Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
I don’t quite buy these figures. France looks, feels, seems to be richer than the UK - not vastly, but enough that you sense it. Likewise Germany
And I’ve travelled everywhere in France - not just nice places
Am I suffering some optical illusion because France is more beautiful and spacious, and maintains the urban realm much better; or are the stats somehow deceptive?
Genuine question
Travel can give a partial picture but never a full one and you really haven't travelled everywhere in France.
You can drive around a district in this country and get an impression of its affluence and living standards, you can then go a different route through the same district and get a very different impression.
It might even be weather related - people tend to go on holiday in summer and travel in good weather. The same places might look a lot less beautiful on a rainy day in November.
And travel through a place isn't the same as living there either.
There are also non-economic issues - GDP is not the same as living standards which are not the same as quality of life.
As a practical example when they shut the pits they reduced GDP and the living standards of some but it improved my quality of life by reducing air pollution and creating lots of new country parks for me to walk though.
This just isn’t true. I spent eight weeks in France last year. And I deliberately went to some of the poorest places - in central Brittany, depressed towns on the coasts, forgotten chunks of the “empty diagonal”, post industrial places in the north and east. Burbs of Marseilles
Also I went to many lovely places, because France is blessed with many of those
Two days ago I accidentally drove through ONE distant suburb of Leeds. Tingley. It was more depressingly run down and grotty - burned out houses on the Main Street - than any single place I saw in France in two months
And I’ve been researching and it seems Tingley isn’t even regarded as the worst bit of Leeds. Just “a bit rough but there are plenty worse”
I don’t like reporting this, but it is what I see
Some of the banlieues around Paris are pretty shit.
I know, I’ve been to them as well. Likewise in Marseilles
Pretty fucking grim. But honestly, are they as grim as the grottiest towns in northern England? The worst burbs of Birmingham? Hmm
One “rich” western country which DOES have towns and hoods worse than the UK is Italy. I’ve been to some places in Sicily, Calabria and Puglia which could easily be in North Africa. And by that I don’t mean nicer parts of Tunisia
That's true: there are only two places in Europe I've ever felt really unsafe - Palermo and a shitty estate in Dublin about 30 years ago. In some of the French banlieues, it's felt a bit edgy. But I didn't feel like I was in imminent danger of being smashed over the head for my wallet and cellphone.
Dublin can be really menacing. And apparently it’s got worse - if social media is to be believed (I know, I know)
I haven’t been in a decade
Coming from NI, Dublin always seemed to have not nice bits. But nowhere you felt that you might actually Boojum from, if you stepped into the wrong pub/street.
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
I don’t quite buy these figures. France looks, feels, seems to be richer than the UK - not vastly, but enough that you sense it. Likewise Germany
And I’ve travelled everywhere in France - not just nice places
Am I suffering some optical illusion because France is more beautiful and spacious, and maintains the urban realm much better; or are the stats somehow deceptive?
Genuine question
Travel can give a partial picture but never a full one and you really haven't travelled everywhere in France.
You can drive around a district in this country and get an impression of its affluence and living standards, you can then go a different route through the same district and get a very different impression.
It might even be weather related - people tend to go on holiday in summer and travel in good weather. The same places might look a lot less beautiful on a rainy day in November.
And travel through a place isn't the same as living there either.
There are also non-economic issues - GDP is not the same as living standards which are not the same as quality of life.
As a practical example when they shut the pits they reduced GDP and the living standards of some but it improved my quality of life by reducing air pollution and creating lots of new country parks for me to walk though.
This just isn’t true. I spent eight weeks in France last year. And I deliberately went to some of the poorest places - in central Brittany, depressed towns on the coasts, forgotten chunks of the “empty diagonal”, post industrial places in the north and east. Burbs of Marseilles
Also I went to many lovely places, because France is blessed with many of those
Two days ago I accidentally drove through ONE distant suburb of Leeds. Tingley. It was more depressingly run down and grotty - burned out houses on the Main Street - than any single place I saw in France in two months
And I’ve been researching and it seems Tingley isn’t even regarded as the worst bit of Leeds. Just “a bit rough but there are plenty worse”
I don’t like reporting this, but it is what I see
Thanks for proving my point.
You think a bit of driving around makes you an expert on everything in a country.
