It is quite entertaining to observe how Nigel Farage has the ability to drive people in to a total incoherant frenzy. He manages to make his opponents mad without actually doing anything significant. It isn't like he is calling his opponents 'scum', or saying that all debate should be stopped as it is 'hatred', as left wing politicians have done in the past few years. Regarding Reform supporters, it isn't like they are pulling down statues, vandalising ancient monuments, blocking ambulances etc. This all feels like the usual thing of a free pass for the far left but impossibly high standards applied to anyone on the 'far right'.
I loath the far left, but it may need pointing out to you that the far right,even just in this country, has set rather a lot more dangerous historical precedents than just pulling down statues. Fascism needs calling out. Yes there are lots of idiots who want to pretend that label doesn't apply to Farage, but the cap fits him very well.
Farage sees himself as doing a public service for democracy by representing a swathe of public opinion that the elite find repulsive. He brings it in to the political mainstream. That is what he did with Brexit and that is what he is doing now. Ultimately you have to choose between this and an actual far right/fascist situation. I would say though in addition that 'fascism' has really lost its meaning, it seems more like a rhetorical tool for debating purposes, if you can be branded a fascist then it is a red card, you are out of the game in disgrace. It all gets a bit tiring.
Not really, it has a meaning.
And Farage is one.
There is nothing wrong with honesty and it is free speech to call him what he is.
On topic, has anyone tried the plant identifying app SEEK?
My god it’s superb. You point your phone camera at the plant and bingo. It’s just told me I’m staring at “Elegant Sunburst Lichen”
Don't tell me, you can use it in combo with WhatThreeWords ? It was probably designed by aliens that utilised AI enhanced algorithms to analyse lifeforms from a lab leak that took place immediately after that certain nuclear war that you told me would stop me going on my skiing holidays.
Actually, maybe you and I have hit on something. If WhatThreeWords and SEEK have open APIs you could put both through a dashboard to create a mapping of plants throughout the world. High risk of exploitations by aliens or the Chinese, but who knows, I may have given you the idea how to make millions or perhaps the plot line of a highly implausible Dan Browne-Lite page turning thriller!
In the UK that would be iRecord...
[Not a brilliant app, but useful in some circumstances. The dataset needs a lot of filtering to be of scientific use.]
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
The meaning of fascism has become so distorted that it would now describe virtually any democratic western government before the year 2000.
Complete and total nonsense. Fascism and would-be fascist leaders have simply evolved. Fascism could be simply described as a mixture of divisive nationalism and populism with egomaniac narcissistic leaders who would happily significantly subvert democracy to attain or hold onto power.
Putin fits the bill easily, so does Trump. As Farage admires both and also strongly endorses and politically supports the latter puts him in the same camp along with a number of other far right leaders.
None of the leaders of governments of this country or other major western powers meet those before 2000.
I don't think these attacks on Reform will work. The aim is to try and destroy them by revealing their 'true nature' but it just keeps getting shrugged off by Farage. So the attacks fail, and the by product is that the discourse is normalised. It feels like the overton window shifting.
Yes. There is a fashion on TikTok for young kids in France and Germany to say “yeah I’m a racist so fucking what”
The term has lost a lot of its negative power through overuse and now it has a kind of mildly transgressive chic - which kids love of course. That’s how you shock the elders these days. Say “yeah I’m a racist” on TikTok. Cue heart attack in your parents
Saying “fuck the toreeez” and going to Glastonbury is what people like @Heathener do
Again I don’t believe Britain will be immune from this trend, we are merely behind the curve
Is Britain ahead, behind or on a totally different curve? Time will tell. Brexit and Johnson gave the populist mad right wing nonsense thing a bad name with anyone under 50
My thinking is Brexit has delayed our swerve to the populist right - but not necessarily averted it. We gave people the vote and they vented their anger - that has bought us time
With that time we need to see a proper right wing government emerge that will actually do proper right wing things. Then maybe we can dodge the whole Le Pen shit altogether -
But if that doesn’t happen then it seems inevitable to me that we will follow Italy France Sweden the USA Holland etc
If you take the view that the Leave vote was motivated, at least in part, due to a portion of the electorate thinking immigration was too high, then, to borrow from T. May, nothing has changed.
This also explains why Reform are getting close to 20% in the polls.
Something tells me that whatever the Labour government will or won't be, it won't be tough on immigration. The question is whether or not the percentage of the population who are hopping mad about immigration tops out at 20% or so max, or continue to rise as problems like the housing crisis grows more acute.
I linked to a FT article that suggested an eightfold rise in middle aged renters by 2030. Figures are slightly suss, but there's already been a 20% rise in the last 11 years.
Build more houses and the housing crisis will dissipate.
Our population is growing at a pretty staid percentage not a massive one, demographic changes mean we need more housing with or without migration and migration obviously mean we need even more, but we need more either way.
The people who are absurd are those who want mass migration but no construction and no reform to our planning system as they support NIMBYism - that is a recipe for disaster.
But fix planning, let people build houses, and I couldn't care less how many migrants come to this country.
I would have agreed with you on that entirely this time last year, since October 7th I have been deeply concerned that we may be importing antisemitism as well as other illiberal views.
Of course, there are plenty with racist and illiberal views who are born here and as we saw last night they are out campaigning for the Reform party.
But by and large, I agree with you, that the answer is much more house and infrastructure building rather than much less immigration. I'm just concerned that we don't import intolerance, too.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
And yet, did I read on here that you are going to vote for them?
It is quite entertaining to observe how Nigel Farage has the ability to drive people in to a total incoherant frenzy. He manages to make his opponents mad without actually doing anything significant. It isn't like he is calling his opponents 'scum', or saying that all debate should be stopped as it is 'hatred', as left wing politicians have done in the past few years. Regarding Reform supporters, it isn't like they are pulling down statues, vandalising ancient monuments, blocking ambulances etc. This all feels like the usual thing of a free pass for the far left but impossibly high standards applied to anyone on the 'far right'.
I loath the far left, but it may need pointing out to you that the far right,even just in this country, has set rather a lot more dangerous historical precedents than just pulling down statues. Fascism needs calling out. Yes there are lots of idiots who want to pretend that label doesn't apply to Farage, but the cap fits him very well.
Farage sees himself as doing a public service for democracy by representing a swathe of public opinion that the elite find repulsive. He brings it in to the political mainstream. That is what he did with Brexit and that is what he is doing now. Ultimately you have to choose between this and an actual far right/fascist situation. I would say though in addition that 'fascism' has really lost its meaning, it seems more like a rhetorical tool for debating purposes, if you can be branded a fascist then it is a red card, you are out of the game in disgrace. It all gets a bit tiring.
Crap. Farage is a racist bigot who earns his coin preying on the weak minded and stupid. supposedly representing their views stirring up trouble and dispute, giving some repulsive characters cover by supposedly saying the unsayable. I don't believe he believes half of what he says but the half he does is enough to condemn him in the minds of all right thinking people.
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
The party you have consistently supported started all this, and now it has got out of hand.
What utter bollocks! Started racist slurs how?
It's not as if you haven't got enough ammunition to use against theTories without making shit up.
Accepting the Hester money was a disaster for the Tories. It's just so easy to sling the party in with Reform.
An example of too much short term thinking. They should have accepted they were going to lose, waited till November for the economics to pick up a bit, stuck to decent British values (eg not "Diane Abbott should be shot"), not got caught up in the culture wars, and shout about defence and Ukraine a lot. Easily high 20s/low 30s.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either (and even Major liked the Opera and read Trollope and Callaghan read a bit too)
Travelled from Totnes to London Paddington this morning - and in nearly three hours of train travel, never saw a single political poster.
What election?
I didn't see any posters in Southend when I was there a few weeks ago. Loads of Lib Dem posters on the lawns of the posh houses between Woking and Guildford.
On another note, we (in the Woking area) were inundated with moths last night.
More 'residential' Labour posters here in (my part of) Witham than anyone else's, although there are three big Conservative ones on farmers fields. I've seen just the one Green, unspecific as to candidate. As are most of the Labour ones.
