Yes, of course, quietly requesting that my own country retains some semblance of the ethnic and cultural identity it has had for 1500 years makes me a “Nazi” equivalent to “Hitler”
You know what? This madness is gonna end badly for you guys. Don’t say you weren’t warned
The idea that "if you don't lie over for us within a few years, we're gonna have to win by methods you're REALLY not going to find to your liking" seems to be awfully in vogue at the moment on the North London loony right.
In the words of the ex-spad husband of a commissioning editor at the Spectator (on his Substack site):
"Conventional wisdom in 1999 was ‘joining the euro is inevitable’, in 2004 it was ‘Blair has a massive lead in the polls on regional assemblies’, in 2015 it was ‘there’s almost no chance of Leave winning’, in 2019 it was ‘there’s no way through the impasse’, in 2020 it was ‘covid vaccines are practically impossible’, and in 2021 it was ‘no chance you push out Boris’. Pushing out Starmer with some new force doesn’t feel more improbable than those examples did at the time.
Beating Starmer in an election is the easiest part. The hardest part is unifying a force on the Right that voters prefer given that much of ‘the right’ in SW1 would rather stay failing, stay fighting each other as they’ve been trained to by culture and incentives, and leave Starmer in office and see the country taken over by the IMF rather than do what’s needed to win and turn the country around. Often in history people cannot be saved, only ‘retired’. It’s possible the Tories can only be buried as quickly as possible but this can’t yet be known, it depends on how the cards fall. And if that does prove necessary, this means little chance of a serious government before ~2032 by which time many problems will be profound and serious violence harder to avoid.** We should try the easier path first."
(This descends into embarrassing gibberish in places. But the basic idea is "We achieved Brexit and we ain't finished, not by a long chalk, and maybe this won't be easy and fast, but we know about History, and if this isn't easy then it's gonna be bigly and seriously violent with a capital V." If this isn't deliberate destabilisation of a country, I don't know what is.)
What the fuck is continuous mass immigration on the scale of 300,000-1m people a year but “deliberate destabilisation”?
No one voted for this. Time and again we have voted AGAINST this. Yet on and on it goes
So democracy has ceased to function. What happens then?
There is quite a lot you and I would likely disagree about - I'm basically a bit of a wet social democrat - but I think we're more or less on the same page about the scale of immigration. I.e. it's mad. An open door policy on immigration - about 1.2 million in the year ending mid-2023, with a net value of nearly 800,000 even accounting for those going in the opposite direction - cannot be anything other than destabilising. Apart from all the other negatives, out of control population growth entirely defeats the object of Angela Rayner's housing drive.
You would hope that this Government gets that and will put an end to it. I don't expect it though, sadly.
I actually think some in the Labour Party DO get this, but it’s far too late, and too many still don’t get it - or simply won’t
Absent a tech revolution saving us, here’s how this will play out. European electorates - UK definitely included - will vote for increasingly hard then far right parties. These parties won’t just limit or prohibit immigration, they will go much further. They will begin mass deportations of - firstly - illegal migrants and then legal migrants. Millions of people will be forcibly expelled and borders will be guarded with live ammunition
No doubt I will be accused of wishcasting. This is not that. I have two daughters growing up in the UK and Oz and I dearly want them to grow up in peaceful, racially harmonious societies
I simply don’t believe that’s doable. A brutally violent outcome is now unavoidable (absent the saviour machines). It’s so bleak I generally try not to think about it
Professor David Betz of King's College London believes that we are heading towards ideal conditions for civil conflict:
Moreover, it is not simply that the conditions are present in the West; it is, rather, that the conditions are nearing the ideal. The relative wealth, social stability and related lack of demographic factionalism, plus the perception of the ability of normal politics to solve problems that once made the West seem immune to civil war are now no longer valid. In fact, in each of these categories the direction of pull is towards civil conflict. Increasingly, people perceive this to be the case and their levels of confidence in government would seem to be declining even more in the face of the apparent unwillingness or inability of leaders to confront the situation honestly.
I think we're further away from civil conflict now than we were in the period 2016-19, when the refusal or inability of a large part of the political class to implement the results of the largest vote in the nation's history, which they themselves had called and promised to implement, meant that the legitimacy of our democracy was under serious threat.
And we're considerably further away than we were in the late 1970s, when tens of millions of days were lost to strikes, rubbish was piling high in Leicester Square, the dead were going unburied and Northern Ireland was being, well, Northern Ireland.
But maybe I'm one of nature's optimists.
Sadly I think you are wrong, people here are mostly top 10% the world as it is works for them. There is growing anger and I am not top 10% I mix with these people daily. I think reform will be tried first then when it doesn't work as it wont then it will become civil conflict...the bottom 50% really don't have anything to lose
Here is an example, people here go on about people like nurses having to use a food bank....fair enough then they go on in other posts going lets just add a couple of percent on income tax....yeah well that person on min wage already struggling is going to have 20£ less each month.....2% extra for most here means I will buy a cheaper bottle of wine
One only has to look around the genuinely poor countries of the world to realize that the bottom 50% (who have clean water, education, electricity, iphones, healthcare, and food on the table) certainly do have things to lose.
I'm not saying that the bottom 50% have not been mistreated, but it is delusional to think that things could not be an awful lot worse for them.
But in western countries they take those things for granted and it would be a brave western government that said to the poorer people no taps there are puddles you can drink from. The bottom 50% here are getting angrier which is why I think reform might be the 2029 vote and reform will fail then what happens as I am pretty sure lib dem, tory, lab won't be the answer they will go for
There is some truth in that. Poor people, by virtue of not having many things, value what they do have incredibly highly. That often isn't material wealth but things like their national identity.
So you have massive concern over open borders in areas that haven't experienced much immigration. "Take back control" - they project the lack of control they feel over their own fortunes to the country as a whole, because that's all they have left.
There is some evidence that health outcomes stem from this too - poor people live in a state of constant stress because they have no sense of agency. That manifests in tangible physical issues.
But most people don't feel this enough. A revolution is unlikely - consider Leon's shock and horror at Luigi. He's comfortable so he instinctively abhors actual revolutionary violence.
The problem for the Cons, is that even if she is a complete dud, to change leader yet again (would be 7 in 9 years), makes them look like an ungovernable rabble.
bird flu will mutate to human-to-human transmission in America thanks to the indifference and RFK will block vaccination and Trump 2.0 will be imploded in the ensuing death and chaos.
Lets hope not for all our sakes (would be a fitting way for Trump 2.0 to go down though)
As @Fairliered says - we ban all flights in and out.
bird flu will mutate to human-to-human transmission in America thanks to the indifference and RFK will block vaccination and Trump 2.0 will be imploded in the ensuing death and chaos.
There are a number of scenarios that in a sane World would see the end of the Trump experiment
-Mass outbreaks of preventable disease -Welfare checks (sic) being stopped by fratboys -Civil unrest
Perhaps we should run a sweepstake, although I am not sure any of them will in fact move the dial
Maybe all these things will happen.
"Nobody, especially Trump, knows it yet.
His fate, his downfall, and his doom is, as we speak, being set in stone"
Sadly I think you are wrong, people here are mostly top 10% the world as it is works for them. There is growing anger and I am not top 10% I mix with these people daily. I think reform will be tried first then when it doesn't work as it wont then it will become civil conflict...the bottom 50% really don't have anything to lose
Agreed. Most PB posters are doing fine out of the current system. They are not affected by the growing void where much of society used to live their lives. The void where before you had people who did not have an extensive education or special talents, but could work hard and enjoy a comfortable existence. They could own their home and a car, go on holiday abroad, have kids, and still have some money left over for the occasional night out or nice dinner.
For many that's gone now. They still work hard but can't even pay the bills any more. Buying a house is impossible, having kids would be a financial disaster, they're shopping at Aldi to make the budget last until the end of the month. They're driving a budget car they won't be afford to replace when it wears out because the government will have banned petrol and diesel cars. The electricity bill brings dread.
They live next to that nice old lady who's slowly killing herself caring for a disabled husband and had her life ruined when the DWP sanctioned her for working a couple of hours a week in a shop to get money to keep the heating on.
But they see their boss living in a six bedroom house, buying a £100,000 SUV, wearing a Rolex, going on holiday to five times a year and enjoying private healthcare. They see public sector 'climate advisors' and 'diversity champions' on near six figure salaries. They see CEOs earning as much in a day as they do in six months, CEOs who fail at their jobs and get paid millions to move on to another lucrative position.
And I haven't even mentioned immigration or the dire state of public services.
This is not a sustainable society, it's a recipe for revolution. The UK is maybe a decade from serious civil strife and a strongman who claims to have the answers, but other countries will get there in the near future. The US is just a canary in the coal mine.
People get the governments they vote for and deserve, whether Tory and earlier Tory and LD, now Labour and maybe Reform next time, in whole or in part. Same as Americans voted freely for Obama, Trump, Biden and now Trump again.
However as long as all adults are freely entitled to vote they are not entitled to engage in civil strife and the police and rule if law must be imposed on those that do engage in that.
As for your statement, most of the population own a house still, 100 years ago most rented and most still manage to have a child even if the birthrate has fallen. UK voters also rejected twice Corbyn's hammer with tax the rich mantra you seem to desire
Stop talking bollocks, last election almost 50% of people didn't vote...I didn't vote because every single person I could of voted for was a worthless piece of shit as was the party they belonged to. If you walk into a restaurant and can only order a shit sandwich or a shit pizza is not a reason to tell people its their own fault they are hungry as they could have ordered
You have the right to vote. What you don't have is the right to have your chosen candidate win. If there was no one who you agreed with then you can stand yourself. There were more Independent MPs elected at this last GE than at an GE since 1950.
If 50% didn't vote then they have no right to moan about the outcome. Or rather they have the right to moan but we have the perfect excuse to ignore them. But of course voting means taking some responsibility and we all know that too many people would rather do nothing and moan than do something and have to take responsibility for their actions.
Sorry richard we often agree but I can't this time....the fact is most don't want to stand themselves....they just want a candidate that actually is in it for the people rather than themselves. A question...at what percentage of the eligible voting for a national parliament does that national parliament become questionable. Local government elections have dropped to about 25% participation because most people realise there is no point voting...increasingly people are seeing general elections in the same light
So long as you retain the right to vote and the choice of standing is free you have no legitimate grounds to complain. As far as I am aware no party is banned from standing including the most extreme as long as they don't advocate violence (or in the case of Sinn Fein even if they did).
25% of people vote at local elections because frankly most of them are too bloody apathetic and lazy to do otherwise.
bird flu will mutate to human-to-human transmission in America thanks to the indifference and RFK will block vaccination and Trump 2.0 will be imploded in the ensuing death and chaos.
Lets hope not for all our sakes (would be a fitting way for Trump 2.0 to go down though)
As @Fairliered says - we ban all flights in and out.
Are you going to tell Arctic Terns not to bother migrating this year?
(I don't actually know how this works. Would that mutation that allows human-to-human occur in the bird or the human?)
'For Westminster, the research also indicates a haemorrhage in Labour ’s support, producing an almost mirror image of last year’s general election result in Scotland. It points to the SNP winning 38 MPs and Labour eight. The Liberal Democrats would retain their current six MPs, and the Conservatives five, the same as they won last July.'
White british births will likely be a minority by 2030. And apparently now Tommy Robinson is being mistreated in jail.
Unlikely given over 80% of the population is still white
Er, if you project the numbers then it is extremely likely that white British births will be the minority by 2030, if they are only 56% now. That’s just math
I checked the figures on the ONS website, for births where ethnicity is recorded. The number of white babies in 2022 was 412,000 out of 585,000, or 70.7%.
So maybe white BRITISH is the discrepancy? Or is the original claim bollocks?
A huge number of white people have European or Irish ancestry. Since 2000, the categories of ethnic groups have also expanded enormously.
There’s also a growing number of mixed-race children, too.
I just checked. I think the stat is legit. It is a catastrophe in the making, and very very sad
It’s one reason I travel so much, to be brutally honest. I can’t bear to see what is happening to my country. it’s like leaving a friend with some terminal cancer, better to have the memory of what was, than see what is
And before everyone has conniptions, I favour immigration. You need it to keep genetic variety and cultural dynamism. in moderation it is a really GOOD thing. But we are far beyond “moderation” now
I think you are being a little extreme. But I do understand where you are coming from.
Is Britain still Britain if it “White British” is no longer the majority? Or if Muslims were, say, 25% of the population?
Britain, thankfully, has never been a “blood and soil” type country, and the word British is also mercifully flexible. But nevertheless, there are surely limits beyond which many of the cultural assumptions one takes for granted simply dissolve, with commensurate implications for society and politics.
