Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
Surely no one can rate Jones these days? He's really gone off the end of the pier. Last seen questioning if Hamas were rapists as he didn't actually get to see the gory act. He revealed who he was back in 2018 when his defence of laying a wreath for brutal terrorists was that 'no one was killed' by it. That's not to mention his attitude towards women who disagree with him. A textbook misogynist. Labour is so much better off without someone whose morals long ago went into the toilet due to twisted ideological obsessions.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I've followed his output for a long time (books, press, internet, tv) and found it (still do) principled, intelligent and well-expressed. Not all of it but mostly. I think it's mainly his effectiveness as a polemicist, and his uppity urban way of speaking, that irritates people who don't share his (admittedly quite hard left) politics.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith.
He's also earned a well-founded reputation as an online bully who'll find accounts who say things that are less than complimentary about him or the left, and flag them up to followers to abuse. He knows this happened and people pointed out to him and carries on doing it. Most recently doing so with someone who has a relative being held hostage by Hamas. Numerous women have complained about his behaviour too. If he had decency he'd have long ago realised the unpleasant impacts of his actions and apologised for and changed that, even while defending his underlying views.
There's a parallel perhaps with the Tory right - in that he got everything that in theory he wanted (the left in charge of Labour in his case), and it's driven him a bit mad and into a toxic rabbit hole when the land of milk, honey and electoral success did not arrive and people pointed out their objections to the more sinister or destructive attitudes there.
It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
I simply do not recognize this from what I've seen of his output (which is quite a lot).
Eg on antisemitism, to my eyes he's been one of the best as regards the people associated with Corbyn. There's a line to be walked, recognizing there is a real problem with it on parts of the left whilst at the same time combatting how it was exaggerated and weaponized by people with an agenda not of fighting anti-jewish prejudice but of promoting prejudice against the left, and he walked that line admirably. Many didn't but he did.
Misogynist and a bully? I don't think so. His style is hard-hitting but he doesn't particularly target women or the vulnerable. Of course, social media being what it is, some of his 'followers' might sometimes do this. I don't know. I don't follow his followers.
Bitter? Again, I don't see it. He's doing ok in his chosen field. Doesn't come over to me as massively angry or frustrated. His style hasn't changed that much. Motormouth, assertive, but not obnoxious. And an absolute angel and a gentleman and a scholar compared to many others on the hard left and to literally everyone on the hard right.
My son is a huge fan of OJ. I will have to persuade him not to follow him and end up voting Green. Regardless of OJ's virtues (and I'm not against him, though not as pro as you), I reckon it's pretty shoddy of him at this stage to leave Labour so publicly rather than fight within the party for what he believes. It won't have much impact, but socialists should be entirely focused just on getting the Tories out this year. Anything that distracts from that is poor.
Ideological battles within the left should be postponed until after the GE, I think. I'm disappointed with Owen.
He’s also made a silly error - professionally
Labour is about to take power with a big majority. He could and should have stayed in the party to be an influential voice from the Left, steering things somewhat, even if he didn’t get most of what he wanted
Now he will be dismissed as some frivolous turncoat who ran off to another party at the crucial moment, and his views will be ignored. I imagine the Guardian is quite annoyed
i am reminded of Matthew Parris, who was driven so insane by Brexit he quit the Tories and joined the Lib Dems, and lost any of the influence he had over Tory politics, when he was before a respected figure with a definite Tory following
Owen Jones is not worthy to polish Parris's shoes. Parris stood for election, got elected, including becoming close to the PM. You can argue he's wrong on the EU, but he achieved.
In comparison, OJ's just an eloquent loudmouth with zero substance. An empty vessel.
Having taken ayahuasca twice (and for other reasons) I am utterly convinced there is a much much deeper layer of reality; where consciousness entwines with the universe in some kind of divinely glittering double helix. A descending baroque staircase of beauty and meaning, made of the diamonds of time
Do I “know” this? Not in any scientific way. Do I believe this? No, it is more than “belief”
So what is the word? There isn’t one. But I have seen this and it is the case
“double helix”
Isn’t it scientifically proven the Strands of DNA entwine in certain way by singing song to each other?
If you are unaware of this science it’s spooky you used this phrase after ayahuasca
Certainly terms of seeing we don’t see reality with all the filters our DNA switched on, and things like those drugs mess with the brain filters for sure, but they probably mess with the sound filters too - there’s probably a background noise DNA switches off because we don’t need to constantly hear it, gets in tge way of hunting gathering and you subconsciously heard it and recognised it for what it was. The two strands of your own DNA singing tge song what made you.
Fascinating
I absolutely believe ayahuasca throws open the doors of perception. All the reality that is normally filtered out - because we don’t need it to survive as am omnivorous but vulnerable ape on the plains of Africa - suddenly surges in. It is a flood of super reality - magnificent but terrifying - and I can see how you could drown. I can see why we filter it out. It is unnecessary and REALLY distracting
You’d get eaten by a leopard if you saw all that all the time, standing there like a star struck dork under the acacia
Nope, it’s just drivel
Take ayahuasca and get back to me
Not you, her ridiculous drivel about DNA.
How do they know what to do then, Mr Smarty turbopants, if they are not communicating with each other.
And if you concede they communicate, why can’t it be musical? Did you click the links to see how scientific this is?
Hydrogen bonds, in the main. Rather well understood by science.
* Pink noise (the correlation structure "1/f spectra") have been found in both musical signals and DNA sequences.[9] * Models with duplication and mutation operations, such as the "expansion-modification model" are able to generate sequences with 1/f spectra.[10] * When DNA sequences are converted to music, it sounds musical.[11][12] * Human Genome Project has revealed similar genetic themes not only between species, but also between proteins
@MoonRabbit - Another bullet point: it's quite possible that Watson heard music playing when he dreamt (literally) the idea of the double helix in the first place.
It’s bonkers. Why not wait until Starmer has had two or three rubbishy Blairite years in office - and is suffering in the polls - then flounce off in a dramatic huff which gets loads of attention and makes real waves?
He’s flounced six months BEFORE an election where Starmer has a 20 point lead - or more - and is cruising to a huge victory. Jones will achieve nothing
It’s not so much a premature ejaculation, it’s worse than that - it’s like coming in your pants as you stand in the kitchen ordering the Uber to take you to the restaurant where your date is waiting
🔵 Penny Mordaunt failed to praise Rishi Sunak when challenged to confirm her support for the Prime Minister today amid speculation about a plot to oust him
He has only a few hours left to call the palace...
Maybe he will do it by text. Or WhatsApp. In case he can't get through by phone!
@christopherhope NEW A source close to rebellious Tory MPs has just WhatsApped me saying: “The Rwanda bill is a total dud. It won’t stop the boats. These characters at the top of Government aren’t serious people. They’re fighting for survival day by day, tracking at 19 per cent in the polls, and letting the country suffer in the meantime.”
In light of the Owen news it's interesting that long standing Labour leftie Paul Mason has been on a different journey. Here he is full throated behind the current leadership:
"Labour's @RachelReevesMP spells out her vision for workers rights, at the heart of a state-directed green growth strategy. Never been a better time to join Labour. ✊ My five takeaways from the Mais Lecture..."
What a badly written piece, full of falsehoods and unchallenged nonsense.
And what, pray, is the Trusty Savings Bank?
Assume they mean the Trustee Savings Bank.
How far our local press have fallen.
Presumably they spoke 'Trustee' into some sort of voice-recognition software.
Over the past three or so years I’ve had to use voice recognition software and it can be very frustrating. One thing I’ve noted is that, apparently, I pronounce the word ‘two’ as ‘true’. Although my wife says I don’t!
Anyone who has viewed even half-way decent YouTube vids and switched on closed captions feature, knows all too-well just how consistently (and hilariously) "voice recognition" is off-base.
Though it DOES appear to be far superior to AI with respect to accuracy.
Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
Surely no one can rate Jones these days? He's really gone off the end of the pier. Last seen questioning if Hamas were rapists as he didn't actually get to see the gory act. He revealed who he was back in 2018 when his defence of laying a wreath for brutal terrorists was that 'no one was killed' by it. That's not to mention his attitude towards women who disagree with him. A textbook misogynist. Labour is so much better off without someone whose morals long ago went into the toilet due to twisted ideological obsessions.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I've followed his output for a long time (books, press, internet, tv) and found it (still do) principled, intelligent and well-expressed. Not all of it but mostly. I think it's mainly his effectiveness as a polemicist, and his uppity urban way of speaking, that irritates people who don't share his (admittedly quite hard left) politics.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith.
He's also earned a well-founded reputation as an online bully who'll find accounts who say things that are less than complimentary about him or the left, and flag them up to followers to abuse. He knows this happened and people pointed out to him and carries on doing it. Most recently doing so with someone who has a relative being held hostage by Hamas. Numerous women have complained about his behaviour too. If he had decency he'd have long ago realised the unpleasant impacts of his actions and apologised for and changed that, even while defending his underlying views.
There's a parallel perhaps with the Tory right - in that he got everything that in theory he wanted (the left in charge of Labour in his case), and it's driven him a bit mad and into a toxic rabbit hole when the land of milk, honey and electoral success did not arrive and people pointed out their objections to the more sinister or destructive attitudes there.
It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
I simply do not recognize this from what I've seen of his output (which is quite a lot).
Eg on antisemitism, to my eyes he's been one of the best as regards the people associated with Corbyn. There's a line to be walked, recognizing there is a real problem with it on parts of the left whilst at the same time combatting how it was exaggerated and weaponized by people with an agenda not of fighting anti-jewish prejudice but of promoting prejudice against the left, and he walked that line admirably. Many didn't but he did.
Misogynist and a bully? I don't think so. His style is hard-hitting but he doesn't particularly target women or the vulnerable. Of course, social media being what it is, some of his 'followers' might sometimes do this. I don't know. I don't follow his followers.
Bitter? Again, I don't see it. He's doing ok in his chosen field. Doesn't come over to me as massively angry or frustrated. His style hasn't changed that much. Motormouth, assertive, but not obnoxious. And an absolute angel and a gentleman and a scholar compared to many others on the hard left and to literally everyone on the hard right.
My son is a huge fan of OJ. I will have to persuade him not to follow him and end up voting Green. Regardless of OJ's virtues (and I'm not against him, though not as pro as you), I reckon it's pretty shoddy of him at this stage to leave Labour so publicly rather than fight within the party for what he believes. It won't have much impact, but socialists should be entirely focused just on getting the Tories out this year. Anything that distracts from that is poor.
Ideological battles within the left should be postponed until after the GE, I think. I'm disappointed with Owen.
He’s also made a silly error - professionally
Labour is about to take power with a big majority. He could and should have stayed in the party to be an influential voice from the Left, steering things somewhat, even if he didn’t get most of what he wanted
Now he will be dismissed as some frivolous turncoat who ran off to another party at the crucial moment, and his views will be ignored. I imagine the Guardian is quite annoyed
i am reminded of Matthew Parris, who was driven so insane by Brexit he quit the Tories and joined the Lib Dems, and lost any of the influence he had over Tory politics, when he was before a respected figure with a definite Tory following
Owen Jones is not worthy to polish Parris's shoes. Parris stood for election, got elected, including becoming close to the PM. You can argue he's wrong on the EU, but he achieved.
In comparison, OJ's just an eloquent loudmouth with zero substance. An empty vessel.
Parris acted the twat on Brexit. A real spectacle of clownishness - accusing the British of being stupid and racist, and then campaigning to overturn their vote, or even just Revoke it. UGH. Fuck him
I’ve never paid half as much attention to him, since. Everyone who campaigned for a second vote should be drummed out of public life
🔵 Penny Mordaunt failed to praise Rishi Sunak when challenged to confirm her support for the Prime Minister today amid speculation about a plot to oust him
He has only a few hours left to call the palace...
And to think Andrea Leadsom to believe that the Penny stuff was all garbage, on Sky Politics Hub last night.
In light of the Owen news it's interesting that long standing Labour leftie Paul Mason has been on a different journey. Here he is full throated behind the current leadership:
"Labour's @RachelReevesMP spells out her vision for workers rights, at the heart of a state-directed green growth strategy. Never been a better time to join Labour. ✊ My five takeaways from the Mais Lecture..."
What a badly written piece, full of falsehoods and unchallenged nonsense.
And what, pray, is the Trusty Savings Bank?
Assume they mean the Trustee Savings Bank.
How far our local press have fallen.
I’m intrigued. Which ‘falsehoods’ and ‘badly written nonsense’ did you see?
Falsehoods
Trusty Savings Bank. Doesn't exist.
"My business uses bank transfer or cash as I can't afford a card machine as a small business".
It's cheaper to use SumUp than cash, by an absolute mile. That's one reason why so many businesses are going cashless – it's much cheaper than handling cash.
Unchallenged nonsense
"People still have them because they don't want to be paid through their bank so they use the Post Office."
Why? It's pointlessly laborious for people do that. Just get it put straight into your account.
As has been pointed out to you many times, it is actually free to use cash if you have a bank nearby with a night safe. So this will actually pile more costs on that business as card fees are dearer than no cost.
