music-boss wife-Chequers-dinner-party-hosted-Tony-Blair.html

    Or

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2366576/Revealed-Lady-Thatchers-FIVE-attempts-secure-knighthood-Jimmy-Savile.html

    Or

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/06/prince-charles-repeatedly-sought-jimmy-savile-advice-documentary-claims
    LOL!
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    And the new labour government did precisely what for them? These are places that have been electing the red squad for decades only to be ignored who can blame them for trying something different.

    A starmer government will also do precisely sweet fa for them as no on in london, which is most mp's give a shit about anything outside london
    People should engage their brains if they have any before they stupidly just vote on vacuous sound bites . Too many excuses are made for thick low information voters who should instead stay home and watch Jeremy Kyle repeats and spare us their idiocy on Election Day .
    Ah I see they are too thick to vote....tells you a lot about your ideology. I see you don't address the fact labour governments and mps did fa for them...much the reason labour finally got kicked out of scotland....somehow they owe you votes because labour
    Labour did some good things when they came in and tried to repair public services which had been trashed by the Tories . My ideology is the public shouldn’t be subjected to the results of thick low information voters deciding to go and vote when they can barely tie their own shoe laces . Sorry if that offends but that’s it .
    Your definition of too thick of course being that they dont vote labour.
    No not at all . I know quite a few in here vote Tory . I might disagree with their politics but they’re not low information voters .
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,873
    Pagan2 said:

    stodge said:

    Interesting to see the usual old schtick Government only cares about London.

    I think if you asked most Londoners they'd say the one place the Government doesn't care about is London.

    Evidence suggests the old schtick is true. London gets far more investment in infrastructure than anywhere else per head of capita
    Doesn't mean that's what Londoners think or believe.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067
    rcs1000 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    It's called SAWDTY:

    Stock, Aiken and Waterman Direct To You
    Imagine infinite Radiohead.
  • It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    I know the Tories are getting desperate for a quick solution to their problems but I am not sure that Jim'll Fix It.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,870
    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    And the new labour government did precisely what for them? These are places that have been electing the red squad for decades only to be ignored who can blame them for trying something different.

    A starmer government will also do precisely sweet fa for them as no on in london, which is most mp's give a shit about anything outside london
    People should engage their brains if they have any before they stupidly just vote on vacuous sound bites . Too many excuses are made for thick low information voters who should instead stay home and watch Jeremy Kyle repeats and spare us their idiocy on Election Day .
    Ah I see they are too thick to vote....tells you a lot about your ideology. I see you don't address the fact labour governments and mps did fa for them...much the reason labour finally got kicked out of scotland....somehow they owe you votes because labour
    Labour did some good things when they came in and tried to repair public services which had been trashed by the Tories . My ideology is the public shouldn’t be subjected to the results of thick low information voters deciding to go and vote when they can barely tie their own shoe laces . Sorry if that offends but that’s it .
    Your definition of too thick of course being that they dont vote labour.
    No not at all . I know quite a few in here vote Tory . I might disagree with their politics but they’re not low information voters .
    Well I am working class, grew up in a council house etc, still renting now. Nothing new labour did ever benefitted me. A lot like me out there so why do you assume they are low information voters rather than just voters who realise labour is not going to help them either?
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,578
    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    And the new labour government did precisely what for them? These are places that have been electing the red squad for decades only to be ignored who can blame them for trying something different.

    A starmer government will also do precisely sweet fa for them as no on in london, which is most mp's give a shit about anything outside london
    People should engage their brains if they have any before they stupidly just vote on vacuous sound bites . Too many excuses are made for thick low information voters who should instead stay home and watch Jeremy Kyle repeats and spare us their idiocy on Election Day .
    Ah I see they are too thick to vote....tells you a lot about your ideology. I see you don't address the fact labour governments and mps did fa for them...much the reason labour finally got kicked out of scotland....somehow they owe you votes because labour
    Labour did some good things when they came in and tried to repair public services which had been trashed by the Tories . My ideology is the public shouldn’t be subjected to the results of thick low information voters deciding to go and vote when they can barely tie their own shoe laces . Sorry if that offends but that’s it .
    Your definition of too thick of course being that they dont vote labour.
    No not at all . I know quite a few in here vote Tory . I might disagree with their politics but they’re not low information voters .
    Are the "I'm Labour, me mam were Labour, me da were Labour, me whole family were Labour" crowd low information voters?
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,873
    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    I don’t blame them. The truth is they’ve been let down by governments of every colour for decades. So why not take a punt on something new?

    But they have been badly let down again, and I very much doubt many will be returning the Tory fold in the coming years. Don’t underestimate the mood for change in these areas though - it’s definitely now fertile ground for parties like Reform.
    Precisely the point labour did nothing for them, so they voted tory, tories did nothing for them....why would the return to labour when labour also failed them.
    Not quite - the rise in the Conservative vote share across many northern and midland seats began in 2001 and quietly picked up in every election from then on.

    Why? Hardly Brexit - I think it's the sons and daughters of those who bought their Council houses under RTB in the early 1980s becoming home owners themselves and as often happens with home owners and mortgagees the politics shifts to the Conservative camp.

    I suspect there's a corollary between rates of home ownership in the suburban and semi-rural north and midlands and Conservative vote share.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,618
    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    It's called SAWDTY:

    Stock, Aiken and Waterman Direct To You
    Imagine infinite Radiohead.
    It gives a whole new meaning to creeping fascism.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,130
    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Where I can imagine it being good is generating covers that should have happened but never did.

    Tainted Love by Elvis
    Smells Like Teen Spirit by Petula Clark
    Pinball Wizard by Rick Astley

    Just 3 of hundreds that spring to mind.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    And the new labour government did precisely what for them? These are places that have been electing the red squad for decades only to be ignored who can blame them for trying something different.