No, it’s not Britain, as I understand it
in the end a country is its culture and civilization and language and shared collective memory, what it feels itself to be
Mountains and landscapes and rivers and mighty forests are all great, but they do not make a nation. A nation is its people, and for them to prosper, or even exist, some crucial things must be shared
A Britain that is, say, 25% Muslim and 25% Hindu and 25% “other” and the white British - self identified - as the remaining quarter, is not the Britain I know and love. It might be great (I doubt it) it might be a disaster, it doesn’t even matter, it would not be the Britain I grew up in, nothing like it, and I find that deeply sad. And that is where we are heading on these numbers
That’s what I feel. Personally. And yet for some reason saying this is virtually a cancellable offence whereas for any other nation in earth it would be obvious common sense. Would the Saudis allow themselves to become a religious/ethnic minority in their own country? The Afghans? The Poles? The Russians? Anyone??
The first country you reach for is Saudi, where about 40% of the population are non-citizens. In Qatar it's around 90%.
If British should mean white, then non-white people shouldn't be considered British. A statement implies its contrapositive. There's also the assumption that it's okay to classify every person as either white or non-white.
Your position seems to be straight out of chapter 3 of volume 2 of Mein Kampf.
Yes, of course, quietly requesting that my own country retains some semblance of the ethnic and cultural identity it has had for 1500 years makes me a “Nazi” equivalent to “Hitler”
You know what? This madness is gonna end badly for you guys. Don’t say you weren’t warned
There's no need to bridle or issue warnings. That chapter in Mein Kampf advocates a setup where the population is divided into citizens (ethnic Germans), subjects (people of other ethnicities who are allowed to live in Germany but who aren't what Germany is all about), and foreigners (citizens of foreign states).
I'm not saying you are "equivalent" to Hitler. I'm saying that your position regarding what makes a nation and what a country's citizenship policy should be is the same as what Hitler advocates in that chapter of Mein Kampf. It is. Am I being unfair?
If that were already considered by almost everyone to be "the natural way of things" and "how things have always been", there'd have been no need for Hitler to advocate it.
The chapter is about 1000 words long. What do you disagree with in it?
Hitler considered that Germans of Jewish, Polish, Sorbish, Wendish, and gypsy origin were untermenschen despite being indistinguishable from “Aryans.”
Those who are encouraging the racists in order to get at one race (usually, but not always, Muslims) should realise that the racists they are emboldening will, if given power, not stop at that one race.
Why do you conflate race and Islam?
Are you saying Islamophobia's okay because you don't see it as 'racist' ?
You can always guarantee the islamaphobia card will be pulled out. Why is it a phobia not to like the pathetic ethics and mental rules of a religion that imprisons women , men can do as they wish biut women are for hiding in the house etc.
Don't talk the Free Kirk down. Women are allowed out, just not on a Sunday.
I may be wrong but is seems unusual to say the least for the veep to be leading on foreign policy and chairing meetings in Munich while the actual Sec of State sits further down the table nodding like a small dog.
Rubio is gonna be first out of the door of Trump 2.0 me thinks.
The problem for the Cons, is that even if she is a complete dud, to change leader yet again (would be 7 in 9 years), makes them look like an ungovernable rabble.
bird flu will mutate to human-to-human transmission in America thanks to the indifference and RFK will block vaccination and Trump 2.0 will be imploded in the ensuing death and chaos.
Lets hope not for all our sakes (would be a fitting way for Trump 2.0 to go down though)
As @Fairliered says - we ban all flights in and out.
Are you going tell Arctic Terns not to bother migrating this year?
(I don't actually know how this works. Would that mutation that allows human-to-human occur in the bird or the human?)
I imagine several. Maybe even some from human flu mixed in at the samer time, as simultaneous infections begin to occur more and more often, and viruses recombine genetically within the host cells. But IANAE.
Of course, guess which jurisdiction has lots of human flu right now.
The problem for the Cons, is that even if she is a complete dud, to change leader yet again (would be 7 in 9 years), makes them look like an ungovernable rabble.
Sorry, what's your point? Of course they are an ungovernable rabble. How could anyone question that when they voted for Liz Truss as PM?
The problem for the Cons, is that even if she is a complete dud, to change leader yet again (would be 7 in 9 years), makes them look like an ungovernable rabble.
In this case, no one will notice.
She wasn't ready for prime time and she has been found out.
bird flu will mutate to human-to-human transmission in America thanks to the indifference and RFK will block vaccination and Trump 2.0 will be imploded in the ensuing death and chaos.
Lets hope not for all our sakes (would be a fitting way for Trump 2.0 to go down though)
As @Fairliered says - we ban all flights in and out.
Are you going to tell Arctic Terns not to bother migrating this year?
(I don't actually know how this works. Would that mutation that allows human-to-human occur in the bird or the human?)
In the human. Though the predisposition for it to develop could occur first in birds and so make it more likely to occur more than once in widely separate locations.
'For Westminster, the research also indicates a haemorrhage in Labour ’s support, producing an almost mirror image of last year’s general election result in Scotland. It points to the SNP winning 38 MPs and Labour eight. The Liberal Democrats would retain their current six MPs, and the Conservatives five, the same as they won last July.'
The problem for the Cons, is that even if she is a complete dud, to change leader yet again (would be 7 in 9 years), makes them look like an ungovernable rabble.
The next Tory PM is probably not a current MP.
If there ever is another Tory PM. Things have deteriorated to the point where virtually all bets are off.
Sadly I think you are wrong, people here are mostly top 10% the world as it is works for them. There is growing anger and I am not top 10% I mix with these people daily. I think reform will be tried first then when it doesn't work as it wont then it will become civil conflict...the bottom 50% really don't have anything to lose
Agreed. Most PB posters are doing fine out of the current system. They are not affected by the growing void where much of society used to live their lives. The void where before you had people who did not have an extensive education or special talents, but could work hard and enjoy a comfortable existence. They could own their home and a car, go on holiday abroad, have kids, and still have some money left over for the occasional night out or nice dinner.
For many that's gone now. They still work hard but can't even pay the bills any more. Buying a house is impossible, having kids would be a financial disaster, they're shopping at Aldi to make the budget last until the end of the month. They're driving a budget car they won't be afford to replace when it wears out because the government will have banned petrol and diesel cars. The electricity bill brings dread.
They live next to that nice old lady who's slowly killing herself caring for a disabled husband and had her life ruined when the DWP sanctioned her for working a couple of hours a week in a shop to get money to keep the heating on.
But they see their boss living in a six bedroom house, buying a £100,000 SUV, wearing a Rolex, going on holiday to five times a year and enjoying private healthcare. They see public sector 'climate advisors' and 'diversity champions' on near six figure salaries. They see CEOs earning as much in a day as they do in six months, CEOs who fail at their jobs and get paid millions to move on to another lucrative position.
And I haven't even mentioned immigration or the dire state of public services.
This is not a sustainable society, it's a recipe for revolution. The UK is maybe a decade from serious civil strife and a strongman who claims to have the answers, but other countries will get there in the near future. The US is just a canary in the coal mine.
People get the governments they vote for and deserve, whether Tory and earlier Tory and LD, now Labour and maybe Reform next time, in whole or in part. Same as Americans voted freely for Obama, Trump, Biden and now Trump again.
However as long as all adults are freely entitled to vote they are not entitled to engage in civil strife and the police and rule if law must be imposed on those that do engage in that.
As for your statement, most of the population own a house still, 100 years ago most rented and most still manage to have a child even if the birthrate has fallen. UK voters also rejected twice Corbyn's hammer with tax the rich mantra you seem to desire
Stop talking bollocks, last election almost 50% of people didn't vote...I didn't vote because every single person I could of voted for was a worthless piece of shit as was the party they belonged to. If you walk into a restaurant and can only order a shit sandwich or a shit pizza is not a reason to tell people its their own fault they are hungry as they could have ordered
You have the right to vote. What you don't have is the right to have your chosen candidate win. If there was no one who you agreed with then you can stand yourself. There were more Independent MPs elected at this last GE than at an GE since 1950.
If 50% didn't vote then they have no right to moan about the outcome. Or rather they have the right to moan but we have the perfect excuse to ignore them. But of course voting means taking some responsibility and we all know that too many people would rather do nothing and moan than do something and have to take responsibility for their actions.
Sorry richard we often agree but I can't this time....the fact is most don't want to stand themselves....they just want a candidate that actually is in it for the people rather than themselves. A question...at what percentage of the eligible voting for a national parliament does that national parliament become questionable. Local government elections have dropped to about 25% participation because most people realise there is no point voting...increasingly people are seeing general elections in the same light
So long as you retain the right to vote and the choice of standing is free you have no legitimate grounds to complain. As far as I am aware no party is banned from standing including the most extreme as long as they don't advocate violence (or in the case of Sinn Fein even if they did).
25% of people vote at local elections because frankly most of them are too bloody apathetic and lazy to do otherwise.
Terrible though war is, it is the main generator of technical innovation.
Is that true?
I know that war is a major generator of technical innovation, but which of the myriad inventions that came out of Xerox Parc for example were driven by war?
Which war is driving Apple right now?
War is enormously destructive of economic capacity. It drives certain forms of technical innovation, but overall, it’s probably a net negative.
Sadly I think you are wrong, people here are mostly top 10% the world as it is works for them. There is growing anger and I am not top 10% I mix with these people daily. I think reform will be tried first then when it doesn't work as it wont then it will become civil conflict...the bottom 50% really don't have anything to lose
Agreed. Most PB posters are doing fine out of the current system. They are not affected by the growing void where much of society used to live their lives. The void where before you had people who did not have an extensive education or special talents, but could work hard and enjoy a comfortable existence. They could own their home and a car, go on holiday abroad, have kids, and still have some money left over for the occasional night out or nice dinner.
For many that's gone now. They still work hard but can't even pay the bills any more. Buying a house is impossible, having kids would be a financial disaster, they're shopping at Aldi to make the budget last until the end of the month. They're driving a budget car they won't be afford to replace when it wears out because the government will have banned petrol and diesel cars. The electricity bill brings dread.
They live next to that nice old lady who's slowly killing herself caring for a disabled husband and had her life ruined when the DWP sanctioned her for working a couple of hours a week in a shop to get money to keep the heating on.
But they see their boss living in a six bedroom house, buying a £100,000 SUV, wearing a Rolex, going on holiday to five times a year and enjoying private healthcare. They see public sector 'climate advisors' and 'diversity champions' on near six figure salaries. They see CEOs earning as much in a day as they do in six months, CEOs who fail at their jobs and get paid millions to move on to another lucrative position.
And I haven't even mentioned immigration or the dire state of public services.
This is not a sustainable society, it's a recipe for revolution. The UK is maybe a decade from serious civil strife and a strongman who claims to have the answers, but other countries will get there in the near future. The US is just a canary in the coal mine.
People get the governments they vote for and deserve, whether Tory and earlier Tory and LD, now Labour and maybe Reform next time, in whole or in part. Same as Americans voted freely for Obama, Trump, Biden and now Trump again.
However as long as all adults are freely entitled to vote they are not entitled to engage in civil strife and the police and rule if law must be imposed on those that do engage in that.
As for your statement, most of the population own a house still, 100 years ago most rented and most still manage to have a child even if the birthrate has fallen. UK voters also rejected twice Corbyn's hammer with tax the rich mantra you seem to desire
Stop talking bollocks, last election almost 50% of people didn't vote...I didn't vote because every single person I could of voted for was a worthless piece of shit as was the party they belonged to. If you walk into a restaurant and can only order a shit sandwich or a shit pizza is not a reason to tell people its their own fault they are hungry as they could have ordered
You have the right to vote. What you don't have is the right to have your chosen candidate win. If there was no one who you agreed with then you can stand yourself. There were more Independent MPs elected at this last GE than at an GE since 1950.
If 50% didn't vote then they have no right to moan about the outcome. Or rather they have the right to moan but we have the perfect excuse to ignore them. But of course voting means taking some responsibility and we all know that too many people would rather do nothing and moan than do something and have to take responsibility for their actions.
Sorry richard we often agree but I can't this time....the fact is most don't want to stand themselves....they just want a candidate that actually is in it for the people rather than themselves. A question...at what percentage of the eligible voting for a national parliament does that national parliament become questionable. Local government elections have dropped to about 25% participation because most people realise there is no point voting...increasingly people are seeing general elections in the same light
So long as you retain the right to vote and the choice of standing is free you have no legitimate grounds to complain. As far as I am aware no party is banned from standing including the most extreme as long as they don't advocate violence (or in the case of Sinn Fein even if they did).
25% of people vote at local elections because frankly most of them are too bloody apathetic and lazy to do otherwise.
And if you no longer believe democracy works?
points at what is happening right now in america
If you no longer believe it works then that is your problem. Until such times as you try to do something about it and then it is even more your problem because those of us who still believe in it will fight against you.
And in case you missed it, Democracy is still working in the USA. Trump, for all most of us detest him, won an election fair and square. Those who voted for him (and those who didn't) must now deal with the consequences of that decision and hopefully they will learn their lesson and be a damn sight more careful next time around.
Democracy is the right to exercise your vote. It does not insist you exercise it sensibly.
Terrible though war is, it is the main generator of technical innovation.
Is that true?
I know that war is a major generator of technical innovation, but which of the myriad inventions that came out of Xerox Parc for example were driven by war?
Which war is driving Apple right now?