‘Trustee’ and ‘Trusty’ were actually used interchangeably in the north until the 1930s, so while it is probably a spelling error it’s not impossible that it’s the way the branch spelled the name.
There's a lot of discussion on PB.com about when Sunak will hold the election, and whether he'll be given the heave by his MPs before then. These are the two greatest unknowns in British politics this year.
The third should get more attention. When, if at all, will Farage take up the mantle of leader of Reform?
It will make a massive difference to the votes they receive at the GE. They surely would have done a lot better in recent by-elections if they'd had Farage as party leader campaigning for their candidates.
What is he waiting for?
Farage wants to be the leader of the right in Britain after the election. He has two ways of achieving that.
One is to go back as leader of Reform and boost their profile so that they increase their vote share to perhaps 15%+ at the general election. In those circumstances the Tories would be reduced to a rump of less than 100 MPs and Reform would be poised to step into the breach. But would it? Even at 15% Reform is unlikely to win any seats at Westminster. It has no grassroots organisation comparable to those of the other parties and its by-election machine was last seen campaigning in the wrong constituency on the day of the Wellingborough byelection. And with no MPs Reform could not credibly lay claim to the leadership of the right.
Farage's other route to leadership lies through the Conservative Party itself - after a heavy defeat the shrinking band of OAPs who form the Tory membership will turn to a new leader whose pitch will be to invite Farage back into membership, which will instantly make him the most influential Tory, with every prospect of taking over the leadership in future. This is a more certain prospect that trying to follow the Reform route - Farage wants the Tory Party to lose but not be completely destroyed so there is something left for him to take control of in 2025.
Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
Surely no one can rate Jones these days? He's really gone off the end of the pier. Last seen questioning if Hamas were rapists as he didn't actually get to see the gory act. He revealed who he was back in 2018 when his defence of laying a wreath for brutal terrorists was that 'no one was killed' by it. That's not to mention his attitude towards women who disagree with him. A textbook misogynist. Labour is so much better off without someone whose morals long ago went into the toilet due to twisted ideological obsessions.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I've followed his output for a long time (books, press, internet, tv) and found it (still do) principled, intelligent and well-expressed. Not all of it but mostly. I think it's mainly his effectiveness as a polemicist, and his uppity urban way of speaking, that irritates people who don't share his (admittedly quite hard left) politics.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith.
He's also earned a well-founded reputation as an online bully who'll find accounts who say things that are less than complimentary about him or the left, and flag them up to followers to abuse. He knows this happened and people pointed out to him and carries on doing it. Most recently doing so with someone who has a relative being held hostage by Hamas. Numerous women have complained about his behaviour too. If he had decency he'd have long ago realised the unpleasant impacts of his actions and apologised for and changed that, even while defending his underlying views.
There's a parallel perhaps with the Tory right - in that he got everything that in theory he wanted (the left in charge of Labour in his case), and it's driven him a bit mad and into a toxic rabbit hole when the land of milk, honey and electoral success did not arrive and people pointed out their objections to the more sinister or destructive attitudes there.
It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
Yes that’s fair
Having just praised Jones - as a journalist (and he is good) - there are definitely questions about his alleged antisemitism and bullying. AIUI two or three gender critical female writers have quit the Guardian because of trans-rights bullying - and he is implicated. Not good
Dunno if he is personally implicated, I thought he just had a strong view in writing on it and that is all, but Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman certainly moved on due to the issue.
The way Moore and Freeman phrased their accounts seemed - to me - to point directly at Jones. I can’t think of anyone else on the Guardian with his high profile and social media clout who is so vocal on Trans
Unless Adrian Chiles has stopped writing about his favourite milk cartons and has developed a sudden nasty side
He wrote a moving article yesterday about the death of his Father
I’ve spent a lifetime dreading the loss of a parent. And now it’s finally happened | Adrian Chiles
🔵 Penny Mordaunt failed to praise Rishi Sunak when challenged to confirm her support for the Prime Minister today amid speculation about a plot to oust him
Is that when she came out of the cabinet meeting and was asked whether she supported him and said she was getting on with her job, or has there been another instance?
"The grim truth: over six million prime age [American] men were neither working nor looking for work. Conventional unemployment measures ignored these labor force dropouts, but their ranks had been rising rlentlessly for half a century."
(Ths edition was published by Templeton Press, by the way.)
It’s bonkers. Why not wait until Starmer has had two or three rubbishy Blairite years in office - and is suffering in the polls - then flounce off in a dramatic huff which gets loads of attention and makes real waves?
He’s flounced six months BEFORE an election where Starmer has a 20 point lead - or more - and is cruising to a huge victory. Jones will achieve nothing
It’s not so much a premature ejaculation, it’s worse than that - it’s like coming in your pants as you stand in the kitchen ordering the Uber to take you to the restaurant where your date is waiting
But what if, horror of horrors, Starmer turns out to be moderately successful? What then for poor old Jones?
You'll probably snigger at that suggestion but compared with the recent mob, he won't have to do a whole lot to seem quite competent.
In light of the Owen news it's interesting that long standing Labour leftie Paul Mason has been on a different journey. Here he is full throated behind the current leadership:
"Labour's @RachelReevesMP spells out her vision for workers rights, at the heart of a state-directed green growth strategy. Never been a better time to join Labour. ✊ My five takeaways from the Mais Lecture..."
What a badly written piece, full of falsehoods and unchallenged nonsense.
And what, pray, is the Trusty Savings Bank?
Assume they mean the Trustee Savings Bank.
How far our local press have fallen.
I’m intrigued. Which ‘falsehoods’ and ‘badly written nonsense’ did you see?
Falsehoods
Trusty Savings Bank. Doesn't exist.
"My business uses bank transfer or cash as I can't afford a card machine as a small business".
It's cheaper to use SumUp than cash, by an absolute mile. That's one reason why so many businesses are going cashless – it's much cheaper than handling cash.
Unchallenged nonsense
"People still have them because they don't want to be paid through their bank so they use the Post Office."
Why? It's pointlessly laborious for people do that. Just get it put straight into your account.
As has been pointed out to you many times, it is actually free to use cash if you have a bank nearby with a night safe. So this will actually pile more costs on that business as card fees are dearer than no cost.
‘Trustee’ and ‘Trusty’ were actually used interchangeably in the north until the 1930s, so while it is probably a spelling error it’s not impossible that it’s the way the branch spelled the name.
Is it? When I had my business (some time ago) there was a charge for depositing cash (fortunately I never did) there was also a charge for depositing cheques over a certain number (again I kept under this as most people paid by bank transfer).
In light of the Owen news it's interesting that long standing Labour leftie Paul Mason has been on a different journey. Here he is full throated behind the current leadership:
"Labour's @RachelReevesMP spells out her vision for workers rights, at the heart of a state-directed green growth strategy. Never been a better time to join Labour. ✊ My five takeaways from the Mais Lecture..."
What a badly written piece, full of falsehoods and unchallenged nonsense.
And what, pray, is the Trusty Savings Bank?
Assume they mean the Trustee Savings Bank.
How far our local press have fallen.
I’m intrigued. Which ‘falsehoods’ and ‘badly written nonsense’ did you see?
Falsehoods
Trusty Savings Bank. Doesn't exist.
"My business uses bank transfer or cash as I can't afford a card machine as a small business".
It's cheaper to use SumUp than cash, by an absolute mile. That's one reason why so many businesses are going cashless – it's much cheaper than handling cash.
Unchallenged nonsense
"People still have them because they don't want to be paid through their bank so they use the Post Office."
Why? It's pointlessly laborious for people do that. Just get it put straight into your account.
As has been pointed out to you many times, it is actually free to use cash if you have a bank nearby with a night safe. So this will actually pile more costs on that business as card fees are dearer than no cost.
‘Trustee’ and ‘Trusty’ were actually used interchangeably in the north until the 1930s, so while it is probably a spelling error it’s not impossible that it’s the way the branch spelled the name.
LOL. It's a common-or-garden typo.
And, no, it's not 'free' if you have a bank with a night safe nearby (and what is 'nearby'? A yard, a mile, ten miles? What?). There is risk cost, handling cost, cashing up time cost, travel cost... there's so much evidence on this I'm surprised you are even arguing the point.
But go ahead. I'm done.
The fact that more and more businesses are going cashless every day rather underlines my point but if you want to luxuriate in nostalgia and denial I'm not going to stop you.
Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
Surely no one can rate Jones these days? He's really gone off the end of the pier. Last seen questioning if Hamas were rapists as he didn't actually get to see the gory act. He revealed who he was back in 2018 when his defence of laying a wreath for brutal terrorists was that 'no one was killed' by it. That's not to mention his attitude towards women who disagree with him. A textbook misogynist. Labour is so much better off without someone whose morals long ago went into the toilet due to twisted ideological obsessions.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I've followed his output for a long time (books, press, internet, tv) and found it (still do) principled, intelligent and well-expressed. Not all of it but mostly. I think it's mainly his effectiveness as a polemicist, and his uppity urban way of speaking, that irritates people who don't share his (admittedly quite hard left) politics.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith.
He's also earned a well-founded reputation as an online bully who'll find accounts who say things that are less than complimentary about him or the left, and flag them up to followers to abuse. He knows this happened and people pointed out to him and carries on doing it. Most recently doing so with someone who has a relative being held hostage by Hamas. Numerous women have complained about his behaviour too. If he had decency he'd have long ago realised the unpleasant impacts of his actions and apologised for and changed that, even while defending his underlying views.
There's a parallel perhaps with the Tory right - in that he got everything that in theory he wanted (the left in charge of Labour in his case), and it's driven him a bit mad and into a toxic rabbit hole when the land of milk, honey and electoral success did not arrive and people pointed out their objections to the more sinister or destructive attitudes there.
It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
Yes that’s fair
Having just praised Jones - as a journalist (and he is good) - there are definitely questions about his alleged antisemitism and bullying. AIUI two or three gender critical female writers have quit the Guardian because of trans-rights bullying - and he is implicated. Not good
Dunno if he is personally implicated, I thought he just had a strong view in writing on it and that is all, but Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman certainly moved on due to the issue.
The way Moore and Freeman phrased their accounts seemed - to me - to point directly at Jones. I can’t think of anyone else on the Guardian with his high profile and social media clout who is so vocal on Trans
Unless Adrian Chiles has stopped writing about his favourite milk cartons and has developed a sudden nasty side
He wrote a moving article yesterday about the death of his Father
I’ve spent a lifetime dreading the loss of a parent. And now it’s finally happened | Adrian Chiles
The death of parents is weird. i expected my father’s death to poleaxe me, it really didn’t. I never even cried, not properly, just a couple of teary moments when I gasped and reined in in, and they were brief. Everyone kept saying Oh it will hit you soon - it hasn’t. I don’t believe it will, now, not in the manner predicted
I miss him, occasionally, but it is wistful more than painful
My friend’s death last week was possibly worse. Much younger, funny guy, I was arguably sadder about that than about my own father passing
It is entirely unpredictable: as Chiles rightly says
"The grim truth: over six million prime age [American] men were neither working nor looking for work. Conventional unemployment measures ignored these labor force dropouts, but their ranks had been rising rlentlessly for half a century."
(Ths edition was published by Templeton Press, by the way.)
I am not working, and have not been for about a decade. We are in a fortunate situation where one spouse earns enough to allow us to live on one salary, especially when you consider how childcare costs would suck up some of a second income. I am a house-husband, and do the sort of work 'wives' would traditionally do fifty or more years ago. Which is handy, as if Mrs J ever picked up the feather duster she'd probably poke her eyes out! (*)
Another interesting figure would be households where *no-one* works.
@christopherhope NEW A source close to rebellious Tory MPs has just WhatsApped me saying: “The Rwanda bill is a total dud. It won’t stop the boats. These characters at the top of Government aren’t serious people. They’re fighting for survival day by day, tracking at 19 per cent in the polls, and letting the country suffer in the meantime.”
Blimey. It's a long time since I've agreed with anything said by a Tory MP.
Having taken ayahuasca twice (and for other reasons) I am utterly convinced there is a much much deeper layer of reality; where consciousness entwines with the universe in some kind of divinely glittering double helix. A descending baroque staircase of beauty and meaning, made of the diamonds of time
Do I “know” this? Not in any scientific way. Do I believe this? No, it is more than “belief”
So what is the word? There isn’t one. But I have seen this and it is the case
“double helix”
Isn’t it scientifically proven the Strands of DNA entwine in certain way by singing song to each other?
If you are unaware of this science it’s spooky you used this phrase after ayahuasca
Certainly terms of seeing we don’t see reality with all the filters our DNA switched on, and things like those drugs mess with the brain filters for sure, but they probably mess with the sound filters too - there’s probably a background noise DNA switches off because we don’t need to constantly hear it, gets in tge way of hunting gathering and you subconsciously heard it and recognised it for what it was. The two strands of your own DNA singing tge song what made you.
Fascinating
I absolutely believe ayahuasca throws open the doors of perception. All the reality that is normally filtered out - because we don’t need it to survive as am omnivorous but vulnerable ape on the plains of Africa - suddenly surges in. It is a flood of super reality - magnificent but terrifying - and I can see how you could drown. I can see why we filter it out. It is unnecessary and REALLY distracting
You’d get eaten by a leopard if you saw all that all the time, standing there like a star struck dork under the acacia
Nope, it’s just drivel
Take ayahuasca and get back to me
Not you, her ridiculous drivel about DNA.