    A starmer government will also do precisely sweet fa for them as no on in london, which is most mp's give a shit about anything outside london
    People should engage their brains if they have any before they stupidly just vote on vacuous sound bites . Too many excuses are made for thick low information voters who should instead stay home and watch Jeremy Kyle repeats and spare us their idiocy on Election Day .
    Ah I see they are too thick to vote....tells you a lot about your ideology. I see you don't address the fact labour governments and mps did fa for them...much the reason labour finally got kicked out of scotland....somehow they owe you votes because labour
    Labour did some good things when they came in and tried to repair public services which had been trashed by the Tories . My ideology is the public shouldn’t be subjected to the results of thick low information voters deciding to go and vote when they can barely tie their own shoe laces . Sorry if that offends but that’s it .
    If you only counted the votes of ABC1s, John Major would have been reelected in 1997.

    https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-1997
    You’re making an inference that common sense and not falling for guff is the preserve of that demographic . I know some allegedly intelligent people who parrot right wing garbage from the Daily Mail .
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    edited December 2023
    carnforth said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    And the new labour government did precisely what for them? These are places that have been electing the red squad for decades only to be ignored who can blame them for trying something different.

    A starmer government will also do precisely sweet fa for them as no on in london, which is most mp's give a shit about anything outside london
    People should engage their brains if they have any before they stupidly just vote on vacuous sound bites . Too many excuses are made for thick low information voters who should instead stay home and watch Jeremy Kyle repeats and spare us their idiocy on Election Day .
    Ah I see they are too thick to vote....tells you a lot about your ideology. I see you don't address the fact labour governments and mps did fa for them...much the reason labour finally got kicked out of scotland....somehow they owe you votes because labour
    Labour did some good things when they came in and tried to repair public services which had been trashed by the Tories . My ideology is the public shouldn’t be subjected to the results of thick low information voters deciding to go and vote when they can barely tie their own shoe laces . Sorry if that offends but that’s it .
    Your definition of too thick of course being that they dont vote labour.
    No not at all . I know quite a few in here vote Tory . I might disagree with their politics but they’re not low information voters .
    Are the "I'm Labour, me mam were Labour, me da were Labour, me whole family were Labour" crowd low information voters?
    It’s irrelevant what party they’re from .
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405

    Jonathan said:

    Why are Tories trying to throw the election? What do they know that we don’t? No one is this rubbish. It has to be a stitch up job..

    They probably can.

    Any party that's this far into government tends to be a bit light on the new talent front, and that's without the regular revolutions and purges.

    Sunak and Gove are clearly Cabinet calibre, and Dave is a special case, but how many others would have had a sniff of a Cabinet position pre-2019?

    Talking of which, here's the Health Secretary. Even if it's true, even if you think it's true, you don't go out of your way to piss people off like this.

    'Doctors in training as I prefer to call them walked out of our negotiations'

    Health Secretary Victoria Atkins spoke to #BBCBreakfast about the 72 hour junior doctors strike in England


    https://twitter.com/BBCBreakfast/status/1737742766719848628
    Is she thick?

    I daresay Foxy can put me right on this, but isn't "Junior Doctors" a generic term for qualified doctors who could have been in service for up to a dozen years or so?
    It covers a wide range, including FY1 and FY2.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    nico679 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    And the new labour government did precisely what for them? These are places that have been electing the red squad for decades only to be ignored who can blame them for trying something different.

    A starmer government will also do precisely sweet fa for them as no on in london, which is most mp's give a shit about anything outside london
    People should engage their brains if they have any before they stupidly just vote on vacuous sound bites . Too many excuses are made for thick low information voters who should instead stay home and watch Jeremy Kyle repeats and spare us their idiocy on Election Day .
    Ah I see they are too thick to vote....tells you a lot about your ideology. I see you don't address the fact labour governments and mps did fa for them...much the reason labour finally got kicked out of scotland....somehow they owe you votes because labour
    Labour did some good things when they came in and tried to repair public services which had been trashed by the Tories . My ideology is the public shouldn’t be subjected to the results of thick low information voters deciding to go and vote when they can barely tie their own shoe laces . Sorry if that offends but that’s it .
    Your definition of too thick of course being that they dont vote labour.
    No not at all . I know quite a few in here vote Tory . I might disagree with their politics but they’re not low information voters .
    Well I am working class, grew up in a council house etc, still renting now. Nothing new labour did ever benefitted me. A lot like me out there so why do you assume they are low information voters rather than just voters who realise labour is not going to help them either?
    I’d never call you low information. Certainly not .
  • MJWMJW Posts: 1,728
    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    rcs1000 said:

    FPT

    Sean_F said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.

    Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
    Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
    Israel have murdered very few (though still more than they should have, which is zero).

    Hamas set out to murder: to kill Jews - any of them, children, the elderly, women, whatever. That was their objective. That is what murder is.

    Israel did not set out to kill Palestinians (other than Hamas fighters, who are a legitimate target in war). That Palestinian civilians have died in the conflict was always going to be an inevitable consequence of urban fighting. That is not murder. (FWIW, I think Israel has been reckless in its actions and has paid insufficient attention to civilian casualties at times. Still a different thing though).

    By using the same language for the two, you're creating a legal and moral equivalence - and to cite those numbers in that framing is to legitimise Hamas or delegitimise Israel. Or both.

    Think carefully.
    I disagree.

    The current Israeli leadership have set out to murder. They may not have murdered as many innocent people as Hamas (though they have certainly 'killed' far more innocents than Hamas) but this is not a numbers game. Murder is murder and both Hamas and Netenyahu's cabal should be rotting in jail - or preferably Hell.
    Netanyahu and his clique should indeed be in gaol. He's been a cancer in Israeli politics for 30 years.
    In July 1995, Netanyahu led a mock funeral procession featuring a coffin and hangman's noose at an anti-Rabin rally where protesters chanted, "Death to Rabin".[10][11] The chief of internal security, Carmi Gillon, then alerted Netanyahu of a plot on Rabin's life and asked him to moderate the protests' rhetoric, which Netanyahu declined to do.[8][12]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin
    The current Israeli security minister called for the death of Rabin at the time.
    Ben-Gvir is every bit as racist as anyone Hamas can throw up. Why he doesn't get designated a terrorist is one of the great US/Israeli mysteries

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/25/far-right-extremist-itamar-ben-gvir-to-be-israel-national-security-minister

    A more comprehensive profile of the fragrant Ben-Gvir

    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/27/itamar-ben-gvir-israels-minister-of-chaos
    There's little doubt Ben-Gvir is a hateful racist with little regard for human life, but I fear stating equivalence overlooks just quite how deranged and dangerous Hamas's worldview is. They see the deaths of their own people as justifiable, worth celebrating even, as believe it brings them closer to wiping out/driving out Jews from the Middle East.