It really, really doesn't.
Go and live in a place for a year and then move to somewhere near which is either much more or much less affluent and experience living there for a year and understand what the differences are.
My travels mean I’m vastly more experienced in these things, than you, and notably better informed
C’est tout
We appreciate your sacrifice to entertain us. When are you leaving and to where?
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
How about cost of living, most of the eastern european countries you get a pint for a pound compared to the Dick Turpin rates here.
Well that's what happens if you frequent the posho places of Ayrshire.
You can get a pint for two quid at Wetherspoons or £1 for a 500ml bottle at most supermarkets.
£1.47 on Mondays.
Even in Hampstead ???
No, we don't have one. But there's a couple within striking distance.
I remember when the Chandos used to have really cheap beer by London standards.
Then Sam Smiths put the prices up to tourist levels.
London's most expensive pub is probably the Spaniards Inn in Ham/High. It's closing in on the ten pound pint there. When I first started drinking you could get 40 pints for that and have enough left for some chips.
A pint of what though ?
Probably need to compare one pint. Like they compare a Big Mac cost wherever you go.
We could have the Madri index. Named after a fantastic, authentic, Spanish beer. The spirit of Madrid.
There is a great bar in Durham where a pint can cost around £18.00. But it is some craft shite that is £6 a third.
Good point. I'm talking about the premium end but mainstream premium like say Peroni. Not 'craft' beer.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
How about cost of living, most of the eastern european countries you get a pint for a pound compared to the Dick Turpin rates here.
Well that's what happens if you frequent the posho places of Ayrshire.
You can get a pint for two quid at Wetherspoons or £1 for a 500ml bottle at most supermarkets.
£1.47 on Mondays.
Even in Hampstead ???
No, we don't have one. But there's a couple within striking distance.
I remember when the Chandos used to have really cheap beer by London standards.
Then Sam Smiths put the prices up to tourist levels.
London's most expensive pub is probably the Spaniards Inn in Ham/High. It's closing in on the ten pound pint there. When I first started drinking you could get 40 pints for that and have enough left for some chips.
A pint of what though ?
Probably need to compare one pint. Like they compare a Big Mac cost wherever you go.
We could have the Madri index. Named after a fantastic, authentic, Spanish beer. The spirit of Madrid.
There is a great bar in Durham where a pint can cost around £18.00. But it is some craft shite that is £6 a third.
Good point. I'm talking about the premium end but mainstream premium like say Peroni. Not 'craft' beer.
In Chester Le Street about 5 to 7 quid, unless Spoons, natch. Nowhere near a tenner.
Newcastle I’m not sure. Gallowgate or Eek or dixiedean may know.
It would be quite interesting, not in a Steve ‘interesting’ Davis way, to see what a standard pint costs around the country in a non spoons pub.
"Fans of viral Labubu dolls have reacted angrily online after its maker pulled the toys from all UK stores following reports of customers fighting over them.
Pop Mart, which makes the monster bag charms, told the BBC it had paused selling them in all 16 of its shops until June to "prevent any potential safety issues".
Labubu fan Victoria Calvert said she witnessed chaos in the Stratford store in London. "It was just getting ridiculous to be in that situation where people were fighting and shouting and you felt scared.""
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
You'll want it until said hard right government impinges on something you value (as they inevitably will) and then you'll be back on here loudly attacking them.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
Pussy Pinochets not enough, Papa Doc incoming. It's the Last Days of Rome again in the West. We will be electing absolute fruitcake psychopaths in short order.
The Boris fanbase thar is left I think is now more the politics-as-entertainmeht-crowd. Trump has these, but he also still has his believers.
I suspect Boris, and the diehards, think he’s far more popular than he actually is.
I agree. The Tories would be insane to rely on hypothetical polls. If Boris came back I reckon he'd be as unpopular as Starmer within three months. It would be like one of those ancient sitcoms unwisely revived - like Frasier. They never work
We all know his shtick, silly hair, bumbling manner, charming humour, annoying laziness, Greek. We've been there done that, maybe enjoyed it - and then paid the price. Also he is now, quite frankly, quite old. It's harder to pull off the funny man with mad hair stuff when the hair is all falling out
It would be an act of utter desperation and be seen as such, and rejected by voters
"Fans of viral Labubu dolls have reacted angrily online after its maker pulled the toys from all UK stores following reports of customers fighting over them.