How do they know what to do then, Mr Smarty turbopants, if they are not communicating with each other.
And if you concede they communicate, why can’t it be musical? Did you click the links to see how scientific this is?
Hydrogen bonds, in the main. Rather well understood by science.
* Pink noise (the correlation structure "1/f spectra") have been found in both musical signals and DNA sequences.[9] * Models with duplication and mutation operations, such as the "expansion-modification model" are able to generate sequences with 1/f spectra.[10] * When DNA sequences are converted to music, it sounds musical.[11][12] * Human Genome Project has revealed similar genetic themes not only between species, but also between proteins
@MoonRabbit - Another bullet point: it's quite possible that Watson heard music playing when he dreamt (literally) the idea of the double helix in the first place.
We can see the double helix, we know it’s there. Since the thirties. Even turbopants will back me on this one.
Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
Surely no one can rate Jones these days? He's really gone off the end of the pier. Last seen questioning if Hamas were rapists as he didn't actually get to see the gory act. He revealed who he was back in 2018 when his defence of laying a wreath for brutal terrorists was that 'no one was killed' by it. That's not to mention his attitude towards women who disagree with him. A textbook misogynist. Labour is so much better off without someone whose morals long ago went into the toilet due to twisted ideological obsessions.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I've followed his output for a long time (books, press, internet, tv) and found it (still do) principled, intelligent and well-expressed. Not all of it but mostly. I think it's mainly his effectiveness as a polemicist, and his uppity urban way of speaking, that irritates people who don't share his (admittedly quite hard left) politics.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith.
He's also earned a well-founded reputation as an online bully who'll find accounts who say things that are less than complimentary about him or the left, and flag them up to followers to abuse. He knows this happened and people pointed out to him and carries on doing it. Most recently doing so with someone who has a relative being held hostage by Hamas. Numerous women have complained about his behaviour too. If he had decency he'd have long ago realised the unpleasant impacts of his actions and apologised for and changed that, even while defending his underlying views.
There's a parallel perhaps with the Tory right - in that he got everything that in theory he wanted (the left in charge of Labour in his case), and it's driven him a bit mad and into a toxic rabbit hole when the land of milk, honey and electoral success did not arrive and people pointed out their objections to the more sinister or destructive attitudes there.
It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
Yes that’s fair
Having just praised Jones - as a journalist (and he is good) - there are definitely questions about his alleged antisemitism and bullying. AIUI two or three gender critical female writers have quit the Guardian because of trans-rights bullying - and he is implicated. Not good
Dunno if he is personally implicated, I thought he just had a strong view in writing on it and that is all, but Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman certainly moved on due to the issue.
The way Moore and Freeman phrased their accounts seemed - to me - to point directly at Jones. I can’t think of anyone else on the Guardian with his high profile and social media clout who is so vocal on Trans
Unless Adrian Chiles has stopped writing about his favourite milk cartons and has developed a sudden nasty side
He wrote a moving article yesterday about the death of his Father
I’ve spent a lifetime dreading the loss of a parent. And now it’s finally happened | Adrian Chiles
The death of parents is weird. i expected my father’s death to poleaxe me, it really didn’t. I never even cried, not properly, just a couple of teary moments when I gasped and reined in in, and they were brief. Everyone kept saying Oh it will hit you soon - it hasn’t. I don’t believe it will, now, not in the manner predicted
I miss him, occasionally, but it is wistful more than painful
My friend’s death last week was possibly worse. Much younger, funny guy, I was arguably sadder about that than about my own father passing
It is entirely unpredictable: as Chiles rightly says
The younger they are the harder it is. I wasn't particularly upset at all at the death of either of my parents. We weren't that close and they were both very old. However I was very fearful of having children because I knew I would not be able to cope if anything happened to them.
A close friend, presumably of a similar age to you is a real shock. A child would be devastating and I don't know how parents cope with that.
In light of the Owen news it's interesting that long standing Labour leftie Paul Mason has been on a different journey. Here he is full throated behind the current leadership:
"Labour's @RachelReevesMP spells out her vision for workers rights, at the heart of a state-directed green growth strategy. Never been a better time to join Labour. ✊ My five takeaways from the Mais Lecture..."
What a badly written piece, full of falsehoods and unchallenged nonsense.
And what, pray, is the Trusty Savings Bank?
Assume they mean the Trustee Savings Bank.
How far our local press have fallen.
I’m intrigued. Which ‘falsehoods’ and ‘badly written nonsense’ did you see?
Falsehoods
Trusty Savings Bank. Doesn't exist.
"My business uses bank transfer or cash as I can't afford a card machine as a small business".
It's cheaper to use SumUp than cash, by an absolute mile. That's one reason why so many businesses are going cashless – it's much cheaper than handling cash.
Unchallenged nonsense
"People still have them because they don't want to be paid through their bank so they use the Post Office."
Why? It's pointlessly laborious for people do that. Just get it put straight into your account.
As has been pointed out to you many times, it is actually free to use cash if you have a bank nearby with a night safe. So this will actually pile more costs on that business as card fees are dearer than no cost.
‘Trustee’ and ‘Trusty’ were actually used interchangeably in the north until the 1930s, so while it is probably a spelling error it’s not impossible that it’s the way the branch spelled the name.
The number of bank branches is collapsing, though. The chances of there being a local one has fallen from 99% a decade ago, to - what - 20% today?
It’s bonkers. Why not wait until Starmer has had two or three rubbishy Blairite years in office - and is suffering in the polls - then flounce off in a dramatic huff which gets loads of attention and makes real waves?
He’s flounced six months BEFORE an election where Starmer has a 20 point lead - or more - and is cruising to a huge victory. Jones will achieve nothing
It’s not so much a premature ejaculation, it’s worse than that - it’s like coming in your pants as you stand in the kitchen ordering the Uber to take you to the restaurant where your date is waiting
But what if, horror of horrors, Starmer turns out to be moderately successful? What then for poor old Jones?
You'll probably snigger at that suggestion but compared with the recent mob, he won't have to do a whole lot to seem quite competent.
I reckon starmer will get a year or two of honeymoon simply for not being a Tory. But then people will realise nothing is changing fast and many things are still crap and his support will fall away sharply. Perhaps even dramatically. Also he will be weak on immigration and do Woke stuff that annoys
It’s bonkers. Why not wait until Starmer has had two or three rubbishy Blairite years in office - and is suffering in the polls - then flounce off in a dramatic huff which gets loads of attention and makes real waves?
He’s flounced six months BEFORE an election where Starmer has a 20 point lead - or more - and is cruising to a huge victory. Jones will achieve nothing
It’s not so much a premature ejaculation, it’s worse than that - it’s like coming in your pants as you stand in the kitchen ordering the Uber to take you to the restaurant where your date is waiting
But what if, horror of horrors, Starmer turns out to be moderately successful? What then for poor old Jones?
You'll probably snigger at that suggestion but compared with the recent mob, he won't have to do a whole lot to seem quite competent.
I think this is an important point that is underplayed.
The current set of clowns are so incompetent that you could probably throw in @Leon mid-Ayahuasca trip into No. 10 and he'd look like a precise executive in comparison.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith. It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
I simply do not recognize this from what I've seen of his output (which is quite a lot).
Eg on antisemitism, to my eyes he's been one of the best as regards the people associated with Corbyn. There's a line to be walked, recognizing there is a real problem with it on parts of the left whilst at the same time combatting how it was exaggerated and weaponized by people with an agenda not of fighting anti-jewish prejudice but of promoting prejudice against the left, and he walked that line admirably. Many didn't but he did.
Misogynist and a bully? I don't think so. His style is hard-hitting but he doesn't particularly target women or the vulnerable. Of course, social media being what it is, some of his 'followers' might sometimes do this. I don't know. I don't follow his followers.
Bitter? Again, I don't see it. He's doing ok in his chosen field. Doesn't come over to me as massively angry or frustrated. His style hasn't changed that much. Motormouth, assertive, but not obnoxious. And an absolute angel and a gentleman and a scholar compared to many others on the hard left and to literally everyone on the hard right.
Sorry this is just objectively wrong. Time and time again he acted dishonestly and did the thing of saying he was against antisemitism but then defending any example that was inconvenient - not the "weaponising" of it - though that is a very dodgy framing used by those who want to deny anything from their side is "real" antisemitism.
To give two obvious examples that show the nature of his dishonesty and problems, when the mural was highlighted Corbyn pushed out an absolutely dreadful apology. It was one so bad his team had to push out another apology several hours later. Because it didn't actually make any sense - as he said he'd defended at the time on "free speech" grounds but actually it should be removed due to its antisemitic imagery. Those who mattered - Jewish people who'd been horrified by the mural - certainly did not accept it.
Jones went out and claimed he had been troubled by the mural incident but was now "relieved" due to the first statement and how it all showed Jeremy's tremendous moral character. But there's no way you could say that except as a defence mechanism that would allow you to excuse it. Even Corbyn's own team admitted the first apology was useless and had to issue another one. Good enough for Owen though. I use it as a good example of how he says he's 'fighting antisemitism' but only as a cover for defending examples of it.
Later, we had the wreath incident. Corbyn being forced to admit he was "present but not involved" at the wreath laying for Atef Bseiso (a planner, not someone who carried out) the horrific attacks at the Munich Olympics, alongside other people linked to more recent terror attacks on Israelis. Rather than admit a screw up - you could quite easily say "I apologise hugely I did not know", the response was to deny and obfuscate. Jones's contribution was to dismiss complaints with the immortal line "no one was killed by a wreath" - a phrase so callous about what the complaints were about it beggars belief.
I have used these as examples that particularly struck me off the top of my head, but you could find loads of others. On this topic he's not interested in fighting antisemitism, he has been a fraud with a major role in promoting it by defending it when it comes from those he deems the right people then claiming he fights it. As I said, he recently was to be found attacking someone whose relative is still in Hamas captivity. These aren't the actions of someone who cares about combatting antisemitism, rather combatting Jews who complain about it in a way that inconveniences him or his friends.
As for the bullying, I know multiple mutuals who've complained about Jones' behaviour - almost all women - who have done so over a range of topics - so not just the gender wars. He does have a real problem and I suggest you listen to those on the wrong end of it. It's genuinely nasty. We've seen what several ex-colleagues also think of his behaviour.
Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
Surely no one can rate Jones these days? He's really gone off the end of the pier. Last seen questioning if Hamas were rapists as he didn't actually get to see the gory act. He revealed who he was back in 2018 when his defence of laying a wreath for brutal terrorists was that 'no one was killed' by it. That's not to mention his attitude towards women who disagree with him. A textbook misogynist. Labour is so much better off without someone whose morals long ago went into the toilet due to twisted ideological obsessions.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I've followed his output for a long time (books, press, internet, tv) and found it (still do) principled, intelligent and well-expressed. Not all of it but mostly. I think it's mainly his effectiveness as a polemicist, and his uppity urban way of speaking, that irritates people who don't share his (admittedly quite hard left) politics.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith.
He's also earned a well-founded reputation as an online bully who'll find accounts who say things that are less than complimentary about him or the left, and flag them up to followers to abuse. He knows this happened and people pointed out to him and carries on doing it. Most recently doing so with someone who has a relative being held hostage by Hamas. Numerous women have complained about his behaviour too. If he had decency he'd have long ago realised the unpleasant impacts of his actions and apologised for and changed that, even while defending his underlying views.
There's a parallel perhaps with the Tory right - in that he got everything that in theory he wanted (the left in charge of Labour in his case), and it's driven him a bit mad and into a toxic rabbit hole when the land of milk, honey and electoral success did not arrive and people pointed out their objections to the more sinister or destructive attitudes there.
It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
I simply do not recognize this from what I've seen of his output (which is quite a lot).
Eg on antisemitism, to my eyes he's been one of the best as regards the people associated with Corbyn. There's a line to be walked, recognizing there is a real problem with it on parts of the left whilst at the same time combatting how it was exaggerated and weaponized by people with an agenda not of fighting anti-jewish prejudice but of promoting prejudice against the left, and he walked that line admirably. Many didn't but he did.
Misogynist and a bully? I don't think so. His style is hard-hitting but he doesn't particularly target women or the vulnerable. Of course, social media being what it is, some of his 'followers' might sometimes do this. I don't know. I don't follow his followers.
Bitter? Again, I don't see it. He's doing ok in his chosen field. Doesn't come over to me as massively angry or frustrated. His style hasn't changed that much. Motormouth, assertive, but not obnoxious. And an absolute angel and a gentleman and a scholar compared to many others on the hard left and to literally everyone on the hard right.
My son is a huge fan of OJ. I will have to persuade him not to follow him and end up voting Green. Regardless of OJ's virtues (and I'm not against him, though not as pro as you), I reckon it's pretty shoddy of him at this stage to leave Labour so publicly rather than fight within the party for what he believes. It won't have much impact, but socialists should be entirely focused just on getting the Tories out this year. Anything that distracts from that is poor.