War is enormously destructive of economic capacity. It drives certain forms of technical innovation, but overall, it’s probably a net negative.
Naively I would think the period after the war (for the winner) is the maximum opportunity for the gains, you have built up capabilities and skills through necessity of the war, you are still going to be investing in science / defence and then no longer having to do the actual fighting / keep having things destroyed.
Should we get a peace deal, would anybody be surprised if Ukraine had a number of successful tech based companies utilizing drones.
Terrible though war is, it is the main generator of technical innovation.
Is that true?
I know that war is a major generator of technical innovation, but which of the myriad inventions that came out of Xerox Parc for example were driven by war?
Which war is driving Apple right now?
War is enormously destructive of economic capacity. It drives certain forms of technical innovation, but overall, it’s probably a net negative.
Naively I would think the period after the war is the maximum opportunity for the gains, you have built up capabilities and skills and then no longer having things blown up every day.
Trouble is, everyone wants to go back home. Plus there was not much demand for decoding Wehrmacht Tunny codes come June 1945. And changing from (for example) building Sunderland flying boats in the factory below Dumbarton Rock to metal prefabs was pretty painful.
Terrible though war is, it is the main generator of technical innovation.
Is that true?
I know that war is a major generator of technical innovation, but which of the myriad inventions that came out of Xerox Parc for example were driven by war?
Which war is driving Apple right now?
War is enormously destructive of economic capacity. It drives certain forms of technical innovation, but overall, it’s probably a net negative.
Naively I would think the period after the war (for the winner) is the maximum opportunity for the gains, you have built up capabilities and skills through necessity of the war, you are still going to be investing in science / defence and then no longer having to do the actual fighting / keep having things destroyed.
Should we get a peace deal, would anybody be surprised if Ukraine had a number of successful drone companies / tech based upon using drones.
And you can sometimes plunder the science base of the defeated.
But we’ve not run the counterfactual; how would technology have developed, had WWI and/or WWII not occurred ?
Sadly I think you are wrong, people here are mostly top 10% the world as it is works for them. There is growing anger and I am not top 10% I mix with these people daily. I think reform will be tried first then when it doesn't work as it wont then it will become civil conflict...the bottom 50% really don't have anything to lose
Agreed. Most PB posters are doing fine out of the current system. They are not affected by the growing void where much of society used to live their lives. The void where before you had people who did not have an extensive education or special talents, but could work hard and enjoy a comfortable existence. They could own their home and a car, go on holiday abroad, have kids, and still have some money left over for the occasional night out or nice dinner.
For many that's gone now. They still work hard but can't even pay the bills any more. Buying a house is impossible, having kids would be a financial disaster, they're shopping at Aldi to make the budget last until the end of the month. They're driving a budget car they won't be afford to replace when it wears out because the government will have banned petrol and diesel cars. The electricity bill brings dread.
They live next to that nice old lady who's slowly killing herself caring for a disabled husband and had her life ruined when the DWP sanctioned her for working a couple of hours a week in a shop to get money to keep the heating on.
But they see their boss living in a six bedroom house, buying a £100,000 SUV, wearing a Rolex, going on holiday to five times a year and enjoying private healthcare. They see public sector 'climate advisors' and 'diversity champions' on near six figure salaries. They see CEOs earning as much in a day as they do in six months, CEOs who fail at their jobs and get paid millions to move on to another lucrative position.
And I haven't even mentioned immigration or the dire state of public services.
This is not a sustainable society, it's a recipe for revolution. The UK is maybe a decade from serious civil strife and a strongman who claims to have the answers, but other countries will get there in the near future. The US is just a canary in the coal mine.
People get the governments they vote for and deserve, whether Tory and earlier Tory and LD, now Labour and maybe Reform next time, in whole or in part. Same as Americans voted freely for Obama, Trump, Biden and now Trump again.
However as long as all adults are freely entitled to vote they are not entitled to engage in civil strife and the police and rule if law must be imposed on those that do engage in that.
As for your statement, most of the population own a house still, 100 years ago most rented and most still manage to have a child even if the birthrate has fallen. UK voters also rejected twice Corbyn's hammer with tax the rich mantra you seem to desire
Stop talking bollocks, last election almost 50% of people didn't vote...I didn't vote because every single person I could of voted for was a worthless piece of shit as was the party they belonged to. If you walk into a restaurant and can only order a shit sandwich or a shit pizza is not a reason to tell people its their own fault they are hungry as they could have ordered
You have the right to vote. What you don't have is the right to have your chosen candidate win. If there was no one who you agreed with then you can stand yourself. There were more Independent MPs elected at this last GE than at an GE since 1950.
If 50% didn't vote then they have no right to moan about the outcome. Or rather they have the right to moan but we have the perfect excuse to ignore them. But of course voting means taking some responsibility and we all know that too many people would rather do nothing and moan than do something and have to take responsibility for their actions.
Sorry richard we often agree but I can't this time....the fact is most don't want to stand themselves....they just want a candidate that actually is in it for the people rather than themselves. A question...at what percentage of the eligible voting for a national parliament does that national parliament become questionable. Local government elections have dropped to about 25% participation because most people realise there is no point voting...increasingly people are seeing general elections in the same light
So long as you retain the right to vote and the choice of standing is free you have no legitimate grounds to complain. As far as I am aware no party is banned from standing including the most extreme as long as they don't advocate violence (or in the case of Sinn Fein even if they did).
25% of people vote at local elections because frankly most of them are too bloody apathetic and lazy to do otherwise.
And if you no longer believe democracy works?
points at what is happening right now in america
If you no longer believe it works then that is your problem. Until such times as you try to do something about it and then it is even more your problem because those of us who still believe in it will fight against you.
And in case you missed it, Democracy is still working in the USA. Trump, for all most of us detest him, won an election fair and square. Those who voted for him (and those who didn't) must now deal with the consequences of that decision and hopefully they will learn their lesson and be a damn sight more careful next time around.
Democracy is the right to exercise your vote. It does not insist you exercise it sensibly.
One would add that there are ways in which Trump is now subverting American democracy as it's meant to work though. It's meant to have checks and balances on the President so he can't just do literally anything without congressional approval. Which gives other democratic representatives a say.
Certain Republicans, even in the Trump Republican Party would baulk at things Musk and his Tesler Youth are doing because they are so demonstrably corrupt and destructive. So they have been subverted.
So it's not quite working as intented, even though, yes Trump would have the right to do lots of the things he has done/is planning to do. Just not that particular wrecking operation without votes from other elected representatives endorsing it.
It’s far too early to assess how much damage the Administration will do to itself, as it wreaks general havoc, but this is perhaps a straw in the wind.
Terrible though war is, it is the main generator of technical innovation.
Is that true?
I know that war is a major generator of technical innovation, but which of the myriad inventions that came out of Xerox Parc for example were driven by war?
Which war is driving Apple right now?
War is enormously destructive of economic capacity. It drives certain forms of technical innovation, but overall, it’s probably a net negative.
Naively I would think the period after the war is the maximum opportunity for the gains, you have built up capabilities and skills and then no longer having things blown up every day.
Trouble is, everyone wants to go back home. Plus there was not much demand for decoding Wehrmacht Tunny codes come June 1945. And changing from (for example) building Sunderland flying boats in the factory below Dumbarton Rock to metal prefabs was pretty painful.
Turing took that experience and designed new early computers, and during 50/60s things like the transputer were way ahead of their time and it was poor decisions in the 70/80s that took UK backwards e.g. we were a bit like TSMC for memory chips at one point, Inmos made 60% of world supply of SRAM market.
This site is much much better for the existence of @BlancheLivermore who is intelligent, insightful, unexpected, very human, likeable, funny, and provides a unique perspective on life - as a postie from an apparently affluent family - when he/she is not doing excellent travelogues or popping up with photos of the latest tomatoes
Why is it always the fun people like @BlancheLivermore that get banned when we have five fucking billion boring witless completely interchangeable centrist dads - from @Mexicanpete to @kinabalu to @turbotubbs to @Nigelb to @whofuckingcares - whose commentary is so enervatingly, soul sappingly tedious and dreary that banning a few of THEM would be a mercy to the rest of us?
This seems to be a feature not a bug. PB is STRIVING to be duller, by the day
Terrible though war is, it is the main generator of technical innovation.
Is that true?
I know that war is a major generator of technical innovation, but which of the myriad inventions that came out of Xerox Parc for example were driven by war?
Which war is driving Apple right now?
War is enormously destructive of economic capacity. It drives certain forms of technical innovation, but overall, it’s probably a net negative.
Naively I would think the period after the war (for the winner) is the maximum opportunity for the gains, you have built up capabilities and skills through necessity of the war, you are still going to be investing in science / defence and then no longer having to do the actual fighting / keep having things destroyed.
Should we get a peace deal, would anybody be surprised if Ukraine had a number of successful drone companies / tech based upon using drones.
And you can sometimes plunder the science base of the defeated.
But we’ve not run the counterfactual; how would technology have developed, had WWI and/or WWII not occurred ?
That's true, but as we have seen in the UK, spending on things like defence, science innovation etc, it all starts becoming lower priority the further you get away from a major wars. The US is a bit of an outlier that they have always spent massively on this regardless since WWII, no matter which party has been in power.
Terrible though war is, it is the main generator of technical innovation.
Is that true?
I know that war is a major generator of technical innovation, but which of the myriad inventions that came out of Xerox Parc for example were driven by war?
Which war is driving Apple right now?
War is enormously destructive of economic capacity. It drives certain forms of technical innovation, but overall, it’s probably a net negative.
Naively I would think the period after the war (for the winner) is the maximum opportunity for the gains, you have built up capabilities and skills through necessity of the war, you are still going to be investing in science / defence and then no longer having to do the actual fighting / keep having things destroyed.
Should we get a peace deal, would anybody be surprised if Ukraine had a number of successful drone companies / tech based upon using drones.
And you can sometimes plunder the science base of the defeated.
But we’ve not run the counterfactual; how would technology have developed, had WWI and/or WWII not occurred ?
The winners from war are the neutrals who sit it out but sell their wares to the belligerents, or the distant belligerents who get to do the glamorous bits but don’t have to get dirty or have their own homeland bombed.
China is the hands down winner of the Ukraine war.
I may be wrong but is seems unusual to say the least for the veep to be leading on foreign policy and chairing meetings in Munich while the actual Sec of State sits further down the table nodding like a small dog.
Rubio is gonna be first out of the door of Trump 2.0 me thinks.
No, he’s a useful lackey. Here he is reported helping to lay the ground for selling out Ukraine. In advance of any negotiation involving Ukraine itself.
Rubio held a call with Russian FM Lavrov & according to Moscow they agreed to resolve problems “in the interests of removing the unilateral barriers to mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation inherited from the previous administration.” Aka sanctions relief. https://x.com/maryilyushina/status/1890851342014394767
I may be wrong but is seems unusual to say the least for the veep to be leading on foreign policy and chairing meetings in Munich while the actual Sec of State sits further down the table nodding like a small dog.
Rubio is gonna be first out of the door of Trump 2.0 me thinks.
No, he’s a useful lackey. Here he is reported helping to lay the ground for selling out Ukraine. In advance of any negotiation involving Ukraine itself.
Rubio held a call with Russian FM Lavrov & according to Moscow they agreed to resolve problems “in the interests of removing the unilateral barriers to mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation inherited from the previous administration.” Aka sanctions relief. https://x.com/maryilyushina/status/1890851342014394767
I may be wrong but is seems unusual to say the least for the veep to be leading on foreign policy and chairing meetings in Munich while the actual Sec of State sits further down the table nodding like a small dog.
Rubio is gonna be first out of the door of Trump 2.0 me thinks.
No, he’s a useful lackey. Here he is reported helping to lay the ground for selling out Ukraine. In advance of any negotiation involving Ukraine itself.
Rubio held a call with Russian FM Lavrov & according to Moscow they agreed to resolve problems “in the interests of removing the unilateral barriers to mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation inherited from the previous administration.” Aka sanctions relief. https://x.com/maryilyushina/status/1890851342014394767
We need a European army
We certainly need a European military alliance, with significant capacity, not dependent on the US.
The problem for the Cons, is that even if she is a complete dud, to change leader yet again (would be 7 in 9 years), makes them look like an ungovernable rabble.
The next Tory PM is probably not a current MP.
Yet on the latest Electoral Calculus poll forecast based on the poll average the Tories and Reform are projected 307 seats combined, just 19 seats from a majority. The Tories would win 156 seats and Reform 151 with Labour on 209.
So it is not impossible Kemi could still be the next Tory PM if she could agree a deal with Farage
I may be wrong but is seems unusual to say the least for the veep to be leading on foreign policy and chairing meetings in Munich while the actual Sec of State sits further down the table nodding like a small dog.
Rubio is gonna be first out of the door of Trump 2.0 me thinks.
No, he’s a useful lackey. Here he is reported helping to lay the ground for selling out Ukraine. In advance of any negotiation involving Ukraine itself.