    They knew there would be many, as even the most limited, well targeted response to 7th Oct would cost innocent lives in a place as populated as Gaza, and Hamas deliberately put Palestinians in harm's way by embedding themselves as closely as possible in vital civilian places.
  • Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Aussie Punk is my new rabbit hole. Best played loud as feck.
  • MJWMJW Posts: 1,728
    stodge said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    I don’t blame them. The truth is they’ve been let down by governments of every colour for decades. So why not take a punt on something new?

    But they have been badly let down again, and I very much doubt many will be returning the Tory fold in the coming years. Don’t underestimate the mood for change in these areas though - it’s definitely now fertile ground for parties like Reform.
    Precisely the point labour did nothing for them, so they voted tory, tories did nothing for them....why would the return to labour when labour also failed them.
    Not quite - the rise in the Conservative vote share across many northern and midland seats began in 2001 and quietly picked up in every election from then on.

    Why? Hardly Brexit - I think it's the sons and daughters of those who bought their Council houses under RTB in the early 1980s becoming home owners themselves and as often happens with home owners and mortgagees the politics shifts to the Conservative camp.

    I suspect there's a corollary between rates of home ownership in the suburban and semi-rural north and midlands and Conservative vote share.
    Labour also did do things for people - if you look at lots of attempts at regeneration they will date to the New Labour years. Issues are they were swimming against a tide that's been bad for smaller industrial and coastal towns across the developed west. Ran out of time and money, plus not every scheme had the desired effect.

    It's also right that the idea of the left behind impoverished working class northerner forsaken by Labour may be overplayed, given the greatest shifts were elderly homeowners who were culturally Labour due to history, but economically secure in a way that meant they would have previously been voting Tory in the south.
  • kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Where I can imagine it being good is generating covers that should have happened but never did.

    Tainted Love by Elvis
    Smells Like Teen Spirit by Petula Clark
    Pinball Wizard by Rick Astley

    Just 3 of hundreds that spring to mind.
    I love finding bizarre covers by artists out of their comfort zone.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067
    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Where I can imagine it being good is generating covers that should have happened but never did.

    Tainted Love by Elvis
    Smells Like Teen Spirit by Petula Clark
    Pinball Wizard by Rick Astley

    Just 3 of hundreds that spring to mind.
    Why, when we already have the oeuvre of Shatner ?
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,873
    MJW said:

    stodge said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    I don’t blame them. The truth is they’ve been let down by governments of every colour for decades. So why not take a punt on something new?

    But they have been badly let down again, and I very much doubt many will be returning the Tory fold in the coming years. Don’t underestimate the mood for change in these areas though - it’s definitely now fertile ground for parties like Reform.
    Precisely the point labour did nothing for them, so they voted tory, tories did nothing for them....why would the return to labour when labour also failed them.
    Not quite - the rise in the Conservative vote share across many northern and midland seats began in 2001 and quietly picked up in every election from then on.

    Why? Hardly Brexit - I think it's the sons and daughters of those who bought their Council houses under RTB in the early 1980s becoming home owners themselves and as often happens with home owners and mortgagees the politics shifts to the Conservative camp.

    I suspect there's a corollary between rates of home ownership in the suburban and semi-rural north and midlands and Conservative vote share.
    Labour also did do things for people - if you look at lots of attempts at regeneration they will date to the New Labour years. Issues are they were swimming against a tide that's been bad for smaller industrial and coastal towns across the developed west. Ran out of time and money, plus not every scheme had the desired effect.

    It's also right that the idea of the left behind impoverished working class northerner forsaken by Labour may be overplayed, given the greatest shifts were elderly homeowners who were culturally Labour due to history, but economically secure in a way that meant they would have previously been voting Tory in the south.
    There are constant societal and economic ebbs and flows across the country. Why for instance is Surrey much less securely Conservative than 30 years ago? The Tories have lost most of the Councils and while only Guildford has gone LD in the recent past it may be different next time.

    London is another example - London was a Conservative city, in 1992 the Conservatives won 41 seats and dominated the outer suburbs. Now, they are well behind Labour.
  • Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Where I can imagine it being good is generating covers that should have happened but never did.

    Tainted Love by Elvis
    Smells Like Teen Spirit by Petula Clark
    Pinball Wizard by Rick Astley

    Just 3 of hundreds that spring to mind.
    Why, when we already have the oeuvre of Shatner ?
    William Shatner is a better singer than Thom Yorke of Radiohead.
  • It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    I know the Tories are getting desperate for a quick solution to their problems but I am not sure that Jim'll Fix It.
    Any inquiries into inaction in respect of Savile must surely begin at the BBC.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486

    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Aussie Punk is my new rabbit hole. Best played loud as feck.
    Is Aussie punk - midnight oil, beds are burning type music? If so agree.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631

    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Aussie Punk is my new rabbit hole. Best played loud as feck.
    There are a few Nu Punk bands playing not so far from us at the Bearded Theory Festival near Burton in May.

    http://www.alttickets.com/bearded-theory-tickets/walton-on-trent-catton-park/2024-05-23-09-00

    Quite tempted to see Amyl and the Sniffers..

    https://youtu.be/7fLE53fti9Q?feature=shared

  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,984
    Closing in on 7 hours of waiting in the car to check in at two separate locations today. About an hour more queuing ahead before P&O check in.