Ideological battles within the left should be postponed until after the GE, I think. I'm disappointed with Owen.
He’s also made a silly error - professionally
Labour is about to take power with a big majority. He could and should have stayed in the party to be an influential voice from the Left, steering things somewhat, even if he didn’t get most of what he wanted
Now he will be dismissed as some frivolous turncoat who ran off to another party at the crucial moment, and his views will be ignored. I imagine the Guardian is quite annoyed
i am reminded of Matthew Parris, who was driven so insane by Brexit he quit the Tories and joined the Lib Dems, and lost any of the influence he had over Tory politics, when he was before a respected figure with a definite Tory following
Owen Jones is not worthy to polish Parris's shoes. Parris stood for election, got elected, including becoming close to the PM. You can argue he's wrong on the EU, but he achieved.
In comparison, OJ's just an eloquent loudmouth with zero substance. An empty vessel.
Parris acted the twat on Brexit. A real spectacle of clownishness - accusing the British of being stupid and racist, and then campaigning to overturn their vote, or even just Revoke it. UGH. Fuck him
I’ve never paid half as much attention to him, since. Everyone who campaigned for a second vote should be drummed out of public life
I hate to break it to you, but we have elections here every four to five years. The electorate can, and often do, change their mind.
It's called a democracy I know you have a fondness for third-world countries where democracy is frowned upon and the girls are cheap, but the idea a second vote is somehow wrong is the sign of an ultra-low IQ.
As it happens, I'd argue that Brexit isn't a major factor facing the country at the moment, and a second vote would be a distraction from the more important issues facing the country. But given how Brexit has failed, perhaps those who called for the first vote should be drummed out of public life?
Having taken ayahuasca twice (and for other reasons) I am utterly convinced there is a much much deeper layer of reality; where consciousness entwines with the universe in some kind of divinely glittering double helix. A descending baroque staircase of beauty and meaning, made of the diamonds of time
Do I “know” this? Not in any scientific way. Do I believe this? No, it is more than “belief”
So what is the word? There isn’t one. But I have seen this and it is the case
“double helix”
Isn’t it scientifically proven the Strands of DNA entwine in certain way by singing song to each other?
If you are unaware of this science it’s spooky you used this phrase after ayahuasca
Certainly terms of seeing we don’t see reality with all the filters our DNA switched on, and things like those drugs mess with the brain filters for sure, but they probably mess with the sound filters too - there’s probably a background noise DNA switches off because we don’t need to constantly hear it, gets in tge way of hunting gathering and you subconsciously heard it and recognised it for what it was. The two strands of your own DNA singing tge song what made you.
Fascinating
I absolutely believe ayahuasca throws open the doors of perception. All the reality that is normally filtered out - because we don’t need it to survive as am omnivorous but vulnerable ape on the plains of Africa - suddenly surges in. It is a flood of super reality - magnificent but terrifying - and I can see how you could drown. I can see why we filter it out. It is unnecessary and REALLY distracting
You’d get eaten by a leopard if you saw all that all the time, standing there like a star struck dork under the acacia
Nope, it’s just drivel
Take ayahuasca and get back to me
Not you, her ridiculous drivel about DNA.
How do they know what to do then, Mr Smarty turbopants, if they are not communicating with each other.
And if you concede they communicate, why can’t it be musical? Did you click the links to see how scientific this is?
Hydrogen bonds, in the main. Rather well understood by science.
* Pink noise (the correlation structure "1/f spectra") have been found in both musical signals and DNA sequences.[9] * Models with duplication and mutation operations, such as the "expansion-modification model" are able to generate sequences with 1/f spectra.[10] * When DNA sequences are converted to music, it sounds musical.[11][12] * Human Genome Project has revealed similar genetic themes not only between species, but also between proteins
@MoonRabbit - Another bullet point: it's quite possible that Watson heard music playing when he dreamt (literally) the idea of the double helix in the first place.
We can see the double helix, we know it’s there. Since the thirties. Even turbopants will back me on this one.
Not the thirties. It was the early 1950s. Rosalind Franklin's classic x-ray diffraction photos.
You may be thinking of protein alpha-helices? Astbury at Leeds in the 1930s? Single in alpha, or triple in keratin in the case of wool which Astbury worked on (can't recall if he worked the triple bit out or if ti was the 1950s).
In light of the Owen news it's interesting that long standing Labour leftie Paul Mason has been on a different journey. Here he is full throated behind the current leadership:
"Labour's @RachelReevesMP spells out her vision for workers rights, at the heart of a state-directed green growth strategy. Never been a better time to join Labour. ✊ My five takeaways from the Mais Lecture..."
What a badly written piece, full of falsehoods and unchallenged nonsense.
And what, pray, is the Trusty Savings Bank?
Assume they mean the Trustee Savings Bank.
How far our local press have fallen.
I’m intrigued. Which ‘falsehoods’ and ‘badly written nonsense’ did you see?
Falsehoods
Trusty Savings Bank. Doesn't exist.
"My business uses bank transfer or cash as I can't afford a card machine as a small business".
It's cheaper to use SumUp than cash, by an absolute mile. That's one reason why so many businesses are going cashless – it's much cheaper than handling cash.
Unchallenged nonsense
"People still have them because they don't want to be paid through their bank so they use the Post Office."
Why? It's pointlessly laborious for people do that. Just get it put straight into your account.
As has been pointed out to you many times, it is actually free to use cash if you have a bank nearby with a night safe. So this will actually pile more costs on that business as card fees are dearer than no cost.
‘Trustee’ and ‘Trusty’ were actually used interchangeably in the north until the 1930s, so while it is probably a spelling error it’s not impossible that it’s the way the branch spelled the name.
The number of bank branches is collapsing, though. The chances of there being a local one has fallen from 99% a decade ago, to - what - 20% today?
Because there's falling demand for them, and the legacy banks (quite reasonably) are reluctant to run loss-making bricks-and-mortar operations when most of their customers – and all their neobank competitors – use digital technology to do their banking.
They becoming rather like libraries: everyone says they want them, but hardly anyone uses them.
So the election is shaping up to be a Tory party offering Thatcherism and a Labour Party offering Thatcherism. What the people need is an end to Thatcherism when you look at Thatcherism it’s the reason why the country is in the mess it is. We need an alternative to Thatcherism.
Indeed. But the Ludicrous Owls will just ignore you.
Actions speak far louder than words and every action is to ape the Tories
What is your favourite SKS policy that you are looking forward to him implementing?
As none of my detractors have been able to tell us what their favourite SKS policy they are looking forward to them implementing.
Perhaps it's too difficult a question so I give you a multiple choice options
a) Austerity on stilts
b) Further privatisation of the NHS to please the donors.
c) The promise not to make the well off pay more tax
d) A kind of PFI for energy with the taxpayer taking all the risks and the private sector taking all the rewards
Feel free to add your own policy
Lifting ban on onshore wind farms is an easy way of bringing down energy bills.
I also feel optimistic about state-led housebuilding rather than relying on private developers.
Have they not said they will not put any money into the latter?
And is the taxpayer putting funds into the former but the PFI partners will take all the gain.
Thanks at least for trying
People like Anabobazina just prefer identical policies with a red tie is all I can conclude due to their inability to explain what they think will be better in more substantive ways
On housebuilding, I think they have said they'll change the rules so local development authorities can buy land cheaper for housebuilding. That's probably better than more funding tbh, although I'd like to see that too.
I do generally share your worries that Starmer won't be bold enough, I'm just a bit more optimistic.
In light of the Owen news it's interesting that long standing Labour leftie Paul Mason has been on a different journey. Here he is full throated behind the current leadership:
"Labour's @RachelReevesMP spells out her vision for workers rights, at the heart of a state-directed green growth strategy. Never been a better time to join Labour. ✊ My five takeaways from the Mais Lecture..."
What a badly written piece, full of falsehoods and unchallenged nonsense.
And what, pray, is the Trusty Savings Bank?
Assume they mean the Trustee Savings Bank.
How far our local press have fallen.
I’m intrigued. Which ‘falsehoods’ and ‘badly written nonsense’ did you see?
Falsehoods
Trusty Savings Bank. Doesn't exist.
"My business uses bank transfer or cash as I can't afford a card machine as a small business".
It's cheaper to use SumUp than cash, by an absolute mile. That's one reason why so many businesses are going cashless – it's much cheaper than handling cash.
Unchallenged nonsense
"People still have them because they don't want to be paid through their bank so they use the Post Office."
Why? It's pointlessly laborious for people do that. Just get it put straight into your account.
As has been pointed out to you many times, it is actually free to use cash if you have a bank nearby with a night safe. So this will actually pile more costs on that business as card fees are dearer than no cost.
‘Trustee’ and ‘Trusty’ were actually used interchangeably in the north until the 1930s, so while it is probably a spelling error it’s not impossible that it’s the way the branch spelled the name.
LOL. It's a common-or-garden typo.
And, no, it's not 'free' if you have a bank with a night safe nearby (and what is 'nearby'? A yard, a mile, ten miles? What?). There is risk cost, handling cost, cashing up time cost, travel cost... there's so much evidence on this I'm surprised you are even arguing the point.
But go ahead. I'm done.
The fact that more and more businesses are going cashless every day rather underlines my point but if you want to luxuriate in nostalgia and denial I'm not going to stop you.
It might be a typo. It might not, for the reason I've pointed out. You don't know. You're just looking for reasons to be awkward.
So walking to a bank branch, as happens there, is costly but paying the fees on card transactions and readers is cheap? That's a fairly obvious falsehood of your own, so I'm not surprised you're not willing to discuss it further...
To pick up on @rcs1000 's point, the reason so many businesses are struggling with cash is not because (or not solely because) they don't want to take it but because so many bank branches are shutting. So banks no longer have the cost of branches but can charge their ridiculous card fees and have it both ways. But that puts extra costs on small business (and charities for the matter of that) with tight margins.
Incidentally you asked why people mention your obsession with cash. I think, although personally I don't find it terribly edifying, it's because they find your weird meltdowns on the subject quite funny.
Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
There seems to be an awful lot of ‘haw haw, who cares about little Owen and his membership card!’ It’s almost like…they care.
That is the conundrum with Owen Jones. An irrelevant extremist grifter yet at the same time threatening Labour's prospects with his tiresome dissent.
I'd rather he was in the party, trying to pull it towards socialism, and I hope the reasons he gives for leaving (red tories) are proved wrong. I don't like all of those 'full fat' leftist characters who gathered around Jez by any means, there's some horrors in there, but I do like him.
Dunno. I suspect:
Average voter won't notice
Some OJ haters will see it as a positive/reason to risk Labour (but most OJ haters are probably not Lab candidate voters anyway)
Some OJ fans will follow (but most of them probably not very enthusiastic about Starmer anyway)
It feels pretty marginal to me. What's his big demographic? Right-on Guardian readers - such as myself, but even I am not influenced by OJ, although I find him interesting? We're either going to dutifully hold our noses and vote Starmer, do it enthusiastically or waste our vote on the Lib Dems/Greens like usual. Students, still? Or is he too old for that now? But then, is there going to be a big student vote for Lab anyway? The lazy feckers () probably won't bother to vote and if they do it'll be Green or SWP anyway?
I agree, pretty marginal. Esp with the poll lead as it is. He's a leading voice of the modern urban left but I can't see his defection making much difference given he's been a full-on critic of SKS for ages now.
My theory is he felt guilty for wavering over Corbyn, at one point saying he should step down, so ever since that surprise 2017 GE showing he's been overcompensating slightly.
As I say, I think he's a good guy and a good pundit. Plenty of excellent output over the years, imo easily outweighing the piss-poor stuff, best example of the latter probably being his "Why Russell Brand Matters" article.
I’m not a great fan of OJ but I’ve got some sympathy with the views in the article. What does Starmer, and today’s Labour Party stand for? Why is Diane Abbot still excluded? What about the children of three and four child families? Student loans? I could go on, as Jones does, but I’m not (now) a member of any political party, so I’m not as committed to any of them as he is, or maybe was. I just know I’m not going to vote for the Conservatives.
Yes, he does an effective critique of Starmer's Labour from the left. I'd like him to continue that from within the party rather than (as now) actively working to reduce its vote. But, you know, up to him. Hopefully his (and your) 'red tory' fears will be proved wrong.
Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
Surely no one can rate Jones these days? He's really gone off the end of the pier. Last seen questioning if Hamas were rapists as he didn't actually get to see the gory act. He revealed who he was back in 2018 when his defence of laying a wreath for brutal terrorists was that 'no one was killed' by it. That's not to mention his attitude towards women who disagree with him. A textbook misogynist. Labour is so much better off without someone whose morals long ago went into the toilet due to twisted ideological obsessions.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I've followed his output for a long time (books, press, internet, tv) and found it (still do) principled, intelligent and well-expressed. Not all of it but mostly. I think it's mainly his effectiveness as a polemicist, and his uppity urban way of speaking, that irritates people who don't share his (admittedly quite hard left) politics.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith.