Rubio held a call with Russian FM Lavrov & according to Moscow they agreed to resolve problems “in the interests of removing the unilateral barriers to mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation inherited from the previous administration.” Aka sanctions relief. https://x.com/maryilyushina/status/1890851342014394767
We need a European army
There already is one, NATO and that needs strengthening with or without Trump
The dear leader sycophancy is already off the chart.
No modern president has been more pivotal for our country than Donald J. Trump.
Today, I introduced legislation to designate Trump's Birthday and Flag Day as a federal holiday, ensuring President Trump's contributions to American greatness are forever enshrined into law. https://x.com/RepTenney/status/1890460502477697436
Sadly I think you are wrong, people here are mostly top 10% the world as it is works for them. There is growing anger and I am not top 10% I mix with these people daily. I think reform will be tried first then when it doesn't work as it wont then it will become civil conflict...the bottom 50% really don't have anything to lose
Agreed. Most PB posters are doing fine out of the current system. They are not affected by the growing void where much of society used to live their lives. The void where before you had people who did not have an extensive education or special talents, but could work hard and enjoy a comfortable existence. They could own their home and a car, go on holiday abroad, have kids, and still have some money left over for the occasional night out or nice dinner.
For many that's gone now. They still work hard but can't even pay the bills any more. Buying a house is impossible, having kids would be a financial disaster, they're shopping at Aldi to make the budget last until the end of the month. They're driving a budget car they won't be afford to replace when it wears out because the government will have banned petrol and diesel cars. The electricity bill brings dread.
They live next to that nice old lady who's slowly killing herself caring for a disabled husband and had her life ruined when the DWP sanctioned her for working a couple of hours a week in a shop to get money to keep the heating on.
But they see their boss living in a six bedroom house, buying a £100,000 SUV, wearing a Rolex, going on holiday to five times a year and enjoying private healthcare. They see public sector 'climate advisors' and 'diversity champions' on near six figure salaries. They see CEOs earning as much in a day as they do in six months, CEOs who fail at their jobs and get paid millions to move on to another lucrative position.
And I haven't even mentioned immigration or the dire state of public services.
This is not a sustainable society, it's a recipe for revolution. The UK is maybe a decade from serious civil strife and a strongman who claims to have the answers, but other countries will get there in the near future. The US is just a canary in the coal mine.
People get the governments they vote for and deserve, whether Tory and earlier Tory and LD, now Labour and maybe Reform next time, in whole or in part. Same as Americans voted freely for Obama, Trump, Biden and now Trump again.
However as long as all adults are freely entitled to vote they are not entitled to engage in civil strife and the police and rule if law must be imposed on those that do engage in that.
As for your statement, most of the population own a house still, 100 years ago most rented and most still manage to have a child even if the birthrate has fallen. UK voters also rejected twice Corbyn's hammer with tax the rich mantra you seem to desire
Stop talking bollocks, last election almost 50% of people didn't vote...I didn't vote because every single person I could of voted for was a worthless piece of shit as was the party they belonged to. If you walk into a restaurant and can only order a shit sandwich or a shit pizza is not a reason to tell people its their own fault they are hungry as they could have ordered
You have the right to vote. What you don't have is the right to have your chosen candidate win. If there was no one who you agreed with then you can stand yourself. There were more Independent MPs elected at this last GE than at an GE since 1950.
If 50% didn't vote then they have no right to moan about the outcome. Or rather they have the right to moan but we have the perfect excuse to ignore them. But of course voting means taking some responsibility and we all know that too many people would rather do nothing and moan than do something and have to take responsibility for their actions.
Sorry richard we often agree but I can't this time....the fact is most don't want to stand themselves....they just want a candidate that actually is in it for the people rather than themselves. A question...at what percentage of the eligible voting for a national parliament does that national parliament become questionable. Local government elections have dropped to about 25% participation because most people realise there is no point voting...increasingly people are seeing general elections in the same light
So long as you retain the right to vote and the choice of standing is free you have no legitimate grounds to complain. As far as I am aware no party is banned from standing including the most extreme as long as they don't advocate violence (or in the case of Sinn Fein even if they did).
25% of people vote at local elections because frankly most of them are too bloody apathetic and lazy to do otherwise.
And if you no longer believe democracy works?
points at what is happening right now in america
Trump was elected, you may not like him but he was elected via a democratic vote
The dear leader sycophancy is already off the chart.
No modern president has been more pivotal for our country than Donald J. Trump.
Today, I introduced legislation to designate Trump's Birthday and Flag Day as a federal holiday, ensuring President Trump's contributions to American greatness are forever enshrined into law. https://x.com/RepTenney/status/1890460502477697436
Just wait until SKS starts playing the same role for Trump that Blair did for Bush: translating his message to the rest of the world in a more conventional form.
The dear leader sycophancy is already off the chart.
No modern president has been more pivotal for our country than Donald J. Trump.
Today, I introduced legislation to designate Trump's Birthday and Flag Day as a federal holiday, ensuring President Trump's contributions to American greatness are forever enshrined into law. https://x.com/RepTenney/status/1890460502477697436
The swamp mandating yet another set of Federal regulations - in this case for a bank holiday.
When will they drain this poisonous pool of fetid plant life?
I may be wrong but is seems unusual to say the least for the veep to be leading on foreign policy and chairing meetings in Munich while the actual Sec of State sits further down the table nodding like a small dog.
Rubio is gonna be first out of the door of Trump 2.0 me thinks.
No, he’s a useful lackey. Here he is reported helping to lay the ground for selling out Ukraine. In advance of any negotiation involving Ukraine itself.
Rubio held a call with Russian FM Lavrov & according to Moscow they agreed to resolve problems “in the interests of removing the unilateral barriers to mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation inherited from the previous administration.” Aka sanctions relief. https://x.com/maryilyushina/status/1890851342014394767
We need a European army
There already is one, NATO and that needs strengthening with or without Trump
Sadly I think you are wrong, people here are mostly top 10% the world as it is works for them. There is growing anger and I am not top 10% I mix with these people daily. I think reform will be tried first then when it doesn't work as it wont then it will become civil conflict...the bottom 50% really don't have anything to lose
Agreed. Most PB posters are doing fine out of the current system. They are not affected by the growing void where much of society used to live their lives. The void where before you had people who did not have an extensive education or special talents, but could work hard and enjoy a comfortable existence. They could own their home and a car, go on holiday abroad, have kids, and still have some money left over for the occasional night out or nice dinner.
For many that's gone now. They still work hard but can't even pay the bills any more. Buying a house is impossible, having kids would be a financial disaster, they're shopping at Aldi to make the budget last until the end of the month. They're driving a budget car they won't be afford to replace when it wears out because the government will have banned petrol and diesel cars. The electricity bill brings dread.
They live next to that nice old lady who's slowly killing herself caring for a disabled husband and had her life ruined when the DWP sanctioned her for working a couple of hours a week in a shop to get money to keep the heating on.
But they see their boss living in a six bedroom house, buying a £100,000 SUV, wearing a Rolex, going on holiday to five times a year and enjoying private healthcare. They see public sector 'climate advisors' and 'diversity champions' on near six figure salaries. They see CEOs earning as much in a day as they do in six months, CEOs who fail at their jobs and get paid millions to move on to another lucrative position.
And I haven't even mentioned immigration or the dire state of public services.
This is not a sustainable society, it's a recipe for revolution. The UK is maybe a decade from serious civil strife and a strongman who claims to have the answers, but other countries will get there in the near future. The US is just a canary in the coal mine.
People get the governments they vote for and deserve, whether Tory and earlier Tory and LD, now Labour and maybe Reform next time, in whole or in part. Same as Americans voted freely for Obama, Trump, Biden and now Trump again.
However as long as all adults are freely entitled to vote they are not entitled to engage in civil strife and the police and rule if law must be imposed on those that do engage in that.
As for your statement, most of the population own a house still, 100 years ago most rented and most still manage to have a child even if the birthrate has fallen. UK voters also rejected twice Corbyn's hammer with tax the rich mantra you seem to desire
Stop talking bollocks, last election almost 50% of people didn't vote...I didn't vote because every single person I could of voted for was a worthless piece of shit as was the party they belonged to. If you walk into a restaurant and can only order a shit sandwich or a shit pizza is not a reason to tell people its their own fault they are hungry as they could have ordered
You have the right to vote. What you don't have is the right to have your chosen candidate win. If there was no one who you agreed with then you can stand yourself. There were more Independent MPs elected at this last GE than at an GE since 1950.
If 50% didn't vote then they have no right to moan about the outcome. Or rather they have the right to moan but we have the perfect excuse to ignore them. But of course voting means taking some responsibility and we all know that too many people would rather do nothing and moan than do something and have to take responsibility for their actions.
Sorry richard we often agree but I can't this time....the fact is most don't want to stand themselves....they just want a candidate that actually is in it for the people rather than themselves. A question...at what percentage of the eligible voting for a national parliament does that national parliament become questionable. Local government elections have dropped to about 25% participation because most people realise there is no point voting...increasingly people are seeing general elections in the same light
Even in the last general election more voted than in the 2001 general election and still nearly 60% turned out.
I have never known a council election turnout over 40% in my lifetime, as unless you are particularly interested in council tax, bin collection, social care, highways and potholes or planning most aren't bothered
Sadly I think you are wrong, people here are mostly top 10% the world as it is works for them. There is growing anger and I am not top 10% I mix with these people daily. I think reform will be tried first then when it doesn't work as it wont then it will become civil conflict...the bottom 50% really don't have anything to lose
Agreed. Most PB posters are doing fine out of the current system. They are not affected by the growing void where much of society used to live their lives. The void where before you had people who did not have an extensive education or special talents, but could work hard and enjoy a comfortable existence. They could own their home and a car, go on holiday abroad, have kids, and still have some money left over for the occasional night out or nice dinner.
For many that's gone now. They still work hard but can't even pay the bills any more. Buying a house is impossible, having kids would be a financial disaster, they're shopping at Aldi to make the budget last until the end of the month. They're driving a budget car they won't be afford to replace when it wears out because the government will have banned petrol and diesel cars. The electricity bill brings dread.
They live next to that nice old lady who's slowly killing herself caring for a disabled husband and had her life ruined when the DWP sanctioned her for working a couple of hours a week in a shop to get money to keep the heating on.
But they see their boss living in a six bedroom house, buying a £100,000 SUV, wearing a Rolex, going on holiday to five times a year and enjoying private healthcare. They see public sector 'climate advisors' and 'diversity champions' on near six figure salaries. They see CEOs earning as much in a day as they do in six months, CEOs who fail at their jobs and get paid millions to move on to another lucrative position.
And I haven't even mentioned immigration or the dire state of public services.
This is not a sustainable society, it's a recipe for revolution. The UK is maybe a decade from serious civil strife and a strongman who claims to have the answers, but other countries will get there in the near future. The US is just a canary in the coal mine.
People get the governments they vote for and deserve, whether Tory and earlier Tory and LD, now Labour and maybe Reform next time, in whole or in part. Same as Americans voted freely for Obama, Trump, Biden and now Trump again.
However as long as all adults are freely entitled to vote they are not entitled to engage in civil strife and the police and rule if law must be imposed on those that do engage in that.
As for your statement, most of the population own a house still, 100 years ago most rented and most still manage to have a child even if the birthrate has fallen. UK voters also rejected twice Corbyn's hammer with tax the rich mantra you seem to desire
Stop talking bollocks, last election almost 50% of people didn't vote...I didn't vote because every single person I could of voted for was a worthless piece of shit as was the party they belonged to. If you walk into a restaurant and can only order a shit sandwich or a shit pizza is not a reason to tell people its their own fault they are hungry as they could have ordered
If you couldn't even be bothered to vote, something people even died for in the past like the Chartists and Suffragettes at a time in the 19th century when most of the population weren't allowed to vote at all and when women were banned from voting until the early 20th century I suggest we ignore anything you ever post on politics again.
If you can't pick in England from a centre left party or centre right party like Labour and the Tories, a nationalist right party like Reform, a harder left party like the Greens and a liberal party like the LDs and sit at home on your arse on election day your opinions are worthless and should be ignored
Was Blanche on the blanc? I’m glad I tapped out before I sank more cocktails. I’m not spending any more time in the PB Toilets.
I posted this morning Chagos news will start emerging, following Don & Modi’s tet a tet, but only £12M? That’s nothing compared to the lolly India and and US will get Starmer to hand over to their MAGA friend now in charge of Mauritius. Instead of a £90M first year, I’m suspecting hundreds of millions in “signing on fee.”
I have completed my Sunday School prep for tomorrow. Proverbs 15:17 "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fattened ox and hatred with it.” My lesson will be, your hungry years will be the best years of your lives, as you look back. ✝️
I may be wrong but is seems unusual to say the least for the veep to be leading on foreign policy and chairing meetings in Munich while the actual Sec of State sits further down the table nodding like a small dog.
Rubio is gonna be first out of the door of Trump 2.0 me thinks.
No, he’s a useful lackey. Here he is reported helping to lay the ground for selling out Ukraine. In advance of any negotiation involving Ukraine itself.
