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They shall take up serpents: God, Guns, Abortion and Trump – politicalbetting.com

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  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,473
    edited September 22
    Leon said:

    stodge said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    I don't know - I'm pretty relaxed about it and I suspect her reaction wouldn't be atypical of other parents put in a similar position.

    Once again, a whole lot of faux outrage from a party with huge experience of venality and corruption when in Government in the preceding decade or so. Indeed, plenty were happy to defend Johnson in the ditch until the very end but that was fine because it was "good old Boris".

    Not true of course and the key point isn't or aren't the gifts themselves but a) what Starmer, Reeves and others said before the election about how they were going to comport themselves once in Government and b) the juxtaposition of ministers going to parties and concerts for free while taking away the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, some of whom admittedly don't need it but many others do and the cliff edge of a claiming process meaning for having as much as £3 too much, you lose £250 which is absurd.
    Well, yes, the key is the hypocrisy

    Unfortunately for Ms Phillipson, she was one of the most vocal critics of Boris' lockdown parties, when he tried to use the same excuse as her - "actually, it was just a work event"

    Oh dear, oh dear

    I wonder if part of the problem for Labour is that the Tories have been so chaotic and shite for so long Labour have not received anything like enough press scrutiny, so Labour are

    1. Totally unused to criticism and interrogation and thrown by it when it happens, and

    2. Have developed a feeling that people don't mind if they do dodgy stuff, as no one has complained YET

    Oh dear, oh dear
    Unlike in Blair in 1997 or Cameron in 2010, their analysis of why they lost power last time is that the stupid public got it wrong, so they have an unusual sense of entitlement for a newly elected government.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,799
    edited September 22

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    No.

    It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
    Also you can get away with a bit of self enrichment if everybody else feels they are doing well e.g Blair / Mandy. When you tell everybody well sorry times are tough, everything is in the shitter, all your taxes are going up, benefits been cut, nothing I can do..sorry i must go now i have freebie tickets to private box at spurs, can't be missing it...it doesn't go down well.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,933

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson

    NEVER AGAIN
    Well, we did warn you.
    Once bitten, forever shy
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,842
    Leon said:

    stodge said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    I don't know - I'm pretty relaxed about it and I suspect her reaction wouldn't be atypical of other parents put in a similar position.

    Once again, a whole lot of faux outrage from a party with huge experience of venality and corruption when in Government in the preceding decade or so. Indeed, plenty were happy to defend Johnson in the ditch until the very end but that was fine because it was "good old Boris".

    Not true of course and the key point isn't or aren't the gifts themselves but a) what Starmer, Reeves and others said before the election about how they were going to comport themselves once in Government and b) the juxtaposition of ministers going to parties and concerts for free while taking away the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, some of whom admittedly don't need it but many others do and the cliff edge of a claiming process meaning for having as much as £3 too much, you lose £250 which is absurd.
    Well, yes, the key is the hypocrisy

    Unfortunately for Ms Phillipson, she was one of the most vocal critics of Boris' lockdown parties, when he tried to use the same excuse as her - "actually, it was just a work event"

    Oh dear, oh dear

    I wonder if part of the problem for Labour is that the Tories have been so chaotic and shite for so long Labour have not received anything like enough press scrutiny, so Labour are

    1. Totally unused to criticism and interrogation and thrown by it when it happens, and

    2. Have developed a feeling that people don't mind if they do dodgy stuff, as no one has complained YET

    Oh dear, oh dear
    July was a significant vote AGAINST the Conservatives - let's be fair falling from 47% to 26% in England and losing seats like Chichester doesn't speak to a huge vote of support.

    You're correct in saying Labour didn't get the kind of pre-election scrutiny in 2024 that Kinnock for example got in 1992. Even normally pro-Conservative individuals found it impossible to defend what had happened especially since 2019 - there were a few on here who were in the ditch with Sunak at the end and I've some admiration for that.

    Starmer did face criticism after becoming leader - I remember some on here being vociferous when he was pictured taking the knee in apparent support of BLM. The thing was, compared to that minor squall, the Conservatives were getting a daily tornado of vitriol to which they couldn't respond.

    I'm not sure who is running the media management in Government now but they aren't doing it well so your 1) is spot on.

    As for 2), I'm less convinced. I don't think very much of what I've heard is anywhere "dodgy" but it's the hypocrisy and the juxtaposition with how the Govenrment is perceived to be treating pensioners which makes the whole thing look bad.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,933

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    No.

    It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
    Also you can get away with a bit of self enrichment if everybody else feels they are doing well e.g Blair / Mandy. When you tell everybody well sorry times are tough, everything is in the shitter, all your taxes are going up, benefits been cut, nothing I can do..sorry i must go now i have tickets to private box at spurs...it doesn't go down well.
    Yes, andyou can actually add it up

    Bridget P's free Swift tickets cost £700, so that's two and a bit dead and frozen grannies, so she can go see Taylor Swiift because "that bribe was hard to turn down"

    Starmer's £8,000 Arsenal box is 29 frozen dead grans, with maybe another losing a leg to hypothermia, because "fair do's everyone will understand that I need that luxury private box and I shouldn't pay for it"
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,633
    kle4 said:

    Sean_F said:

    There have been a lot of posts - and headers - on here about Harris could be on course for a landslide victory which is not been predicted in the polls.

    At the risk of giving @Anabobazina @kinabalu @ydoethur @Nigelb and others heart attacks, let me give you the case why it's possible there may be a surprise Trump landslide:

    1. We know the polling companies have changed the methodology of their polls but we do not know whether that has rectified the issues of 2016 and 2020. Nate Cohn stated that the recalled vote methodology more pollsters seems to be boosting Democrat polling averages, making it likely that Trump's support could be understated (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/16/upshot/polls-trump-harris.html).

    2. The fundamentals on how people feel about the economy are not good for an incumbent candidate such as Harris. Voters do not feel well off (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/us/politics/fed-economy-harris-trump.html)

    3. Independents rate Trump better than Harris according to the latest Gallup poll 44% - 35% (https://news.gallup.com/poll/650774/favorable-ratings-harris-trump-remain.aspx), It will be independents who decide the vote.

    4. The results from the Teamsters' vote (https://teamster.org/2024/09/teamsters-release-presidential-endorsement-polling-data/). We don't know the polling methodology used or the numbers but the scale both of Trump's lead and the swing from when Biden was running suggests a significant Working Class (mainly white) to Trump from when Biden dropped out (one other possible reading here is that, in face to face meetings, union members did not want to show support for Trump whilst they would in more anonymous polls - that also points to a potential issue).

    5. On the most important issues, Trump has an edge. Of the top 5 issues in the Pew survey (https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/09/09/issues-and-the-2024-election/), Harris has a +2 lead on health and a tie on the SUpreme Court, Trump has a +4 lead on crime, a +6 lead on foreign policy and a +10 lead on economic issues (he also has a +7 lead on immigration)

    I have not bet anything on this election yet but I think there is more chance of a surprise Trump large victory than a Harris one.

    We have one bit of hard data, the Washington Primary. As Sean Trende pointed out, that's consistent with Harris winning about 48%, on the day. Win or lose, that implies a very tight result.

    Nothing suggests to me that Harris will win a landslide.
    A win slightly bigger than Biden got - for example all Biden states plus North Carolina - should just about be enough to undermine Trump's inevitable "Stolen - again!! schtick.

    The greater hope is that she can have majorities in both Houses too. The Senate will be tough - but Florida and Texas are in play to counter the loss of Montana.
    It does need to be a big win in order to get through without violence I think.

    People last time were less prepared to contest Biden's win, so several key officials held firm, and the courts did too. The former are definitely more up for contesting this time around, but it's one thing to intend it, but if facing an obvious loss many will lose the will to follow through on that.

    Now if Trump wins I wouldn't expect Harris herself to go full 2020 Trump on it, but I can see some Dems being tempted to toss spanners into the gears where they can - that is the effect of the taboo on refusing to concede being broken.
    Harris is also now VP and reads out the winner of the states submitting results to Congress and can just choose the verdict of a Democratic governor if a GOP legislature contests it. That is a huge advantage over 2020 when Pence in theory could have called Trump the winner as VP
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,707
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    The Left (because they assume themselves to be better people) think a thing is only dodgy if a Tory does it. And are incredulous if they are held to the same standards.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,537
    kle4 said:

    kamski said:

    HYUFD said:

    kamski said:

    theProle said:

    Foxy said:

    It's the sort of vibrancy which Welby and the CoE lack

    Pentacostalist worship is certainly fun and celebrational, and in the UK drawing crowds too. There are a number of "Big Shed" churches near me, the retail park being the UK equivalent of the US shopping Mall. It isn't just the African diaspora either. There are fellow travellers too, with Holy Trinity in Leicester getting 500 on a Sunday, CoE though not always approved of by the hierarchy because of its informal liturgy.

    Pentacostalism has moved a long way from the homespun Appalachian church in the video clip, to the razzmatazz of modern mega-churches. The key is that personal relationship with Jesus, and an acceptance of modern consumerist lifestyles.
    I'm sure there are bits of the hierarchy that wince at what goes on, much like the Anglo-Catholic ordinands I saw the day after they had an educational trip somewhere similar.