He's also earned a well-founded reputation as an online bully who'll find accounts who say things that are less than complimentary about him or the left, and flag them up to followers to abuse. He knows this happened and people pointed out to him and carries on doing it. Most recently doing so with someone who has a relative being held hostage by Hamas. Numerous women have complained about his behaviour too. If he had decency he'd have long ago realised the unpleasant impacts of his actions and apologised for and changed that, even while defending his underlying views.
There's a parallel perhaps with the Tory right - in that he got everything that in theory he wanted (the left in charge of Labour in his case), and it's driven him a bit mad and into a toxic rabbit hole when the land of milk, honey and electoral success did not arrive and people pointed out their objections to the more sinister or destructive attitudes there.
It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
Yes that’s fair
Having just praised Jones - as a journalist (and he is good) - there are definitely questions about his alleged antisemitism and bullying. AIUI two or three gender critical female writers have quit the Guardian because of trans-rights bullying - and he is implicated. Not good
Dunno if he is personally implicated, I thought he just had a strong view in writing on it and that is all, but Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman certainly moved on due to the issue.
The way Moore and Freeman phrased their accounts seemed - to me - to point directly at Jones. I can’t think of anyone else on the Guardian with his high profile and social media clout who is so vocal on Trans
Unless Adrian Chiles has stopped writing about his favourite milk cartons and has developed a sudden nasty side
He wrote a moving article yesterday about the death of his Father
I’ve spent a lifetime dreading the loss of a parent. And now it’s finally happened | Adrian Chiles
The death of parents is weird. i expected my father’s death to poleaxe me, it really didn’t. I never even cried, not properly, just a couple of teary moments when I gasped and reined in in, and they were brief. Everyone kept saying Oh it will hit you soon - it hasn’t. I don’t believe it will, now, not in the manner predicted
I miss him, occasionally, but it is wistful more than painful
My friend’s death last week was possibly worse. Much younger, funny guy, I was arguably sadder about that than about my own father passing
It is entirely unpredictable: as Chiles rightly says
The younger they are the harder it is. I wasn't particularly upset at all at the death of either of my parents. We weren't that close and they were both very old. However I was very fearful of having children because I knew I would not be able to cope if anything happened to them.
A close friend, presumably of a similar age to you is a real shock. A child would be devastating and I don't know how parents cope with that.
My sister lost a son aged 7, due to brain damage after a near-drowning age 5
Absolutely horrific. If she hadn’t had other kids I am sure she would have killed herself. Losing children - as I have witnessed - is the worst. The grief - as I have witnessed - is unquenchable. This is why I am sure people who lose children will use A.I. to revive them - their voices, personalities, faces, they will make grief robots of the dead kids. Anything to avoid the annihilating pain of the grief
I’d say my sister is now over the worst of that grief. THIRTY YEARS LATER. She can still cry about it, tho. That’s how bad it is
In light of the Owen news it's interesting that long standing Labour leftie Paul Mason has been on a different journey. Here he is full throated behind the current leadership:
"Labour's @RachelReevesMP spells out her vision for workers rights, at the heart of a state-directed green growth strategy. Never been a better time to join Labour. ✊ My five takeaways from the Mais Lecture..."
What a badly written piece, full of falsehoods and unchallenged nonsense.
And what, pray, is the Trusty Savings Bank?
Assume they mean the Trustee Savings Bank.
How far our local press have fallen.
I’m intrigued. Which ‘falsehoods’ and ‘badly written nonsense’ did you see?
Falsehoods
Trusty Savings Bank. Doesn't exist.
"My business uses bank transfer or cash as I can't afford a card machine as a small business".
It's cheaper to use SumUp than cash, by an absolute mile. That's one reason why so many businesses are going cashless – it's much cheaper than handling cash.
Unchallenged nonsense
"People still have them because they don't want to be paid through their bank so they use the Post Office."
Why? It's pointlessly laborious for people do that. Just get it put straight into your account.
As has been pointed out to you many times, it is actually free to use cash if you have a bank nearby with a night safe. So this will actually pile more costs on that business as card fees are dearer than no cost.
‘Trustee’ and ‘Trusty’ were actually used interchangeably in the north until the 1930s, so while it is probably a spelling error it’s not impossible that it’s the way the branch spelled the name.
The number of bank branches is collapsing, though. The chances of there being a local one has fallen from 99% a decade ago, to - what - 20% today?
Because there's falling demand for them, and the legacy banks (quite reasonably) are reluctant to run loss-making bricks-and-mortar operations when most of their customers – and all their neobank competitors – use digital technology to do their banking.
They becoming rather like libraries: everyone says they want them, but hardly anyone uses them.
Make them florists instead.
This particular bank branch has queues, according to the report.
So did Barclays Bank in Cannock, which shut last month.
One trick banks play with shutting them is to say 'only X people use this branch.' They played that trick in Dawley, Shropshire, where they said only 7 people used it. The footfall was 400 a day.
The reason they made their claim was because of those 400, only 7 didn't also use online banking in some form.
The closure crippled the shops in the village centre. Now everyone uses the out of town in Telford.
In light of the Owen news it's interesting that long standing Labour leftie Paul Mason has been on a different journey. Here he is full throated behind the current leadership:
"Labour's @RachelReevesMP spells out her vision for workers rights, at the heart of a state-directed green growth strategy. Never been a better time to join Labour. ✊ My five takeaways from the Mais Lecture..."
What a badly written piece, full of falsehoods and unchallenged nonsense.
And what, pray, is the Trusty Savings Bank?
Assume they mean the Trustee Savings Bank.
How far our local press have fallen.
I’m intrigued. Which ‘falsehoods’ and ‘badly written nonsense’ did you see?
Falsehoods
Trusty Savings Bank. Doesn't exist.
"My business uses bank transfer or cash as I can't afford a card machine as a small business".
It's cheaper to use SumUp than cash, by an absolute mile. That's one reason why so many businesses are going cashless – it's much cheaper than handling cash.
Unchallenged nonsense
"People still have them because they don't want to be paid through their bank so they use the Post Office."
Why? It's pointlessly laborious for people do that. Just get it put straight into your account.
As has been pointed out to you many times, it is actually free to use cash if you have a bank nearby with a night safe. So this will actually pile more costs on that business as card fees are dearer than no cost.
‘Trustee’ and ‘Trusty’ were actually used interchangeably in the north until the 1930s, so while it is probably a spelling error it’s not impossible that it’s the way the branch spelled the name.
LOL. It's a common-or-garden typo.
And, no, it's not 'free' if you have a bank with a night safe nearby (and what is 'nearby'? A yard, a mile, ten miles? What?). There is risk cost, handling cost, cashing up time cost, travel cost... there's so much evidence on this I'm surprised you are even arguing the point.
But go ahead. I'm done.
The fact that more and more businesses are going cashless every day rather underlines my point but if you want to luxuriate in nostalgia and denial I'm not going to stop you.
It might be a typo. It might not, for the reason I've pointed out. You don't know. You're just looking for reasons to be awkward.
So walking to a bank branch, as happens there, is costly but paying the fees on card transactions and readers is cheap? That's a fairly obvious falsehood of your own, so I'm not surprised you're not willing to discuss it further...
To pick up on @rcs1000 's point, the reason so many businesses are struggling with cash is not because (or not solely because) they don't want to take it but because so many bank branches are shutting. So banks no longer have the cost of branches but can charge their ridiculous card fees and have it both ways. But that puts extra costs on small business (and charities for the matter of that) with tight margins.
Incidentally you asked why people mention your obsession with cash. I think, although personally I don't find it terribly edifying, it's because they find your weird meltdowns on the subject quite funny.
What meltdowns would these be? You are projecting again. I didn't raise the issue, and haven't raised it for months.
I was simply replying to someone's post, which I assume most people would think polite.
Cash-handling for businesses is costly. Much more so than cards. That is well documented. Look into up. DYOR.
There are two types of airline captains: the ones who turn the seatbelt sign on at the very slightest hint of turbulence, and then wait a solid hour after it has subsided before allowing people to walk around again. And then there are the ones who don't give a shit. Your wine may not stay in your glass, but you are allowed to prowl the plane.
I much prefer the second group.
Sadly I've been saddled with one from the first group today. (Fortunately, the red Bordeaux is excellent.)
So the election is shaping up to be a Tory party offering Thatcherism and a Labour Party offering Thatcherism. What the people need is an end to Thatcherism when you look at Thatcherism it’s the reason why the country is in the mess it is. We need an alternative to Thatcherism.
In light of the Owen news it's interesting that long standing Labour leftie Paul Mason has been on a different journey. Here he is full throated behind the current leadership:
"Labour's @RachelReevesMP spells out her vision for workers rights, at the heart of a state-directed green growth strategy. Never been a better time to join Labour. ✊ My five takeaways from the Mais Lecture..."
What a badly written piece, full of falsehoods and unchallenged nonsense.
And what, pray, is the Trusty Savings Bank?
Assume they mean the Trustee Savings Bank.
How far our local press have fallen.
I’m intrigued. Which ‘falsehoods’ and ‘badly written nonsense’ did you see?
Falsehoods
Trusty Savings Bank. Doesn't exist.
"My business uses bank transfer or cash as I can't afford a card machine as a small business".
It's cheaper to use SumUp than cash, by an absolute mile. That's one reason why so many businesses are going cashless – it's much cheaper than handling cash.
Unchallenged nonsense
"People still have them because they don't want to be paid through their bank so they use the Post Office."
Why? It's pointlessly laborious for people do that. Just get it put straight into your account.
As has been pointed out to you many times, it is actually free to use cash if you have a bank nearby with a night safe. So this will actually pile more costs on that business as card fees are dearer than no cost.
‘Trustee’ and ‘Trusty’ were actually used interchangeably in the north until the 1930s, so while it is probably a spelling error it’s not impossible that it’s the way the branch spelled the name.
LOL. It's a common-or-garden typo.
And, no, it's not 'free' if you have a bank with a night safe nearby (and what is 'nearby'? A yard, a mile, ten miles? What?). There is risk cost, handling cost, cashing up time cost, travel cost... there's so much evidence on this I'm surprised you are even arguing the point.
But go ahead. I'm done.
The fact that more and more businesses are going cashless every day rather underlines my point but if you want to luxuriate in nostalgia and denial I'm not going to stop you.
It might be a typo. It might not, for the reason I've pointed out. You don't know. You're just looking for reasons to be awkward.
So walking to a bank branch, as happens there, is costly but paying the fees on card transactions and readers is cheap? That's a fairly obvious falsehood of your own, so I'm not surprised you're not willing to discuss it further...
To pick up on @rcs1000 's point, the reason so many businesses are struggling with cash is not because (or not solely because) they don't want to take it but because so many bank branches are shutting. So banks no longer have the cost of branches but can charge their ridiculous card fees and have it both ways. But that puts extra costs on small business (and charities for the matter of that) with tight margins.
Incidentally you asked why people mention your obsession with cash. I think, although personally I don't find it terribly edifying, it's because they find your weird meltdowns on the subject quite funny.
What meltdowns would these be? You are projecting again. I didn't raise the issue, and haven't raised it for months.
I was simply replying to someone's post, which I assume most people would think polite.
Cash-handling for businesses is costly. Much more so than cards. That is well documented. Look into up. DYOR.
I'm done.
I have. And you're wrong. You rely on false figures from the card industry and an incorrect understanding of charges for handling cash, plus externalities which don't exist.
And I've proved you're wrong a dozen ways. Including two in this thread. But you won't listen. You just bat it away.
You really do have a strange meltdown over cash. And your response wasn't polite, since essentially it consisted of shouting abuse at the report for daring to contradict your views. Maybe, if you don't want people teasing you, don't respond at all?
In light of the Owen news it's interesting that long standing Labour leftie Paul Mason has been on a different journey. Here he is full throated behind the current leadership:
"Labour's @RachelReevesMP spells out her vision for workers rights, at the heart of a state-directed green growth strategy. Never been a better time to join Labour. ✊ My five takeaways from the Mais Lecture..."
What a badly written piece, full of falsehoods and unchallenged nonsense.
And what, pray, is the Trusty Savings Bank?
Assume they mean the Trustee Savings Bank.
How far our local press have fallen.
I’m intrigued. Which ‘falsehoods’ and ‘badly written nonsense’ did you see?
Falsehoods
Trusty Savings Bank. Doesn't exist.
"My business uses bank transfer or cash as I can't afford a card machine as a small business".
It's cheaper to use SumUp than cash, by an absolute mile. That's one reason why so many businesses are going cashless – it's much cheaper than handling cash.
Unchallenged nonsense
"People still have them because they don't want to be paid through their bank so they use the Post Office."
Why? It's pointlessly laborious for people do that. Just get it put straight into your account.
As has been pointed out to you many times, it is actually free to use cash if you have a bank nearby with a night safe. So this will actually pile more costs on that business as card fees are dearer than no cost.
‘Trustee’ and ‘Trusty’ were actually used interchangeably in the north until the 1930s, so while it is probably a spelling error it’s not impossible that it’s the way the branch spelled the name.
The number of bank branches is collapsing, though. The chances of there being a local one has fallen from 99% a decade ago, to - what - 20% today?
Because there's falling demand for them, and the legacy banks (quite reasonably) are reluctant to run loss-making bricks-and-mortar operations when most of their customers – and all their neobank competitors – use digital technology to do their banking.