    Lovely start to the festive season.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Where I can imagine it being good is generating covers that should have happened but never did.

    Tainted Love by Elvis
    Smells Like Teen Spirit by Petula Clark
    Pinball Wizard by Rick Astley

    Just 3 of hundreds that spring to mind.
    Why, when we already have the oeuvre of Shatner ?
    William Shatner is a better singer than Thom Yorke of Radiohead.
    I wouldn’t dare.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631
    boulay said:

    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Aussie Punk is my new rabbit hole. Best played loud as feck.
    Is Aussie punk - midnight oil, beds are burning type music? If so agree.
    No it is a new genre, quite reminiscent of classic British punk of the Seventies at ground level. See the video that I linked to earlier.

    We are really back to the Seventies. Decaying towns, arguments over Europe, economic stagnation, out of touch technocrat politicians, industrial unrest...now even a punk revival.


  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,779

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Where I can imagine it being good is generating covers that should have happened but never did.

    Tainted Love by Elvis
    Smells Like Teen Spirit by Petula Clark
    Pinball Wizard by Rick Astley

    Just 3 of hundreds that spring to mind.
    Why, when we already have the oeuvre of Shatner ?
    William Shatner is a better singer than Thom Yorke of Radiohead.
    He's no Leonard Nimoy though.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,779
    Foxy said:

    boulay said:

    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Aussie Punk is my new rabbit hole. Best played loud as feck.
    Is Aussie punk - midnight oil, beds are burning type music? If so agree.
    No it is a new genre, quite reminiscent of classic British punk of the Seventies at ground level. See the video that I linked to earlier.

    We are really back to the Seventies. Decaying towns, arguments over Europe, economic stagnation, out of touch technocrat politicians, industrial unrest...now even a punk revival.


    See Romper Stomper for some of the origins. Some of the same vibes as the skinheads gave UK punk&two-tone on the fringes.
  • TimS said:

    Closing in on 7 hours of waiting in the car to check in at two separate locations today. About an hour more queuing ahead before P&O check in.

    Lovely start to the festive season.

    Be nice to the check-in staff. Having to work for P&O is bad enough.
  • novanova Posts: 690

    It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    Hasn't the fact that there was a file and he didn't know about it been common knowledge for years?

    The 'new' information in The Guardian is clearly trying to provide a little context, as the Mail and Telegraph have both 'coincidentally' started running stories about cases that he dealt with as a lawyer.

    I suppose the public can make up their mind about whether they want MPs and PMs who have experience outside politics, or not.

    I do suspect it's just the start of what's likely to be campaign that's dirty beyond anything we've seen before. The days when a party election ad that wasn't 100% accurate being talked about for days are long gone, and instead voters will be bombarded with 1000s of dubious social media ads insinuating all kinds of dodgy goings on from Starmer.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Where I can imagine it being good is generating covers that should have happened but never did.

    Tainted Love by Elvis
    Smells Like Teen Spirit by Petula Clark
    Pinball Wizard by Rick Astley

    Just 3 of hundreds that spring to mind.
    Rick Astley's version of Highway to Hell is awesome. Not quite Bon Scott, but head and shoulders better than Brian (lead singer of Geordie) Johnston.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067
    I approve this argument.

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/21/clarence-thomas-trump-supreme-court-cases-00132788
    Consider the following hypothetical: Suppose Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s husband happened to be a well-known crypto advocate and an early investor in Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX. As you may have heard, the exchange collapsed , and SBF was recently convicted of criminal fraud ; he intends to appeal . Now suppose that the case ends up before the Supreme Court.

    Under those circumstances, is there any question that Justice Jackson would need to recuse herself from the case? After all, her husband could be either a co-conspirator or a victim. Either way, he — and she, by extension — has an interest in the outcome of the prosecution.

    I pose the hypothetical not because there is any reason to believe that is true — Justice Jackson’s husband, for the record, is a surgeon in Washington — but because it illustrates why Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from reviewing the Justice Department’s prosecution of Donald Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election , as well as this week’s Colorado state court ruling disqualifying Trump from appearing on the state’s primary ballot because he engaged in an “insurrection” within the meaning of the 14th Amendment…

    ...Congressional Democrats urged Thomas last week to recuse himself from the Justice Department’s criminal case. They argue that his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas could be a material witness in the prosecution as a result of her post-election support for keeping Trump in office.

    Here is a better reason: Justice Thomas should recuse himself because Ginni Thomas — an apparent true believer in Trump’s election-fraud claims — is a victim of Trump’s alleged crimes. That means that both Ginni Thomas and Justice Thomas have a direct reputational stake in the outcome of the proceedings — one that further calls into serious question the justice’s ability to render an independent decision strictly on the merits of either case...

  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,984
    Foxy said:

    boulay said:

    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Aussie Punk is my new rabbit hole. Best played loud as feck.
    Is Aussie punk - midnight oil, beds are burning type music? If so agree.
    No it is a new genre, quite reminiscent of classic British punk of the Seventies at ground level. See the video that I linked to earlier.

    We are really back to the Seventies. Decaying towns, arguments over Europe, economic stagnation, out of touch technocrat politicians, industrial unrest...now even a punk revival.

    And today no channel tunnel, just like the 70s. But a degree or two warmer.
  • novanova Posts: 690

    It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    I know the Tories are getting desperate for a quick solution to their problems but I am not sure that Jim'll Fix It.
    Any inquiries into inaction in respect of Savile must surely begin at the BBC.
    Given his close relationship with Thatcher, and the Government approved access he was given to abuse patients at Broadmoor, surely the Tories can think of somewhere closer to home for their inquiries?
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,779
    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    It's called SAWDTY:

    Stock, Aiken and Waterman Direct To You
    Imagine infinite Radiohead.
    About as close as you'll get :

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbn7DoANUYE

    "Everything In It's Right Place - Radiohead [800% Slower] "
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    nova said:

    It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    Hasn't the fact that there was a file and he didn't know about it been common knowledge for years?