    But one of Welby's big ideas has been a hefty expansion in That Sort Of Thing, by getting Holy Trinity Brompton (and its children and their children) and others to plant new congregations into struggling parishes.

    And one of the people behind that is Paul Marshall. Yes, that Paul Marshall.
    Except that HTB and it's network of churches is now on its way out of the CofE sphere over the "Prayers of Love and Faith" (that's CofE speak for gay marriage in church). As are virtually all the evangelicals - which are the only bit of the CofE that isn't in free fall decline.

    My CofE church is actually voting today* on whether the congregation agrees with the leadership that we should leave. We're a bit unusual, because we're an old congregation that's not a parish church, and own our own building, so we can pretty much tell the Bishop "so long and thanks for all the fish", but that is true of a lot of the new churches planted by outfits like HTB and St Helens Bishopsgate.

    Incidentally, I've no real problem personally with gay people being gay. I think it's sinful, active homosexuals are called to repent like all sexual sinners, but ultimately it's God's job to make them give an account of their lives, at his judgment, not mine.

    My problem with the CofE blessing gay marriages is that this is the leadership blessing something their doctrine teaches is sinful. I'd say the same if they wanted in church blessings for adultery, gluttony, lying or greed. It's just that in our context, homosexuality is a fashionable sin, unlike the others.

    *actually, electronically, over the next two weeks, starting today
    Why is "homosexuality" sinful? I can see arguments for "adultery, gluttony, lying or greed" being sinful, but I can't see how homosexuality can be added to the list?
    Being homosexual isn't sinful, same sex sexual acts is sinful if you read certain Biblical or Koran passages, just as admiring a beautiful woman isn't sinful of itself unless you have sex outside marriage with them
    This raises a few questions:

    If homosexuality isn't sinful but same sex sexual acts are where do you draw the line? Is masturbating while thinking about someone who is the same sex ok?

    And is the bible that bothered? It's not even in the 10 commandments, and Jesus doesn't seem to say much.

    It would be more in tune with God's wishes to refuse to bless marriages of people who don't keep the sabbath holy, or who take the Lord's name in vain, in my opinion.
    Jesus and the New Testament are very down on divorce. People like to overlook that one.
    It's impossible to adhere to every single part of course.

    If Noah had two male lions...
  • TomWTomW Posts: 70
    kinabalu said:

    viewcode said:

    kinabalu said:

    Interesting from @foxy - yes to try and get the appeal of Trump you have to dispense with facts and reason and plunge into the netherworld of primitive brain chemistries.

    YES! Voting intention is not rational but emotional or instinctive: people vote with their gut and their head, it isn't necessarily transactional.

    https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-deliverism/
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientation
    Yes, I agree. Even what plausibly presents as cool clear reason is more often than not informed by the 'urges'.

    So it's just a matter of degree - eg Trump/MAGA is close to 100% that.
    The entire enlightenment is flawed as ir presupposes humans are rational. Thats why western civilization is hitting a dead end.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,799
    edited September 22
    One of the reasons expenses scandal really pissed the public off, economy was in a bad way, people were taking pay cuts to keep their jobs, then they find out MPs can claim for all sorts of stuff (and do) and absolutely take the piss to enrich themselves by playing the system to the max.

    Could clobber-gate spread. Certainly going to be a lot more scurity of what people have been gifted, by whom and if the value they claim it is worth is realistic.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,466
    A superb header then a magnificent Danny Welbeck free kick give Brighton the lead at halftime 2-1.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,483
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Thanks for this Foxy.

    As an agnostic/secular kind of chap this stuff in politics is incomprehensible to me.

    About 25 years ago there was this twenty quiz about who said x comments either

    a) the Mullahs in Afghanistan/Ayatollahs in Iran

    or

    b) Christian evangelicals in America

    I think I only got four questions right, it was quite the eye opener.

    Serious question, @TSE

    - if you are irreligious/secular, why do you not drink?

    This is not a gotcha, I am properly curious. Alcohol, in moderation (heck, in excess, but that's maybe just me) - is one of life's great pleasures. Really really great

    Yes it's bad for you in some ways but so is sleeping with dozens of beautiful women, or so I am told by my married and feminist friends

    So, why not indulge? You're not going to Islamic hell, there's no one eating up the human-sized kebab skewers, you don't believe in it
    It started off as a religious thing, when I arrived at university I fell off the Muslim wagon but I saw people make really bad decisions when drunk.

    Then after university I was working 100 plus hours I didn't want any distractions, I would work, go home, watch some sport, sleep.

    Then I moved to North Yorkshire and working in Leeds, and had a girlfriend who lived in the Wirral who didn't drive.

    I was doing 25,000 miles a year commuting and maintaining a relationship, I was worried about ending up with a drink driving charge because early in my career a colleague ended up with a drink driving conviction despite not drinking much.

    I've always managed to have a good time without needing to drink alcohol or consume drugs.

    Edit - My mother has forgiven my many transgressions but me being drunk would put her six foot under.
    A comprehensive answer. Thankyou

    I am always intrigued by teetotallers. My eldest daughter is one

    As we dropped her off at St Andrews for her first (nervous) weekend at Uni I did worry about how she would cope without booze to overcome her shyness. I asked her why not try just a glass of wine, she said maybe, but "I don't like booze, because I've seen you and Mum"

    TBF to me (and not to her Mum) her mum is quite a bad drunk. Gets querulous and nasty and then falls into a sullen sleep. If that was my one main example of a drinker I too might be teetotal

    However the daughter is now havering because she's spent long holdays with me and she's seen that I am a benign drunk, I just become more mellow and cheerful as I drink (except on here)

    Of course, she might just be the kind of person that simply doesn't like to drink. Like you. And gets by just fine

    I do think you are missing out on something, but then non-drinkers would say exactly the same to me. Each to their own!
    Perhaps this daughter needs a box set of Absolutely Fabulous for her birthday?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487
    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    kamski said:

    HYUFD said:

    kamski said:

    theProle said:

    Foxy said:

    It's the sort of vibrancy which Welby and the CoE lack

    Pentacostalist worship is certainly fun and celebrational, and in the UK drawing crowds too. There are a number of "Big Shed" churches near me, the retail park being the UK equivalent of the US shopping Mall. It isn't just the African diaspora either. There are fellow travellers too, with Holy Trinity in Leicester getting 500 on a Sunday, CoE though not always approved of by the hierarchy because of its informal liturgy.

    Pentacostalism has moved a long way from the homespun Appalachian church in the video clip, to the razzmatazz of modern mega-churches. The key is that personal relationship with Jesus, and an acceptance of modern consumerist lifestyles.
    I'm sure there are bits of the hierarchy that wince at what goes on, much like the Anglo-Catholic ordinands I saw the day after they had an educational trip somewhere similar.

    But one of Welby's big ideas has been a hefty expansion in That Sort Of Thing, by getting Holy Trinity Brompton (and its children and their children) and others to plant new congregations into struggling parishes.

    And one of the people behind that is Paul Marshall. Yes, that Paul Marshall.
    Except that HTB and it's network of churches is now on its way out of the CofE sphere over the "Prayers of Love and Faith" (that's CofE speak for gay marriage in church). As are virtually all the evangelicals - which are the only bit of the CofE that isn't in free fall decline.

    My CofE church is actually voting today* on whether the congregation agrees with the leadership that we should leave. We're a bit unusual, because we're an old congregation that's not a parish church, and own our own building, so we can pretty much tell the Bishop "so long and thanks for all the fish", but that is true of a lot of the new churches planted by outfits like HTB and St Helens Bishopsgate.

    Incidentally, I've no real problem personally with gay people being gay. I think it's sinful, active homosexuals are called to repent like all sexual sinners, but ultimately it's God's job to make them give an account of their lives, at his judgment, not mine.

    My problem with the CofE blessing gay marriages is that this is the leadership blessing something their doctrine teaches is sinful. I'd say the same if they wanted in church blessings for adultery, gluttony, lying or greed. It's just that in our context, homosexuality is a fashionable sin, unlike the others.

    *actually, electronically, over the next two weeks, starting today
    Why is "homosexuality" sinful? I can see arguments for "adultery, gluttony, lying or greed" being sinful, but I can't see how homosexuality can be added to the list?
    Being homosexual isn't sinful, same sex sexual acts is sinful if you read certain Biblical or Koran passages, just as admiring a beautiful woman isn't sinful of itself unless you have sex outside marriage with them
    This raises a few questions:

    If homosexuality isn't sinful but same sex sexual acts are where do you draw the line? Is masturbating while thinking about someone who is the same sex ok?

    And is the bible that bothered? It's not even in the 10 commandments, and Jesus doesn't seem to say much.

    It would be more in tune with God's wishes to refuse to bless marriages of people who don't keep the sabbath holy, or who take the Lord's name in vain, in my opinion.
    Jesus and the New Testament are very down on divorce. People like to overlook that one.
    It's impossible to adhere to every single part of course.

    If Noah had two male lions...
    Then we’d now have no lions?
  • Nunu3Nunu3 Posts: 220
    Keir Starmer is shit. and hence the UK has a big problem with a deep malaise and no politician can save us from it. And none on the horizon. Doomed.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,899

    One of the reasons expenses scandal really pissed the public off, economy was in a bad way, people were taking pay cuts to keep their jobs, then they find out MPs can claim for all sorts of stuff (and do) and absolutely take the piss to enrich themselves by playing the system to the max.