Pop Mart, which makes the monster bag charms, told the BBC it had paused selling them in all 16 of its shops until June to "prevent any potential safety issues".
Labubu fan Victoria Calvert said she witnessed chaos in the Stratford store in London. "It was just getting ridiculous to be in that situation where people were fighting and shouting and you felt scared.""
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
How about cost of living, most of the eastern european countries you get a pint for a pound compared to the Dick Turpin rates here.
Well that's what happens if you frequent the posho places of Ayrshire.
You can get a pint for two quid at Wetherspoons or £1 for a 500ml bottle at most supermarkets.
£1.47 on Mondays.
Even in Hampstead ???
No, we don't have one. But there's a couple within striking distance.
I remember when the Chandos used to have really cheap beer by London standards.
Then Sam Smiths put the prices up to tourist levels.
London's most expensive pub is probably the Spaniards Inn in Ham/High. It's closing in on the ten pound pint there. When I first started drinking you could get 40 pints for that and have enough left for some chips.
A pint of what though ?
Probably need to compare one pint. Like they compare a Big Mac cost wherever you go.
We could have the Madri index. Named after a fantastic, authentic, Spanish beer. The spirit of Madrid.
There is a great bar in Durham where a pint can cost around £18.00. But it is some craft shite that is £6 a third.
Good point. I'm talking about the premium end but mainstream premium like say Peroni. Not 'craft' beer.
In Chester Le Street about 5 to 7 quid, unless Spoons, natch. Nowhere near a tenner.
Newcastle I’m not sure. Gallowgate or Eek or dixiedean may know.
It would be quite interesting, not in a Steve ‘interesting’ Davis way, to see what a standard pint costs around the country in a non spoons pub.
Get a feel for regional variances.
Leeds city centre is comparable prices to Chester-le-Street.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
You'll want it until said hard right government impinges on something you value (as they inevitably will) and then you'll be back on here loudly attacking them.
What would they attack that I value? Go on, name one
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
How about cost of living, most of the eastern european countries you get a pint for a pound compared to the Dick Turpin rates here.
Well that's what happens if you frequent the posho places of Ayrshire.
You can get a pint for two quid at Wetherspoons or £1 for a 500ml bottle at most supermarkets.
£1.47 on Mondays.
Even in Hampstead ???
No, we don't have one. But there's a couple within striking distance.
I remember when the Chandos used to have really cheap beer by London standards.
Then Sam Smiths put the prices up to tourist levels.
London's most expensive pub is probably the Spaniards Inn in Ham/High. It's closing in on the ten pound pint there. When I first started drinking you could get 40 pints for that and have enough left for some chips.
A pint of what though ?
Probably need to compare one pint. Like they compare a Big Mac cost wherever you go.
We could have the Madri index. Named after a fantastic, authentic, Spanish beer. The spirit of Madrid.
There is a great bar in Durham where a pint can cost around £18.00. But it is some craft shite that is £6 a third.
Good point. I'm talking about the premium end but mainstream premium like say Peroni. Not 'craft' beer.
In Chester Le Street about 5 to 7 quid, unless Spoons, natch. Nowhere near a tenner.
Newcastle I’m not sure. Gallowgate or Eek or dixiedean may know.
It would be quite interesting, not in a Steve ‘interesting’ Davis way, to see what a standard pint costs around the country in a non spoons pub.
Get a feel for regional variances.
Leeds city centre is comparable prices to Chester-le-Street.
Your post makes me realise wife and I need to visit Leeds again. Last time we visited had a great time.
Another blatant shoplifter. Marks and Spencer in Camden. Walked out with a huge bag of stuff. 1 minute ago
This cannot continue. Life was never like this
If Labour don’t get a grip then the voters will elect Nazis, let alone Reform
Life has been like this for a while. It’s getting worse, but it hasn’t gone from OK to OMG in 9 months. Retail has been demanding action since Covid and has been ignored ever since.
What I don’t get is how the Tories thought that we couldn’t afford law and order. They used to be the party of using law and order as a club to beat the proles into submission. Then they scrapped it - what did they expect would happen?