    The 'new' information in The Guardian is clearly trying to provide a little context, as the Mail and Telegraph have both 'coincidentally' started running stories about cases that he dealt with as a lawyer.

    I suppose the public can make up their mind about whether they want MPs and PMs who have experience outside politics, or not.

    I do suspect it's just the start of what's likely to be campaign that's dirty beyond anything we've seen before. The days when a party election ad that wasn't 100% accurate being talked about for days are long gone, and instead voters will be bombarded with 1000s of dubious social media ads insinuating all kinds of dodgy goings on from Starmer.
    The b@st@rd had a curry in Durham once too. B@st@rd
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118

    It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    He can’t use that given what he expected of Boris re partygate, but I don’t think this line of attack will work.

    His Achilles heels are his inconsistent ‘principles’ and difficulty keeping to commitments/pledges; there’s ample evidence of it, loads of videos on X/Twitter. I’m sure interviewers will go big on that in the campaign and he will get flustered, whereas he has all his answers worked out with the Savile accusations

  • nova said:

    It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    Hasn't the fact that there was a file and he didn't know about it been common knowledge for years?

    The 'new' information in The Guardian is clearly trying to provide a little context, as the Mail and Telegraph have both 'coincidentally' started running stories about cases that he dealt with as a lawyer.

    I suppose the public can make up their mind about whether they want MPs and PMs who have experience outside politics, or not.

    I do suspect it's just the start of what's likely to be campaign that's dirty beyond anything we've seen before. The days when a party election ad that wasn't 100% accurate being talked about for days are long gone, and instead voters will be bombarded with 1000s of dubious social media ads insinuating all kinds of dodgy goings on from Starmer.
    However, reheating a story the didn't really go anywhere last time, when nobody is really paying attention (can I start eating the mountain of cheese in my fridge yet?) and there's possibly twelve months until the election... It's all a bit "Mr Snuffles may be dead, but we must keep the wheel spinning somehow..."
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,779
    Pagan2 said:

    stodge said:

    Interesting to see the usual old schtick Government only cares about London.

    I think if you asked most Londoners they'd say the one place the Government doesn't care about is London.

    Evidence suggests the old schtick is true. London gets far more investment in infrastructure than anywhere else per head of capita
    I think, if you check, the Londoners are right.

    Now, doff your cap like a good provincial.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,816
    edited December 2023
    Ruth Davidson on Looniversity Challenge, representing Edinburgh.
  • TimS said:

    Closing in on 7 hours of waiting in the car to check in at two separate locations today. About an hour more queuing ahead before P&O check in.

    Lovely start to the festive season.

    Good luck!
  • ohnotnow said:

    Pagan2 said:

    stodge said:

    Interesting to see the usual old schtick Government only cares about London.

    I think if you asked most Londoners they'd say the one place the Government doesn't care about is London.

    Evidence suggests the old schtick is true. London gets far more investment in infrastructure than anywhere else per head of capita
    I think, if you check, the Londoners are right.

    Now, doff your cap like a good provincial.
    "Impudent peasant!" :lol:
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,373
    edited December 2023

    nova said:

    It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    Hasn't the fact that there was a file and he didn't know about it been common knowledge for years?

    The 'new' information in The Guardian is clearly trying to provide a little context, as the Mail and Telegraph have both 'coincidentally' started running stories about cases that he dealt with as a lawyer.

    I suppose the public can make up their mind about whether they want MPs and PMs who have experience outside politics, or not.

    I do suspect it's just the start of what's likely to be campaign that's dirty beyond anything we've seen before. The days when a party election ad that wasn't 100% accurate being talked about for days are long gone, and instead voters will be bombarded with 1000s of dubious social media ads insinuating all kinds of dodgy goings on from Starmer.
    The b@st@rd had a curry in Durham once too. B@st@rd
    All the worst people go to or come from Durham for lockdown breaking antics.

    Edit - come to think of it, that's not true. Susan Acland-Hood and Gavin Williamson did it in London.

    Er, that is, had a lockdown breaking party, before anyone throws up.
  • MJWMJW Posts: 1,728
    stodge said:

    MJW said:

    stodge said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    I don’t blame them. The truth is they’ve been let down by governments of every colour for decades. So why not take a punt on something new?

    But they have been badly let down again, and I very much doubt many will be returning the Tory fold in the coming years. Don’t underestimate the mood for change in these areas though - it’s definitely now fertile ground for parties like Reform.
    Precisely the point labour did nothing for them, so they voted tory, tories did nothing for them....why would the return to labour when labour also failed them.
    Not quite - the rise in the Conservative vote share across many northern and midland seats began in 2001 and quietly picked up in every election from then on.

    Why? Hardly Brexit - I think it's the sons and daughters of those who bought their Council houses under RTB in the early 1980s becoming home owners themselves and as often happens with home owners and mortgagees the politics shifts to the Conservative camp.

    I suspect there's a corollary between rates of home ownership in the suburban and semi-rural north and midlands and Conservative vote share.
    Labour also did do things for people - if you look at lots of attempts at regeneration they will date to the New Labour years. Issues are they were swimming against a tide that's been bad for smaller industrial and coastal towns across the developed west. Ran out of time and money, plus not every scheme had the desired effect.

    It's also right that the idea of the left behind impoverished working class northerner forsaken by Labour may be overplayed, given the greatest shifts were elderly homeowners who were culturally Labour due to history, but economically secure in a way that meant they would have previously been voting Tory in the south.
    There are constant societal and economic ebbs and flows across the country. Why for instance is Surrey much less securely Conservative than 30 years ago? The Tories have lost most of the Councils and while only Guildford has gone LD in the recent past it may be different next time.