    Could clobber-gate spread. Certainly going to be a lot more scurity of what people have been gifted, by whom and if the value they claim it is worth is realistic.

    Surely the registered gifts are already examined to ensure that MPs are putting down market rate figures not discounting them. It would be nuts if the authorities were simply accepting the gift values as correct. It would be Expenses Scandal 2 if they were simply rubber stamping them.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,436
    "Sue Gray reputedly gave Lord Alli the Downing Street pass.

    That was after Lord Alli gave £10,000 to her son, Liam Conlon, for his election campaign."

    https://x.com/AaronBastani/status/1837795960975458512
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,963
    @Foxy thank-you for the header. Very informed and informative.

    I think the comments I'd make are:

    1 - The USA is perhaps the last place in the West where "Christendom" still exists in some areas, as the overarching frame for society. Religion partly works the other way round in the USA to the UK; it is almost like Victorian times, where for many a public affiliation is important. In the UK for a long time a church affiliation was something not to be mentioned in the workplace or public life.

    So sometimes the pattern in the USA is for a profession of religion to be made for social reasons, that may or may not work it's way back into values and personal practices etc. Here a commitment to a religion would be private and it would not be talked about in public - observable in statements such as "my lifestyle is my evangelism."

    2 - Harris also has an affiliation - to a black church where the top Minister was a associate in his youth of Martin Luther King.

    3 - There are left leaning as well as right leaning evangelicals, around social reform organisations. I'm not sure about numbers.

    Great piece.

  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,799
    edited September 22
    glw said:

    One of the reasons expenses scandal really pissed the public off, economy was in a bad way, people were taking pay cuts to keep their jobs, then they find out MPs can claim for all sorts of stuff (and do) and absolutely take the piss to enrich themselves by playing the system to the max.

    Could clobber-gate spread. Certainly going to be a lot more scurity of what people have been gifted, by whom and if the value they claim it is worth is realistic.

    Surely the registered gifts are already examined to ensure that MPs are putting down market rate figures not discounting them. It would be nuts if the authorities were simply accepting the gift values as correct. It would be Expenses Scandal 2 if they were simply rubber stamping them.
    Well one of the revelations so far of clobbergate many of the declarations being made are often vague and / or misleading. It seems they are just accepted. And if it was just Big Ange in the apartment in NYC (she is claiming her ex wasn't staying with her), £250 a night is BS.
  • DopermeanDopermean Posts: 468
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    No.

    It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
    Also you can get away with a bit of self enrichment if everybody else feels they are doing well e.g Blair / Mandy. When you tell everybody well sorry times are tough, everything is in the shitter, all your taxes are going up, benefits been cut, nothing I can do..sorry i must go now i have tickets to private box at spurs...it doesn't go down well.
    Yes, andyou can actually add it up

    Bridget P's free Swift tickets cost £700, so that's two and a bit dead and frozen grannies, so she can go see Taylor Swiift because "that bribe was hard to turn down"

    Starmer's £8,000 Arsenal box is 29 frozen dead grans, with maybe another losing a leg to hypothermia, because "fair do's everyone will understand that I need that luxury private box and I shouldn't pay for it"
    Michelle Mone's £100m for unusable PPE, actually out of taxpayer funds not from a donor, is 250,000 dead grannies...
    They're guilty of taking some free hospitality, which they've declared but it doesn't look good because they might be influenced. They've not got fingers in the taxpayers' till past their armpit to the tune of 100s of £milliions like the Conservatives
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,576
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Thanks for this Foxy.

    As an agnostic/secular kind of chap this stuff in politics is incomprehensible to me.

    About 25 years ago there was this twenty quiz about who said x comments either

    a) the Mullahs in Afghanistan/Ayatollahs in Iran

    or

    b) Christian evangelicals in America

    I think I only got four questions right, it was quite the eye opener.

    Serious question, @TSE

    - if you are irreligious/secular, why do you not drink?

    This is not a gotcha, I am properly curious. Alcohol, in moderation (heck, in excess, but that's maybe just me) - is one of life's great pleasures. Really really great

    Yes it's bad for you in some ways but so is sleeping with dozens of beautiful women, or so I am told by my married and feminist friends

    So, why not indulge? You're not going to Islamic hell, there's no one eating up the human-sized kebab skewers, you don't believe in it
    It started off as a religious thing, when I arrived at university I fell off the Muslim wagon but I saw people make really bad decisions when drunk.

    Then after university I was working 100 plus hours I didn't want any distractions, I would work, go home, watch some sport, sleep.

    Then I moved to North Yorkshire and working in Leeds, and had a girlfriend who lived in the Wirral who didn't drive.

    I was doing 25,000 miles a year commuting and maintaining a relationship, I was worried about ending up with a drink driving charge because early in my career a colleague ended up with a drink driving conviction despite not drinking much.

    I've always managed to have a good time without needing to drink alcohol or consume drugs.

    Edit - My mother has forgiven my many transgressions but me being drunk would put her six foot under.
    A comprehensive answer. Thankyou

    I am always intrigued by teetotallers. My eldest daughter is one

    As we dropped her off at St Andrews for her first (nervous) weekend at Uni I did worry about how she would cope without booze to overcome her shyness. I asked her why not try just a glass of wine, she said maybe, but "I don't like booze, because I've seen you and Mum"

    TBF to me (and not to her Mum) her mum is quite a bad drunk. Gets querulous and nasty and then falls into a sullen sleep. If that was my one main example of a drinker I too might be teetotal

    However the daughter is now havering because she's spent long holdays with me and she's seen that I am a benign drunk, I just become more mellow and cheerful as I drink (except on here)

    Of course, she might just be the kind of person that simply doesn't like to drink. Like you. And gets by just fine

    I do think you are missing out on something, but then non-drinkers would say exactly the same to me. Each to their own!
    "I just become more mellow and cheerful as I drink (except on here)"

    Funniest PB comment in ages. My italics. :lol:
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,962

    One of the reasons expenses scandal really pissed the public off, economy was in a bad way, people were taking pay cuts to keep their jobs, then they find out MPs can claim for all sorts of stuff (and do) and absolutely take the piss to enrich themselves by playing the system to the max.

    Could clobber-gate spread. Certainly going to be a lot more scurity of what people have been gifted, by whom and if the value they claim it is worth is realistic.

    One can only hope.

    On Monday, I will ask the Head of Compliance at the bank, how the “I couldn’t resist” defence works with large gifts. He’s Dutch and has a fine example of Dutch style deadpan humour.
  • "Sue Gray reputedly gave Lord Alli the Downing Street pass.

    That was after Lord Alli gave £10,000 to her son, Liam Conlon, for his election campaign."

    https://x.com/AaronBastani/status/1837795960975458512

    The briefings against Sue Gray are non-stop. Its like Big Dom all over again.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,899
    Dopermean said:

    They've not got fingers in the taxpayers' till past their armpit to the tune of 100s of £milliions like the Conservatives

    Give them time, they've only been in power for two months.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,037
    edited September 22

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    No.

    It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
    And also yes.

    Eg there are plenty of people who were not exactly apoplectic about troughing under the Tories who are very pissed off about it under Labour. Some of this will be down to straight-up political partisanship but that's not the whole story. Some of it is because they genuinely expect better from Labour.

    Anger = Observation - Expectations (to adapt a chestnut).
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487

    "Sue Gray reputedly gave Lord Alli the Downing Street pass.

    That was after Lord Alli gave £10,000 to her son, Liam Conlon, for his election campaign."

    https://x.com/AaronBastani/status/1837795960975458512

    The briefings against Sue Gray are non-stop. Its like Big Dom all over again.
    For what are probably exactly the same reasons. Gray is the person actually in day-to-day charge of the government, and nothing gets done without her say-so.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,466

    "Sue Gray reputedly gave Lord Alli the Downing Street pass.

    That was after Lord Alli gave £10,000 to her son, Liam Conlon, for his election campaign."

    https://x.com/AaronBastani/status/1837795960975458512

    Awks...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,962

    "Sue Gray reputedly gave Lord Alli the Downing Street pass.

    That was after Lord Alli gave £10,000 to her son, Liam Conlon, for his election campaign."

    https://x.com/AaronBastani/status/1837795960975458512

    The briefings against Sue Gray are non-stop. Its like Big Dom all over again.
    Why is anyone surprised (apart from @Woger)

    She has been bought in to take power away from

    - Ministers
    - Senior civil servants
    - Minister’s spads
    - Labour MPs

    To put it another way - who benefits, in their own pursuit of power, from her being around?
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,842
    Nunu3 said:

    Keir Starmer is shit. and hence the UK has a big problem with a deep malaise and no politician can save us from it. And none on the horizon. Doomed.

    You're in a fine mood for a Sunday afternoon, I keep hearing this term "malaise" often from those not well disposed toward the current Government.

    I don't see it myself - plenty of energy and life in London yesterday.

    What would be YOUR recipe for ending this "malaise"? Does Farage have the answers in your view?
  • .
    Dopermean said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    No.