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
That would be Margaret Thatcher's BFF, General Pinochet.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
You'll want it until said hard right government impinges on something you value (as they inevitably will) and then you'll be back on here loudly attacking them.
What would they attack that I value? Go on, name one
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
How about cost of living, most of the eastern european countries you get a pint for a pound compared to the Dick Turpin rates here.
Well that's what happens if you frequent the posho places of Ayrshire.
You can get a pint for two quid at Wetherspoons or £1 for a 500ml bottle at most supermarkets.
£1.47 on Mondays.
Even in Hampstead ???
No, we don't have one. But there's a couple within striking distance.
I remember when the Chandos used to have really cheap beer by London standards.
Then Sam Smiths put the prices up to tourist levels.
London's most expensive pub is probably the Spaniards Inn in Ham/High. It's closing in on the ten pound pint there. When I first started drinking you could get 40 pints for that and have enough left for some chips.
A pint of what though ?
Probably need to compare one pint. Like they compare a Big Mac cost wherever you go.
We could have the Madri index. Named after a fantastic, authentic, Spanish beer. The spirit of Madrid.
There is a great bar in Durham where a pint can cost around £18.00. But it is some craft shite that is £6 a third.
Good point. I'm talking about the premium end but mainstream premium like say Peroni. Not 'craft' beer.
In Chester Le Street about 5 to 7 quid, unless Spoons, natch. Nowhere near a tenner.
Newcastle I’m not sure. Gallowgate or Eek or dixiedean may know.
It would be quite interesting, not in a Steve ‘interesting’ Davis way, to see what a standard pint costs around the country in a non spoons pub.
Get a feel for regional variances.
Leeds city centre is comparable prices to Chester-le-Street.
Another blatant shoplifter. Marks and Spencer in Camden. Walked out with a huge bag of stuff. 1 minute ago
This cannot continue. Life was never like this
If Labour don’t get a grip then the voters will elect Nazis, let alone Reform
Life has been like this for a while. It’s getting worse, but it hasn’t gone from OK to OMG in 9 months. Retail has been demanding action since Covid and has been ignored ever since.
What I don’t get is how the Tories thought that we couldn’t afford law and order. They used to be the party of using law and order as a club to beat the proles into submission. Then they scrapped it - what did they expect would happen?
For sure, I blame the Tories as much as Labour. We have been governed by morons for 20 years, from both sides
Again, this is why I am willing if not eager to risk Reform. Who actually talks about shoplifting? Farage does, he did it when he started his campaign in Clacton
This is one of those basic quality of life issues which impacts everyone and destroys social trust, very quickly. It's like Labour and the Tories don't understand this. Get the fucking coppers out there "forcibly" arresting these people. Everywhere. Take every copper who spends his time monitoring social media hate crimes and put him on the street, enforcing the law that really matters
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
You'll want it until said hard right government impinges on something you value (as they inevitably will) and then you'll be back on here loudly attacking them.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
You'll want it until said hard right government impinges on something you value (as they inevitably will) and then you'll be back on here loudly attacking them.
Until he's locked up in a camp.
I'd say it's 50/50 whether he gets locked up as a subversive or becomes Minister of Propaganda.
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
How about cost of living, most of the eastern european countries you get a pint for a pound compared to the Dick Turpin rates here.
Well that's what happens if you frequent the posho places of Ayrshire.
You can get a pint for two quid at Wetherspoons or £1 for a 500ml bottle at most supermarkets.
£1.47 on Mondays.
Even in Hampstead ???
No, we don't have one. But there's a couple within striking distance.
I remember when the Chandos used to have really cheap beer by London standards.
Then Sam Smiths put the prices up to tourist levels.
London's most expensive pub is probably the Spaniards Inn in Ham/High. It's closing in on the ten pound pint there. When I first started drinking you could get 40 pints for that and have enough left for some chips.
A pint of what though ?
Probably need to compare one pint. Like they compare a Big Mac cost wherever you go.
We could have the Madri index. Named after a fantastic, authentic, Spanish beer. The spirit of Madrid.
There is a great bar in Durham where a pint can cost around £18.00. But it is some craft shite that is £6 a third.
Good point. I'm talking about the premium end but mainstream premium like say Peroni. Not 'craft' beer.
In Chester Le Street about 5 to 7 quid, unless Spoons, natch. Nowhere near a tenner.