    London is another example - London was a Conservative city, in 1992 the Conservatives won 41 seats and dominated the outer suburbs. Now, they are well behind Labour.
    Well, yes. As a Surrey native I know this - and we can point to the reasons why, namely that it's become more of an adjunct to and overflow from London, while London has shifted to the liberal left as by and large (with obvious exceptions, like the superrich) its residents owe their lifestyle and possibilities to policies broadly on that side of the spectrum.

    And the point about Northern towns is that they've generally been losers of recent trends, with the decline of heavy industry, holidays abroad, a brain drain to cities as we've moved to a knowledge and services-based economy.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,241

    Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

    Rudy Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy after two election workers sued him for defamation and won $148.1m in damages.

    Reuters reported that court documents show Giuliani, Donald Trump’s former attorney and former mayor of New York, filed for bankruptcy protection.

    Earlier in the day a Washington DC judge allowed the two Georgia election workers who successfully sued Giuliani to immediately collect their millions in damages.

    The workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, would typically have to wait 30 days before they can start attempts to collect payments, but Beryl Howell agreed that Giuliani has “proven himself to be an unwilling and uncooperative litigant”.


    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/21/giuliani-148-million-damages-georgia-lawsuit?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    I’m not sure the courts did the litigants and favours.

    Let’s say they had awarded damages of $5m. They would have likely been paid and - I assume - that would have been a life changing amount of money and fair recompense.

    In awarding an amount far beyond what Guiliani could ever afford it has resulted in bankruptcy and the litigants likely getting less money and after a delay as all his other liabilities will be taken into account and may well be secured on assets (eg a mortgage)
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,373

    Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

    Rudy Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy after two election workers sued him for defamation and won $148.1m in damages.

    Reuters reported that court documents show Giuliani, Donald Trump’s former attorney and former mayor of New York, filed for bankruptcy protection.

    Earlier in the day a Washington DC judge allowed the two Georgia election workers who successfully sued Giuliani to immediately collect their millions in damages.

    The workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, would typically have to wait 30 days before they can start attempts to collect payments, but Beryl Howell agreed that Giuliani has “proven himself to be an unwilling and uncooperative litigant”.


    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/21/giuliani-148-million-damages-georgia-lawsuit?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    I’m not sure the courts did the litigants and favours.

    Let’s say they had awarded damages of $5m. They would have likely been paid and - I assume - that would have been a life changing amount of money and fair recompense.

    In awarding an amount far beyond what Guiliani could ever afford it has resulted in bankruptcy and the litigants likely getting less money and after a delay as all his other liabilities will be taken into account and may well be secured on assets (eg a mortgage)
    Giuliani would still have found a way to avoid paying.

    Just as Tolstoy did in this country.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,998
    Dr. Foxy - You really ought to listen to the Fisk Jubilee Singers from time to time.

    They're quite good and have a wonderful story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisk_Jubilee_Singers

    (I bought one of their CDs as a Christmas present.)
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,373
    England do what England do best. 78/4
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,859
    stodge said:

    MJW said:

    stodge said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    I don’t blame them. The truth is they’ve been let down by governments of every colour for decades. So why not take a punt on something new?

    But they have been badly let down again, and I very much doubt many will be returning the Tory fold in the coming years. Don’t underestimate the mood for change in these areas though - it’s definitely now fertile ground for parties like Reform.
    Precisely the point labour did nothing for them, so they voted tory, tories did nothing for them....why would the return to labour when labour also failed them.
    Not quite - the rise in the Conservative vote share across many northern and midland seats began in 2001 and quietly picked up in every election from then on.

    Why? Hardly Brexit - I think it's the sons and daughters of those who bought their Council houses under RTB in the early 1980s becoming home owners themselves and as often happens with home owners and mortgagees the politics shifts to the Conservative camp.

    I suspect there's a corollary between rates of home ownership in the suburban and semi-rural north and midlands and Conservative vote share.
    Labour also did do things for people - if you look at lots of attempts at regeneration they will date to the New Labour years. Issues are they were swimming against a tide that's been bad for smaller industrial and coastal towns across the developed west. Ran out of time and money, plus not every scheme had the desired effect.

    It's also right that the idea of the left behind impoverished working class northerner forsaken by Labour may be overplayed, given the greatest shifts were elderly homeowners who were culturally Labour due to history, but economically secure in a way that meant they would have previously been voting Tory in the south.
    There are constant societal and economic ebbs and flows across the country. Why for instance is Surrey much less securely Conservative than 30 years ago? The Tories have lost most of the Councils and while only Guildford has gone LD in the recent past it may be different next time.

    London is another example - London was a Conservative city, in 1992 the Conservatives won 41 seats and dominated the outer suburbs. Now, they are well behind Labour.
    The Conservatives took their offering down market, and both London and Surrey are stuffed with educated voters.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631

    Dr. Foxy - You really ought to listen to the Fisk Jubilee Singers from time to time.

    They're quite good and have a wonderful story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisk_Jubilee_Singers

    (I bought one of their CDs as a Christmas present.)

    I have pretty eclectic musical taste. If you like acapela Black Gospel the Blind Boys of Alabama take some beating:

    https://youtu.be/RIqy5BH8Gr8?feature=shared

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,908
    stodge said:

    MJW said:

    stodge said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    I don’t blame them. The truth is they’ve been let down by governments of every colour for decades. So why not take a punt on something new?

    But they have been badly let down again, and I very much doubt many will be returning the Tory fold in the coming years. Don’t underestimate the mood for change in these areas though - it’s definitely now fertile ground for parties like Reform.
    Precisely the point labour did nothing for them, so they voted tory, tories did nothing for them....why would the return to labour when labour also failed them.
    Not quite - the rise in the Conservative vote share across many northern and midland seats began in 2001 and quietly picked up in every election from then on.

    Why? Hardly Brexit - I think it's the sons and daughters of those who bought their Council houses under RTB in the early 1980s becoming home owners themselves and as often happens with home owners and mortgagees the politics shifts to the Conservative camp.