On topic, has anyone tried the plant identifying app SEEK?
My god it’s superb. You point your phone camera at the plant and bingo. It’s just told me I’m staring at “Elegant Sunburst Lichen”
Don't tell me, you can use it in combo with WhatThreeWords ? It was probably designed by aliens that utilised AI enhanced algorithms to analyse lifeforms from a lab leak that took place immediately after that certain nuclear war that you told me would stop me going on my skiing holidays.
Actually, maybe you and I have hit on something. If WhatThreeWords and SEEK have open APIs you could put both through a dashboard to create a mapping of plants throughout the world. High risk of exploitations by aliens or the Chinese, but who knows, I may have given you the idea how to make millions or perhaps the plot line of a highly implausible Dan Browne-Lite page turning thriller!
Dan-Browne-lite? How? Dan Browne is already less dense than hydrogen...
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Compared to Blair, Brown, Straw, Cunningham, Cook, Mowlem, Beckett, Darling, Dewar, Reid, Mandelson, Harman and the rest the current Labour front bench appears to be lacking intellectuals and political heavyweights.
Maybe they will surprise me, but I can just as easily believe they'll be even worse than I expect.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise he is probably John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
A levels were rather harder in his day (and my day) than yours..
BBC would get you into almost any University course then...
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
The meaning of fascism has become so distorted that it would now describe virtually any democratic western government before the year 2000.
Complete and total nonsense. Fascism and would-be fascist leaders have simply evolved. Fascism could be simply described as a mixture of divisive nationalism and populism with egomaniac narcissistic leaders who would happily significantly subvert democracy to attain or hold onto power.
Putin fits the bill easily, so does Trump. As Farage admires both and also strongly endorses and politically supports the latter puts him in the same camp along with a number of other far right leaders.
None of the leaders of governments of this country or other major western powers meet those before 2000.
It is quite entertaining to observe how Nigel Farage has the ability to drive people in to a total incoherant frenzy. He manages to make his opponents mad without actually doing anything significant. It isn't like he is calling his opponents 'scum', or saying that all debate should be stopped as it is 'hatred', as left wing politicians have done in the past few years. Regarding Reform supporters, it isn't like they are pulling down statues, vandalising ancient monuments, blocking ambulances etc. This all feels like the usual thing of a free pass for the far left but impossibly high standards applied to anyone on the 'far right'.
I loath the far left, but it may need pointing out to you that the far right,even just in this country, has set rather a lot more dangerous historical precedents than just pulling down statues. Fascism needs calling out. Yes there are lots of idiots who want to pretend that label doesn't apply to Farage, but the cap fits him very well.
Farage sees himself as doing a public service for democracy by representing a swathe of public opinion that the elite find repulsive. He brings it in to the political mainstream. That is what he did with Brexit and that is what he is doing now. Ultimately you have to choose between this and an actual far right/fascist situation. I would say though in addition that 'fascism' has really lost its meaning, it seems more like a rhetorical tool for debating purposes, if you can be branded a fascist then it is a red card, you are out of the game in disgrace. It all gets a bit tiring.
I will let you into a secret. Farage, along with his friends in MAGA and the Kremlin do not give a flying fuck about democracy.
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
The meaning of fascism has become so distorted that it would now describe virtually any democratic western government before the year 2000.
It is often used that way; but whilst there are many different definitions, the meaning is generally quite clear.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
On the notion of if you want to look bright, hang around dumb people, Starmer must have surrounded himself with weapons grade idiots. Likely he has chosen them from the pool of local councillors who think Hitler "was the greatest".
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either
He's a dull, mostly inoffensive, plodder. Maths and Science are not more difficult for anyone with a bit of talent.
I suspect this means he's had to work quite hard to get anywhere unlike Dave or Boris.
That could be good ... or bad.
He's not likely to come up with any 'brilliant' ideas and throw caution to the wind.
On topic, has anyone tried the plant identifying app SEEK?
My god it’s superb. You point your phone camera at the plant and bingo. It’s just told me I’m staring at “Elegant Sunburst Lichen”
Don't tell me, you can use it in combo with WhatThreeWords ? It was probably designed by aliens that utilised AI enhanced algorithms to analyse lifeforms from a lab leak that took place immediately after that certain nuclear war that you told me would stop me going on my skiing holidays.
Actually, maybe you and I have hit on something. If WhatThreeWords and SEEK have open APIs you could put both through a dashboard to create a mapping of plants throughout the world. High risk of exploitations by aliens or the Chinese, but who knows, I may have given you the idea how to make millions or perhaps the plot line of a highly implausible Dan Browne-Lite page turning thriller!
Dan-Browne-lite? How? Dan Browne is already less dense than hydrogen...
It does seem something of an improbability, on reflection. That said, The Da Vinci Code sold over 80M copies, I believe. The other thing I find difficult to fathom is that he used to be an English teacher.
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
Yes Mrs Jessop, whatever you say. Have another Hobnob and calm down
I am calm. I've had a very pleasant day, and not felt the need to screech about it out loud to everyone on here as a form of weird self-validation.
Although, having said that: I've just been given a bottle of Canadian Icewine. I don't think I've come across it before, and didn't even know Canada had commercial vineyards. Does anyone have any suggestions about how best to serve it? Is it a dessert wine?
So if you're Biden, imagine you're seriously considering dropping out. You have the SCOTUS Trump immunity decision on July 1st, then the sentencing on July 11th. I guess you sit things out for a couple of weeks and see what the polls do? Until then you obviously have to say you have every intention to stay.
It is quite entertaining to observe how Nigel Farage has the ability to drive people in to a total incoherant frenzy. He manages to make his opponents mad without actually doing anything significant. It isn't like he is calling his opponents 'scum', or saying that all debate should be stopped as it is 'hatred', as left wing politicians have done in the past few years. Regarding Reform supporters, it isn't like they are pulling down statues, vandalising ancient monuments, blocking ambulances etc. This all feels like the usual thing of a free pass for the far left but impossibly high standards applied to anyone on the 'far right'.
I loath the far left, but it may need pointing out to you that the far right,even just in this country, has set rather a lot more dangerous historical precedents than just pulling down statues. Fascism needs calling out. Yes there are lots of idiots who want to pretend that label doesn't apply to Farage, but the cap fits him very well.
Farage sees himself as doing a public service for democracy by representing a swathe of public opinion that the elite find repulsive. He brings it in to the political mainstream. That is what he did with Brexit and that is what he is doing now. Ultimately you have to choose between this and an actual far right/fascist situation. I would say though in addition that 'fascism' has really lost its meaning, it seems more like a rhetorical tool for debating purposes, if you can be branded a fascist then it is a red card, you are out of the game in disgrace. It all gets a bit tiring.
Fascist is an easy label but will lose it's power if overused - see Meloni in Italy. See Le Pen in France. Watch it's use with Farage in the UK.
It may be simplistic, but for me the Fascist / real hard Right try to make people despise the Other outside our society (those who look, worship or act differently). The hard Left try to make people despise the Other within our society (those who are said to have more power or money). Both sides become more attractive in times of stress when leaders fail to maintain fairness and predictability within society. Our current poor generation of leaders will I fear make the situation worse here.
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
The meaning of fascism has become so distorted that it would now describe virtually any democratic western government before the year 2000.
It is often used that way; but whilst there are many different definitions, the meaning is generally quite clear.
Umberto Eco, the Italian semiotician and philosopher, provided a very helpful guide to the fourteen characteristics of Fascism. Here's the link...
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
The meaning of fascism has become so distorted that it would now describe virtually any democratic western government before the year 2000.
Complete and total nonsense. Fascism and would-be fascist leaders have simply evolved. Fascism could be simply described as a mixture of divisive nationalism and populism with egomaniac narcissistic leaders who would happily significantly subvert democracy to attain or hold onto power.
Putin fits the bill easily, so does Trump. As Farage admires both and also strongly endorses and politically supports the latter puts him in the same camp along with a number of other far right leaders.
None of the leaders of governments of this country or other major western powers meet those before 2000.
Why doesn't Charles de Gaulle fit the definition?