Rubio held a call with Russian FM Lavrov & according to Moscow they agreed to resolve problems “in the interests of removing the unilateral barriers to mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation inherited from the previous administration.” Aka sanctions relief. https://x.com/maryilyushina/status/1890851342014394767
We need a European army
There already is one, NATO and that needs strengthening with or without Trump
EATO - East of the Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Fuck you Vance.
Did somebody just say EATO?
Or maybe FYATO.
America seem to have forgotten that NATO was about saving their markets from Soviet Communism. Well, if you don't want to protect us, it can hardly come as a shock if we end with widespread Buy America Last campaigns.
The usual cycle. May locals look brutal for the Tories.
Not only are they doing over 2/3 of the ward defences, but they are defending their high water mark and Labour's low showing of 2021. Recent by-elections suggests the Tories are around 12 points down on 2021, and Labour only 8-9 points down.
The Tories are likely to lose substantial seats to the LDs, to Reform and even possibly some to Labour.
(Note, that current local by-elections are almost totally re-runs of 2022-24, with Labour defending a higher base and the Tories lower - meaning Labour 15 points down, Tories only 4 down).
Fortunately for Kemi almost half the councils up for election in May have cancelled or postponed their election to reorganise for unitaries approved by Rayner, including county councils like Essex and Norfolk the Tories might have lost to Reform and like Surrey they might have lost to the LDs
Someone mimicing my comment name? Remarkable change in several Canadian Opinion polls seems to be cementing. Liberals within single figures of the Conservatives, as close as only 4% behind, in which case with the current drop off of the NDP and the Bloq would probably give them minority government again. Trump seems to be the prime responsibility in all this.
Most of the polls aren't showing much of a difference with the Conservative vote. The swing is more from NDP to Liberal. The EKOS polls seem to be outliers.
As a semi-informed observer, I think the UK will muddle through its current problems. You should even be able to escape from the problems caused by the iPhone, though that will require some serious thinking on your part.
(Hint on the last: Some time ago I sent Tim Cook a letter offering to send him a "Free Tibet" bumper sticker -- if he would promise to display it prominently. You may find this hard to believe, but so far he hasn't replied.)
Sadly I think you are wrong, people here are mostly top 10% the world as it is works for them. There is growing anger and I am not top 10% I mix with these people daily. I think reform will be tried first then when it doesn't work as it wont then it will become civil conflict...the bottom 50% really don't have anything to lose
Agreed. Most PB posters are doing fine out of the current system. They are not affected by the growing void where much of society used to live their lives. The void where before you had people who did not have an extensive education or special talents, but could work hard and enjoy a comfortable existence. They could own their home and a car, go on holiday abroad, have kids, and still have some money left over for the occasional night out or nice dinner.
For many that's gone now. They still work hard but can't even pay the bills any more. Buying a house is impossible, having kids would be a financial disaster, they're shopping at Aldi to make the budget last until the end of the month. They're driving a budget car they won't be afford to replace when it wears out because the government will have banned petrol and diesel cars. The electricity bill brings dread.
They live next to that nice old lady who's slowly killing herself caring for a disabled husband and had her life ruined when the DWP sanctioned her for working a couple of hours a week in a shop to get money to keep the heating on.
But they see their boss living in a six bedroom house, buying a £100,000 SUV, wearing a Rolex, going on holiday to five times a year and enjoying private healthcare. They see public sector 'climate advisors' and 'diversity champions' on near six figure salaries. They see CEOs earning as much in a day as they do in six months, CEOs who fail at their jobs and get paid millions to move on to another lucrative position.
And I haven't even mentioned immigration or the dire state of public services.
This is not a sustainable society, it's a recipe for revolution. The UK is maybe a decade from serious civil strife and a strongman who claims to have the answers, but other countries will get there in the near future. The US is just a canary in the coal mine.
People get the governments they vote for and deserve, whether Tory and earlier Tory and LD, now Labour and maybe Reform next time, in whole or in part. Same as Americans voted freely for Obama, Trump, Biden and now Trump again.
However as long as all adults are freely entitled to vote they are not entitled to engage in civil strife and the police and rule if law must be imposed on those that do engage in that.
As for your statement, most of the population own a house still, 100 years ago most rented and most still manage to have a child even if the birthrate has fallen. UK voters also rejected twice Corbyn's hammer with tax the rich mantra you seem to desire
Renting and private sector renting in particular has risen, and the birthrate has fallen. I tend to think @Poodle is right to suggest the first change has been a sizeable factor in the second. Has there been any research into this? What are the academically-promulgated explanations for the fall in the birthrate?
Partly, decline of religion in the UK, more women working full time, not enough child benefit and childcare too
Was Blanche on the blanc? I’m glad I tapped out before I sank more cocktails. I’m not spending any more time in the PB Toilets.
I posted this morning Chagos news will start emerging, following Don & Modi’s tet a tet, but only £12M? That’s nothing compared to the lolly India and and US will get Starmer to hand over to their MAGA friend now in charge of Mauritius. Instead of a £90M first year, I’m suspecting hundreds of millions in “signing on fee.”
I have completed my Sunday School prep for tomorrow. Proverbs 15:17 "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fattened ox and hatred with it.” My lesson will be, your hungry years will be the best years of your lives, as you look back. ✝️
I was kicked out of Sunday School as my teacher refused to believe my parents came from a town called Forres. They insisted I meant that they lived near a Forrest. I insisted otherwise.
As a semi-informed observer, I think the UK will muddle through its current problems. You should even be able to escape from the problems caused by the iPhone, though that will require some serious thinking on your part.
(Hint on the last: Some time ago I sent Tim Cook a letter offering to send him a "Free Tibet" bumper sticker -- if he would promise to display it prominently. You may find this hard to believe, but so far he hasn't replied.)
My solution to the smartphone problem, whatever it is, is not to use one, and use a laptop instead. Suits me fine.
You can walk down the street while operating a laptop, because I've done it, but it's so awkward you don't do it very often.
Was Blanche on the blanc? I’m glad I tapped out before I sank more cocktails. I’m not spending any more time in the PB Toilets.
I posted this morning Chagos news will start emerging, following Don & Modi’s tet a tet, but only £12M? That’s nothing compared to the lolly India and and US will get Starmer to hand over to their MAGA friend now in charge of Mauritius. Instead of a £90M first year, I’m suspecting hundreds of millions in “signing on fee.”
I have completed my Sunday School prep for tomorrow. Proverbs 15:17 "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fattened ox and hatred with it.” My lesson will be, your hungry years will be the best years of your lives, as you look back. ✝️
I’m going for the fattened ox every time. Though tomorrow it’s roast chicken.
I’m actually feeling quite hungry. We went out for a Japanese meal this evening. Very nice, but left a little less than full. And even after a rice pudding at home I’m still feeling a bit gappy.
Nice big scrambled egg on toast for breakfast tomorrow, with lashings of MSG.
Hearing from multiple folks - mass layoffs at ASPR happening now. Emails going out *on a Saturday evening* to inform staff they’re being exited, nearly all probationary staff gone.
As far as the US goes, we took a giant step forward when the Supreme Court restored our civil rights laws, by banning affirmative action. Even our major universities are beginning to catch on, as they lose case after case.
Yes, of course, quietly requesting that my own country retains some semblance of the ethnic and cultural identity it has had for 1500 years makes me a “Nazi” equivalent to “Hitler”
You know what? This madness is gonna end badly for you guys. Don’t say you weren’t warned
The idea that "if you don't lie over for us within a few years, we're gonna have to win by methods you're REALLY not going to find to your liking" seems to be awfully in vogue at the moment on the North London loony right.
In the words of the ex-spad husband of a commissioning editor at the Spectator (on his Substack site):
"Conventional wisdom in 1999 was ‘joining the euro is inevitable’, in 2004 it was ‘Blair has a massive lead in the polls on regional assemblies’, in 2015 it was ‘there’s almost no chance of Leave winning’, in 2019 it was ‘there’s no way through the impasse’, in 2020 it was ‘covid vaccines are practically impossible’, and in 2021 it was ‘no chance you push out Boris’. Pushing out Starmer with some new force doesn’t feel more improbable than those examples did at the time.
Beating Starmer in an election is the easiest part. The hardest part is unifying a force on the Right that voters prefer given that much of ‘the right’ in SW1 would rather stay failing, stay fighting each other as they’ve been trained to by culture and incentives, and leave Starmer in office and see the country taken over by the IMF rather than do what’s needed to win and turn the country around. Often in history people cannot be saved, only ‘retired’. It’s possible the Tories can only be buried as quickly as possible but this can’t yet be known, it depends on how the cards fall. And if that does prove necessary, this means little chance of a serious government before ~2032 by which time many problems will be profound and serious violence harder to avoid.** We should try the easier path first."
(This descends into embarrassing gibberish in places. But the basic idea is "We achieved Brexit and we ain't finished, not by a long chalk, and maybe this won't be easy and fast, but we know about History, and if this isn't easy then it's gonna be bigly and seriously violent with a capital V." If this isn't deliberate destabilisation of a country, I don't know what is.)
What the fuck is continuous mass immigration on the scale of 300,000-1m people a year but “deliberate destabilisation”?
No one voted for this. Time and again we have voted AGAINST this. Yet on and on it goes
So democracy has ceased to function. What happens then?
There is quite a lot you and I would likely disagree about - I'm basically a bit of a wet social democrat - but I think we're more or less on the same page about the scale of immigration. I.e. it's mad. An open door policy on immigration - about 1.2 million in the year ending mid-2023, with a net value of nearly 800,000 even accounting for those going in the opposite direction - cannot be anything other than destabilising. Apart from all the other negatives, out of control population growth entirely defeats the object of Angela Rayner's housing drive.
You would hope that this Government gets that and will put an end to it. I don't expect it though, sadly.
I actually think some in the Labour Party DO get this, but it’s far too late, and too many still don’t get it - or simply won’t
Absent a tech revolution saving us, here’s how this will play out. European electorates - UK definitely included - will vote for increasingly hard then far right parties. These parties won’t just limit or prohibit immigration, they will go much further. They will begin mass deportations of - firstly - illegal migrants and then legal migrants. Millions of people will be forcibly expelled and borders will be guarded with live ammunition
No doubt I will be accused of wishcasting. This is not that. I have two daughters growing up in the UK and Oz and I dearly want them to grow up in peaceful, racially harmonious societies
I simply don’t believe that’s doable. A brutally violent outcome is now unavoidable (absent the saviour machines). It’s so bleak I generally try not to think about it
Professor David Betz of King's College London believes that we are heading towards ideal conditions for civil conflict:
Moreover, it is not simply that the conditions are present in the West; it is, rather, that the conditions are nearing the ideal. The relative wealth, social stability and related lack of demographic factionalism, plus the perception of the ability of normal politics to solve problems that once made the West seem immune to civil war are now no longer valid. In fact, in each of these categories the direction of pull is towards civil conflict. Increasingly, people perceive this to be the case and their levels of confidence in government would seem to be declining even more in the face of the apparent unwillingness or inability of leaders to confront the situation honestly.
I think we're further away from civil conflict now than we were in the period 2016-19, when the refusal or inability of a large part of the political class to implement the results of the largest vote in the nation's history, which they themselves had called and promised to implement, meant that the legitimacy of our democracy was under serious threat.
And we're considerably further away than we were in the late 1970s, when tens of millions of days were lost to strikes, rubbish was piling high in Leicester Square, the dead were going unburied and Northern Ireland was being, well, Northern Ireland.
But maybe I'm one of nature's optimists.
Sadly I think you are wrong, people here are mostly top 10% the world as it is works for them. There is growing anger and I am not top 10% I mix with these people daily. I think reform will be tried first then when it doesn't work as it wont then it will become civil conflict...the bottom 50% really don't have anything to lose
Here is an example, people here go on about people like nurses having to use a food bank....fair enough then they go on in other posts going lets just add a couple of percent on income tax....yeah well that person on min wage already struggling is going to have 20£ less each month.....2% extra for most here means I will buy a cheaper bottle of wine
The solution to the increasingly stretched and threadbare state is therefore, amongst other things, expressly not to keep jacking up income tax and national insurance, but to end the excessively lenient treatment of assets. That, and to better target benefits and tax breaks on those who really need it.
An older society is a poorer society, but that would be a lot easier to manage if more of the burden was shifted away from work and put onto capital, and if large quantities of tax receipts weren't needlessly squandered. To return to one of my favourite topics, I care about skint old people having enough to eat, but I'm against propping up the spending power of rich old people with taxation and wealth transfers that erode the living standards of poorer, younger ones. The hikes in taxes on work to raise billions to subsidise the booking of cruise holidays by asset millionaire pensioners must be stopped.
Well this awful government has whacked up inheritance tax on farmers, whacked up national insurance on business owners and slashed pensioners winter fuel allowance so some have been frozen this winter let alone going on cruise holidays
Was Blanche on the blanc? I’m glad I tapped out before I sank more cocktails. I’m not spending any more time in the PB Toilets.