    It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
    Also you can get away with a bit of self enrichment if everybody else feels they are doing well e.g Blair / Mandy. When you tell everybody well sorry times are tough, everything is in the shitter, all your taxes are going up, benefits been cut, nothing I can do..sorry i must go now i have tickets to private box at spurs...it doesn't go down well.
    Yes, andyou can actually add it up

    Bridget P's free Swift tickets cost £700, so that's two and a bit dead and frozen grannies, so she can go see Taylor Swiift because "that bribe was hard to turn down"

    Starmer's £8,000 Arsenal box is 29 frozen dead grans, with maybe another losing a leg to hypothermia, because "fair do's everyone will understand that I need that luxury private box and I shouldn't pay for it"
    Michelle Mone's £100m for unusable PPE, actually out of taxpayer funds not from a donor, is 250,000 dead grannies...
    They're guilty of taking some free hospitality, which they've declared but it doesn't look good because they might be influenced. They've not got fingers in the taxpayers' till past their armpit to the tune of 100s of £milliions like the Conservatives
    Wouldn't it be nice if we had politicians who didn't feel the need to trouser freebies, though?
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,483
    theProle said:

    HYUFD said:

    theProle said:

    kamski said:

    theProle said:

    Foxy said:

    It's the sort of vibrancy which Welby and the CoE lack

    Pentacostalist worship is certainly fun and celebrational, and in the UK drawing crowds too. There are a number of "Big Shed" churches near me, the retail park being the UK equivalent of the US shopping Mall. It isn't just the African diaspora either. There are fellow travellers too, with Holy Trinity in Leicester getting 500 on a Sunday, CoE though not always approved of by the hierarchy because of its informal liturgy.

    Pentacostalism has moved a long way from the homespun Appalachian church in the video clip, to the razzmatazz of modern mega-churches. The key is that personal relationship with Jesus, and an acceptance of modern consumerist lifestyles.
    I'm sure there are bits of the hierarchy that wince at what goes on, much like the Anglo-Catholic ordinands I saw the day after they had an educational trip somewhere similar.

    But one of Welby's big ideas has been a hefty expansion in That Sort Of Thing, by getting Holy Trinity Brompton (and its children and their children) and others to plant new congregations into struggling parishes.

    And one of the people behind that is Paul Marshall. Yes, that Paul Marshall.
    Except that HTB and it's network of churches is now on its way out of the CofE sphere over the "Prayers of Love and Faith" (that's CofE speak for gay marriage in church). As are virtually all the evangelicals - which are the only bit of the CofE that isn't in free fall decline.

    My CofE church is actually voting today* on whether the congregation agrees with the leadership that we should leave. We're a bit unusual, because we're an old congregation that's not a parish church, and own our own building, so we can pretty much tell the Bishop "so long and thanks for all the fish", but that is true of a lot of the new churches planted by outfits like HTB and St Helens Bishopsgate.

    Incidentally, I've no real problem personally with gay people being gay. I think it's sinful, active homosexuals are called to repent like all sexual sinners, but ultimately it's God's job to make them give an account of their lives, at his judgment, not mine.

    My problem with the CofE blessing gay marriages is that this is the leadership blessing something their doctrine teaches is sinful. I'd say the same if they wanted in church blessings for adultery, gluttony, lying or greed. It's just that in our context, homosexuality is a fashionable sin, unlike the others.

    *actually, electronically, over the next two weeks, starting today
    Why is "homosexuality" sinful? I can see arguments for "adultery, gluttony, lying or greed" being sinful, but I can't see how homosexuality can be added to the list?
    Slow reply (I've been at church) but I think this one is worth un-packing, because that's a good question, and one where traditional Christians tend to be misunderstood.

    The answer lies in the purpose of marriage and sexuality. The Bible teaches that marriage functions as a picture which points to Jesus's loving, sacrificial, relationship with his people, the church, and actually that's why God made people male and female, to show his relational pattern. Homosexuality is problematic because it goes against that pattern - for exactly the same reason adultery is problematic.

    So it's not a superficial issue - it actually goes very deep into the "works" of Christian theology.

    It's also very obviously not just an Old Testament issue - it's scattered all over the New Testament too - just go and read Romans 1 as a prime example.

    Incidentally @Cookie I'm with you on the ridiculousness of the idea that God changes his mind every 30 years depending on the fashionable morals of the age - that the current CofE leadership can't see this is a good part of why I (and the church of which I'm a part) want an out.




    Except the C of E hasn't voted for same sex marriage, Synod voted that down, PLF merely prayers for same sex couples married in English civil law. The Methodists, Quakers and Church of Scotland now perform same sex marriages in their churches, the C of E still does not
    PLF is still saying that the church is willing to bless something which its doctrine say is sinful.

    Whatever one thinks on the issue, the CofE position is patently ridiculous.
    However ridiculous the CoE position (or positions, or lack of position) arises out of something important and rare. The CoE mostly recognises that on all sorts of things more than one view is coherent and possible. Because of this excellent quality it gets constant unending criticism from CoE liberals, CoE traditionals, the media and evryone else.

    Under cover of this the two large global Episcopal churches - the RCs and the Orthodox - never even discuss changing anything and almost no-one notices.

    We should do much more to value the CoE contribution.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,963

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    No.

    It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
    I like "Policy Plank".

    Far more memorable than "Special Adviser",
  • At this point, if your a Labour MP and haven't had £10ks worth of gifts from Lord Alli you have to ask yourself what you have done wrong.
  • @Foxy, sorry I did not say but that was a great header.

    Re Harris and the Catholic vote. not sure if you saw this:

    https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/21/politics/al-smith-dinner-kamala-harris-catholic/index.html

    A bit of a mistake to me but its impact may be overdone.
  • TomWTomW Posts: 70
    stodge said:

    Nunu3 said:

    Keir Starmer is shit. and hence the UK has a big problem with a deep malaise and no politician can save us from it. And none on the horizon. Doomed.

    You're in a fine mood for a Sunday afternoon, I keep hearing this term "malaise" often from those not well disposed toward the current Government.

    I don't see it myself - plenty of energy and life in London yesterday.

    What would be YOUR recipe for ending this "malaise"? Does Farage have the answers in your view?
    Lol. Thats London by far the richest part of the country. A total bubble.
  • PS not sure this is the best line from Walz:

    https://x.com/theblaze/status/1837551492170948649
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,037

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,037
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson

    NEVER AGAIN
    You're such a roundhead.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,576

    "Sue Gray reputedly gave Lord Alli the Downing Street pass.

    That was after Lord Alli gave £10,000 to her son, Liam Conlon, for his election campaign."

    https://x.com/AaronBastani/status/1837795960975458512

    Awks...
    Moved on from "reputedly":

    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    20m
    Sue Gray authorised Lord Alli’s pass, according to senior Labour sources
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,962
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Because Emma Thompson bangs on about climate change. And makes all kinds of statements about evil over consumption by bad people.

    And arrives at the conference to do so by first class or someone’s private jet.

    It’s the public and aggravated hypocrisy.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,483
    TomW said:

    kinabalu said:

    viewcode said:

    kinabalu said:

    Interesting from @foxy - yes to try and get the appeal of Trump you have to dispense with facts and reason and plunge into the netherworld of primitive brain chemistries.

    YES! Voting intention is not rational but emotional or instinctive: people vote with their gut and their head, it isn't necessarily transactional.

    https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-deliverism/
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientation
    Yes, I agree. Even what plausibly presents as cool clear reason is more often than not informed by the 'urges'.

    So it's just a matter of degree - eg Trump/MAGA is close to 100% that.
    The entire enlightenment is flawed as ir presupposes humans are rational. Thats why western civilization is hitting a dead end.
    1) No it isn't (the enlightenement concept is a cluster of projects, including for example the sort of projects that result in solar power, universal franchise, women's equality and freedom of thought)
    2) No it doesn't (read David Hume on ethical emotivism for just one example)
    3) No it isn't (the world is beating a path to the western civilization's door).

    Apart from that you are quite right.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,473

    PS not sure this is the best line from Walz:

    https://x.com/theblaze/status/1837551492170948649

    It just needs to be clipped with “I’m Donald Trump, and I approve this message.”
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,707
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,842
    TomW said:

    stodge said:

    Nunu3 said:

    Keir Starmer is shit. and hence the UK has a big problem with a deep malaise and no politician can save us from it. And none on the horizon. Doomed.

    You're in a fine mood for a Sunday afternoon, I keep hearing this term "malaise" often from those not well disposed toward the current Government.

    I don't see it myself - plenty of energy and life in London yesterday.

    What would be YOUR recipe for ending this "malaise"? Does Farage have the answers in your view?
    Lol. Thats London by far the richest part of the country. A total bubble.
    Yes, I live in East Ham which I'm sure a) you wouldn't know and b) you wouldn't like but don't that let stop you telling me about my country.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,037
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    No.

    It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
    And also yes.

    Eg there are plenty of people who were not exactly apoplectic about troughing under the Tories who are very pissed off about it under Labour. Some of this will be down to straight-up political partisanship but that's not the whole story. Some of it is because they genuinely expect better from Labour.

    Anger = Observation - Expectations (to adapt a chestnut).
    No! My algebra is wrong ...