He probably came close, so it is a good attempt, to be fair. Not sure he is quite in Trump's or Putin's league though.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Compared to Blair, Brown, Straw, Cunningham, Cook, Mowlem, Beckett, Darling, Dewar, Reid, Mandelson, Harman and the rest the current Labour front bench appears to be lacking intellectuals and political heavyweights.
Maybe they will surprise me, but I can just as easily believe they'll be even worse than I expect.
Who had heard of any of them before they were in government?
Wasn't Meacher the only one in the cabinet with government experience in 1997?
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
The meaning of fascism has become so distorted that it would now describe virtually any democratic western government before the year 2000.
It is often used that way; but whilst there are many different definitions, the meaning is generally quite clear.
Umberto Eco, the Italian semiotician and philosopher, provided a very helpful guide to the fourteen characteristics of Fascism. Here's the link...
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Compared to Blair, Brown, Straw, Cunningham, Cook, Mowlem, Beckett, Darling, Dewar, Reid, Mandelson, Harman and the rest the current Labour front bench appears to be lacking intellectuals and political heavyweights.
Maybe they will surprise me, but I can just as easily believe they'll be even worse than I expect.
Well we have David Lammy as next FS and we all remember his powerhouse performance on Celebrity Mastermind when he thought Red Leicester went with Port and Henry VII succeeded his son Henry VIII as King. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsR4Nx-ELgc
Yvette Cooper is intelligent granted, if also dull, Reeves relatively numerate but the rest of the SC and even Starmer himself not much to write home about
So if you're Biden, imagine you're seriously considering dropping out. You have the SCOTUS Trump immunity decision on July 1st, then the sentencing on July 11th. I guess you sit things out for a couple of weeks and see what the polls do? Until then you obviously have to say you have every intention to stay.
Not just Biden has to say he's going to stay, anyone Biden-adjacent has to say that... in public, anyway.
Think of other leaders who left prematurely. Thatcher, for example, or Johnson. They appeared unassailable, right up to the second that they weren't.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Compared to Blair, Brown, Straw, Cunningham, Cook, Mowlem, Beckett, Darling, Dewar, Reid, Mandelson, Harman and the rest the current Labour front bench appears to be lacking intellectuals and political heavyweights.
Maybe they will surprise me, but I can just as easily believe they'll be even worse than I expect.
Well we have David Lammy as next FS and we all remember his powerhouse performance on Celebrity Mastermind when he thought Red Leicester went with Port and Henry VII succeeded his son Henry VIII as King
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
Yes Mrs Jessop, whatever you say. Have another Hobnob and calm down
I am calm. I've had a very pleasant day, and not felt the need to screech about it out loud to everyone on here as a form of weird self-validation.
Although, having said that: I've just been given a bottle of Canadian Icewine. I don't think I've come across it before, and didn't even know Canada had commercial vineyards. Does anyone have any suggestions about how best to serve it? Is it a dessert wine?
Yes, it is sweet. Made by crushing frozen grapes, so concentrated as the water freezes out.
There are some perfectly good conventional wineries in Okananangen in BC too, because of its microclimate.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
The meaning of fascism has become so distorted that it would now describe virtually any democratic western government before the year 2000.
It is often used that way; but whilst there are many different definitions, the meaning is generally quite clear.
Umberto Eco, the Italian semiotician and philosopher, provided a very helpful guide to the fourteen characteristics of Fascism. Here's the link...
It is quite entertaining to observe how Nigel Farage has the ability to drive people in to a total incoherant frenzy. He manages to make his opponents mad without actually doing anything significant. It isn't like he is calling his opponents 'scum', or saying that all debate should be stopped as it is 'hatred', as left wing politicians have done in the past few years. Regarding Reform supporters, it isn't like they are pulling down statues, vandalising ancient monuments, blocking ambulances etc. This all feels like the usual thing of a free pass for the far left but impossibly high standards applied to anyone on the 'far right'.
I loath the far left, but it may need pointing out to you that the far right,even just in this country, has set rather a lot more dangerous historical precedents than just pulling down statues. Fascism needs calling out. Yes there are lots of idiots who want to pretend that label doesn't apply to Farage, but the cap fits him very well.
Farage sees himself as doing a public service for democracy by representing a swathe of public opinion that the elite find repulsive. He brings it in to the political mainstream. That is what he did with Brexit and that is what he is doing now. Ultimately you have to choose between this and an actual far right/fascist situation. I would say though in addition that 'fascism' has really lost its meaning, it seems more like a rhetorical tool for debating purposes, if you can be branded a fascist then it is a red card, you are out of the game in disgrace. It all gets a bit tiring.
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
Yes Mrs Jessop, whatever you say. Have another Hobnob and calm down
I am calm. I've had a very pleasant day, and not felt the need to screech about it out loud to everyone on here as a form of weird self-validation.
Although, having said that: I've just been given a bottle of Canadian Icewine. I don't think I've come across it before, and didn't even know Canada had commercial vineyards. Does anyone have any suggestions about how best to serve it? Is it a dessert wine?
Yes. It’s expensive because the grapes are picked individually, usually at night, when they are frozen. Serve cold with some equally sweet dessert.
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
The meaning of fascism has become so distorted that it would now describe virtually any democratic western government before the year 2000.
It is often used that way; but whilst there are many different definitions, the meaning is generally quite clear.
Umberto Eco, the Italian semiotician and philosopher, provided a very helpful guide to the fourteen characteristics of Fascism. Here's the link...
How many of those can we see in Britain/The World today?
I've quoted thus for Putin- 14/14
I agree,
As an aside, there was a HistoryHit podcast with Dan Snow a year or two ago when he discussed fascism with an expert. The expert said that one of the rules for a fascist was changing the law to advantage themselves and their regime. He said Putin had not done that.
Which I think was wrong. Firstly, because Putin has bent and changed the rules (e.g. allowing himself to serve more than two consecutive terms, and I ?think? changing a term form four to six years); leaving aside the switcheroo he did with his poodle Medeyev.
Secondly, because it might be that a state's laws are already perfect breeding ground for a fascist government, and do not need much altering for fascism to thrive.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Compared to Blair, Brown, Straw, Cunningham, Cook, Mowlem, Beckett, Darling, Dewar, Reid, Mandelson, Harman and the rest the current Labour front bench appears to be lacking intellectuals and political heavyweights.
Maybe they will surprise me, but I can just as easily believe they'll be even worse than I expect.
Well we have David Lammy as next FS and we all remember his powerhouse performance on Celebrity Mastermind when he thought Red Leicester went with Port and Henry VII succeeded his son Henry VIII as King
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either
He's a dull, mostly inoffensive, plodder. Maths and Science are not more difficult for anyone with a bit of talent.
I suspect this means he's had to work quite hard to get anywhere unlike Dave or Boris.
That could be good ... or bad.
He's not likely to come up with any 'brilliant' ideas and throw caution to the wind.
Gareth Southgate in political form.
I think that's a little harsh. He got a first class honours from Leeds when such things were rare, he got post graduate qualifications from Teddy Hall, he was admitted to Middle Temple when that would not have been easy for someone from a red brick university and he had a pretty distinguished legal career with a large number of competitive appointments.
I am not his biggest fan by any means but if he was a plodder god knows what that makes 95% of the rest of us.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Compared to Blair, Brown, Straw, Cunningham, Cook, Mowlem, Beckett, Darling, Dewar, Reid, Mandelson, Harman and the rest the current Labour front bench appears to be lacking intellectuals and political heavyweights.
Maybe they will surprise me, but I can just as easily believe they'll be even worse than I expect.
Who had heard of any of them before they were in government?
Wasn't Meacher the only one in the cabinet with government experience in 1997?
They had mostly been in John Smith's shadow cabinet, so they'd been tearing strips of their Tory opponents for years by 1997. Would every voter know them? No. But I expect most voters back them could name more of them than voters could of the current lot, even if it's largely due to the changed media landscape.