I posted this morning Chagos news will start emerging, following Don & Modi’s tet a tet, but only £12M? That’s nothing compared to the lolly India and and US will get Starmer to hand over to their MAGA friend now in charge of Mauritius. Instead of a £90M first year, I’m suspecting hundreds of millions in “signing on fee.”
I have completed my Sunday School prep for tomorrow. Proverbs 15:17 "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fattened ox and hatred with it.” My lesson will be, your hungry years will be the best years of your lives, as you look back. ✝️
I was kicked out of Sunday School as my teacher refused to believe my parents came from a town called Forres. They insisted I meant that they lived near a Forrest. I insisted otherwise.
I lost.
Forres is in Scotland?
I think Roman’s named it saying “place of big pubic hair”.
Richard E. Grant @RichardEGrant · 12h Flying from Nairobi past snow capped Mount Kilimanjaro in the far distance, across Tsavo, then landed on the Kenyan coast & boated across the water to Lamu island 🇰🇪 ❤️🇰🇪 ❤️🇰🇪 ❤️🇰🇪 ❤️🇰🇪 ❤️🇰🇪
I may be wrong but is seems unusual to say the least for the veep to be leading on foreign policy and chairing meetings in Munich while the actual Sec of State sits further down the table nodding like a small dog.
Rubio is gonna be first out of the door of Trump 2.0 me thinks.
No, he’s a useful lackey. Here he is reported helping to lay the ground for selling out Ukraine. In advance of any negotiation involving Ukraine itself.
Rubio held a call with Russian FM Lavrov & according to Moscow they agreed to resolve problems “in the interests of removing the unilateral barriers to mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation inherited from the previous administration.” Aka sanctions relief. https://x.com/maryilyushina/status/1890851342014394767
We need a European army
There already is one, NATO and that needs strengthening with or without Trump
EATO - East of the Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Fuck you Vance.
Did somebody just say EATO?
Or maybe FYATO.
America seem to have forgotten that NATO was about saving their markets from Soviet Communism. Well, if you don't want to protect us, it can hardly come as a shock if we end with widespread Buy America Last campaigns.
I don’t think they see there being anything to protect us from. Putin’s Russia is not dissimilar from what they would like to see in the USA. They would like us all to be friends in the brave new MAGA world. Already they’re discussing dropping sanctions.
Maybe they are right, economically. America’s biggest export now by some margin is oil. Nobody cares about the politics of petro-states. Hard to boycott hydrocarbons from a specific country. And their market remains so huge that their tariff policies, while driving up domestic inflation, will probably also lead to industrial reshoring. They’re a bigger, louder Saudi.
Was Blanche on the blanc? I’m glad I tapped out before I sank more cocktails. I’m not spending any more time in the PB Toilets.
I posted this morning Chagos news will start emerging, following Don & Modi’s tet a tet, but only £12M? That’s nothing compared to the lolly India and and US will get Starmer to hand over to their MAGA friend now in charge of Mauritius. Instead of a £90M first year, I’m suspecting hundreds of millions in “signing on fee.”
I have completed my Sunday School prep for tomorrow. Proverbs 15:17 "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fattened ox and hatred with it.” My lesson will be, your hungry years will be the best years of your lives, as you look back. ✝️
I’m going for the fattened ox every time. Though tomorrow it’s roast chicken.
I’m actually feeling quite hungry. We went out for a Japanese meal this evening. Very nice, but left a little less than full. And even after a rice pudding at home I’m still feeling a bit gappy.
Nice big scrambled egg on toast for breakfast tomorrow, with lashings of MSG.
Your hungry times will be your best times as you look back!
The dear leader sycophancy is already off the chart.
No modern president has been more pivotal for our country than Donald J. Trump.
Today, I introduced legislation to designate Trump's Birthday and Flag Day as a federal holiday, ensuring President Trump's contributions to American greatness are forever enshrined into law. https://x.com/RepTenney/status/1890460502477697436
Just wait until SKS starts playing the same role for Trump that Blair did for Bush: translating his message to the rest of the world in a more conventional form.
'Brian Trump' keeps coming back into my mind. There's a 70s sitcom or 80s Spitting Image thread in an alternate universe.
"Children! Sit up! In todays "Hour with Brian (Sir)" we will learn how Mister Donald was correct to send all those people to an interment camp. And why he was also correct to let them out again a few days later. And why he was extra correct that this was both a good and bad thing."
Was Blanche on the blanc? I’m glad I tapped out before I sank more cocktails. I’m not spending any more time in the PB Toilets.
I posted this morning Chagos news will start emerging, following Don & Modi’s tet a tet, but only £12M? That’s nothing compared to the lolly India and and US will get Starmer to hand over to their MAGA friend now in charge of Mauritius. Instead of a £90M first year, I’m suspecting hundreds of millions in “signing on fee.”
I have completed my Sunday School prep for tomorrow. Proverbs 15:17 "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fattened ox and hatred with it.” My lesson will be, your hungry years will be the best years of your lives, as you look back. ✝️
I was kicked out of Sunday School as my teacher refused to believe my parents came from a town called Forres. They insisted I meant that they lived near a Forrest. I insisted otherwise.
I lost.
Forres is in Scotland?
I think Roman’s named it saying “place of big pubic hair”.
I sometimes wonder about the scene as a group of love starved legionaries looked across two large sweeping bends in the river and said, that looks like a great big pair of tits, thus naming Manchester.
Yes, of course, quietly requesting that my own country retains some semblance of the ethnic and cultural identity it has had for 1500 years makes me a “Nazi” equivalent to “Hitler”
You know what? This madness is gonna end badly for you guys. Don’t say you weren’t warned
The idea that "if you don't lie over for us within a few years, we're gonna have to win by methods you're REALLY not going to find to your liking" seems to be awfully in vogue at the moment on the North London loony right.
In the words of the ex-spad husband of a commissioning editor at the Spectator (on his Substack site):
"Conventional wisdom in 1999 was ‘joining the euro is inevitable’, in 2004 it was ‘Blair has a massive lead in the polls on regional assemblies’, in 2015 it was ‘there’s almost no chance of Leave winning’, in 2019 it was ‘there’s no way through the impasse’, in 2020 it was ‘covid vaccines are practically impossible’, and in 2021 it was ‘no chance you push out Boris’. Pushing out Starmer with some new force doesn’t feel more improbable than those examples did at the time.
Beating Starmer in an election is the easiest part. The hardest part is unifying a force on the Right that voters prefer given that much of ‘the right’ in SW1 would rather stay failing, stay fighting each other as they’ve been trained to by culture and incentives, and leave Starmer in office and see the country taken over by the IMF rather than do what’s needed to win and turn the country around. Often in history people cannot be saved, only ‘retired’. It’s possible the Tories can only be buried as quickly as possible but this can’t yet be known, it depends on how the cards fall. And if that does prove necessary, this means little chance of a serious government before ~2032 by which time many problems will be profound and serious violence harder to avoid.** We should try the easier path first."
(This descends into embarrassing gibberish in places. But the basic idea is "We achieved Brexit and we ain't finished, not by a long chalk, and maybe this won't be easy and fast, but we know about History, and if this isn't easy then it's gonna be bigly and seriously violent with a capital V." If this isn't deliberate destabilisation of a country, I don't know what is.)
What the fuck is continuous mass immigration on the scale of 300,000-1m people a year but “deliberate destabilisation”?
No one voted for this. Time and again we have voted AGAINST this. Yet on and on it goes
So democracy has ceased to function. What happens then?
There is quite a lot you and I would likely disagree about - I'm basically a bit of a wet social democrat - but I think we're more or less on the same page about the scale of immigration. I.e. it's mad. An open door policy on immigration - about 1.2 million in the year ending mid-2023, with a net value of nearly 800,000 even accounting for those going in the opposite direction - cannot be anything other than destabilising. Apart from all the other negatives, out of control population growth entirely defeats the object of Angela Rayner's housing drive.
You would hope that this Government gets that and will put an end to it. I don't expect it though, sadly.
I actually think some in the Labour Party DO get this, but it’s far too late, and too many still don’t get it - or simply won’t
Absent a tech revolution saving us, here’s how this will play out. European electorates - UK definitely included - will vote for increasingly hard then far right parties. These parties won’t just limit or prohibit immigration, they will go much further. They will begin mass deportations of - firstly - illegal migrants and then legal migrants. Millions of people will be forcibly expelled and borders will be guarded with live ammunition
No doubt I will be accused of wishcasting. This is not that. I have two daughters growing up in the UK and Oz and I dearly want them to grow up in peaceful, racially harmonious societies
I simply don’t believe that’s doable. A brutally violent outcome is now unavoidable (absent the saviour machines). It’s so bleak I generally try not to think about it
Professor David Betz of King's College London believes that we are heading towards ideal conditions for civil conflict:
Moreover, it is not simply that the conditions are present in the West; it is, rather, that the conditions are nearing the ideal. The relative wealth, social stability and related lack of demographic factionalism, plus the perception of the ability of normal politics to solve problems that once made the West seem immune to civil war are now no longer valid. In fact, in each of these categories the direction of pull is towards civil conflict. Increasingly, people perceive this to be the case and their levels of confidence in government would seem to be declining even more in the face of the apparent unwillingness or inability of leaders to confront the situation honestly.
I think we're further away from civil conflict now than we were in the period 2016-19, when the refusal or inability of a large part of the political class to implement the results of the largest vote in the nation's history, which they themselves had called and promised to implement, meant that the legitimacy of our democracy was under serious threat.
And we're considerably further away than we were in the late 1970s, when tens of millions of days were lost to strikes, rubbish was piling high in Leicester Square, the dead were going unburied and Northern Ireland was being, well, Northern Ireland.
But maybe I'm one of nature's optimists.
Sadly I think you are wrong, people here are mostly top 10% the world as it is works for them. There is growing anger and I am not top 10% I mix with these people daily. I think reform will be tried first then when it doesn't work as it wont then it will become civil conflict...the bottom 50% really don't have anything to lose
Here is an example, people here go on about people like nurses having to use a food bank....fair enough then they go on in other posts going lets just add a couple of percent on income tax....yeah well that person on min wage already struggling is going to have 20£ less each month.....2% extra for most here means I will buy a cheaper bottle of wine
The solution to the increasingly stretched and threadbare state is therefore, amongst other things, expressly not to keep jacking up income tax and national insurance, but to end the excessively lenient treatment of assets. That, and to better target benefits and tax breaks on those who really need it.
An older society is a poorer society, but that would be a lot easier to manage if more of the burden was shifted away from work and put onto capital, and if large quantities of tax receipts weren't needlessly squandered. To return to one of my favourite topics, I care about skint old people having enough to eat, but I'm against propping up the spending power of rich old people with taxation and wealth transfers that erode the living standards of poorer, younger ones. The hikes in taxes on work to raise billions to subsidise the booking of cruise holidays by asset millionaire pensioners must be stopped.
Well this awful government has whacked up inheritance tax on farmers, whacked up national insurance on business owners and slashed pensioners winter fuel allowance so some have been frozen this winter let alone going on cruise holidays
Reminder that you pay zero IHT if you retire and gift the farm more than 7 years before death, ie on average life expectancy that means retiring at 73 (you can still keep and live in the farmhouse and bequeath that on death).
Hearing from multiple folks - mass layoffs at ASPR happening now. Emails going out *on a Saturday evening* to inform staff they’re being exited, nearly all probationary staff gone.
I may be wrong but is seems unusual to say the least for the veep to be leading on foreign policy and chairing meetings in Munich while the actual Sec of State sits further down the table nodding like a small dog.
Rubio is gonna be first out of the door of Trump 2.0 me thinks.
No, he’s a useful lackey. Here he is reported helping to lay the ground for selling out Ukraine. In advance of any negotiation involving Ukraine itself.
Rubio held a call with Russian FM Lavrov & according to Moscow they agreed to resolve problems “in the interests of removing the unilateral barriers to mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation inherited from the previous administration.” Aka sanctions relief. https://x.com/maryilyushina/status/1890851342014394767
We need a European army
There already is one, NATO and that needs strengthening with or without Trump
EATO - East of the Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Fuck you Vance.
What has Canada done to you? All the more hilarious to see NATO, absent the USA, dominate the high north via Canada and Greenland.
Someone mimicing my comment name? Remarkable change in several Canadian Opinion polls seems to be cementing. Liberals within single figures of the Conservatives, as close as only 4% behind, in which case with the current drop off of the NDP and the Bloq would probably give them minority government again. Trump seems to be the prime responsibility in all this.
Most of the polls aren't showing much of a difference with the Conservative vote. The swing is more from NDP to Liberal. The EKOS polls seem to be outliers.
Every poll has the Conservatives down about 5% from pre Christmas, hypothetical polls with Carney as Liberal leader have them neck and neck with Poilievre's Conservatives
Someone mimicing my comment name? Remarkable change in several Canadian Opinion polls seems to be cementing. Liberals within single figures of the Conservatives, as close as only 4% behind, in which case with the current drop off of the NDP and the Bloq would probably give them minority government again. Trump seems to be the prime responsibility in all this.