They becoming rather like libraries: everyone says they want them, but hardly anyone uses them.
Make them florists instead.
I have been using the local library regularly. It seems quite busy. There's normally several dozen reserved books waiting for collection. Certainly more regularly useful than the bank.
Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
Surely no one can rate Jones these days? He's really gone off the end of the pier. Last seen questioning if Hamas were rapists as he didn't actually get to see the gory act. He revealed who he was back in 2018 when his defence of laying a wreath for brutal terrorists was that 'no one was killed' by it. That's not to mention his attitude towards women who disagree with him. A textbook misogynist. Labour is so much better off without someone whose morals long ago went into the toilet due to twisted ideological obsessions.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I've followed his output for a long time (books, press, internet, tv) and found it (still do) principled, intelligent and well-expressed. Not all of it but mostly. I think it's mainly his effectiveness as a polemicist, and his uppity urban way of speaking, that irritates people who don't share his (admittedly quite hard left) politics.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith.
He's also earned a well-founded reputation as an online bully who'll find accounts who say things that are less than complimentary about him or the left, and flag them up to followers to abuse. He knows this happened and people pointed out to him and carries on doing it. Most recently doing so with someone who has a relative being held hostage by Hamas. Numerous women have complained about his behaviour too. If he had decency he'd have long ago realised the unpleasant impacts of his actions and apologised for and changed that, even while defending his underlying views.
There's a parallel perhaps with the Tory right - in that he got everything that in theory he wanted (the left in charge of Labour in his case), and it's driven him a bit mad and into a toxic rabbit hole when the land of milk, honey and electoral success did not arrive and people pointed out their objections to the more sinister or destructive attitudes there.
It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
Yes that’s fair
Having just praised Jones - as a journalist (and he is good) - there are definitely questions about his alleged antisemitism and bullying. AIUI two or three gender critical female writers have quit the Guardian because of trans-rights bullying - and he is implicated. Not good
Dunno if he is personally implicated, I thought he just had a strong view in writing on it and that is all, but Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman certainly moved on due to the issue.
The way Moore and Freeman phrased their accounts seemed - to me - to point directly at Jones. I can’t think of anyone else on the Guardian with his high profile and social media clout who is so vocal on Trans
Unless Adrian Chiles has stopped writing about his favourite milk cartons and has developed a sudden nasty side
He wrote a moving article yesterday about the death of his Father
I’ve spent a lifetime dreading the loss of a parent. And now it’s finally happened | Adrian Chiles
The death of parents is weird. i expected my father’s death to poleaxe me, it really didn’t. I never even cried, not properly, just a couple of teary moments when I gasped and reined in in, and they were brief. Everyone kept saying Oh it will hit you soon - it hasn’t. I don’t believe it will, now, not in the manner predicted
I miss him, occasionally, but it is wistful more than painful
My friend’s death last week was possibly worse. Much younger, funny guy, I was arguably sadder about that than about my own father passing
It is entirely unpredictable: as Chiles rightly says
The younger they are the harder it is. I wasn't particularly upset at all at the death of either of my parents. We weren't that close and they were both very old. However I was very fearful of having children because I knew I would not be able to cope if anything happened to them.
A close friend, presumably of a similar age to you is a real shock. A child would be devastating and I don't know how parents cope with that.
I come into contact, professionally, with quite a few such parents.
Those that do 'cope', find a reason to go on living - their other child(ren) and/or a foundation related to the deceased child or volunteering with relevant charities. Often, if there are other children still at home, they are the primary reason - they still need parents and they need support dealing with the loss of a sibling. For many parents, the parenting instinct kicks in and they 'pull themselves together' (for want of a better phrase) so as not to let down the remaining child(ren).
One of the bleakest conversations I ever had was with a father of two children, both of whom died within a year of each other due to the same condition. They had been dead for almost five years and he just had no sense of purpose or direction, not that I could blame him. He and his wife were existing, holding down jobs, the house was in reasonable condition etc, tidy, no piles of washing up or dirty laundry or signs of having given up, but he was existing, rather than living.
In light of the Owen news it's interesting that long standing Labour leftie Paul Mason has been on a different journey. Here he is full throated behind the current leadership:
"Labour's @RachelReevesMP spells out her vision for workers rights, at the heart of a state-directed green growth strategy. Never been a better time to join Labour. ✊ My five takeaways from the Mais Lecture..."
What a badly written piece, full of falsehoods and unchallenged nonsense.
And what, pray, is the Trusty Savings Bank?
Assume they mean the Trustee Savings Bank.
How far our local press have fallen.
I’m intrigued. Which ‘falsehoods’ and ‘badly written nonsense’ did you see?
Falsehoods
Trusty Savings Bank. Doesn't exist.
"My business uses bank transfer or cash as I can't afford a card machine as a small business".
It's cheaper to use SumUp than cash, by an absolute mile. That's one reason why so many businesses are going cashless – it's much cheaper than handling cash.
Unchallenged nonsense
"People still have them because they don't want to be paid through their bank so they use the Post Office."
Why? It's pointlessly laborious for people do that. Just get it put straight into your account.
As has been pointed out to you many times, it is actually free to use cash if you have a bank nearby with a night safe. So this will actually pile more costs on that business as card fees are dearer than no cost.
‘Trustee’ and ‘Trusty’ were actually used interchangeably in the north until the 1930s, so while it is probably a spelling error it’s not impossible that it’s the way the branch spelled the name.
The number of bank branches is collapsing, though. The chances of there being a local one has fallen from 99% a decade ago, to - what - 20% today?
Because there's falling demand for them, and the legacy banks (quite reasonably) are reluctant to run loss-making bricks-and-mortar operations when most of their customers – and all their neobank competitors – use digital technology to do their banking.
They becoming rather like libraries: everyone says they want them, but hardly anyone uses them.
Make them florists instead.
I have been using the local library regularly. It seems quite busy. There's normally several dozen reserved books waiting for collection. Certainly more regularly useful than the bank.
Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
Surely no one can rate Jones these days? He's really gone off the end of the pier. Last seen questioning if Hamas were rapists as he didn't actually get to see the gory act. He revealed who he was back in 2018 when his defence of laying a wreath for brutal terrorists was that 'no one was killed' by it. That's not to mention his attitude towards women who disagree with him. A textbook misogynist. Labour is so much better off without someone whose morals long ago went into the toilet due to twisted ideological obsessions.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I've followed his output for a long time (books, press, internet, tv) and found it (still do) principled, intelligent and well-expressed. Not all of it but mostly. I think it's mainly his effectiveness as a polemicist, and his uppity urban way of speaking, that irritates people who don't share his (admittedly quite hard left) politics.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith.
He's also earned a well-founded reputation as an online bully who'll find accounts who say things that are less than complimentary about him or the left, and flag them up to followers to abuse. He knows this happened and people pointed out to him and carries on doing it. Most recently doing so with someone who has a relative being held hostage by Hamas. Numerous women have complained about his behaviour too. If he had decency he'd have long ago realised the unpleasant impacts of his actions and apologised for and changed that, even while defending his underlying views.
There's a parallel perhaps with the Tory right - in that he got everything that in theory he wanted (the left in charge of Labour in his case), and it's driven him a bit mad and into a toxic rabbit hole when the land of milk, honey and electoral success did not arrive and people pointed out their objections to the more sinister or destructive attitudes there.
It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
Yes that’s fair
Having just praised Jones - as a journalist (and he is good) - there are definitely questions about his alleged antisemitism and bullying. AIUI two or three gender critical female writers have quit the Guardian because of trans-rights bullying - and he is implicated. Not good
Dunno if he is personally implicated, I thought he just had a strong view in writing on it and that is all, but Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman certainly moved on due to the issue.
The way Moore and Freeman phrased their accounts seemed - to me - to point directly at Jones. I can’t think of anyone else on the Guardian with his high profile and social media clout who is so vocal on Trans
Unless Adrian Chiles has stopped writing about his favourite milk cartons and has developed a sudden nasty side
He wrote a moving article yesterday about the death of his Father
I’ve spent a lifetime dreading the loss of a parent. And now it’s finally happened | Adrian Chiles
The death of parents is weird. i expected my father’s death to poleaxe me, it really didn’t. I never even cried, not properly, just a couple of teary moments when I gasped and reined in in, and they were brief. Everyone kept saying Oh it will hit you soon - it hasn’t. I don’t believe it will, now, not in the manner predicted
I miss him, occasionally, but it is wistful more than painful
My friend’s death last week was possibly worse. Much younger, funny guy, I was arguably sadder about that than about my own father passing
It is entirely unpredictable: as Chiles rightly says
The younger they are the harder it is. I wasn't particularly upset at all at the death of either of my parents. We weren't that close and they were both very old. However I was very fearful of having children because I knew I would not be able to cope if anything happened to them.
A close friend, presumably of a similar age to you is a real shock. A child would be devastating and I don't know how parents cope with that.
Our daughter died ten years ago, at 49. Motor Neurone Disease. We both still miss her dreadfully, although her daughter does her best to step into her mothers shoes.
Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
Surely no one can rate Jones these days? He's really gone off the end of the pier. Last seen questioning if Hamas were rapists as he didn't actually get to see the gory act. He revealed who he was back in 2018 when his defence of laying a wreath for brutal terrorists was that 'no one was killed' by it. That's not to mention his attitude towards women who disagree with him. A textbook misogynist. Labour is so much better off without someone whose morals long ago went into the toilet due to twisted ideological obsessions.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I've followed his output for a long time (books, press, internet, tv) and found it (still do) principled, intelligent and well-expressed. Not all of it but mostly. I think it's mainly his effectiveness as a polemicist, and his uppity urban way of speaking, that irritates people who don't share his (admittedly quite hard left) politics.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith.
He's also earned a well-founded reputation as an online bully who'll find accounts who say things that are less than complimentary about him or the left, and flag them up to followers to abuse. He knows this happened and people pointed out to him and carries on doing it. Most recently doing so with someone who has a relative being held hostage by Hamas. Numerous women have complained about his behaviour too. If he had decency he'd have long ago realised the unpleasant impacts of his actions and apologised for and changed that, even while defending his underlying views.
There's a parallel perhaps with the Tory right - in that he got everything that in theory he wanted (the left in charge of Labour in his case), and it's driven him a bit mad and into a toxic rabbit hole when the land of milk, honey and electoral success did not arrive and people pointed out their objections to the more sinister or destructive attitudes there.
It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
Yes that’s fair
Having just praised Jones - as a journalist (and he is good) - there are definitely questions about his alleged antisemitism and bullying. AIUI two or three gender critical female writers have quit the Guardian because of trans-rights bullying - and he is implicated. Not good
Dunno if he is personally implicated, I thought he just had a strong view in writing on it and that is all, but Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman certainly moved on due to the issue.
The way Moore and Freeman phrased their accounts seemed - to me - to point directly at Jones. I can’t think of anyone else on the Guardian with his high profile and social media clout who is so vocal on Trans
Unless Adrian Chiles has stopped writing about his favourite milk cartons and has developed a sudden nasty side
He wrote a moving article yesterday about the death of his Father
I’ve spent a lifetime dreading the loss of a parent. And now it’s finally happened | Adrian Chiles
The death of parents is weird. i expected my father’s death to poleaxe me, it really didn’t. I never even cried, not properly, just a couple of teary moments when I gasped and reined in in, and they were brief. Everyone kept saying Oh it will hit you soon - it hasn’t. I don’t believe it will, now, not in the manner predicted
I miss him, occasionally, but it is wistful more than painful
My friend’s death last week was possibly worse. Much younger, funny guy, I was arguably sadder about that than about my own father passing
It is entirely unpredictable: as Chiles rightly says
The younger they are the harder it is. I wasn't particularly upset at all at the death of either of my parents. We weren't that close and they were both very old. However I was very fearful of having children because I knew I would not be able to cope if anything happened to them.
A close friend, presumably of a similar age to you is a real shock. A child would be devastating and I don't know how parents cope with that.
I come into contact, professionally, with quite a few such parents.
Those that do 'cope', find a reason to go on living - their other child(ren) and/or a foundation related to the deceased child or volunteering with relevant charities. Often, if there are other children still at home, they are the primary reason - they still need parents and they need support dealing with the loss of a sibling. For many parents, the parenting instinct kicks in and they 'pull themselves together' (for want of a better phrase) so as not to let down the remaining child(ren).
One of the bleakest conversations I ever had was with a father of two children, both deceased, within a year of each other, due to the same condition. They had been dead for almost five years and he just had no sense of purpose or direction, not that I could blame him. He and his wife were existing, holding down jobs, the house was in reasonable condition etc, tidy, no piles of washing up or dirty laundry or signs of having given up, but he was existing, rather than living.
Jesus that’s sad
When I became a parent I realised that when parents say “I would die to save my kids” they really mean it. But maybe not quite in the noble altruistic way it comes across
What they are saying is: I would rather be dead myself than deal with the grief from a dead child
There are two types of airline captains: the ones who turn the seatbelt sign on at the very slightest hint of turbulence, and then wait a solid hour after it has subsided before allowing people to walk around again. And then there are the ones who don't give a shit. Your wine may not stay in your glass, but you are allowed to prowl the plane.