Nobody in 1997 really queried whether Labour were up to the job. They were seen as a serious and qualified group of people.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Would that be a £63m invisible garden bridge? I'll take one.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Compared to Blair, Brown, Straw, Cunningham, Cook, Mowlem, Beckett, Darling, Dewar, Reid, Mandelson, Harman and the rest the current Labour front bench appears to be lacking intellectuals and political heavyweights.
Maybe they will surprise me, but I can just as easily believe they'll be even worse than I expect.
Who had heard of any of them before they were in government?
Wasn't Meacher the only one in the cabinet with government experience in 1997?
Without checking, Jack Cunningham had been in Cabinet at the back end of 1978/79?
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
The meaning of fascism has become so distorted that it would now describe virtually any democratic western government before the year 2000.
It is often used that way; but whilst there are many different definitions, the meaning is generally quite clear.
Umberto Eco, the Italian semiotician and philosopher, provided a very helpful guide to the fourteen characteristics of Fascism. Here's the link...
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
Yes Mrs Jessop, whatever you say. Have another Hobnob and calm down
I am calm. I've had a very pleasant day, and not felt the need to screech about it out loud to everyone on here as a form of weird self-validation.
Although, having said that: I've just been given a bottle of Canadian Icewine. I don't think I've come across it before, and didn't even know Canada had commercial vineyards. Does anyone have any suggestions about how best to serve it? Is it a dessert wine?
Yes, it is sweet. Made by crushing frozen grapes, so concentrated as the water freezes out.
There are some perfectly good conventional wineries in Okananangen in BC too, because of its microclimate.
The wineries I saw E of the Cascades in Washington State all seemed have open gas heaters in the fields to deal with any late frosts.
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
The meaning of fascism has become so distorted that it would now describe virtually any democratic western government before the year 2000.
Complete and total nonsense. Fascism and would-be fascist leaders have simply evolved. Fascism could be simply described as a mixture of divisive nationalism and populism with egomaniac narcissistic leaders who would happily significantly subvert democracy to attain or hold onto power.
Putin fits the bill easily, so does Trump. As Farage admires both and also strongly endorses and politically supports the latter puts him in the same camp along with a number of other far right leaders.
None of the leaders of governments of this country or other major western powers meet those before 2000.
Why doesn't Charles de Gaulle fit the definition?
He probably came close, so it is a good attempt, to be fair. Not sure he is quite in Trump's or Putin's league though.
How about Mitterrand? Fake assassination attempts, state terrorism, bugging...
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Compared to Blair, Brown, Straw, Cunningham, Cook, Mowlem, Beckett, Darling, Dewar, Reid, Mandelson, Harman and the rest the current Labour front bench appears to be lacking intellectuals and political heavyweights.
Maybe they will surprise me, but I can just as easily believe they'll be even worse than I expect.
Well we have David Lammy as next FS and we all remember his powerhouse performance on Celebrity Mastermind when he thought Red Leicester went with Port and Henry VII succeeded his son Henry VIII as King
I don't think these attacks on Reform will work. The aim is to try and destroy them by revealing their 'true nature' but it just keeps getting shrugged off by Farage. So the attacks fail, and the by product is that the discourse is normalised. It feels like the overton window shifting.
Yes. There is a fashion on TikTok for young kids in France and Germany to say “yeah I’m a racist so fucking what”
The term has lost a lot of its negative power through overuse and now it has a kind of mildly transgressive chic - which kids love of course. That’s how you shock the elders these days. Say “yeah I’m a racist” on TikTok. Cue heart attack in your parents
Saying “fuck the toreeez” and going to Glastonbury is what people like @Heathener do
Again I don’t believe Britain will be immune from this trend, we are merely behind the curve
Is Britain ahead, behind or on a totally different curve? Time will tell. Brexit and Johnson gave the populist mad right wing nonsense thing a bad name with anyone under 50
My thinking is Brexit has delayed our swerve to the populist right - but not necessarily averted it. We gave people the vote and they vented their anger - that has bought us time
With that time we need to see a proper right wing government emerge that will actually do proper right wing things. Then maybe we can dodge the whole Le Pen shit altogether -
But if that doesn’t happen then it seems inevitable to me that we will follow Italy France Sweden the USA Holland etc
So after 14 years of Tory government and the implementation of the totemic political project of the populist reactionary right, our next move must be to the populist reactionary right, otherwise we might swing too far to the right.
What an unwelcome prognosis (!) for anybody on the left or centre or centre right of politics, ie the majority of people. Have you checked with them? I bet you haven't. Because what I reckon they'd say, most of them, is how about we give good government a whirl first? It's been a while since we tried that.
It is quite entertaining to observe how Nigel Farage has the ability to drive people in to a total incoherant frenzy. He manages to make his opponents mad without actually doing anything significant. It isn't like he is calling his opponents 'scum', or saying that all debate should be stopped as it is 'hatred', as left wing politicians have done in the past few years. Regarding Reform supporters, it isn't like they are pulling down statues, vandalising ancient monuments, blocking ambulances etc. This all feels like the usual thing of a free pass for the far left but impossibly high standards applied to anyone on the 'far right'.
I loath the far left, but it may need pointing out to you that the far right,even just in this country, has set rather a lot more dangerous historical precedents than just pulling down statues. Fascism needs calling out. Yes there are lots of idiots who want to pretend that label doesn't apply to Farage, but the cap fits him very well.
Farage sees himself as doing a public service for democracy by representing a swathe of public opinion that the elite find repulsive. He brings it in to the political mainstream. That is what he did with Brexit and that is what he is doing now. Ultimately you have to choose between this and an actual far right/fascist situation. I would say though in addition that 'fascism' has really lost its meaning, it seems more like a rhetorical tool for debating purposes, if you can be branded a fascist then it is a red card, you are out of the game in disgrace. It all gets a bit tiring.
Fascist is an easy label but will lose it's power if overused - see Meloni in Italy. See Le Pen in France. Watch it's use with Farage in the UK.
It may be simplistic, but for me the Fascist / real hard Right try to make people despise the Other outside our society (those who look, worship or act differently). The hard Left try to make people despise the Other within our society (those who are said to have more power or money). Both sides become more attractive in times of stress when leaders fail to maintain fairness and predictability within society. Our current poor generation of leaders will I fear make the situation worse here.
I have largely been centre right all my life, but I despise the hard left and the hard right. Let's make it simple. Trump and Putin are fascists. Farage admires them both and, no doubt, would like to emulate both. He is a fascist.
For those panicking about Biden (and I regret to say I'm joining that camp)... I think the next President market offers some reasonable odds.
For instance if you think Biden may choose to stand down (or be forced to)... you can get 26/1 on Kamala Harris winning. Or 600/1 on Buttigieg.
Harris is a terrible candidate, but a great bet.
She's the incumbent VP. She's not senile.
And it's not like Trump doesn't have his own issues.
I would buy her into the high teens. (Indeed, I think she is far more likely to be the candidate than Michelle Obama or Gavin Newsom.)
The focus after last night's performance is on Biden and the predicament in which the Dems now find themselves. It's logical that we should so focus upon who should follow Biden and the choices that must be made.
But what if Trump cannot or does not run? As @rcs1000 says, Trump is not without his own issues - both legal and (questionably) medical. I've long assumed that if Trump was jailed it would turn a proportion of the voting public against him. It would be unacceptable for a convicted felon to be President and more so if he were to be jailed. I've also assumed that a medical issue could prevent a run for White House.
The question that I've been unable to answer is what if Trump quits the race for no other reason than the fact that Biden has already quit the race? Trump seeks revenge upon those that robbed him of the White House. The biggest culprit is Joe Biden. That's why he's running. Yet if Biden is removed from the field of play, would Trump continue his own campaign? Going up against Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden is different to Kamala Harris. Clinton and Biden have natural supporters and are giants within American politics. Harris isn't and doesn't have a group of natural supporters. She should - in theory - be easy to beat but there's no 'win' for Trump in that. The win for Trump would be to take on the giants, a Clinton or a Biden, and slay them as the tough guy.
So what if Trump cuts his losses and runs? Biden's dropped out or been replaced. Why should Trump continue in the race. And in that situation - or any situation (such as being jailed or a medical issue) - who do the GOP choose? It strikes me that the Dems aren't the only party that find themselves in a pickle. Who comes after Trump? What iteration of the GOP emerges? The Bible Belt/January 6/Tea Party iteration or the pragmatic and reasoned GOP that looks a little more like that of old?