Most of the polls aren't showing much of a difference with the Conservative vote. The swing is more from NDP to Liberal. The EKOS polls seem to be outliers.
Every poll has the Conservatives down about 5% from pre Christmas, hypothetical polls with Carney as Liberal leader have them neck and neck with Poilievre's Conservatives
George Osborne to run the Bank of Canada for him to return the favour?
Yes, of course, quietly requesting that my own country retains some semblance of the ethnic and cultural identity it has had for 1500 years makes me a “Nazi” equivalent to “Hitler”
You know what? This madness is gonna end badly for you guys. Don’t say you weren’t warned
The idea that "if you don't lie over for us within a few years, we're gonna have to win by methods you're REALLY not going to find to your liking" seems to be awfully in vogue at the moment on the North London loony right.
In the words of the ex-spad husband of a commissioning editor at the Spectator (on his Substack site):
"Conventional wisdom in 1999 was ‘joining the euro is inevitable’, in 2004 it was ‘Blair has a massive lead in the polls on regional assemblies’, in 2015 it was ‘there’s almost no chance of Leave winning’, in 2019 it was ‘there’s no way through the impasse’, in 2020 it was ‘covid vaccines are practically impossible’, and in 2021 it was ‘no chance you push out Boris’. Pushing out Starmer with some new force doesn’t feel more improbable than those examples did at the time.
Beating Starmer in an election is the easiest part. The hardest part is unifying a force on the Right that voters prefer given that much of ‘the right’ in SW1 would rather stay failing, stay fighting each other as they’ve been trained to by culture and incentives, and leave Starmer in office and see the country taken over by the IMF rather than do what’s needed to win and turn the country around. Often in history people cannot be saved, only ‘retired’. It’s possible the Tories can only be buried as quickly as possible but this can’t yet be known, it depends on how the cards fall. And if that does prove necessary, this means little chance of a serious government before ~2032 by which time many problems will be profound and serious violence harder to avoid.** We should try the easier path first."
(This descends into embarrassing gibberish in places. But the basic idea is "We achieved Brexit and we ain't finished, not by a long chalk, and maybe this won't be easy and fast, but we know about History, and if this isn't easy then it's gonna be bigly and seriously violent with a capital V." If this isn't deliberate destabilisation of a country, I don't know what is.)
What the fuck is continuous mass immigration on the scale of 300,000-1m people a year but “deliberate destabilisation”?
No one voted for this. Time and again we have voted AGAINST this. Yet on and on it goes
So democracy has ceased to function. What happens then?
There is quite a lot you and I would likely disagree about - I'm basically a bit of a wet social democrat - but I think we're more or less on the same page about the scale of immigration. I.e. it's mad. An open door policy on immigration - about 1.2 million in the year ending mid-2023, with a net value of nearly 800,000 even accounting for those going in the opposite direction - cannot be anything other than destabilising. Apart from all the other negatives, out of control population growth entirely defeats the object of Angela Rayner's housing drive.
You would hope that this Government gets that and will put an end to it. I don't expect it though, sadly.
I actually think some in the Labour Party DO get this, but it’s far too late, and too many still don’t get it - or simply won’t
Absent a tech revolution saving us, here’s how this will play out. European electorates - UK definitely included - will vote for increasingly hard then far right parties. These parties won’t just limit or prohibit immigration, they will go much further. They will begin mass deportations of - firstly - illegal migrants and then legal migrants. Millions of people will be forcibly expelled and borders will be guarded with live ammunition
No doubt I will be accused of wishcasting. This is not that. I have two daughters growing up in the UK and Oz and I dearly want them to grow up in peaceful, racially harmonious societies
I simply don’t believe that’s doable. A brutally violent outcome is now unavoidable (absent the saviour machines). It’s so bleak I generally try not to think about it
Professor David Betz of King's College London believes that we are heading towards ideal conditions for civil conflict:
Moreover, it is not simply that the conditions are present in the West; it is, rather, that the conditions are nearing the ideal. The relative wealth, social stability and related lack of demographic factionalism, plus the perception of the ability of normal politics to solve problems that once made the West seem immune to civil war are now no longer valid. In fact, in each of these categories the direction of pull is towards civil conflict. Increasingly, people perceive this to be the case and their levels of confidence in government would seem to be declining even more in the face of the apparent unwillingness or inability of leaders to confront the situation honestly.
I think we're further away from civil conflict now than we were in the period 2016-19, when the refusal or inability of a large part of the political class to implement the results of the largest vote in the nation's history, which they themselves had called and promised to implement, meant that the legitimacy of our democracy was under serious threat.
And we're considerably further away than we were in the late 1970s, when tens of millions of days were lost to strikes, rubbish was piling high in Leicester Square, the dead were going unburied and Northern Ireland was being, well, Northern Ireland.
But maybe I'm one of nature's optimists.
Sadly I think you are wrong, people here are mostly top 10% the world as it is works for them. There is growing anger and I am not top 10% I mix with these people daily. I think reform will be tried first then when it doesn't work as it wont then it will become civil conflict...the bottom 50% really don't have anything to lose
Here is an example, people here go on about people like nurses having to use a food bank....fair enough then they go on in other posts going lets just add a couple of percent on income tax....yeah well that person on min wage already struggling is going to have 20£ less each month.....2% extra for most here means I will buy a cheaper bottle of wine
The solution to the increasingly stretched and threadbare state is therefore, amongst other things, expressly not to keep jacking up income tax and national insurance, but to end the excessively lenient treatment of assets. That, and to better target benefits and tax breaks on those who really need it.
An older society is a poorer society, but that would be a lot easier to manage if more of the burden was shifted away from work and put onto capital, and if large quantities of tax receipts weren't needlessly squandered. To return to one of my favourite topics, I care about skint old people having enough to eat, but I'm against propping up the spending power of rich old people with taxation and wealth transfers that erode the living standards of poorer, younger ones. The hikes in taxes on work to raise billions to subsidise the booking of cruise holidays by asset millionaire pensioners must be stopped.
Well this awful government has whacked up inheritance tax on farmers, whacked up national insurance on business owners and slashed pensioners winter fuel allowance so some have been frozen this winter let alone going on cruise holidays
The idea pensioners are "freezing to death" because wealthier ones lost a benefit that has been less than their pension goes up each year is laughable and revealing that the attitude is that everyone else should go without so the special interest groups you favour can be kept in the comfort to which they've been accustomed while everyone else has got poorer so they could be protected. Selfishness off the scale.
I may be wrong but is seems unusual to say the least for the veep to be leading on foreign policy and chairing meetings in Munich while the actual Sec of State sits further down the table nodding like a small dog.
Rubio is gonna be first out of the door of Trump 2.0 me thinks.
No, he’s a useful lackey. Here he is reported helping to lay the ground for selling out Ukraine. In advance of any negotiation involving Ukraine itself.
Rubio held a call with Russian FM Lavrov & according to Moscow they agreed to resolve problems “in the interests of removing the unilateral barriers to mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation inherited from the previous administration.” Aka sanctions relief. https://x.com/maryilyushina/status/1890851342014394767
We need a European army
There already is one, NATO and that needs strengthening with or without Trump
EATO - East of the Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Fuck you Vance.
If all goes well for Trump with Greenland (referendum says yes to independence, further referendum says hell yeah let's join the USA), then the Faroe Islands could be next. And then Trump will take possession of the Danish claim to Rockall, which is also claimed by Britain. 🍿
Beginnings of stirrings from GOP senators tonight over Musk's manic close-the-entire-federal-government.
Pass the popcorn.
We don't have to wait for a Rockall claim?
For top popcorn value, maybe somebody will assassinate Trump an hour before the JFK papers are released that D Cummings has been raving about.
Then the incoming head of the CIA could say Silicon Valley are such a bunch of arrogant fuckers that they thought they could do their own security, and we're not falling into the same trap as the Limeys did with the Apostles in Cambridge - and take Musk into preventive detention.
I doubt the US republic is as weak as it currently looks - although it may be.
The dear leader sycophancy is already off the chart.
No modern president has been more pivotal for our country than Donald J. Trump.
Today, I introduced legislation to designate Trump's Birthday and Flag Day as a federal holiday, ensuring President Trump's contributions to American greatness are forever enshrined into law. https://x.com/RepTenney/status/1890460502477697436
Just wait until SKS starts playing the same role for Trump that Blair did for Bush: translating his message to the rest of the world in a more conventional form.
Yes, of course, quietly requesting that my own country retains some semblance of the ethnic and cultural identity it has had for 1500 years makes me a “Nazi” equivalent to “Hitler”
You know what? This madness is gonna end badly for you guys. Don’t say you weren’t warned
The idea that "if you don't lie over for us within a few years, we're gonna have to win by methods you're REALLY not going to find to your liking" seems to be awfully in vogue at the moment on the North London loony right.
In the words of the ex-spad husband of a commissioning editor at the Spectator (on his Substack site):
"Conventional wisdom in 1999 was ‘joining the euro is inevitable’, in 2004 it was ‘Blair has a massive lead in the polls on regional assemblies’, in 2015 it was ‘there’s almost no chance of Leave winning’, in 2019 it was ‘there’s no way through the impasse’, in 2020 it was ‘covid vaccines are practically impossible’, and in 2021 it was ‘no chance you push out Boris’. Pushing out Starmer with some new force doesn’t feel more improbable than those examples did at the time.
Beating Starmer in an election is the easiest part. The hardest part is unifying a force on the Right that voters prefer given that much of ‘the right’ in SW1 would rather stay failing, stay fighting each other as they’ve been trained to by culture and incentives, and leave Starmer in office and see the country taken over by the IMF rather than do what’s needed to win and turn the country around. Often in history people cannot be saved, only ‘retired’. It’s possible the Tories can only be buried as quickly as possible but this can’t yet be known, it depends on how the cards fall. And if that does prove necessary, this means little chance of a serious government before ~2032 by which time many problems will be profound and serious violence harder to avoid.** We should try the easier path first."
(This descends into embarrassing gibberish in places. But the basic idea is "We achieved Brexit and we ain't finished, not by a long chalk, and maybe this won't be easy and fast, but we know about History, and if this isn't easy then it's gonna be bigly and seriously violent with a capital V." If this isn't deliberate destabilisation of a country, I don't know what is.)
What the fuck is continuous mass immigration on the scale of 300,000-1m people a year but “deliberate destabilisation”?
No one voted for this. Time and again we have voted AGAINST this. Yet on and on it goes
So democracy has ceased to function. What happens then?
There is quite a lot you and I would likely disagree about - I'm basically a bit of a wet social democrat - but I think we're more or less on the same page about the scale of immigration. I.e. it's mad. An open door policy on immigration - about 1.2 million in the year ending mid-2023, with a net value of nearly 800,000 even accounting for those going in the opposite direction - cannot be anything other than destabilising. Apart from all the other negatives, out of control population growth entirely defeats the object of Angela Rayner's housing drive.
You would hope that this Government gets that and will put an end to it. I don't expect it though, sadly.
I actually think some in the Labour Party DO get this, but it’s far too late, and too many still don’t get it - or simply won’t
Absent a tech revolution saving us, here’s how this will play out. European electorates - UK definitely included - will vote for increasingly hard then far right parties. These parties won’t just limit or prohibit immigration, they will go much further. They will begin mass deportations of - firstly - illegal migrants and then legal migrants. Millions of people will be forcibly expelled and borders will be guarded with live ammunition
No doubt I will be accused of wishcasting. This is not that. I have two daughters growing up in the UK and Oz and I dearly want them to grow up in peaceful, racially harmonious societies
I simply don’t believe that’s doable. A brutally violent outcome is now unavoidable (absent the saviour machines). It’s so bleak I generally try not to think about it
Professor David Betz of King's College London believes that we are heading towards ideal conditions for civil conflict:
Moreover, it is not simply that the conditions are present in the West; it is, rather, that the conditions are nearing the ideal. The relative wealth, social stability and related lack of demographic factionalism, plus the perception of the ability of normal politics to solve problems that once made the West seem immune to civil war are now no longer valid. In fact, in each of these categories the direction of pull is towards civil conflict. Increasingly, people perceive this to be the case and their levels of confidence in government would seem to be declining even more in the face of the apparent unwillingness or inability of leaders to confront the situation honestly.
I think we're further away from civil conflict now than we were in the period 2016-19, when the refusal or inability of a large part of the political class to implement the results of the largest vote in the nation's history, which they themselves had called and promised to implement, meant that the legitimacy of our democracy was under serious threat.
And we're considerably further away than we were in the late 1970s, when tens of millions of days were lost to strikes, rubbish was piling high in Leicester Square, the dead were going unburied and Northern Ireland was being, well, Northern Ireland.
But maybe I'm one of nature's optimists.