I much prefer the second group.
Sadly I've been saddled with one from the first group today. (Fortunately, the red Bordeaux is excellent.)
You should try Anarchist Airways.
Not only are the seatbelt signs permanently disconnected, but everyone on board gets to pilot the plane for 10 minutes. Such fun.
Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
Surely no one can rate Jones these days? He's really gone off the end of the pier. Last seen questioning if Hamas were rapists as he didn't actually get to see the gory act. He revealed who he was back in 2018 when his defence of laying a wreath for brutal terrorists was that 'no one was killed' by it. That's not to mention his attitude towards women who disagree with him. A textbook misogynist. Labour is so much better off without someone whose morals long ago went into the toilet due to twisted ideological obsessions.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I've followed his output for a long time (books, press, internet, tv) and found it (still do) principled, intelligent and well-expressed. Not all of it but mostly. I think it's mainly his effectiveness as a polemicist, and his uppity urban way of speaking, that irritates people who don't share his (admittedly quite hard left) politics.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith.
He's also earned a well-founded reputation as an online bully who'll find accounts who say things that are less than complimentary about him or the left, and flag them up to followers to abuse. He knows this happened and people pointed out to him and carries on doing it. Most recently doing so with someone who has a relative being held hostage by Hamas. Numerous women have complained about his behaviour too. If he had decency he'd have long ago realised the unpleasant impacts of his actions and apologised for and changed that, even while defending his underlying views.
There's a parallel perhaps with the Tory right - in that he got everything that in theory he wanted (the left in charge of Labour in his case), and it's driven him a bit mad and into a toxic rabbit hole when the land of milk, honey and electoral success did not arrive and people pointed out their objections to the more sinister or destructive attitudes there.
It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
Yes that’s fair
Having just praised Jones - as a journalist (and he is good) - there are definitely questions about his alleged antisemitism and bullying. AIUI two or three gender critical female writers have quit the Guardian because of trans-rights bullying - and he is implicated. Not good
Dunno if he is personally implicated, I thought he just had a strong view in writing on it and that is all, but Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman certainly moved on due to the issue.
The way Moore and Freeman phrased their accounts seemed - to me - to point directly at Jones. I can’t think of anyone else on the Guardian with his high profile and social media clout who is so vocal on Trans
Unless Adrian Chiles has stopped writing about his favourite milk cartons and has developed a sudden nasty side
He wrote a moving article yesterday about the death of his Father
I’ve spent a lifetime dreading the loss of a parent. And now it’s finally happened | Adrian Chiles
The death of parents is weird. i expected my father’s death to poleaxe me, it really didn’t. I never even cried, not properly, just a couple of teary moments when I gasped and reined in in, and they were brief. Everyone kept saying Oh it will hit you soon - it hasn’t. I don’t believe it will, now, not in the manner predicted
I miss him, occasionally, but it is wistful more than painful
My friend’s death last week was possibly worse. Much younger, funny guy, I was arguably sadder about that than about my own father passing
It is entirely unpredictable: as Chiles rightly says
The younger they are the harder it is. I wasn't particularly upset at all at the death of either of my parents. We weren't that close and they were both very old. However I was very fearful of having children because I knew I would not be able to cope if anything happened to them.
A close friend, presumably of a similar age to you is a real shock. A child would be devastating and I don't know how parents cope with that.
Our daughter died ten years ago, at 49. Motor Neurone Disease. We both still miss her dreadfully, although her daughter does her best to step into her mothers shoes.
That’s very sad. Sympathies. And an awful disease as well
However you can - perhaps - console yourself that she had a proper life and had her own children
It is the death of kids when they are adorable and small and relying on you, or when they are in their teens/early 20s and just stepping out into life, full of energy and eagerness - I suspect (I cannot know) that this is the worst of the worst
Current polling in the States seems top show Biden doing better, even marginally ahead in some polls. Question what will happen when Trump loses? Prison or another attempted revolution.
Jones has been sent mad by Gaza. He has been making excuses for Hamas and claiming Jewishness is not an ethnicity, amongst other things, since he was a teenager. Thread on his wikipedia edits in 2004:
...rather like libraries: everyone says they want them, but hardly anyone uses them.
I go to the library every weekend and currently have three books out. The reference library upstairs has internet and a variety of books in the political space. When I say things like "according to Steve Richards/Matthew Goodwin/Peter Turchin" it's because I got their latest book out of the library, because hardbacks be expensive. Tim Shipman's latest is out in June and I'll get a copy from the library.
Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
Surely no one can rate Jones these days? He's really gone off the end of the pier. Last seen questioning if Hamas were rapists as he didn't actually get to see the gory act. He revealed who he was back in 2018 when his defence of laying a wreath for brutal terrorists was that 'no one was killed' by it. That's not to mention his attitude towards women who disagree with him. A textbook misogynist. Labour is so much better off without someone whose morals long ago went into the toilet due to twisted ideological obsessions.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I've followed his output for a long time (books, press, internet, tv) and found it (still do) principled, intelligent and well-expressed. Not all of it but mostly. I think it's mainly his effectiveness as a polemicist, and his uppity urban way of speaking, that irritates people who don't share his (admittedly quite hard left) politics.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith.
He's also earned a well-founded reputation as an online bully who'll find accounts who say things that are less than complimentary about him or the left, and flag them up to followers to abuse. He knows this happened and people pointed out to him and carries on doing it. Most recently doing so with someone who has a relative being held hostage by Hamas. Numerous women have complained about his behaviour too. If he had decency he'd have long ago realised the unpleasant impacts of his actions and apologised for and changed that, even while defending his underlying views.
There's a parallel perhaps with the Tory right - in that he got everything that in theory he wanted (the left in charge of Labour in his case), and it's driven him a bit mad and into a toxic rabbit hole when the land of milk, honey and electoral success did not arrive and people pointed out their objections to the more sinister or destructive attitudes there.
It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
Yes that’s fair
Having just praised Jones - as a journalist (and he is good) - there are definitely questions about his alleged antisemitism and bullying. AIUI two or three gender critical female writers have quit the Guardian because of trans-rights bullying - and he is implicated. Not good
Dunno if he is personally implicated, I thought he just had a strong view in writing on it and that is all, but Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman certainly moved on due to the issue.
The way Moore and Freeman phrased their accounts seemed - to me - to point directly at Jones. I can’t think of anyone else on the Guardian with his high profile and social media clout who is so vocal on Trans
Unless Adrian Chiles has stopped writing about his favourite milk cartons and has developed a sudden nasty side
He wrote a moving article yesterday about the death of his Father
I’ve spent a lifetime dreading the loss of a parent. And now it’s finally happened | Adrian Chiles
The death of parents is weird. i expected my father’s death to poleaxe me, it really didn’t. I never even cried, not properly, just a couple of teary moments when I gasped and reined in in, and they were brief. Everyone kept saying Oh it will hit you soon - it hasn’t. I don’t believe it will, now, not in the manner predicted
I miss him, occasionally, but it is wistful more than painful
My friend’s death last week was possibly worse. Much younger, funny guy, I was arguably sadder about that than about my own father passing
It is entirely unpredictable: as Chiles rightly says
The younger they are the harder it is. I wasn't particularly upset at all at the death of either of my parents. We weren't that close and they were both very old. However I was very fearful of having children because I knew I would not be able to cope if anything happened to them.
A close friend, presumably of a similar age to you is a real shock. A child would be devastating and I don't know how parents cope with that.
Our daughter died ten years ago, at 49. Motor Neurone Disease. We both still miss her dreadfully, although her daughter does her best to step into her mothers shoes.
That’s very sad. Sympathies. And an awful disease as well
However you can - perhaps - console yourself that she had a proper life and had her own children
It is the death of kids when they are adorable and small and relying on you, or when they are in their teens/early 20s and just stepping out into life, full of energy and eagerness - I suspect (I cannot know) that this is the worst of the worst
I have two friends who went through precisely this (separately). Both subsequently embarked upon hugely adventurous expeditions (extremely dangerous in one instance), with one continuing to be constantly on the move travelling far and wide.
You don't need too many years psychotherapy training to understand why this would be a perfectly rational response.
Oh No, bad news for SKS. Owen Jones has quit Labour after 24 years.
expect a polling slump.
I like and rate OJ and I'm sorry to hear this. IMO he should have waited to see what Labour do in government. If he's right that in office they end up changing nothing of substance in favour of working people, and worse not even trying, I'll be quitting the party too (far more serious for SKS than Owen leaving) but there's no way I'm going to pretend there's enough evidence to conclude that now. I'll leave this spooky 'crystal balling' to his sour grapes critics of left and right - most of whom are pissed off purely because he's winning.
Surely no one can rate Jones these days? He's really gone off the end of the pier. Last seen questioning if Hamas were rapists as he didn't actually get to see the gory act. He revealed who he was back in 2018 when his defence of laying a wreath for brutal terrorists was that 'no one was killed' by it. That's not to mention his attitude towards women who disagree with him. A textbook misogynist. Labour is so much better off without someone whose morals long ago went into the toilet due to twisted ideological obsessions.
If Owen's leaving, it's a sign Labour is doing something right and isn't as tolerant of the despicable, genuinely troubling side of the far left that Jones has long been a cheerleader for.
I've followed his output for a long time (books, press, internet, tv) and found it (still do) principled, intelligent and well-expressed. Not all of it but mostly. I think it's mainly his effectiveness as a polemicist, and his uppity urban way of speaking, that irritates people who don't share his (admittedly quite hard left) politics.
I also find that lots of those who hate Jones go by things that others who hate him say about him rather than by the source material of what he's actually said and written. The risible misogyny charge is a prime example.
What really changed my view of Jones from someone who at one time admired him, and thought his heart was in the right place even when I disagreed, was his behaviour on antisemitism. Obviously there were and are disagreements on the left about the issue, but I found Jones' behaviour dishonest to the point it was no accident or a good faith disagreement. You simply could not defend the things he defended and pose as someone interested in "fighting antisemitism" - especially when he'd go out of his way to shout down those who were making objections as not doing so in good faith.
He's also earned a well-founded reputation as an online bully who'll find accounts who say things that are less than complimentary about him or the left, and flag them up to followers to abuse. He knows this happened and people pointed out to him and carries on doing it. Most recently doing so with someone who has a relative being held hostage by Hamas. Numerous women have complained about his behaviour too. If he had decency he'd have long ago realised the unpleasant impacts of his actions and apologised for and changed that, even while defending his underlying views.
There's a parallel perhaps with the Tory right - in that he got everything that in theory he wanted (the left in charge of Labour in his case), and it's driven him a bit mad and into a toxic rabbit hole when the land of milk, honey and electoral success did not arrive and people pointed out their objections to the more sinister or destructive attitudes there.
It's in some ways got a Greek tragedy about it. He's someone that could have been an interesting force for good - even if you disagree with him often. But his ego and self-righteousness are so huge that he's essentially destroyed the credibility he once had as a critical voice from the left. He is now just a bitter individual who can't handle his own spiral towards mainstream irrelevance, towards a GB News grifter type figure with a hyper-engaged online audience that gives a degree of power within a certain social media ecosystem, but is radioactive outside that and destructive to the causes it claims to want to champion. The sad thing is he'll likely get worse as that section of the left comes more to resemble a left-wing version of QAnon in its conspiracist beliefs rather than the old left of Labour.
Yes that’s fair
Having just praised Jones - as a journalist (and he is good) - there are definitely questions about his alleged antisemitism and bullying. AIUI two or three gender critical female writers have quit the Guardian because of trans-rights bullying - and he is implicated. Not good
Dunno if he is personally implicated, I thought he just had a strong view in writing on it and that is all, but Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman certainly moved on due to the issue.
The way Moore and Freeman phrased their accounts seemed - to me - to point directly at Jones. I can’t think of anyone else on the Guardian with his high profile and social media clout who is so vocal on Trans
Unless Adrian Chiles has stopped writing about his favourite milk cartons and has developed a sudden nasty side
He wrote a moving article yesterday about the death of his Father
I’ve spent a lifetime dreading the loss of a parent. And now it’s finally happened | Adrian Chiles
The death of parents is weird. i expected my father’s death to poleaxe me, it really didn’t. I never even cried, not properly, just a couple of teary moments when I gasped and reined in in, and they were brief. Everyone kept saying Oh it will hit you soon - it hasn’t. I don’t believe it will, now, not in the manner predicted
I miss him, occasionally, but it is wistful more than painful
My friend’s death last week was possibly worse. Much younger, funny guy, I was arguably sadder about that than about my own father passing
It is entirely unpredictable: as Chiles rightly says
The younger they are the harder it is. I wasn't particularly upset at all at the death of either of my parents. We weren't that close and they were both very old. However I was very fearful of having children because I knew I would not be able to cope if anything happened to them.
A close friend, presumably of a similar age to you is a real shock. A child would be devastating and I don't know how parents cope with that.
I come into contact, professionally, with quite a few such parents.
Those that do 'cope', find a reason to go on living - their other child(ren) and/or a foundation related to the deceased child or volunteering with relevant charities. Often, if there are other children still at home, they are the primary reason - they still need parents and they need support dealing with the loss of a sibling. For many parents, the parenting instinct kicks in and they 'pull themselves together' (for want of a better phrase) so as not to let down the remaining child(ren).