I think the missing factor in the comment (unless I missed it) is that he needs a way to stay out of prison, and is still facing a series of criminal actions with more to come - where his only hope is a self-pardon if he is President, a corrupt Supreme Court, or to trust someone else who is President to protect him.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either
He's a dull, mostly inoffensive, plodder. Maths and Science are not more difficult for anyone with a bit of talent.
I suspect this means he's had to work quite hard to get anywhere unlike Dave or Boris.
That could be good ... or bad.
He's not likely to come up with any 'brilliant' ideas and throw caution to the wind.
Gareth Southgate in political form.
I think that's a little harsh. He got a first class honours from Leeds when such things were rare, he got post graduate qualifications from Teddy Hall, he was admitted to Middle Temple when that would not have been easy for someone from a red brick university and he had a pretty distinguished legal career with a large number of competitive appointments.
I am not his biggest fan by any means but if he was a plodder god knows what that makes 95% of the rest of us.
OK, fair enough, though if you want to be HYUFD-level elitist you could raise an eyebrow at Teddy Hall.
I think he just works hard, which once you get into the real world often matters more.
Those of us with a string of As but are also lazy sods end up posting on PB...
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
The meaning of fascism has become so distorted that it would now describe virtually any democratic western government before the year 2000.
Complete and total nonsense. Fascism and would-be fascist leaders have simply evolved. Fascism could be simply described as a mixture of divisive nationalism and populism with egomaniac narcissistic leaders who would happily significantly subvert democracy to attain or hold onto power.
Putin fits the bill easily, so does Trump. As Farage admires both and also strongly endorses and politically supports the latter puts him in the same camp along with a number of other far right leaders.
None of the leaders of governments of this country or other major western powers meet those before 2000.
Why doesn't Charles de Gaulle fit the definition?
He probably came close, so it is a good attempt, to be fair. Not sure he is quite in Trump's or Putin's league though.
How about Mitterrand? Fake assassination attempts, state terrorism, bugging...
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Compared to Blair, Brown, Straw, Cunningham, Cook, Mowlem, Beckett, Darling, Dewar, Reid, Mandelson, Harman and the rest the current Labour front bench appears to be lacking intellectuals and political heavyweights.
Maybe they will surprise me, but I can just as easily believe they'll be even worse than I expect.
Well we have David Lammy as next FS and we all remember his powerhouse performance on Celebrity Mastermind when he thought Red Leicester went with Port and Henry VII succeeded his son Henry VIII as King
Travelled from Totnes to London Paddington this morning - and in nearly three hours of train travel, never saw a single political poster.
What election?
Why would anyone expect to see political posters from a train anyway? The view from trains is almost entirely the back of houses, green and virtually uninhabited countryside - or HS2 construction works. Political posters go into front windows or onto stakes at front doors.
My station's on a line from Paddington too.. And I've scarcely seen a political poster from that line in 25 years. But walk the ten minutes from the station to our house, and you'll be inundated with LD and Labour posters in what's been a safe Tory seat throughout every voter's lifetime..
What makes this election different is the remarkable number of Labour posters (because boundary changes make a Labour win here dramatically less improbable than any other time this century) and the spectacular absence of Tory ones. Many of those Tory posters used to go into fields empty of any animals but cows - and the silent rebellion of Britain's tenant farmers against their Tory-voting landlords isn't a sign of apathy, but one more reason the Tories are about to be shellacked.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either
He's a dull, mostly inoffensive, plodder. Maths and Science are not more difficult for anyone with a bit of talent.
I suspect this means he's had to work quite hard to get anywhere unlike Dave or Boris.
That could be good ... or bad.
He's not likely to come up with any 'brilliant' ideas and throw caution to the wind.
Gareth Southgate in political form.
I think that's a little harsh. He got a first class honours from Leeds when such things were rare, he got post graduate qualifications from Teddy Hall, he was admitted to Middle Temple when that would not have been easy for someone from a red brick university and he had a pretty distinguished legal career with a large number of competitive appointments.
I am not his biggest fan by any means but if he was a plodder god knows what that makes 95% of the rest of us.
OK, fair enough, though if you want to be HYUFD-level elitist you could raise an eyebrow at Teddy Hall.
I think he just works hard, which once you get into the real world often matters more.
Those of us with a string of As but are also lazy sods end up posting on PB...
Edit: Of course "working hard" is definitely an insult in certain circles. It would have been to Boris.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Compared to Blair, Brown, Straw, Cunningham, Cook, Mowlem, Beckett, Darling, Dewar, Reid, Mandelson, Harman and the rest the current Labour front bench appears to be lacking intellectuals and political heavyweights.
Maybe they will surprise me, but I can just as easily believe they'll be even worse than I expect.
Well we have David Lammy as next FS and we all remember his powerhouse performance on Celebrity Mastermind when he thought Red Leicester went with Port and Henry VII succeeded his son Henry VIII as King
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Would that be a £63m invisible garden bridge? I'll take one.
I tell you what, I'll knock it down to a roundish 59.9M for a quick sale.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise he is probably John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
A levels were rather harder in his day (and my day) than yours..
BBC would get you into almost any University course then...
My offer from Birmingham was BBC. I expected A in Maths, B in Chemistry, but was worried about getting a C in Physics.
In the end I didn't get any Bs or Cs.
When A Levels were hard, and getting an A was harder still.
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
Yes Mrs Jessop, whatever you say. Have another Hobnob and calm down
I am calm. I've had a very pleasant day, and not felt the need to screech about it out loud to everyone on here as a form of weird self-validation.
Although, having said that: I've just been given a bottle of Canadian Icewine. I don't think I've come across it before, and didn't even know Canada had commercial vineyards. Does anyone have any suggestions about how best to serve it? Is it a dessert wine?
Yes. It’s expensive because the grapes are picked individually, usually at night, when they are frozen. Serve cold with some equally sweet dessert.
Canadian icewine is obtained from grapes grown in the Niagara Falls area. Had a tour round there a few years ago. Sadly, not a lot of sampling! As someone posted here recently there a suitable micro-climate in the S of British Columbia, where a small-ish quantity of very acceptable wine is made.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either
He's a dull, mostly inoffensive, plodder. Maths and Science are not more difficult for anyone with a bit of talent.
I suspect this means he's had to work quite hard to get anywhere unlike Dave or Boris.
That could be good ... or bad.
He's not likely to come up with any 'brilliant' ideas and throw caution to the wind.
Gareth Southgate in political form.
I think that's a little harsh. He got a first class honours from Leeds when such things were rare, he got post graduate qualifications from Teddy Hall, he was admitted to Middle Temple when that would not have been easy for someone from a red brick university and he had a pretty distinguished legal career with a large number of competitive appointments.
I am not his biggest fan by any means but if he was a plodder god knows what that makes 95% of the rest of us.
OK, fair enough, though if you want to be HYUFD-level elitist you could raise an eyebrow at Teddy Hall.
I think he just works hard, which once you get into the real world often matters more.
Those of us with a string of As but are also lazy sods end up posting on PB...
Perhaps I just empathise with someone who also had to work hard to achieve what I have, which is massively less than him.
I think in many ways the ruthless efficiency with which he has seized total control of the Labour party over the last few years, got rid of the Corbynites, replaced his shadow Chancellor when her predecessor wasn't cutting it and carefully managed the dullest election campaign in history whilst sitting on a large lead is the most impressive thing. If this ruthless efficiency survives the transition to government things may not be too bad.
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
Yes Mrs Jessop, whatever you say. Have another Hobnob and calm down
I am calm. I've had a very pleasant day, and not felt the need to screech about it out loud to everyone on here as a form of weird self-validation.
Although, having said that: I've just been given a bottle of Canadian Icewine. I don't think I've come across it before, and didn't even know Canada had commercial vineyards. Does anyone have any suggestions about how best to serve it? Is it a dessert wine?