    Anger = Expectations - Behaviour

    That's better. We go with that.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,576
    edited September 22
    Rayner says that "she's get that people are angry" about the shower of gifts her and rest of Cabinet have taken.

    So, if she knows that voters would be angry about this kind of dodgy gift taking - why did she do it?

    The only conclusion seems to me to be that they thought they would get away with it somehow.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487

    PS not sure this is the best line from Walz:

    https://x.com/theblaze/status/1837551492170948649

    Whoops. Rule #1 of politics, don’t say anything that your opponent could clip and use out of context.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487
    edited September 22

    PS not sure this is the best line from Walz:

    https://x.com/theblaze/status/1837551492170948649

    It just needs to be clipped with “I’m Donald Trump, and I approve this message.”
    That was one of the top replies to that Tweet.

    https://x.com/pertectedspeech/status/1837558433001664694

    The original came from “Trump War Room” account, and it’s being retweeted by Republicans.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,037

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Because Emma Thompson bangs on about climate change. And makes all kinds of statements about evil over consumption by bad people.

    And arrives at the conference to do so by first class or someone’s private jet.

    It’s the public and aggravated hypocrisy.
    Illustrating my point.

    Let's do another to cement it:

    Barry Gardiner would get enormous stick for buying a helicopter, Alan Sugar would not.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487
    So who bet on No Safety Car? First time in 15 years of racing at Singapore, that the SC stayed in the pit lane for the whole race.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,962
    algarkirk said:

    TomW said:

    kinabalu said:

    viewcode said:

    kinabalu said:

    Interesting from @foxy - yes to try and get the appeal of Trump you have to dispense with facts and reason and plunge into the netherworld of primitive brain chemistries.

    YES! Voting intention is not rational but emotional or instinctive: people vote with their gut and their head, it isn't necessarily transactional.

    https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-deliverism/
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientation
    Yes, I agree. Even what plausibly presents as cool clear reason is more often than not informed by the 'urges'.

    So it's just a matter of degree - eg Trump/MAGA is close to 100% that.
    The entire enlightenment is flawed as ir presupposes humans are rational. Thats why western civilization is hitting a dead end.
    1) No it isn't (the enlightenement concept is a cluster of projects, including for example the sort of projects that result in solar power, universal franchise, women's equality and freedom of thought)
    2) No it doesn't (read David Hume on ethical emotivism for just one example)
    3) No it isn't (the world is beating a path to the western civilization's door).

    Apart from that you are quite right.
    Indeed, the Enlightenment (taken as a whole) is very much about layering rules for common behaviour with the rights of individuals to be individual.

    As opposed to the various absolutist religious and political systems that demand uniformity and a window into men’s souls.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,633

    @Foxy, sorry I did not say but that was a great header.

    Re Harris and the Catholic vote. not sure if you saw this:

    https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/21/politics/al-smith-dinner-kamala-harris-catholic/index.html

    A bit of a mistake to me but its impact may be overdone.

    Not sure missing a major Roman Catholic dinner in the presidential campaign tradition is a good idea by Harris. She may be trying to appease pro choice women by distancing herself from the Vatican but there are a lot of Catholics in some swing states, particularly Pennsylvania and Nevada
    https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/us-states-by-population-of-catholics.html
  • mercatormercator Posts: 815
    We need to ask what Alli is buying. I don't accept that the money involved means nothing to him and he is just indulging a frivolous liking for politics. However rich he is there's also a lot of time and hard graft involved in bunging several hundred MPs. He must want something. What does he want?

    His main thing seems to be he is a gay activist who campaigned for Cameron's gay marriage act. He is also big in the LGBT Foundation which as far as I can tell is more about T than it's about LGB these days. So I think that's probably the answer. He is shopping for a Westminster equivalent of the gender recognition reform bill.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,037
    edited September 22
    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,633
    MattW said:

    @Foxy thank-you for the header. Very informed and informative.

    I think the comments I'd make are:

    1 - The USA is perhaps the last place in the West where "Christendom" still exists in some areas, as the overarching frame for society. Religion partly works the other way round in the USA to the UK; it is almost like Victorian times, where for many a public affiliation is important. In the UK for a long time a church affiliation was something not to be mentioned in the workplace or public life.

    So sometimes the pattern in the USA is for a profession of religion to be made for social reasons, that may or may not work it's way back into values and personal practices etc. Here a commitment to a religion would be private and it would not be talked about in public - observable in statements such as "my lifestyle is my evangelism."

    2 - Harris also has an affiliation - to a black church where the top Minister was a associate in his youth of Martin Luther King.

    3 - There are left leaning as well as right leaning evangelicals, around social reform organisations. I'm not sure about numbers.

    Great piece.

    Christendom certainly was the overarching frame in Ireland for decades, specifically Roman Catholicism, if less so now.

    A few western nations like Italy and Malta are also very religious still, Italy indeed still has a weekly church attendance almost as high as the US
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_attendance
  • kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    No.

    It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
    And also yes.

    Eg there are plenty of people who were not exactly apoplectic about troughing under the Tories who are very pissed off about it under Labour. Some of this will be down to straight-up political partisanship but that's not the whole story. Some of it is because they genuinely expect better from Labour.

    Anger = Observation - Expectations (to adapt a chestnut).
    There are also plenty of us who were very angry about troughing and lies by the Tories who are equally angry about its continuation under Labour.

    What I find particularly pernicious is the claim by some (not by you I hasten to add) made in both the previous and this administration that this is somehow because we don't pay the poor PM enough money. It is adding insult to injury.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,962
    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is made now. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    No. It’s about their respective, publicly held beliefs.

    Alan Sugar wants very much to be Big Business Tycoon. So having a helicopter is entirely in line with what he sells himself as. He’s not being hypocritical.

    If you sell yourself as a Working Class Man Of The People, private helicopters are hypocritical.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,037
    mercator said:

    We need to ask what Alli is buying. I don't accept that the money involved means nothing to him and he is just indulging a frivolous liking for politics. However rich he is there's also a lot of time and hard graft involved in bunging several hundred MPs. He must want something. What does he want?

    His main thing seems to be he is a gay activist who campaigned for Cameron's gay marriage act. He is also big in the LGBT Foundation which as far as I can tell is more about T than it's about LGB these days. So I think that's probably the answer. He is shopping for a Westminster equivalent of the gender recognition reform bill.

    I would be surprised (in a pleasant way) if they go anywhere near that.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487
    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    It’s not about left and right, it’s about living the life you preach.

    If you go on about climate change being a massive emergency that requires us all to make huge changes to how we live - but turn up in a private plane to do so, then expect to be called out on the hypocracy.

    If you’re cutting benefits to OAPs who live on £900 a month, but take £900 tickets to football matches and pop concerts for yourself and your family, then don’t be surprised when you’re called out on that as well.
  • kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    Mmm. No. Personally (and not withstanding the last few years) I always expect politicians from the left to be just as corrupt and hypocritical as those on the right.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,363
    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    ROFL

    Labour MPs have simply swapped personal integrity for personal shoppers.

  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,483
    edited September 22
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson

    NEVER AGAIN
    Well, we did warn you.
    Once bitten, forever shy
    The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.

    However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.

    If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:

    1) Tories are finished forever unless..
    2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition
    3) Only Labour could be that
    4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well...
    5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.

    Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,037

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    No.

    It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
    And also yes.

    Eg there are plenty of people who were not exactly apoplectic about troughing under the Tories who are very pissed off about it under Labour. Some of this will be down to straight-up political partisanship but that's not the whole story. Some of it is because they genuinely expect better from Labour.

    Anger = Observation - Expectations (to adapt a chestnut).
    There are also plenty of us who were very angry about troughing and lies by the Tories who are equally angry about its continuation under Labour.

    What I find particularly pernicious is the claim by some (not by you I hasten to add) made in both the previous and this administration that this is somehow because we don't pay the poor PM enough money. It is adding insult to injury.
    Yes I didn't mean you and thanks for not meaning me.

    Pols pay? I'd increase it somewhat but I agree it doesn't excuse troughing.

    As a general point I really dislike the practice of rich individuals funding politicians and political parties.
  • mercatormercator Posts: 815
    kinabalu said:

    mercator said:

    We need to ask what Alli is buying. I don't accept that the money involved means nothing to him and he is just indulging a frivolous liking for politics. However rich he is there's also a lot of time and hard graft involved in bunging several hundred MPs. He must want something. What does he want?

    His main thing seems to be he is a gay activist who campaigned for Cameron's gay marriage act. He is also big in the LGBT Foundation which as far as I can tell is more about T than it's about LGB these days. So I think that's probably the answer. He is shopping for a Westminster equivalent of the gender recognition reform bill.

    I would be surprised (in a pleasant way) if they go anywhere near that.
    So would I, *other things being equal*, which creates the temptation to make other things not equal by bribery of the entire government

    I believe people spend money rationally. I think that's the likeliest prize which is commensurate with Alli's expenditure given the very little I know about him.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,933
    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson

    NEVER AGAIN
    Well, we did warn you.
    Once bitten, forever shy
    The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.

    However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.

    If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:

    1) Tories are finished forever unless..
    2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition
    3) Only Labour could be that
    4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well...
    5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.

    Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
    As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader

    But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,633
    Leon said:

    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson

    NEVER AGAIN
    Well, we did warn you.
    Once bitten, forever shy
    The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.

    However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.

    If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:

    1) Tories are finished forever unless..
    2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition
    3) Only Labour could be that
    4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well...
    5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.

    Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
    As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader

    But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
    Unless you are registered to vote in a seat where Reform are 1st or second to Labour, then a vote for Reform is a wasted vote under FPTP in terms of getting rid of this Labour government
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,576
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    No.

    It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
    And also yes.

    Eg there are plenty of people who were not exactly apoplectic about troughing under the Tories who are very pissed off about it under Labour. Some of this will be down to straight-up political partisanship but that's not the whole story. Some of it is because they genuinely expect better from Labour.

    Anger = Observation - Expectations (to adapt a chestnut).
    There are also plenty of us who were very angry about troughing and lies by the Tories who are equally angry about its continuation under Labour.

    What I find particularly pernicious is the claim by some (not by you I hasten to add) made in both the previous and this administration that this is somehow because we don't pay the poor PM enough money. It is adding insult to injury.
    Yes I didn't mean you and thanks for not meaning me.

    Pols pay? I'd increase it somewhat but I agree it doesn't excuse troughing.

    As a general point I really dislike the practice of rich individuals funding politicians and political parties.
    Labour are seriously blowing this. Farage must be delighted at how the last week has gone.

    "They are all the same" etc etc.



  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,363
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson

    NEVER AGAIN
    Well, we did warn you.
    Once bitten, forever shy
    The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.

    However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.

    If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:

    1) Tories are finished forever unless..
    2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition
    3) Only Labour could be that
    4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well...
    5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.

    Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
    As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader

    But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
    Unless you are registered to vote in a seat where Reform are 1st or second to Labour, then a vote for Reform is a wasted vote under FPTP in terms of getting rid of this Labour government

    You are Bill Cash and I claim my £10

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/22/john-major-is-right-farage-and-reform-betrayed-brexit/
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,307

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Because Emma Thompson bangs on about climate change. And makes all kinds of statements about evil over consumption by bad people.

    And arrives at the conference to do so by first class or someone’s private jet.

    It’s the public and aggravated hypocrisy.
    She flew in from the USA, once, to join an Extinction Rebellion event 😂😂😂😂
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,037

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is made now. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    No. It’s about their respective, publicly held beliefs.

    Alan Sugar wants very much to be Big Business Tycoon. So having a helicopter is entirely in line with what he sells himself as. He’s not being hypocritical.

    If you sell yourself as a Working Class Man Of The People, private helicopters are hypocritical.
    You again make my point. Being left wing and at the same time enjoying a luxurious lifestyle is deemed by many (eg you here) as "hypocrisy". This is applying different (higher) standards to such people.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,633
    Nigelb said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kamski said:

    theProle said:

    Foxy said:

    It's the sort of vibrancy which Welby and the CoE lack

    Pentacostalist worship is certainly fun and celebrational, and in the UK drawing crowds too. There are a number of "Big Shed" churches near me, the retail park being the UK equivalent of the US shopping Mall. It isn't just the African diaspora either. There are fellow travellers too, with Holy Trinity in Leicester getting 500 on a Sunday, CoE though not always approved of by the hierarchy because of its informal liturgy.

    Pentacostalism has moved a long way from the homespun Appalachian church in the video clip, to the razzmatazz of modern mega-churches. The key is that personal relationship with Jesus, and an acceptance of modern consumerist lifestyles.
    I'm sure there are bits of the hierarchy that wince at what goes on, much like the Anglo-Catholic ordinands I saw the day after they had an educational trip somewhere similar.

    But one of Welby's big ideas has been a hefty expansion in That Sort Of Thing, by getting Holy Trinity Brompton (and its children and their children) and others to plant new congregations into struggling parishes.

    And one of the people behind that is Paul Marshall. Yes, that Paul Marshall.
    Except that HTB and it's network of churches is now on its way out of the CofE sphere over the "Prayers of Love and Faith" (that's CofE speak for gay marriage in church). As are virtually all the evangelicals - which are the only bit of the CofE that isn't in free fall decline.

    My CofE church is actually voting today* on whether the congregation agrees with the leadership that we should leave. We're a bit unusual, because we're an old congregation that's not a parish church, and own our own building, so we can pretty much tell the Bishop "so long and thanks for all the fish", but that is true of a lot of the new churches planted by outfits like HTB and St Helens Bishopsgate.

    Incidentally, I've no real problem personally with gay people being gay. I think it's sinful, active homosexuals are called to repent like all sexual sinners, but ultimately it's God's job to make them give an account of their lives, at his judgment, not mine.

    My problem with the CofE blessing gay marriages is that this is the leadership blessing something their doctrine teaches is sinful. I'd say the same if they wanted in church blessings for adultery, gluttony, lying or greed. It's just that in our context, homosexuality is a fashionable sin, unlike the others.

    *actually, electronically, over the next two weeks, starting today
    Why is "homosexuality" sinful? I can see arguments for "adultery, gluttony, lying or greed" being sinful, but I can't see how homosexuality can be added to the list?
    Being homosexual isn't sinful, same sex sexual acts is sinful if you read certain Biblical or Koran passages, just as admiring a beautiful woman isn't sinful of itself unless you have sex outside marriage with them
    Matthew 5:27-9
    Avoiding going full lustfully is the key
    You said “unless you have sex outside marriage with them”. Jesus clearly disagrees with you.
    There are glaring differences between the teachings of Jesus, what the Old Testament says (which is all over the place), and the various ‘doctrines’ of Christian sects and denominations (also all over the place).

    There are notably few modern sects, for instance, which preach selling all you own, to give to the poor (as opposed to their megachurch).
    'No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions–he had money as well.' - Margaret Thatcher
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 10,918
    .

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    No.

    It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
    And also yes.

    Eg there are plenty of people who were not exactly apoplectic about troughing under the Tories who are very pissed off about it under Labour. Some of this will be down to straight-up political partisanship but that's not the whole story. Some of it is because they genuinely expect better from Labour.

    Anger = Observation - Expectations (to adapt a chestnut).
    There are also plenty of us who were very angry about troughing and lies by the Tories who are equally angry about its continuation under Labour.

    What I find particularly pernicious is the claim by some (not by you I hasten to add) made in both the previous and this administration that this is somehow because we don't pay the poor PM enough money. It is adding insult to injury.
    Yes I didn't mean you and thanks for not meaning me.

    Pols pay? I'd increase it somewhat but I agree it doesn't excuse troughing.

    As a general point I really dislike the practice of rich individuals funding politicians and political parties.
    Labour are seriously blowing this. Farage must be delighted at how the last week has gone.

    "They are all the same" etc etc.
    The Nigel Farage who accepted £32k to fly off to the States to visit Trump?
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,363

    .

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    No.

    It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
    And also yes.

    Eg there are plenty of people who were not exactly apoplectic about troughing under the Tories who are very pissed off about it under Labour. Some of this will be down to straight-up political partisanship but that's not the whole story. Some of it is because they genuinely expect better from Labour.

    Anger = Observation - Expectations (to adapt a chestnut).
    There are also plenty of us who were very angry about troughing and lies by the Tories who are equally angry about its continuation under Labour.

    What I find particularly pernicious is the claim by some (not by you I hasten to add) made in both the previous and this administration that this is somehow because we don't pay the poor PM enough money. It is adding insult to injury.
    Yes I didn't mean you and thanks for not meaning me.

    Pols pay? I'd increase it somewhat but I agree it doesn't excuse troughing.

    As a general point I really dislike the practice of rich individuals funding politicians and political parties.
    Labour are seriously blowing this. Farage must be delighted at how the last week has gone.

    "They are all the same" etc etc.
    The Nigel Farage who accepted £32k to fly off to the States to visit Trump?
    I suppose Lord Alli gave it to him
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,576

    .

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    No.

    It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
    And also yes.

    Eg there are plenty of people who were not exactly apoplectic about troughing under the Tories who are very pissed off about it under Labour. Some of this will be down to straight-up political partisanship but that's not the whole story. Some of it is because they genuinely expect better from Labour.

    Anger = Observation - Expectations (to adapt a chestnut).
    There are also plenty of us who were very angry about troughing and lies by the Tories who are equally angry about its continuation under Labour.

    What I find particularly pernicious is the claim by some (not by you I hasten to add) made in both the previous and this administration that this is somehow because we don't pay the poor PM enough money. It is adding insult to injury.
    Yes I didn't mean you and thanks for not meaning me.

    Pols pay? I'd increase it somewhat but I agree it doesn't excuse troughing.

    As a general point I really dislike the practice of rich individuals funding politicians and political parties.
    Labour are seriously blowing this. Farage must be delighted at how the last week has gone.

    "They are all the same" etc etc.
    The Nigel Farage who accepted £32k to fly off to the States to visit Trump?
    I know. I know. But will be voters? Or will they just be so angry as @Leon is about being duped into lending a vote to Starmer to clean it up and get the country working again that they say 'enough' and put the populists in.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,576
    Leon said:

    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson

    NEVER AGAIN
    Well, we did warn you.
    Once bitten, forever shy
    The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.

    However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.