One of the bleakest conversations I ever had was with a father of two children, both deceased, within a year of each other, due to the same condition. They had been dead for almost five years and he just had no sense of purpose or direction, not that I could blame him. He and his wife were existing, holding down jobs, the house was in reasonable condition etc, tidy, no piles of washing up or dirty laundry or signs of having given up, but he was existing, rather than living.
Jesus that’s sad
When I became a parent I realised that when parents say “I would die to save my kids” they really mean it. But maybe not quite in the noble altruistic way it comes across
What they are saying is: I would rather be dead myself than deal with the grief from a dead child
Yep. I'm no softy when it comes to people dying. I don't cry at funerals. But yes I would do anything to save my children, particularly when they were toddlers and I was looking after them and it would not have been noble or altruistic, it would have just been instinct, so I can't even say it would be because I couldn't cope with the grief. Although I know I wouldn't have been able to. My wife really had to talk me into having children. It was definitely worth it even though they can be annoying sometimes.
It was bad already, but in the last few months people suddenly seem willing to give Reform a shot.
That may be an illusion, and Reform do nowhere near as well in a GE, but it surely shows discontent and, critically, that scaring people about a Labour government probably won't work very well. Too many Tories themselves expect and are OK with losing right now.
At this point the Tories would take a 1997 result if it was offered. They genuinely could do much worse.
Looks increasingly like it will take a generation to recover from making Truss the PM.
According to austerity Reeves they will inherit the worst position since WW2
Remind me did the incoming Labour Government decide austerity was the answer, or the complete opposite
Comments
In comparison, OJ's just an eloquent loudmouth with zero substance. An empty vessel.
It’s bonkers. Why not wait until Starmer has had two or three rubbishy Blairite years in office - and is suffering in the polls - then flounce off in a dramatic huff which gets loads of attention and makes real waves?
He’s flounced six months BEFORE an election where Starmer has a 20 point lead - or more - and is cruising to a huge victory. Jones will achieve nothing
It’s not so much a premature ejaculation, it’s worse than that - it’s like coming in your pants as you stand in the kitchen ordering the Uber to take you to the restaurant where your date is waiting
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/24200150.planning-application-submitted-new-dec-offices-brunswick-street/
NEW A source close to rebellious Tory MPs has just WhatsApped me saying: “The Rwanda bill is a total dud. It won’t stop the boats. These characters at the top of Government aren’t serious people. They’re fighting for survival day by day, tracking at 19 per cent in the polls, and letting the country suffer in the meantime.”
Though it DOES appear to be far superior to AI with respect to accuracy.
I’ve never paid half as much attention to him, since. Everyone who campaigned for a second vote should be drummed out of public life
‘Trustee’ and ‘Trusty’ were actually used interchangeably in the north until the 1930s, so while it is probably a spelling error it’s not impossible that it’s the way the branch spelled the name.
One is to go back as leader of Reform and boost their profile so that they increase their vote share to perhaps 15%+ at the general election. In those circumstances the Tories would be reduced to a rump of less than 100 MPs and Reform would be poised to step into the breach. But would it? Even at 15% Reform is unlikely to win any seats at Westminster. It has no grassroots organisation comparable to those of the other parties and its by-election machine was last seen campaigning in the wrong constituency on the day of the Wellingborough byelection. And with no MPs Reform could not credibly lay claim to the leadership of the right.
Farage's other route to leadership lies through the Conservative Party itself - after a heavy defeat the shrinking band of OAPs who form the Tory membership will turn to a new leader whose pitch will be to invite Farage back into membership, which will instantly make him the most influential Tory, with every prospect of taking over the leadership in future. This is a more certain prospect that trying to follow the Reform route - Farage wants the Tory Party to lose but not be completely destroyed so there is something left for him to take control of in 2025.
“what about this wheel thingy? It sounds a terribly interesting project.”
“Ah,” said the marketing girl, “well, we’re having a little difficulty there.”
“Difficulty?” exclaimed Ford. “Difficulty? What do you mean, difficulty? It’s the single simplest machine in the entire Universe!”
The marketing girl soured him with a look “All right, Mr. Smartypants,” she said, “you’re so clever, you tell us what colour it should be.”
I’ve spent a lifetime dreading the loss of a parent. And now it’s finally happened | Adrian Chiles
https://x.com/guardian/status/1770480580158722557?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
"The grim truth: over six million prime age [American] men were neither working nor looking for work. Conventional unemployment measures ignored these labor force dropouts, but their ranks had been rising rlentlessly for half a century."
(Ths edition was published by Templeton Press, by the way.)
You'll probably snigger at that suggestion but compared with the recent mob, he won't have to do a whole lot to seem quite competent.
And, no, it's not 'free' if you have a bank with a night safe nearby (and what is 'nearby'? A yard, a mile, ten miles? What?). There is risk cost, handling cost, cashing up time cost, travel cost... there's so much evidence on this I'm surprised you are even arguing the point.
But go ahead. I'm done.
The fact that more and more businesses are going cashless every day rather underlines my point but if you want to luxuriate in nostalgia and denial I'm not going to stop you.
The death of parents is weird. i expected my father’s death to poleaxe me, it really didn’t. I never even cried, not properly, just a couple of teary moments when I gasped and reined in in, and they were brief. Everyone kept saying Oh it will hit you soon - it hasn’t. I don’t believe it will, now, not in the manner predicted
I miss him, occasionally, but it is wistful more than painful
My friend’s death last week was possibly worse. Much younger, funny guy, I was arguably sadder about that than about my own father passing
It is entirely unpredictable: as Chiles rightly says
https://x.com/bfmtv/status/1770703597279346900
Another interesting figure would be households where *no-one* works.
(*) Sorry, dear...
A close friend, presumably of a similar age to you is a real shock. A child would be devastating and I don't know how parents cope with that.
The current set of clowns are so incompetent that you could probably throw in @Leon mid-Ayahuasca trip into No. 10 and he'd look like a precise executive in comparison.
To give two obvious examples that show the nature of his dishonesty and problems, when the mural was highlighted Corbyn pushed out an absolutely dreadful apology. It was one so bad his team had to push out another apology several hours later. Because it didn't actually make any sense - as he said he'd defended at the time on "free speech" grounds but actually it should be removed due to its antisemitic imagery. Those who mattered - Jewish people who'd been horrified by the mural - certainly did not accept it.
Jones went out and claimed he had been troubled by the mural incident but was now "relieved" due to the first statement and how it all showed Jeremy's tremendous moral character. But there's no way you could say that except as a defence mechanism that would allow you to excuse it. Even Corbyn's own team admitted the first apology was useless and had to issue another one. Good enough for Owen though. I use it as a good example of how he says he's 'fighting antisemitism' but only as a cover for defending examples of it.
Later, we had the wreath incident. Corbyn being forced to admit he was "present but not involved" at the wreath laying for Atef Bseiso (a planner, not someone who carried out) the horrific attacks at the Munich Olympics, alongside other people linked to more recent terror attacks on Israelis. Rather than admit a screw up - you could quite easily say "I apologise hugely I did not know", the response was to deny and obfuscate. Jones's contribution was to dismiss complaints with the immortal line "no one was killed by a wreath" - a phrase so callous about what the complaints were about it beggars belief.
I have used these as examples that particularly struck me off the top of my head, but you could find loads of others. On this topic he's not interested in fighting antisemitism, he has been a fraud with a major role in promoting it by defending it when it comes from those he deems the right people then claiming he fights it. As I said, he recently was to be found attacking someone whose relative is still in Hamas captivity. These aren't the actions of someone who cares about combatting antisemitism, rather combatting Jews who complain about it in a way that inconveniences him or his friends.
As for the bullying, I know multiple mutuals who've complained about Jones' behaviour - almost all women - who have done so over a range of topics - so not just the gender wars. He does have a real problem and I suggest you listen to those on the wrong end of it. It's genuinely nasty. We've seen what several ex-colleagues also think of his behaviour.
It's called a democracy I know you have a fondness for third-world countries where democracy is frowned upon and the girls are cheap, but the idea a second vote is somehow wrong is the sign of an ultra-low IQ.
As it happens, I'd argue that Brexit isn't a major factor facing the country at the moment, and a second vote would be a distraction from the more important issues facing the country. But given how Brexit has failed, perhaps those who called for the first vote should be drummed out of public life?
You may be thinking of protein alpha-helices? Astbury at Leeds in the 1930s? Single in alpha, or triple in keratin in the case of wool which Astbury worked on (can't recall if he worked the triple bit out or if ti was the 1950s).
They becoming rather like libraries: everyone says they want them, but hardly anyone uses them.
Make them florists instead.
I do generally share your worries that Starmer won't be bold enough, I'm just a bit more optimistic.
So walking to a bank branch, as happens there, is costly but paying the fees on card transactions and readers is cheap? That's a fairly obvious falsehood of your own, so I'm not surprised you're not willing to discuss it further...
To pick up on @rcs1000 's point, the reason so many businesses are struggling with cash is not because (or not solely because) they don't want to take it but because so many bank branches are shutting. So banks no longer have the cost of branches but can charge their ridiculous card fees and have it both ways. But that puts extra costs on small business (and charities for the matter of that) with tight margins.
Incidentally you asked why people mention your obsession with cash. I think, although personally I don't find it terribly edifying, it's because they find your weird meltdowns on the subject quite funny.
Absolutely horrific. If she hadn’t had other kids I am sure she would have killed herself. Losing children - as I have witnessed - is the worst. The grief - as I have witnessed - is unquenchable. This is why I am sure people who lose children will use A.I. to revive them - their voices, personalities, faces, they will make grief robots of the dead kids. Anything to avoid the annihilating pain of the grief
I’d say my sister is now over the worst of that grief. THIRTY YEARS LATER. She can still cry about it, tho. That’s how bad it is
So did Barclays Bank in Cannock, which shut last month.
One trick banks play with shutting them is to say 'only X people use this branch.' They played that trick in Dawley, Shropshire, where they said only 7 people used it. The footfall was 400 a day.
The reason they made their claim was because of those 400, only 7 didn't also use online banking in some form.
The closure crippled the shops in the village centre. Now everyone uses the out of town in Telford.
I was simply replying to someone's post, which I assume most people would think polite.
Cash-handling for businesses is costly. Much more so than cards. That is well documented. Look into up. DYOR.
I'm done.
I much prefer the second group.
Sadly I've been saddled with one from the first group today. (Fortunately, the red Bordeaux is excellent.)
Trump has less than a week to arrange a $454 million bond. There are 331.9 million US citizens. If each American spends only $1.37,
.
.
.
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then we can all buy a cheap chocolate bar to enjoy while we watch the State of New York seize Trump's properties.
With demand rising fast, it's a rare trifecta:
Popular, cost-saving and good for the economy.
And I've proved you're wrong a dozen ways. Including two in this thread. But you won't listen. You just bat it away.
You really do have a strange meltdown over cash. And your response wasn't polite, since essentially it consisted of shouting abuse at the report for daring to contradict your views. Maybe, if you don't want people teasing you, don't respond at all?
What have you got against libraries?
Those that do 'cope', find a reason to go on living - their other child(ren) and/or a foundation related to the deceased child or volunteering with relevant charities. Often, if there are other children still at home, they are the primary reason - they still need parents and they need support dealing with the loss of a sibling. For many parents, the parenting instinct kicks in and they 'pull themselves together' (for want of a better phrase) so as not to let down the remaining child(ren).
One of the bleakest conversations I ever had was with a father of two children, both of whom died within a year of each other due to the same condition. They had been dead for almost five years and he just had no sense of purpose or direction, not that I could blame him. He and his wife were existing, holding down jobs, the house was in reasonable condition etc, tidy, no piles of washing up or dirty laundry or signs of having given up, but he was existing, rather than living.
Not do I have anything “against” cash.
I just don’t use it, because it’s pointless.
When I became a parent I realised that when parents say “I would die to save my kids” they really mean it. But maybe not quite in the noble altruistic way it comes across
What they are saying is: I would rather be dead myself than deal with the grief from a dead child
Not only are the seatbelt signs permanently disconnected, but everyone on board gets to pilot the plane for 10 minutes. Such fun.
Just tutoring a Year 11 in exam technique.
‘I didn’t realise you should do that. My teacher told me you shouldn’t actually directly answer the question.’
And this student is at a leading public school which shall be nameless.
Can we all agree that teacher is a twit?
However you can - perhaps - console yourself that she had a proper life and had her own children
It is the death of kids when they are adorable and small and relying on you, or when they are in their teens/early 20s and just stepping out into life, full of energy and eagerness - I suspect (I cannot know) that this is the worst of the worst
Onward across Colombia! Y Viva Bolivar!
NEW THREAD
Question what will happen when Trump loses? Prison or another attempted revolution.
https://x.com/NudderingNudnik/status/987090880707334146?s=20
And is it @rcs1000 long-promised Part 2 on Trump?
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/03/21/i-think-the-telegraph-are-reading-too-much-into-this-however/
You don't need too many years psychotherapy training to understand why this would be a perfectly rational response.