I’ve had Canadian ice wine in Montreal where they make it. Very nice
So if you're Biden, imagine you're seriously considering dropping out. You have the SCOTUS Trump immunity decision on July 1st, then the sentencing on July 11th. I guess you sit things out for a couple of weeks and see what the polls do? Until then you obviously have to say you have every intention to stay.
Not just Biden has to say he's going to stay, anyone Biden-adjacent has to say that... in public, anyway.
Think of other leaders who left prematurely. Thatcher, for example, or Johnson. They appeared unassailable, right up to the second that they weren't.
Neither Thatcher nor Johnson appeared unassailable right up to the moment they weren't. Both suffered a gradual hollowing out of their authority and their departures were in slow motion. Thatcher had a stalking horse challenge, Lawson and Howe going, and an inadequate first round performance against Heseltine. Johnson had many months of scandal and a tight confidence vote before he finally went. There were quite long periods of time when both looked thoroughly assailable (as does Biden today).
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise he is probably John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
A levels were rather harder in his day (and my day) than yours..
BBC would get you into almost any University course then...
My offer from Birmingham was BBC. I expected A in Maths, B in Chemistry, but was worried about getting a C in Physics.
In the end I didn't get any Bs or Cs.
When A Levels were hard, and getting an A was harder still.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
Sky news showing a visibly angry Rishi Sunak condemning and actually saying the racist slur against him by the Reform volunteer
Apparently the police are now investigating whether an offence has been committed and the Sky report is not going to help Reform with highlighting their pro Putin, racist and misogynistic views
Time for conservatives to wake up and vote for the party to defend it from these vile views and characters
Sunak has never looked more authentic. That is genuine anger - and he is right to speak out as he has. However, this is also the bloke who has spent the last couple of years snuggling up to Reform voters and who was happy to take millions from Frank Hester. If he had taken a different path when he had the chance things may have turned out very differently for him.
There’s another universe where Sunak took on the right, ended the culture wars, exposed the Rwanda scheme as the farce it is and returned to Cameron/May pragmatic conservative politics. I think there might have been conservative votes in an Thatcherite economic pragmatic approach to the EU and a return to the vote blue go green agenda.
It’s tragic he didn’t go down that path.
And why on earth would someone like me vote for that soppy Blairite shite. That’s why they are in the mess they are. They are a social Democrat party pretending to be conservative
You are suggesting they do MORE of that and it will solve their problems. lol
Yeah, but you're more likely to vote for the fascists you so admire like Putin than 'soppy Blairite shite'.
No. I did the compass test and it had me smack bang on the Tory position IF THE TORIES ACTUALLY DID WHAT THEY PROMISE TO DO. But they never do. They lie and obfuscate and raise immigration to insane levels
Eventually voters in their disgust reach for more extreme solutions. That seems to be what is happening here in France
"More extreme solutions" being code for fascism, in your case. But you're just looking for excuses. You admire a fascist imperialist such as Putin because he gives one speech where he criticising woke. That's the earth-sized rabbithole you're fallen down.
The meaning of fascism has become so distorted that it would now describe virtually any democratic western government before the year 2000.
Complete and total nonsense. Fascism and would-be fascist leaders have simply evolved. Fascism could be simply described as a mixture of divisive nationalism and populism with egomaniac narcissistic leaders who would happily significantly subvert democracy to attain or hold onto power.
Putin fits the bill easily, so does Trump. As Farage admires both and also strongly endorses and politically supports the latter puts him in the same camp along with a number of other far right leaders.
None of the leaders of governments of this country or other major western powers meet those before 2000.
I don't think these attacks on Reform will work. The aim is to try and destroy them by revealing their 'true nature' but it just keeps getting shrugged off by Farage. So the attacks fail, and the by product is that the discourse is normalised. It feels like the overton window shifting.
Yes. There is a fashion on TikTok for young kids in France and Germany to say “yeah I’m a racist so fucking what”
The term has lost a lot of its negative power through overuse and now it has a kind of mildly transgressive chic - which kids love of course. That’s how you shock the elders these days. Say “yeah I’m a racist” on TikTok. Cue heart attack in your parents
Saying “fuck the toreeez” and going to Glastonbury is what people like @Heathener do
Again I don’t believe Britain will be immune from this trend, we are merely behind the curve
Is Britain ahead, behind or on a totally different curve? Time will tell. Brexit and Johnson gave the populist mad right wing nonsense thing a bad name with anyone under 50
My thinking is Brexit has delayed our swerve to the populist right - but not necessarily averted it. We gave people the vote and they vented their anger - that has bought us time
With that time we need to see a proper right wing government emerge that will actually do proper right wing things. Then maybe we can dodge the whole Le Pen shit altogether -
But if that doesn’t happen then it seems inevitable to me that we will follow Italy France Sweden the USA Holland etc
So after 14 years of Tory government and the implementation of the totemic political project of the populist reactionary right, our next move must be to the populist reactionary right, otherwise we might swing too far to the right.
What an unwelcome prognosis (!) for anybody on the left or centre or centre right of politics, ie the majority of people. Have you checked with them? I bet you haven't. Because what I reckon they'd say, most of them, is how about we give good government a whirl first? It's been a while since we tried that.
This government have been populist in rhetoric only. In reality they have had the highest immigration and highest tax on record. And have sold off a ton of top notch British companies. It hasn't been populist in implementation. Not one bit. Until we get the implementation of populist right wing policies then Farage and co will remain ever present
First, thanks yet again to The Green Machine for posting this analysis.
Second, am confused by statement that, "Naomi Long [APNI] could be depending on the SF voters and transfers". The voters I get; but transfers? Thought that Westminster elections in NI were like rest of UK = FPTP?
My bad, I was suppose to type tactical. I have also noticed no space between 5th and 6th place in one prediction.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Compared to Blair, Brown, Straw, Cunningham, Cook, Mowlem, Beckett, Darling, Dewar, Reid, Mandelson, Harman and the rest the current Labour front bench appears to be lacking intellectuals and political heavyweights.
Maybe they will surprise me, but I can just as easily believe they'll be even worse than I expect.
Well we have David Lammy as next FS and we all remember his powerhouse performance on Celebrity Mastermind when he thought Red Leicester went with Port and Henry VII succeeded his son Henry VIII as King. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsR4Nx-ELgc
Yvette Cooper is intelligent granted, if also dull, Reeves relatively numerate but the rest of the SC and even Starmer himself not much to write home about
I don't think these attacks on Reform will work. The aim is to try and destroy them by revealing their 'true nature' but it just keeps getting shrugged off by Farage. So the attacks fail, and the by product is that the discourse is normalised. It feels like the overton window shifting.
Yes. There is a fashion on TikTok for young kids in France and Germany to say “yeah I’m a racist so fucking what”
The term has lost a lot of its negative power through overuse and now it has a kind of mildly transgressive chic - which kids love of course. That’s how you shock the elders these days. Say “yeah I’m a racist” on TikTok. Cue heart attack in your parents
Saying “fuck the toreeez” and going to Glastonbury is what people like @Heathener do
Again I don’t believe Britain will be immune from this trend, we are merely behind the curve
Is Britain ahead, behind or on a totally different curve? Time will tell. Brexit and Johnson gave the populist mad right wing nonsense thing a bad name with anyone under 50
My thinking is Brexit has delayed our swerve to the populist right - but not necessarily averted it. We gave people the vote and they vented their anger - that has bought us time
With that time we need to see a proper right wing government emerge that will actually do proper right wing things. Then maybe we can dodge the whole Le Pen shit altogether -
But if that doesn’t happen then it seems inevitable to me that we will follow Italy France Sweden the USA Holland etc
So after 14 years of Tory government and the implementation of the totemic political project of the populist reactionary right, our next move must be to the populist reactionary right, otherwise we might swing too far to the right.
What an unwelcome prognosis (!) for anybody on the left or centre or centre right of politics, ie the majority of people. Have you checked with them? I bet you haven't. Because what I reckon they'd say, most of them, is how about we give good government a whirl first? It's been a while since we tried that.