    If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:

    1) Tories are finished forever unless..
    2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition
    3) Only Labour could be that
    4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well...
    5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.

    Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
    As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader

    But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
    Didn't the tories change the vote system so ex-pats could vote even if away for decades?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487
    edited September 22

    Leon said:

    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson

    NEVER AGAIN
    Well, we did warn you.
    Once bitten, forever shy
    The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.

    However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.

    If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:

    1) Tories are finished forever unless..
    2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition
    3) Only Labour could be that
    4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well...
    5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.

    Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
    As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader

    But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
    Didn't the tories change the vote system so ex-pats could vote even if away for decades?
    Yes. All UK citizens can now vote, except for prisoners.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,473

    Leon said:

    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson

    NEVER AGAIN
    Well, we did warn you.
    Once bitten, forever shy
    The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.

    However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.

    If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:

    1) Tories are finished forever unless..
    2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition
    3) Only Labour could be that
    4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well...
    5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.

    Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
    As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader

    But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
    Didn't the tories change the vote system so ex-pats could vote even if away for decades?
    There was a campaign by disgruntled Remainers who thought they were disenfranchised in the referendum.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,963
    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Because Emma Thompson bangs on about climate change. And makes all kinds of statements about evil over consumption by bad people.

    And arrives at the conference to do so by first class or someone’s private jet.

    It’s the public and aggravated hypocrisy.
    She flew in from the USA, once, to join an Extinction Rebellion event 😂😂😂😂
    At the time I checked, and afaics she hadn't insulated her house properly, either.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,483
    edited September 22
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson

    NEVER AGAIN
    Well, we did warn you.
    Once bitten, forever shy
    The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.

    However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.

    If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:

    1) Tories are finished forever unless..
    2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition
    3) Only Labour could be that
    4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well...
    5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.

    Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
    As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader

    But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
    Unless you are registered to vote in a seat where Reform are 1st or second to Labour, then a vote for Reform is a wasted vote under FPTP in terms of getting rid of this Labour government
    This may of course be right, but the world changes and may change again.

    Two points. In the 1970 election I attended an Enfield (Southgate) hustings where the audience had a good laugh at the Labour candidate - who was certain to lose - who said that one day the seat would go Labour. I was 'up for Portillo' when it happened, pre boundary changes. It's now dead safe Labour (though boundary changes).

    Take Chichester. With the Tory 35 point lead in 2019 it would be fair to say that any vote but Tory was a mere token gesture. In 2024 the LDs won by a mile with a 30 point swing.

    A change is really possible in a circumstance unique in my lifetime: Where both Tories and Labour could be just deeply unpopular, uncool, and out of fashion. We are not there yet, but to everyone's surprise, Labour are trying their hardest to emulate the Tories on that journey whose destination is a GE with LD v Reform being top of the bill.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,307
    MattW said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Because Emma Thompson bangs on about climate change. And makes all kinds of statements about evil over consumption by bad people.

    And arrives at the conference to do so by first class or someone’s private jet.

    It’s the public and aggravated hypocrisy.
    She flew in from the USA, once, to join an Extinction Rebellion event 😂😂😂😂
    At the time I checked, and afaics she hadn't insulated her house properly, either.
    Some houses it’s difficult to insulate. Can cause moisture build up.

    Had to put lap vents in my loft when I insulated it.

    I wouldn’t condemn her for that as it just is not always practical.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,388
    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson

    NEVER AGAIN
    Well, we did warn you.
    Once bitten, forever shy
    The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.

    However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.

    If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:

    1) Tories are finished forever unless..
    2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition
    3) Only Labour could be that
    4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well...
    5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.

    Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
    As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader

    But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
    Unless you are registered to vote in a seat where Reform are 1st or second to Labour, then a vote for Reform is a wasted vote under FPTP in terms of getting rid of this Labour government
    This may of course be right, but the world changes and may change again.

    Two points. In the 1970 election I attended an Enfield (Southgate) hustings where the audience had a good laugh at the Labour candidate - who was certain to lose - who said that one day the seat would go Labour. I was 'up for Portillo' when it happened, pre boundary changes. It's now dead safe Labour (though boundary changes).

    Take Chichester. With the Tory 35 point lead in 2019 it would be fair to say that any vote but Tory was a mere token gesture. In 2024 the LDs won by a mile with a 30 point swing.

    A change is really possible in a circumstance unique in my lifetime: Where both Tories and Labour could be just deeply unpopular, uncool, and out of fashion. We are not there yet, but to everyone's surprise, Labour are trying their hardest to emulate the Tories on that journey whose destination is a GE with LD v Reform being top of the bill.
    One of the big surprises in 1997 was Castle Point going Labour, due to a feud between the Conservative candidate and a significant part of the local party.
    He ate humble pie afterwards and the seat has been it's natural Conservative self ever since.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,037

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    ROFL

    Labour MPs have simply swapped personal integrity for personal shoppers.
    My point is that monied progressives have to adopt a more austere lifestyle to avoid a charge of hypocrisy and phoniness. In this respect they are held to a higher standard than your standard rich reactionary. There's no ROFL there. It's a good solid point. I sense people think I'm offering it as an excuse for Labour pols taking coin. Which I'm not. I'm not doing that.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,363
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    ROFL

    Labour MPs have simply swapped personal integrity for personal shoppers.
    My point is that monied progressives have to adopt a more austere lifestyle to avoid a charge of hypocrisy and phoniness. In this respect they are held to a higher standard than your standard rich reactionary. There's no ROFL there. It's a good solid point. I sense people think I'm offering it as an excuse for Labour pols taking coin. Which I'm not. I'm not doing that.
    No it's simple. They just have to stop lecturing the rest of us about their high principles and live them. Lead by example and stop saying one thing while doing another.

  • TomWTomW Posts: 70
    algarkirk said:

    TomW said:

    kinabalu said:

    viewcode said:

    kinabalu said:

    Interesting from @foxy - yes to try and get the appeal of Trump you have to dispense with facts and reason and plunge into the netherworld of primitive brain chemistries.

    YES! Voting intention is not rational but emotional or instinctive: people vote with their gut and their head, it isn't necessarily transactional.

    https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-deliverism/
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientation
    Yes, I agree. Even what plausibly presents as cool clear reason is more often than not informed by the 'urges'.

    So it's just a matter of degree - eg Trump/MAGA is close to 100% that.
    The entire enlightenment is flawed as ir presupposes humans are rational. Thats why western civilization is hitting a dead end.
    1) No it isn't (the enlightenement concept is a cluster of projects, including for example the sort of projects that result in solar power, universal franchise, women's equality and freedom of thought)
    2) No it doesn't (read David Hume on ethical emotivism for just one example)
    3) No it isn't (the world is beating a path to the western civilization's door).

    Apart from that you are quite right.
    Actually its not. The future seems more likely robust dictatorships combined with a market economy such as china and dubai. Why? People arent rational so democracy eventually implodes under its own contradictions.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 10,918
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    ROFL

    Labour MPs have simply swapped personal integrity for personal shoppers.
    My point is that monied progressives have to adopt a more austere lifestyle to avoid a charge of hypocrisy and phoniness. In this respect they are held to a higher standard than your standard rich reactionary. There's no ROFL there. It's a good solid point. I sense people think I'm offering it as an excuse for Labour pols taking coin. Which I'm not. I'm not doing that.
    I still think most of this is ephemeral. We found out that one of the Reform UK MPs had gone to jail for assaulting his then girlfriend and the news cycle just moved on.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,363
    TomW said:

    algarkirk said:

    TomW said:

    kinabalu said:

    viewcode said:

    kinabalu said:

    Interesting from @foxy - yes to try and get the appeal of Trump you have to dispense with facts and reason and plunge into the netherworld of primitive brain chemistries.

    YES! Voting intention is not rational but emotional or instinctive: people vote with their gut and their head, it isn't necessarily transactional.

    https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-deliverism/
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientation
    Yes, I agree. Even what plausibly presents as cool clear reason is more often than not informed by the 'urges'.

    So it's just a matter of degree - eg Trump/MAGA is close to 100% that.
    The entire enlightenment is flawed as ir presupposes humans are rational. Thats why western civilization is hitting a dead end.
    1) No it isn't (the enlightenement concept is a cluster of projects, including for example the sort of projects that result in solar power, universal franchise, women's equality and freedom of thought)
    2) No it doesn't (read David Hume on ethical emotivism for just one example)
    3) No it isn't (the world is beating a path to the western civilization's door).

    Apart from that you are quite right.
    Actually its not. The future seems more likely robust dictatorships combined with a market economy such as china and dubai. Why? People arent rational so democracy eventually implodes under its own contradictions.
    Hows the Soviet Union getting on these days ?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,933
    Our Father sung in the "original" Aramaic near Tbilisi, Georgia (I've actually been in this church)

    I defy anyone to watch it without getting an urge to sink to their knees

    https://x.com/JeremyTate41/status/1837642002726638009
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,037

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    Mmm. No. Personally (and not withstanding the last few years) I always expect politicians from the left to be just as corrupt and hypocritical as those on the right.
    But that's you, Richard. You are a bit suet generous as is often demonstrated. I doubt you'd call a lefty enjoying an affluent lifestyle a hypocrite or a phony. I'm talking about general perceptions here.
  • TomWTomW Posts: 70
    stodge said:

    TomW said:

    stodge said:

    Nunu3 said:

    Keir Starmer is shit. and hence the UK has a big problem with a deep malaise and no politician can save us from it. And none on the horizon. Doomed.