Sadly I think you are wrong, people here are mostly top 10% the world as it is works for them. There is growing anger and I am not top 10% I mix with these people daily. I think reform will be tried first then when it doesn't work as it wont then it will become civil conflict...the bottom 50% really don't have anything to lose
Here is an example, people here go on about people like nurses having to use a food bank....fair enough then they go on in other posts going lets just add a couple of percent on income tax....yeah well that person on min wage already struggling is going to have 20£ less each month.....2% extra for most here means I will buy a cheaper bottle of wine
The solution to the increasingly stretched and threadbare state is therefore, amongst other things, expressly not to keep jacking up income tax and national insurance, but to end the excessively lenient treatment of assets. That, and to better target benefits and tax breaks on those who really need it.
An older society is a poorer society, but that would be a lot easier to manage if more of the burden was shifted away from work and put onto capital, and if large quantities of tax receipts weren't needlessly squandered. To return to one of my favourite topics, I care about skint old people having enough to eat, but I'm against propping up the spending power of rich old people with taxation and wealth transfers that erode the living standards of poorer, younger ones. The hikes in taxes on work to raise billions to subsidise the booking of cruise holidays by asset millionaire pensioners must be stopped.
Well this awful government has whacked up inheritance tax on farmers, whacked up national insurance on business owners and slashed pensioners winter fuel allowance so some have been frozen this winter let alone going on cruise holidays
The idea pensioners are "freezing to death" because wealthier ones lost a benefit that has been less than their pension goes up each year is laughable and revealing that the attitude is that everyone else should go without so the special interest groups you favour can be kept in the comfort to which they've been accustomed while everyone else has got poorer so they could be protected. Selfishness off the scale.
Pensioners on just state pension and £13k a year ie less than minimum wage, have lost their winter fuel allowance this year and genuinely are at risk of serious illness like pneumonia. Reeves didn't just target millionaire OAPs on cruises.
It isn't selfishness, far from it, Reeves cutting WFA for such low income pensioners was immoral
The Vance speech was third on last evening’s news. The recognition of increased defence expenditure is there - historically, NZ spent very little on defence - about 1.2% of GDP but that is edging up - 2024/25 has a spend of NZD 4.8 billion against GDP of NZD 253 billion.
Australia is at 1.9% currently but with no SEATO since the mid 70s, the reliance on Washington has remained but now, with the Chinese threat growing, serious questions are being asked in the Southwest Pacific about future security arrangements.
As is the case in the UK, there is just no answer to the idea of raising defence expenditure to 5% of GDP and while there are plenty willing to criticize the likes of Starmer, Luxon and Albanese, no one has yet come up with anything approaching a coherent alternative policy.
The latest YouGov MRP for Australia has the forthcoming election on a knife edge. Put bluntly, IF the Independents (the so called Teals) who won their seats off the Liberal-National Coalition last time hold on, it will be very difficult but not impossible for LNP leader Peter Dutton to form a Government.
The current seat projection is LNP 73, Labor 66, Independents 10 and Greens 1. It’s possible Albanese will go early and call the election for mid April. Dutton’s big problem, apart from his lack of charisma, is the unashamedly pro-Trump views of some of his more vocal supporters which, while having a constituency in some parts of Australia, probably aren’t enough to win an election.
Comments
So you have massive concern over open borders in areas that haven't experienced much immigration. "Take back control" - they project the lack of control they feel over their own fortunes to the country as a whole, because that's all they have left.
There is some evidence that health outcomes stem from this too - poor people live in a state of constant stress because they have no sense of agency. That manifests in tangible physical issues.
But most people don't feel this enough. A revolution is unlikely - consider Leon's shock and horror at Luigi. He's comfortable so he instinctively abhors actual revolutionary violence.
Is this Holyrood?
"Nobody, especially Trump, knows it yet.
His fate, his downfall, and his doom is, as we speak, being set in stone"
https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/overwhelm-overreach-overthrown
25% of people vote at local elections because frankly most of them are too bloody apathetic and lazy to do otherwise.
(I don't actually know how this works. Would that mutation that allows human-to-human occur in the bird or the human?)
'For Westminster, the research also indicates a haemorrhage in Labour ’s support, producing an almost mirror image of last year’s general election result in Scotland. It points to the SNP winning 38 MPs and Labour eight.
The Liberal Democrats would retain their current six MPs, and the Conservatives five, the same as they won last July.'
https://tinyurl.com/4pt5zd7m
Rubio is gonna be first out of the door of Trump 2.0 me thinks.
Of course, guess which jurisdiction has lots of human flu right now.
Boris level of bluster.
She wasn't ready for prime time and she has been found out.
But who else? Jenrick?? Pass the sick bag.
“It might strike people as objectionable, that’s criminalised.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/33399606/lord-hermer-just-stop-oil/
This bloke sounds like Magic Grandpa's slighter brighter long lost brother.
points at what is happening right now in america
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/14/trump-chair-kennedy-center-washington-president-authoritarian
Appointing himself Chair of the Kennedy Center was particularly risible. And just a tiny bit sinister.
It drives certain forms of technical innovation, but overall, it’s probably a net negative.
And in case you missed it, Democracy is still working in the USA. Trump, for all most of us detest him, won an election fair and square. Those who voted for him (and those who didn't) must now deal with the consequences of that decision and hopefully they will learn their lesson and be a damn sight more careful next time around.
Democracy is the right to exercise your vote. It does not insist you exercise it sensibly.
Should we get a peace deal, would anybody be surprised if Ukraine had a number of successful tech based companies utilizing drones.
But we’ve not run the counterfactual; how would technology have developed, had WWI and/or WWII not occurred ?
• £4.5 billion for Ukraine
• 60p breakfasts for UK school children
Certain Republicans, even in the Trump Republican Party would baulk at things Musk and his Tesler Youth are doing because they are so demonstrably corrupt and destructive. So they have been subverted.
So it's not quite working as intented, even though, yes Trump would have the right to do lots of the things he has done/is planning to do. Just not that particular wrecking operation without votes from other elected representatives endorsing it.
Firestorm grows over Trump DOJ’s deal to drop charges against Eric Adams
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5146646-trump-adams-case-backlash/
Why is it always the fun people like @BlancheLivermore that get banned when we have five fucking billion boring witless completely interchangeable centrist dads - from @Mexicanpete to @kinabalu to @turbotubbs to @Nigelb to @whofuckingcares - whose commentary is so enervatingly, soul sappingly tedious and dreary that banning a few of THEM would be a mercy to the rest of us?
This seems to be a feature not a bug. PB is STRIVING to be duller, by the day
BOO
China is the hands down winner of the Ukraine war.
Here he is reported helping to lay the ground for selling out Ukraine. In advance of any negotiation involving Ukraine itself.
Rubio held a call with Russian FM Lavrov & according to Moscow they agreed to resolve problems “in the interests of removing the unilateral barriers to mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation inherited from the previous administration.”
Aka sanctions relief.
https://x.com/maryilyushina/status/1890851342014394767
Mind you, no idea where they think more money is coming from
Ah yes - growth !!!!!
https://news.sky.com/story/tuesdays-national-newspaper-front-pages-12427754?postid=9115485#liveblog-body
So it is not impossible Kemi could still be the next Tory PM if she could agree a deal with Farage
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html
No modern president has been more pivotal for our country than Donald J. Trump.
Today, I introduced legislation to designate Trump's Birthday and Flag Day as a federal holiday, ensuring President Trump's contributions to American greatness are forever enshrined into law.
https://x.com/RepTenney/status/1890460502477697436
When will they drain this poisonous pool of fetid plant life?
Fuck you Vance.
I have never known a council election turnout over 40% in my lifetime, as unless you are particularly interested in council tax, bin collection, social care, highways and potholes or planning most aren't bothered
Lab lead of 1pt
LAB: 26% (+1)
REF: 25% (-)
CON: 22% (-1)
LDEM: 12% (-1)
GRN: 8% (+1)
via @TechneUK, 12 - 13 Feb
If you can't pick in England from a centre left party or centre right party like Labour and the Tories, a nationalist right party like Reform, a harder left party like the Greens and a liberal party like the LDs and sit at home on your arse on election day your opinions are worthless and should be ignored
I posted this morning Chagos news will start emerging, following Don & Modi’s tet a tet, but only £12M? That’s nothing compared to the lolly India and and US will get Starmer to hand over to their MAGA friend now in charge of Mauritius. Instead of a £90M first year, I’m suspecting hundreds of millions in “signing on fee.”
I have completed my Sunday School prep for tomorrow. Proverbs 15:17 "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fattened ox and hatred with it.” My lesson will be, your hungry years will be the best years of your lives, as you look back. ✝️
Or maybe FYATO.
America seem to have forgotten that NATO was about saving their markets from Soviet Communism. Well, if you don't want to protect us, it can hardly come as a shock if we end with widespread Buy America Last campaigns.
(Hint on the last: Some time ago I sent Tim Cook a letter offering to send him a "Free Tibet" bumper sticker -- if he would promise to display it prominently. You may find this hard to believe, but so far he hasn't replied.)
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/president-trump-politics/opm-federal-agencies-probationary-employees-trump-administration/3844634/
I lost.
You can walk down the street while operating a laptop, because I've done it, but it's so awkward you don't do it very often.
I’m actually feeling quite hungry. We went out for a Japanese meal this evening. Very nice, but left a little less than full. And even after a rice pudding at home I’m still feeling a bit gappy.
Nice big scrambled egg on toast for breakfast tomorrow, with lashings of MSG.
Dr. Saskia Popescu
@SaskiaPopescu
Hearing from multiple folks - mass layoffs at ASPR happening now. Emails going out *on a Saturday evening* to inform staff they’re being exited, nearly all probationary staff gone.
https://x.com/SaskiaPopescu/status/1890892595003298291
ASPR is the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
Sam Stein
@samstein
·
2m
Just so folks are aware, this is the office that's there to prepare for a medical or health emergency
The entire Federal government is being shut down in broad daylight.
Will Congress do anything?
It seems not.
'Shining city on a hill' my arse as Jim Royale would say.
I think Roman’s named it saying “place of big pubic hair”.
Richard E. Grant
@RichardEGrant
·
12h
Flying from Nairobi past snow capped Mount Kilimanjaro in the far distance, across Tsavo, then landed on the Kenyan coast & boated across the water to Lamu island 🇰🇪 ❤️🇰🇪 ❤️🇰🇪 ❤️🇰🇪 ❤️🇰🇪 ❤️🇰🇪
https://x.com/RichardEGrant/status/1890718023947813062
Maybe they are right, economically. America’s biggest export now by some margin is oil. Nobody cares about the politics of petro-states. Hard to boycott hydrocarbons from a specific country. And their market remains so huge that their tariff policies, while driving up domestic inflation, will probably also lead to industrial reshoring. They’re a bigger, louder Saudi.
She's too weak to fend off Reform
Tom McTague"
https://unherd.com/2025/02/will-kemi-badenoch-last-the-year/
"Children! Sit up! In todays "Hour with Brian (Sir)" we will learn how Mister Donald was correct to send all those people to an interment camp. And why he was also correct to let them out again a few days later. And why he was extra correct that this was both a good and bad thing."
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/penny-mordaunt-to-stand-for-parliament-next-election
LOL.
Rather than rained on in Moscow, Trump got swapped out so imposter person/robot could dismantle defence shield, doesn’t sound too far fetched either.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=N&CON=22&LAB=26&LIB=12&Reform=25&Green=8&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTReform=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2024base
Pass the popcorn.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. Mencken
For top popcorn value, maybe somebody will assassinate Trump an hour before the JFK papers are released that D Cummings has been raving about.
Then the incoming head of the CIA could say Silicon Valley are such a bunch of arrogant fuckers that they thought they could do their own security, and we're not falling into the same trap as the Limeys did with the Apostles in Cambridge - and take Musk into preventive detention.
I doubt the US republic is as weak as it currently looks - although it may be.
Madness.
An entire US generation will pay the price.
Or increasing the debt limit by $4.5 trillion to finance tax cuts for the rich.
It isn't selfishness, far from it, Reeves cutting WFA for such low income pensioners was immoral
The Vance speech was third on last evening’s news. The recognition of increased defence expenditure is there - historically, NZ spent very little on defence - about 1.2% of GDP but that is edging up - 2024/25 has a spend of NZD 4.8 billion against GDP of NZD 253 billion.
Australia is at 1.9% currently but with no SEATO since the mid 70s, the reliance on Washington has remained but now, with the Chinese threat growing, serious questions are being asked in the Southwest Pacific about future security arrangements.
As is the case in the UK, there is just no answer to the idea of raising defence expenditure to 5% of GDP and while there are plenty willing to criticize the likes of Starmer, Luxon and Albanese, no one has yet come up with anything approaching a coherent alternative policy.
The latest YouGov MRP for Australia has the forthcoming election on a knife edge. Put bluntly, IF the Independents (the so called Teals) who won their seats off the Liberal-National Coalition last time hold on, it will be very difficult but not impossible for LNP leader Peter Dutton to form a Government.
The current seat projection is LNP 73, Labor 66, Independents 10 and Greens 1. It’s possible Albanese will go early and call the election for mid April. Dutton’s big problem, apart from his lack of charisma, is the unashamedly pro-Trump views of some of his more vocal supporters which, while having a constituency in some parts of Australia, probably aren’t enough to win an election.