I’m not saying this is great nor am I expressing a desire for this
I am extrapolating from the facts as they are. And as we now know, I am extremely good at this
Be afraid, be very afraid
And now I’m going back to e-biking pointlessly around grassy Breton clifftops in the sun while listening to Jacques Loussier do Bach. Who know that could be such fun?
Farage. BBC tonight. Any demo outside tonight or a few more channel 4 revelations? Trump. He wants to win. Biden stays on and wins or a new candidate replaces him and wins. Trump will not accept it and will have to send some Rednecks and Hells Angel's in and general fruit cakes to endorse him even when he looses. Business as usual. Yes I saw the debate last night. Plenty of time to go to that election.
I don't think these attacks on Reform will work. The aim is to try and destroy them by revealing their 'true nature' but it just keeps getting shrugged off by Farage. So the attacks fail, and the by product is that the discourse is normalised. It feels like the overton window shifting.
Yes. There is a fashion on TikTok for young kids in France and Germany to say “yeah I’m a racist so fucking what”
The term has lost a lot of its negative power through overuse and now it has a kind of mildly transgressive chic - which kids love of course. That’s how you shock the elders these days. Say “yeah I’m a racist” on TikTok. Cue heart attack in your parents
Saying “fuck the toreeez” and going to Glastonbury is what people like @Heathener do
Again I don’t believe Britain will be immune from this trend, we are merely behind the curve
Is Britain ahead, behind or on a totally different curve? Time will tell. Brexit and Johnson gave the populist mad right wing nonsense thing a bad name with anyone under 50
My thinking is Brexit has delayed our swerve to the populist right - but not necessarily averted it. We gave people the vote and they vented their anger - that has bought us time
With that time we need to see a proper right wing government emerge that will actually do proper right wing things. Then maybe we can dodge the whole Le Pen shit altogether -
But if that doesn’t happen then it seems inevitable to me that we will follow Italy France Sweden the USA Holland etc
So after 14 years of Tory government and the implementation of the totemic political project of the populist reactionary right, our next move must be to the populist reactionary right, otherwise we might swing too far to the right.
What an unwelcome prognosis (!) for anybody on the left or centre or centre right of politics, ie the majority of people. Have you checked with them? I bet you haven't. Because what I reckon they'd say, most of them, is how about we give good government a whirl first? It's been a while since we tried that.
This government have been populist in rhetoric only. In reality they have had the highest immigration and highest tax on record. And have sold off a ton of top notch British companies. It hasn't been populist in implementation. Not one bit. Until we get the implementation of populist right wing policies then Farage and co will remain ever present
Possibly. Because some people are thick.
BTW: Companies get sold. It is called international capitalism, and unless they are nationalised industries, the government doesn't do it.
I don't think these attacks on Reform will work. The aim is to try and destroy them by revealing their 'true nature' but it just keeps getting shrugged off by Farage. So the attacks fail, and the by product is that the discourse is normalised. It feels like the overton window shifting.
Yes. There is a fashion on TikTok for young kids in France and Germany to say “yeah I’m a racist so fucking what”
The term has lost a lot of its negative power through overuse and now it has a kind of mildly transgressive chic - which kids love of course. That’s how you shock the elders these days. Say “yeah I’m a racist” on TikTok. Cue heart attack in your parents
Saying “fuck the toreeez” and going to Glastonbury is what people like @Heathener do
Again I don’t believe Britain will be immune from this trend, we are merely behind the curve
Is Britain ahead, behind or on a totally different curve? Time will tell. Brexit and Johnson gave the populist mad right wing nonsense thing a bad name with anyone under 50
My thinking is Brexit has delayed our swerve to the populist right - but not necessarily averted it. We gave people the vote and they vented their anger - that has bought us time
With that time we need to see a proper right wing government emerge that will actually do proper right wing things. Then maybe we can dodge the whole Le Pen shit altogether -
But if that doesn’t happen then it seems inevitable to me that we will follow Italy France Sweden the USA Holland etc
If you take the view that the Leave vote was motivated, at least in part, due to a portion of the electorate thinking immigration was too high, then, to borrow from T. May, nothing has changed.
This also explains why Reform are getting close to 20% in the polls.
Something tells me that whatever the Labour government will or won't be, it won't be tough on immigration. The question is whether or not the percentage of the population who are hopping mad about immigration tops out at 20% or so max, or continue to rise as problems like the housing crisis grows more acute.
I linked to a FT article that suggested an eightfold rise in middle aged renters by 2030. Figures are slightly suss, but there's already been a 20% rise in the last 11 years.
Build more houses and the housing crisis will dissipate.
Our population is growing at a pretty staid percentage not a massive one, demographic changes mean we need more housing with or without migration and migration obviously mean we need even more, but we need more either way.
The people who are absurd are those who want mass migration but no construction and no reform to our planning system as they support NIMBYism - that is a recipe for disaster.
But fix planning, let people build houses, and I couldn't care less how many migrants come to this country.
I would have agreed with you on that entirely this time last year, since October 7th I have been deeply concerned that we may be importing antisemitism as well as other illiberal views.
Of course, there are plenty with racist and illiberal views who are born here and as we saw last night they are out campaigning for the Reform party.
But by and large, I agree with you, that the answer is much more house and infrastructure building rather than much less immigration. I'm just concerned that we don't import intolerance, too.
That's a completely different (and valid!) concern and should not be conflated with the housing issue.
I have no objections to immigration but I do object to intolerance and antisemitism too, and yes I don't want to import intolerance however I believe most migrants to the UK are tolerant.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I wish I'd known you could read Law after doing Science A levels.
Basing things purely on the signs in people's gardens, the "For Sale" party are putting up a strong campaign round here.
Got me a funny look on the train as I had a little giggle.
I cannot remember an election which had so little of a campaign. Ed Davey did his best in the early stages but even he seems to have given up. Almost no speeches of substance, no rallies, hardly any posters, its been weird.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I wish I'd known you could read Law after doing Science A levels.
You can do a conversion after doing a science degree. Margaret Thatcher being the most notable example, perhaps.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I wish I'd known you could read Law after doing Science A levels.
One lad I knew failed first year Mechanical Engineering then came back the next year to start Law.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Compared to Blair, Brown, Straw, Cunningham, Cook, Mowlem, Beckett, Darling, Dewar, Reid, Mandelson, Harman and the rest the current Labour front bench appears to be lacking intellectuals and political heavyweights.
Maybe they will surprise me, but I can just as easily believe they'll be even worse than I expect.
Well we have David Lammy as next FS and we all remember his powerhouse performance on Celebrity Mastermind when he thought Red Leicester went with Port and Henry VII succeeded his son Henry VIII as King. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsR4Nx-ELgc
Yvette Cooper is intelligent granted, if also dull, Reeves relatively numerate but the rest of the SC and even Starmer himself not much to write home about
In Leicester it probably does.
I'm amazed at the idea that Red Leicester doesn't go with port wine. It does.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise he is probably John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
A levels were rather harder in his day (and my day) than yours..
BBC would get you into almost any University course then...
My offer from Birmingham was BBC. I expected A in Maths, B in Chemistry, but was worried about getting a C in Physics.
In the end I didn't get any Bs or Cs.
When A Levels were hard, and getting an A was harder still.
My offer from Cardiff was two Es. Got AABC. Life was somehow much easier in those days.
Anybody who claims the a tide of political opinion in the medium or distant future going inevitably this way or that is talking out of their arse. There are no tides, there is no whig history or a bastard cousin thereof.
Anybody who wishcasts their own views as inevitable under the flimsy disguise of regret is trying to demoralise political opponents into inaction or anticipatory obedience: fight back against that shit.
Anybody who has to claim they are "extreme good at this" is trying to convince themselves as much as anyone else.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I am not running to be PM, nor is the fat bloke in the England team. That is the job they are highly paid for.
I also never said Starmer was thick but he is clearly not going to be in the top rank of our PMs by intelligence. Intelligence isn't the be all and end all for PMs, judgement, empathy and competence matters too but it helps
My (Tory) MP is reposting an Andrew Neil Tweet which points out that between Q4 2019 and Q1 2024, a period which just happens to be the lifetime of this current parliament, growth in the U.K. was exactly half what it was in the Eurozone. Have they given up, or are they just not very bright?