Newcastle I’m not sure. Gallowgate or Eek or dixiedean may know.
It would be quite interesting, not in a Steve ‘interesting’ Davis way, to see what a standard pint costs around the country in a non spoons pub.
Get a feel for regional variances.
£4+ about here, obviously more expensive in Glasgow as you would expect.
Another blatant shoplifter. Marks and Spencer in Camden. Walked out with a huge bag of stuff. 1 minute ago
This cannot continue. Life was never like this
If Labour don’t get a grip then the voters will elect Nazis, let alone Reform
Life has been like this for a while. It’s getting worse, but it hasn’t gone from OK to OMG in 9 months. Retail has been demanding action since Covid and has been ignored ever since.
What I don’t get is how the Tories thought that we couldn’t afford law and order. They used to be the party of using law and order as a club to beat the proles into submission. Then they scrapped it - what did they expect would happen?
Yes, they cut Police numbers, sold off operational Police stations and did nothing to increase prison capacity.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
You'll want it until said hard right government impinges on something you value (as they inevitably will) and then you'll be back on here loudly attacking them.
Until he's locked up in a camp.
I'd say it's 50/50 whether he gets locked up as a subversive or becomes Minister of Propaganda.
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
How about cost of living, most of the eastern european countries you get a pint for a pound compared to the Dick Turpin rates here.
Well that's what happens if you frequent the posho places of Ayrshire.
You can get a pint for two quid at Wetherspoons or £1 for a 500ml bottle at most supermarkets.
£1.47 on Mondays.
Even in Hampstead ???
No, we don't have one. But there's a couple within striking distance.
I remember when the Chandos used to have really cheap beer by London standards.
Then Sam Smiths put the prices up to tourist levels.
London's most expensive pub is probably the Spaniards Inn in Ham/High. It's closing in on the ten pound pint there. When I first started drinking you could get 40 pints for that and have enough left for some chips.
A pint of what though ?
Probably need to compare one pint. Like they compare a Big Mac cost wherever you go.
We could have the Madri index. Named after a fantastic, authentic, Spanish beer. The spirit of Madrid.
There is a great bar in Durham where a pint can cost around £18.00. But it is some craft shite that is £6 a third.
Good point. I'm talking about the premium end but mainstream premium like say Peroni. Not 'craft' beer.
In Chester Le Street about 5 to 7 quid, unless Spoons, natch. Nowhere near a tenner.
Newcastle I’m not sure. Gallowgate or Eek or dixiedean may know.
It would be quite interesting, not in a Steve ‘interesting’ Davis way, to see what a standard pint costs around the country in a non spoons pub.
Get a feel for regional variances.
Leeds city centre is comparable prices to Chester-le-Street.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
You'll want it until said hard right government impinges on something you value (as they inevitably will) and then you'll be back on here loudly attacking them.
Until he's locked up in a camp.
Pretty likely to be labelled as a 'citizen of nowhere' by the incoming junta given the travels.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
I hear you - there’s a growing and sizeable voter pool demanding at least that.
It raises some interesting challenges: 1. A lack of police. For all that “it’s obvious” that we have plenty of police but they’re all wasting their time doing woke shit, in reality we don’t have enough police. So we’re at basics - how do we get more police and quickly? 2. One option is recruit a load of specials. Fast track training could be done in 6 months or so if really compressed. Will need managing but would add more bodies out there where needed. 3. The next challenge is what do we do when we run out of cells? And capacity in the courts system? And capacity in the jails? Because in many places that is already reality.
That’s just law and order going after scrotes. Your war against the forrin is fine providing that you have a plan to replace them with Brits? Which you don’t. I know that “make the scroungers work for their benefits” gets trotted out, but said “scroungers” have issues preventing them from taking those jobs including capability, skills, childcare and transport. A blanket “just make it work” doesn’t address any of the detail barriers which are massive.
If we had a government of any persuasion put forward a plan, that would help. Otherwise it’s just vapourware, a pretty crayon picture offered to the uninformed as “common sense”.