    I suspect there's a corollary between rates of home ownership in the suburban and semi-rural north and midlands and Conservative vote share.
    Labour also did do things for people - if you look at lots of attempts at regeneration they will date to the New Labour years. Issues are they were swimming against a tide that's been bad for smaller industrial and coastal towns across the developed west. Ran out of time and money, plus not every scheme had the desired effect.

    It's also right that the idea of the left behind impoverished working class northerner forsaken by Labour may be overplayed, given the greatest shifts were elderly homeowners who were culturally Labour due to history, but economically secure in a way that meant they would have previously been voting Tory in the south.
    There are constant societal and economic ebbs and flows across the country. Why for instance is Surrey much less securely Conservative than 30 years ago? The Tories have lost most of the Councils and while only Guildford has gone LD in the recent past it may be different next time.

    London is another example - London was a Conservative city, in 1992 the Conservatives won 41 seats and dominated the outer suburbs. Now, they are well behind Labour.
    London was a swing city, Wilson and Heath won it and Thatcher and Major won it and then Blair won it.

    Now it is the safest Labour region of the UK, in large part as the Tory v Labour divide is no longer on class grounds as it used to be but is now more urban v rural and old v young
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,248
    Pagan2 said:

    Win a historic victory promising to invest in and level up the North; winning scores of northern Labour seats in the process.

    Spend the next 4.5 years doing sod all.

    If I were a Tory MP in a red wall seat, or a red wall voter, I would feel utterly betrayed by those at the top of the Party.

    The Tories deserve to lose the next election for many reasons, but this is a particularly good one.

    I can’t believe people so many people were dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for it in the first place. Fucking elderly Red Wall Leavers, desperate for something positive to come from the smoking ashes of Brexit.

    These people lived through the 80s, they saw the Tories gut these places. And 30 years later they eagerly swallowed the bullshit and queued up to put their tick in the Leave box and then for Johnson. All because they don’t like foreigners.

    Well, they definitely know now that the Tories don’t give a flying fuck about the north. That Brexit was built on Tory lies. The NHS isn’t better. Food isn’t cheaper. There’s still fuel on VAT. There have been considerable downsides. Including the utter contempt the Tories have shown for the north.

    It’s a shame we’ve had to suffer so much damage for the scales to fall from these people’s eyes.
    And the new labour government did precisely what for them? These are places that have been electing the red squad for decades only to be ignored who can blame them for trying something different.

    A starmer government will also do precisely sweet fa for them as no on in london, which is most mp's give a shit about anything outside london
    The sensible thing to do would be keep switching votes until the politicians work out what they need to do.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    edited December 2023
    isam said:

    It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    He can’t use that given what he expected of Boris re partygate, but I don’t think this line of attack will work.

    His Achilles heels are his inconsistent ‘principles’ and difficulty keeping to commitments/pledges; there’s ample evidence of it, loads of videos on X/Twitter. I’m sure interviewers will go big on that in the campaign and he will get flustered, whereas he has all his answers worked out with the Savile accusations

    Clip of the flippety flops

    https://x.com/timmyvoe240886/status/1703030484995842357?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
  • isam said:

    isam said:

    It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    He can’t use that given what he expected of Boris re partygate, but I don’t think this line of attack will work.

    His Achilles heels are his inconsistent ‘principles’ and difficulty keeping to commitments/pledges; there’s ample evidence of it, loads of videos on X/Twitter. I’m sure interviewers will go big on that in the campaign and he will get flustered, whereas he has all his answers worked out with the Savile accusations

    Clip of the flippety flops

    https://x.com/timmyvoe240886/status/1703030484995842357?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
    You are weirdly obsessed with Keir Starmer.


  • You see when Rishi Sunak dresses up like this it is fine but when SKS dresses up properly it is not.

    Rishi Sunak is a waste of space.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631

    Jonathan said:

    Why are Tories trying to throw the election? What do they know that we don’t? No one is this rubbish. It has to be a stitch up job..

    They probably can.

    Any party that's this far into government tends to be a bit light on the new talent front, and that's without the regular revolutions and purges.

    Sunak and Gove are clearly Cabinet calibre, and Dave is a special case, but how many others would have had a sniff of a Cabinet position pre-2019?

    Talking of which, here's the Health Secretary. Even if it's true, even if you think it's true, you don't go out of your way to piss people off like this.

    'Doctors in training as I prefer to call them walked out of our negotiations'

    Health Secretary Victoria Atkins spoke to #BBCBreakfast about the 72 hour junior doctors strike in England


    https://twitter.com/BBCBreakfast/status/1737742766719848628
    Is she thick?

    I daresay Foxy can put me right on this, but isn't "Junior Doctors" a generic term for qualified doctors who could have been in service for up to a dozen years or so?
    She does seem way out of her depth.

    The approved term is "Postgraduate Doctors" or "Specialist Trainees" and "Foundation Trainees" but the BMA division is the "Junior Doctors Committee".

    "Doctors in Training" isn't one that I have heard.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541

    It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    Johnson tried this. How did that work out?
  • Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Why are Tories trying to throw the election? What do they know that we don’t? No one is this rubbish. It has to be a stitch up job..

    They probably can.

    Any party that's this far into government tends to be a bit light on the new talent front, and that's without the regular revolutions and purges.

    Sunak and Gove are clearly Cabinet calibre, and Dave is a special case, but how many others would have had a sniff of a Cabinet position pre-2019?

    Talking of which, here's the Health Secretary. Even if it's true, even if you think it's true, you don't go out of your way to piss people off like this.

    'Doctors in training as I prefer to call them walked out of our negotiations'

    Health Secretary Victoria Atkins spoke to #BBCBreakfast about the 72 hour junior doctors strike in England


    https://twitter.com/BBCBreakfast/status/1737742766719848628
    Is she thick?

    I daresay Foxy can put me right on this, but isn't "Junior Doctors" a generic term for qualified doctors who could have been in service for up to a dozen years or so?
    She does seem way out of her depth.

    The approved term is "Postgraduate Doctors" or "Specialist Trainees" and "Foundation Trainees" but the BMA division is the "Junior Doctors Committee".