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I wish I'd known you could read Law after doing Science A levels.
Whatever else you read at Uni, you chose....wisely.
Basing things purely on the signs in people's gardens, the "For Sale" party are putting up a strong campaign round here.
Got me a funny look on the train as I had a little giggle.
I cannot remember an election which had so little of a campaign. Ed Davey did his best in the early stages but even he seems to have given up. Almost no speeches of substance, no rallies, hardly any posters, its been weird.
I get the sense that the BBC and Sky have had enough of it, and just want polling day to come round. The news bulletins are being led by other stories, and it is only the ReFuk racists who are giving the election coverage any legs.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I am not running to be PM, nor is the fat bloke in the England team. That is the job they are highly paid for.
I also never said Starmer was thick but he is clearly not going to be in the top rank of our PMs by intelligence. Intelligence isn't the be all and end all for PMs, judgement, empathy and competence matters too but it helps
You define intelligence by A level results 35 years ago? Even worse than IQ testing.
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And Farage is one.
There is nothing wrong with honesty and it is free speech to call him what he is.
[Not a brilliant app, but useful in some circumstances. The dataset needs a lot of filtering to be of scientific use.]
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Putin fits the bill easily, so does Trump. As Farage admires both and also strongly endorses and politically supports the latter puts him in the same camp along with a number of other far right leaders.
None of the leaders of governments of this country or other major western powers meet those before 2000.
Of course, there are plenty with racist and illiberal views who are born here and as we saw last night they are out campaigning for the Reform party.
But by and large, I agree with you, that the answer is much more house and infrastructure building rather than much less immigration. I'm just concerned that we don't import intolerance, too.
An example of too much short term thinking. They should have accepted they were going to lose, waited till November for the economics to pick up a bit, stuck to decent British values (eg not "Diane Abbott should be shot"), not got caught up in the culture wars, and shout about defence and Ukraine a lot. Easily high 20s/low 30s.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either (and even Major liked the Opera and read Trollope and Callaghan read a bit too)
As are most of the Labour ones.
Maybe they will surprise me, but I can just as easily believe they'll be even worse than I expect.
BBC would get you into almost any University course then...
I suspect this means he's had to work quite hard to get anywhere unlike Dave or Boris.
That could be good ... or bad.
He's not likely to come up with any 'brilliant' ideas and throw caution to the wind.
Gareth Southgate in political form.
Although, having said that: I've just been given a bottle of Canadian Icewine. I don't think I've come across it before, and didn't even know Canada had commercial vineyards. Does anyone have any suggestions about how best to serve it? Is it a dessert wine?
It may be simplistic, but for me the Fascist / real hard Right try to make people despise the Other outside our society (those who look, worship or act differently). The hard Left try to make people despise the Other within our society (those who are said to have more power or money). Both sides become more attractive in times of stress when leaders fail to maintain fairness and predictability within society. Our current poor generation of leaders will I fear make the situation worse here.
https://www.openculture.com/2016/11/umberto-eco-makes-a-list-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html
How many of those can we see in Britain/The World today?
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
Wasn't Meacher the only one in the cabinet with government experience in 1997?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsR4Nx-ELgc
Yvette Cooper is intelligent granted, if also dull, Reeves relatively numerate but the rest of the SC and even Starmer himself not much to write home about
Think of other leaders who left prematurely. Thatcher, for example, or Johnson. They appeared unassailable, right up to the second that they weren't.
There are some perfectly good conventional wineries in Okananangen in BC too, because of its microclimate.
Tories now on 32% with those of Indian heritage, above their UK wide polling average now
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/01/07/classification/
As an aside, there was a HistoryHit podcast with Dan Snow a year or two ago when he discussed fascism with an expert. The expert said that one of the rules for a fascist was changing the law to advantage themselves and their regime. He said Putin had not done that.
Which I think was wrong. Firstly, because Putin has bent and changed the rules (e.g. allowing himself to serve more than two consecutive terms, and I ?think? changing a term form four to six years); leaving aside the switcheroo he did with his poodle Medeyev.
Secondly, because it might be that a state's laws are already perfect breeding ground for a fascist government, and do not need much altering for fascism to thrive.
I am not his biggest fan by any means but if he was a plodder god knows what that makes 95% of the rest of us.
Nobody in 1997 really queried whether Labour were up to the job. They were seen as a serious and qualified group of people.
Not convinced that is particularly sustainable.
What an unwelcome prognosis (!) for anybody on the left or centre or centre right of politics, ie the majority of people. Have you checked with them? I bet you haven't. Because what I reckon they'd say, most of them, is how about we give good government a whirl first? It's been a while since we tried that.
Staying still with that group is still a relative achievement, I guess.
https://x.com/yougov/status/1806705305939579251
I think he just works hard, which once you get into the real world often matters more.
Those of us with a string of As but are also lazy sods end up posting on PB...
My station's on a line from Paddington too.. And I've scarcely seen a political poster from that line in 25 years. But walk the ten minutes from the station to our house, and you'll be inundated with LD and Labour posters in what's been a safe Tory seat throughout every voter's lifetime..
What makes this election different is the remarkable number of Labour posters (because boundary changes make a Labour win here dramatically less improbable than any other time this century) and the spectacular absence of Tory ones. Many of those Tory posters used to go into fields empty of any animals but cows - and the silent rebellion of Britain's tenant farmers against their Tory-voting landlords isn't a sign of apathy, but one more reason the Tories are about to be shellacked.
I am glad you like it.
In the end I didn't get any Bs or Cs.
When A Levels were hard, and getting an A was harder still.
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Katty Kay
@KattyKay_
Hearing from WH that conversations are happening that put all options on the table.
As someone posted here recently there a suitable micro-climate in the S of British Columbia, where a small-ish quantity of very acceptable wine is made.
I think in many ways the ruthless efficiency with which he has seized total control of the Labour party over the last few years, got rid of the Corbynites, replaced his shadow Chancellor when her predecessor wasn't cutting it and carefully managed the dullest election campaign in history whilst sitting on a large lead is the most impressive thing. If this ruthless efficiency survives the transition to government things may not be too bad.
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I am extrapolating from the facts as they are. And as we now know, I am extremely good at this
Be afraid, be very afraid
And now I’m going back to e-biking pointlessly around grassy Breton clifftops in the sun while listening to Jacques Loussier do Bach. Who know that could be such fun?
New Redfield and Wilton
Labour leads by 6% in Scotland.
Lowest CON % EVER in our Scottish polling.
🏴 Westminster VI (26-27 June):
Labour 38% (-1)
SNP 32% (+3)
Conservative 11% (-6)
Reform 8% (+4)
Lib Dem 7% (-1)
Green 3% (–)
Alba 1% (–)
Other 0% (-1)
Changes +/- 1-2 June
BTW: Companies get sold. It is called international capitalism, and unless they are nationalised industries, the government doesn't do it.
I have no objections to immigration but I do object to intolerance and antisemitism too, and yes I don't want to import intolerance however I believe most migrants to the UK are tolerant.
(No extra tactical voting applied)
LAB 494
LIB 72
CON 39
REFUK 7
GREEN 3
SNP 14
I cannot remember an election which had so little of a campaign. Ed Davey did his best in the early stages but even he seems to have given up. Almost no speeches of substance, no rallies, hardly any posters, its been weird.
It's never too late!
https://www.taylor.pt/en/enjoy-port-wine/pairing-port-food/full-bodied-fruity-red-ports
What next, SKS only got 3 gold stars one week in nursery school?
Then tax some more. You were warned.
Anybody who wishcasts their own views as inevitable under the flimsy disguise of regret is trying to demoralise political opponents into inaction or anticipatory obedience: fight back against that shit.
Anybody who has to claim they are "extreme good at this" is trying to convince themselves as much as anyone else.
I also never said Starmer was thick but he is clearly not going to be in the top rank of our PMs by intelligence. Intelligence isn't the be all and end all for PMs, judgement, empathy and competence matters too but it helps