    You're in a fine mood for a Sunday afternoon, I keep hearing this term "malaise" often from those not well disposed toward the current Government.

    I don't see it myself - plenty of energy and life in London yesterday.

    What would be YOUR recipe for ending this "malaise"? Does Farage have the answers in your view?
    Lol. Thats London by far the richest part of the country. A total bubble.
    Yes, I live in East Ham which I'm sure a) you wouldn't know and b) you wouldn't like but don't that let stop you telling me about my country.
    Plenty of people have said the atmosphere in London is totally different to the atmosphere in the rest of the country at present. And i used to have friends who lived in east ham...i wasnt impressed with the area at all. Better than Barking i suppose.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,473
    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    Do you think that anyone associated with the Labour party who opposed Corbyn is on the reactionary right?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,962
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is made now. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    No. It’s about their respective, publicly held beliefs.

    Alan Sugar wants very much to be Big Business Tycoon. So having a helicopter is entirely in line with what he sells himself as. He’s not being hypocritical.

    If you sell yourself as a Working Class Man Of The People, private helicopters are hypocritical.
    You again make my point. Being left wing and at the same time enjoying a luxurious lifestyle is deemed by many (eg you here) as "hypocrisy". This is applying different (higher) standards to such people.
    And you miss the point again.

    For example, there are numerous examples of people who proclaim “Dog eat Dog Capitalism”. And then get ridiculed for buying government contracts by the yard and renting politicians to do it.

    It is about applying *your own, self proclaimed, standards, to yourself*.

  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,037
    edited September 22
    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    It’s not about left and right, it’s about living the life you preach.

    If you go on about climate change being a massive emergency that requires us all to make huge changes to how we live - but turn up in a private plane to do so, then expect to be called out on the hypocracy.

    If you’re cutting benefits to OAPs who live on £900 a month, but take £900 tickets to football matches and pop concerts for yourself and your family, then don’t be surprised when you’re called out on that as well.
    Ok. But I bet you sometimes use the term "Champagne Socialist" (or similar) to imply a person on the Left with an extravagant lifestyle is a hypocrite and a phony. And if you don't, lots do.

    That is doing what I'm talking about - holding people on the Left to a different and higher standard. Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.

    People are not seriously disputing this, surely.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,537
    edited September 22

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    ROFL

    Labour MPs have simply swapped personal integrity for personal shoppers.
    My point is that monied progressives have to adopt a more austere lifestyle to avoid a charge of hypocrisy and phoniness. In this respect they are held to a higher standard than your standard rich reactionary. There's no ROFL there. It's a good solid point. I sense people think I'm offering it as an excuse for Labour pols taking coin. Which I'm not. I'm not doing that.
    I still think most of this is ephemeral. We found out that one of the Reform UK MPs had gone to jail for assaulting his then girlfriend and the news cycle just moved on.
    I think that people are much less interested in what opposition politicians get up to than government ones.

    As Labour are rapidly finding out, the level of scrutiny applied to those who govern is far higher.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,483
    Leon said:

    Our Father sung in the "original" Aramaic near Tbilisi, Georgia (I've actually been in this church)

    I defy anyone to watch it without getting an urge to sink to their knees

    https://x.com/JeremyTate41/status/1837642002726638009

    Thanks. OTOH I should think anyone from a completely alien culture encountering Howell's Collegium Regale sung by a decent English choir (St John's Cambridge and Andrew Nethsingha attached below!) would be similarly awestruck. We get used to it and take it for granted because it is so English, but suppose you had never met this before, especially the Gloria:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ozfTPgXlS0
  • TomWTomW Posts: 70

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is made now. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    No. It’s about their respective, publicly held beliefs.

    Alan Sugar wants very much to be Big Business Tycoon. So having a helicopter is entirely in line with what he sells himself as. He’s not being hypocritical.

    If you sell yourself as a Working Class Man Of The People, private helicopters are hypocritical.
    You again make my point. Being left wing and at the same time enjoying a luxurious lifestyle is deemed by many (eg you here) as "hypocrisy". This is applying different (higher) standards to such people.
    And you miss the point again.

    For example, there are numerous examples of people who proclaim “Dog eat Dog Capitalism”. And then get ridiculed for buying government contracts by the yard and renting politicians to do it.

    It is about applying *your own, self proclaimed, standards, to yourself*.

    Which most people dont do. That old human nature again.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,962
    TomW said:

    stodge said:

    TomW said:

    stodge said:

    Nunu3 said:

    Keir Starmer is shit. and hence the UK has a big problem with a deep malaise and no politician can save us from it. And none on the horizon. Doomed.

    You're in a fine mood for a Sunday afternoon, I keep hearing this term "malaise" often from those not well disposed toward the current Government.

    I don't see it myself - plenty of energy and life in London yesterday.

    What would be YOUR recipe for ending this "malaise"? Does Farage have the answers in your view?
    Lol. Thats London by far the richest part of the country. A total bubble.
    Yes, I live in East Ham which I'm sure a) you wouldn't know and b) you wouldn't like but don't that let stop you telling me about my country.
    Plenty of people have said the atmosphere in London is totally different to the atmosphere in the rest of the country at present. And i used to have friends who lived in east ham...i wasnt impressed with the area at all. Better than Barking i suppose.
    If you had been to either, you would know that London is as varied as the rest of the country is. Any talk of “atmosphere in London” as a whole is as nonsensical as saying that the “same atmosphere pertains to the rich posh bit of Glasgow as to the run down bits of Slough”.

    Or, as I put it when rowing - “London, 40 cultures in 40 minutes. Also 40 types of weather.”
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,879
    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson

    NEVER AGAIN
    Well, we did warn you.
    Once bitten, forever shy
    The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.

    However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.

    If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:

    1) Tories are finished forever unless..
    2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition
    3) Only Labour could be that
    4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well...
    5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.

    Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
    As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader

    But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
    Didn't the tories change the vote system so ex-pats could vote even if away for decades?
    Yes. All UK citizens can now vote, except for prisoners.
    Apart from the homeless without a photoid.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,363
    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    It’s not about left and right, it’s about living the life you preach.

    If you go on about climate change being a massive emergency that requires us all to make huge changes to how we live - but turn up in a private plane to do so, then expect to be called out on the hypocracy.

    If you’re cutting benefits to OAPs who live on £900 a month, but take £900 tickets to football matches and pop concerts for yourself and your family, then don’t be surprised when you’re called out on that as well.
    Ok. But I bet you sometimes use the term "Champagne Socialist" (or similar) to imply a person on the Left with an extravagant lifestyle is a hypocrite and a phony. And if you don't, lots do.

    That is doing what I'm talking about - holding people on the Left to a different and higher standard. Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.

    People are not seriously disputing this, surely.
    Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.

    It's called practice what you preach and it applies to all parties,
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,963
    edited September 22
    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
    But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
    Because Emma Thompson bangs on about climate change. And makes all kinds of statements about evil over consumption by bad people.

    And arrives at the conference to do so by first class or someone’s private jet.

    It’s the public and aggravated hypocrisy.
    She flew in from the USA, once, to join an Extinction Rebellion event 😂😂😂😂
    At the time I checked, and afaics she hadn't insulated her house properly, either.
    Some houses it’s difficult to insulate. Can cause moisture build up.

    Had to put lap vents in my loft when I insulated it.

    I wouldn’t condemn her for that as it just is not always practical.
    I would.

    IMO the propensity of ER to be made up of well-off people who try to impose their opinions on the rest of us whilst being hypocrites has sunk their credibility. And remember, I'm a committed activist for lower energy and greener housing.

    If she's lecturing the rest of society whilst being worth 10s of millions, I expect her to have her own house in order (so to speak), or be laughed to scorn.

    If her house is not easy to insulate, I would expect her to have done the difficult job which she can easily fund to have done professionally, or to have moved somewhere that fits her declared philosophy.

    After all, lap vents or similar, or even something more complex, aren't exactly a difficult solution even for DIY.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,474
    edited September 22

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Bridget Phillipson now explains why it was OK for her to accept Taylor Swift tickets

    'It was a hard one to turn down... one of my children was keen to go'

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson explains why she accepted free @taylorswift13 tickets earlier this year"


    https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1837828537954238474

    This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"

    Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.

    The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
    Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"

    Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!

    All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same

    What a shower
    It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
    Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history

    Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
    The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
    And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson

    NEVER AGAIN
    Well, we did warn you.
    Once bitten, forever shy
    The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.

    However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.

    If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:

    1) Tories are finished forever unless..
    2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition
    3) Only Labour could be that
    4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well...
    5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.

    Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
    As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader

    But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
    Didn't the tories change the vote system so ex-pats could vote even if away for decades?
    Yes. All UK citizens can now vote, except for prisoners.
    Apart from the homeless without a photoid.
    Good, imagine going to a polling station and there's a dirty and smelly homeless person in front of you.

    Homeless people smell of wee which is a disgrace.
This discussion has been closed.