    "Doctors in Training" isn't one that I have heard.
    Sounds like a bawdy 1960s comedy :lol:
  • DougSeal said:

    It looks like Starmer is about to get into trouble for lack of action on Saville. There was an open file on Saville, but was closed when Starmer was in charge of the DPP, and the defence he’s trying to use is that he didn’t know anything about it or what was going on.

    One of the problems with being in charge of departments for any length of time is things are going to go wrong, especially in the area of public prosecutions where we know as fact innocent people get banged up and guilty remain free at times. Your work is re-evaluated in hindsight.

    But Starmer is going to need a stronger reply than the “I was in charge , yes, but I wasn’t told” line his team has preemptively slipped The Guardian.

    Johnson tried this. How did that work out?
    The other problem is that this is what Sunak said when Boris Johnson tried his smears.

    Rishi Sunak has sought to distance himself from Boris Johnson's Jimmy Savile smear on Sir Keir Starmer, telling a Downing Street press conference: "I wouldn't have said it".

    It came after the PM's policy chief handed in her resignation over the remarks, citing Mr Johnson's refusal to apologise for the false accusation that Sir Keir failed to lock up paedophile Savile while he was director of public prosecutions.

    During a debate on the Sue Gray partygate report on Monday, Mr Johnson said Sir Keir spent his time as head of the CPS "prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile".

    Asked about the comments, Mr Sunak said: "Being honest, I wouldn't have said it and I'm glad the prime minister clarified what he meant."

    Social media users said the chancellor was positioning himself for a leadership bid if the prime minister resigns or is removed.


    https://www.itv.com/news/2022-02-03/pm-backtracks-on-jimmy-savile-slur-as-he-seeks-to-clarify-remarks
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,373
    edited December 2023

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Why are Tories trying to throw the election? What do they know that we don’t? No one is this rubbish. It has to be a stitch up job..

    They probably can.

    Any party that's this far into government tends to be a bit light on the new talent front, and that's without the regular revolutions and purges.

    Sunak and Gove are clearly Cabinet calibre, and Dave is a special case, but how many others would have had a sniff of a Cabinet position pre-2019?

    Talking of which, here's the Health Secretary. Even if it's true, even if you think it's true, you don't go out of your way to piss people off like this.

    'Doctors in training as I prefer to call them walked out of our negotiations'

    Health Secretary Victoria Atkins spoke to #BBCBreakfast about the 72 hour junior doctors strike in England


    https://twitter.com/BBCBreakfast/status/1737742766719848628
    Is she thick?

    I daresay Foxy can put me right on this, but isn't "Junior Doctors" a generic term for qualified doctors who could have been in service for up to a dozen years or so?
    She does seem way out of her depth.

    The approved term is "Postgraduate Doctors" or "Specialist Trainees" and "Foundation Trainees" but the BMA division is the "Junior Doctors Committee".

    "Doctors in Training" isn't one that I have heard.
    Sounds like a bawdy 1960s comedy :lol:
    I was thinking that it sounded more like you. A Doctor in Trains, anyway.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Why are Tories trying to throw the election? What do they know that we don’t? No one is this rubbish. It has to be a stitch up job..

    They probably can.

    Any party that's this far into government tends to be a bit light on the new talent front, and that's without the regular revolutions and purges.

    Sunak and Gove are clearly Cabinet calibre, and Dave is a special case, but how many others would have had a sniff of a Cabinet position pre-2019?

    Talking of which, here's the Health Secretary. Even if it's true, even if you think it's true, you don't go out of your way to piss people off like this.

    'Doctors in training as I prefer to call them walked out of our negotiations'

    Health Secretary Victoria Atkins spoke to #BBCBreakfast about the 72 hour junior doctors strike in England


    https://twitter.com/BBCBreakfast/status/1737742766719848628
    Is she thick?

    I daresay Foxy can put me right on this, but isn't "Junior Doctors" a generic term for qualified doctors who could have been in service for up to a dozen years or so?
    She does seem way out of her depth.

    The approved term is "Postgraduate Doctors" or "Specialist Trainees" and "Foundation Trainees" but the BMA division is the "Junior Doctors Committee".

    "Doctors in Training" isn't one that I have heard.
    All barristers are juniors except silks, even if you were called 60 years ago. Some of the most interesting are the very senior juniors.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,288
    Foxy said:

    boulay said:

    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Spotify will soon generate whole songs based on user’s history, without even crediting a name (or will make up fake ones that sound different for every account). That’ll be the moment when artist music and music business will split as you’ve anticipate.
    https://twitter.com/phil_rouge/status/1737830408769970353

    How do you mean? Kind of generic totally machine made songs of a genre it deduces you like from your listening history? I can't easily imagine that at all.
    I am almost tempted to hear such music. In the last week I have listened to Seventies folk, Sixties girl groups, Eighties New Romantics, Australian Nu Punk, Roots Reggae and Gram Parsons.

    Such a mashup would be either great or awful!
    Aussie Punk is my new rabbit hole. Best played loud as feck.
    Is Aussie punk - midnight oil, beds are burning type music? If so agree.
    No it is a new genre, quite reminiscent of classic British punk of the Seventies at ground level. See the video that I linked to earlier.

    We are really back to the Seventies. Decaying towns, arguments over Europe, economic stagnation, out of touch technocrat politicians, industrial unrest...now even a punk revival.


    It's one of my more unexpected turns as an Indie kid to be sympathetic to the modest re-rise of punk. Didn't expect to spend my 50s listening to some of the stuff I'm now keeping an ear out for, albeit I still like some musicianship in and amongst (was always a Clash over Sex Pistols and all those others who tapped into the inherent crapness of the genre - lots now who are barely beyond being Half Man Half Biscuit. Only had brief contact with the Aussie stuff though.

    A lot of stuff in the UK seems to be coming from the next size of red wall town down from the usually feted regional cities as well.

This discussion has been closed.