Another blatant shoplifter. Marks and Spencer in Camden. Walked out with a huge bag of stuff. 1 minute ago
This cannot continue. Life was never like this
If Labour don’t get a grip then the voters will elect Nazis, let alone Reform
Life has been like this for a while. It’s getting worse, but it hasn’t gone from OK to OMG in 9 months. Retail has been demanding action since Covid and has been ignored ever since.
What I don’t get is how the Tories thought that we couldn’t afford law and order. They used to be the party of using law and order as a club to beat the proles into submission. Then they scrapped it - what did they expect would happen?
For sure, I blame the Tories as much as Labour. We have been governed by morons for 20 years, from both sides
Again, this is why I am willing if not eager to risk Reform. Who actually talks about shoplifting? Farage does, he did it when he started his campaign in Clacton
This is one of those basic quality of life issues which impacts everyone and destroys social trust, very quickly. It's like Labour and the Tories don't understand this. Get the fucking coppers out there "forcibly" arresting these people. Everywhere. Take every copper who spends his time monitoring social media hate crimes and put him on the street, enforcing the law that really matters
Most coppers are already doing that. Despite the social media “facts” suggesting otherwise.
So we reprioritise resources and crack down. Would need to be random places not blanket as lack of bodies. Then you hit the lack of cells - where do you stick them once arrested? How do you process them through the courts? Where do you jail them?
I’m not saying that something can’t be done - I agree that a clamp down is long long overdue. But *how* with specifics is critical. A significant part of my consulting function is advising the “why can’t we” dreamers that the blue sky has to interface with the ground. Operational issues may not be of interest to them whilst dreaming but solutions are needed or they remain as dreams and nothing else.
I get the perception there has been a lot more vehicle-based attacks recently, whether terrorism-related or not. Probably confirmation bias stimulated by social media, but it would be interesting to see the stats.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
I hear you - there’s a growing and sizeable voter pool demanding at least that.
It raises some interesting challenges: 1. A lack of police. For all that “it’s obvious” that we have plenty of police but they’re all wasting their time doing woke shit, in reality we don’t have enough police. So we’re at basics - how do we get more police and quickly? 2. One option is recruit a load of specials. Fast track training could be done in 6 months or so if really compressed. Will need managing but would add more bodies out there where needed. 3. The next challenge is what do we do when we run out of cells? And capacity in the courts system? And capacity in the jails? Because in many places that is already reality.
That’s just law and order going after scrotes. Your war against the forrin is fine providing that you have a plan to replace them with Brits? Which you don’t. I know that “make the scroungers work for their benefits” gets trotted out, but said “scroungers” have issues preventing them from taking those jobs including capability, skills, childcare and transport. A blanket “just make it work” doesn’t address any of the detail barriers which are massive.
If we had a government of any persuasion put forward a plan, that would help. Otherwise it’s just vapourware, a pretty crayon picture offered to the uninformed as “common sense”.
I've told you one of my solutions
Modernised corporal punishment, for things like shoplifting, mugging, phone thieves. Taser them every day fior a week. Far far cheaper and wiser than jail - and arguably more humane - and they won't be doing the crime again in a hurry
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
Well I want a hard left government that puts entitled self-indulgent reactionaries to work in call centres.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
You'll want it until said hard right government impinges on something you value (as they inevitably will) and then you'll be back on here loudly attacking them.
What would they attack that I value? Go on, name one
Obviously, you'll be fine. But that stalker of yours, the one who polluted a respectable current affairs magazine with his gloating about committing the sin of Onan... First up against the wall when the Revolution comes, I reckon.
Never go anywhere "family-orientated" on a bank holiday Monday with kids.
I should now be working. I'm actually having a stiff drink.
Where did you go ?
Made sandwiches for lunch at the "Butterfly house" today, the lunch queue on a BH is always bonkers at these sorts of things, also managed to swerve the little one eyeing up anything too closely in the shop so (As we're members) didn't spend a penny out !
Alice Holt Forest. It was like the End of Days.
We left after an hour, the whole family being utterly stressed by the experience!
Never go anywhere "family-orientated" on a bank holiday Monday with kids.
I should now be working. I'm actually having a stiff drink.
We’ve had a nice walk in the local woods and I bumped into an old colleague and had a chat. We spent the rest of the day inside. A family orientated bank holiday is my idea of Hell.
Now retired, as I said earlier, I hate bank holidays.
My wife and I agreed it would have been easier to go to work today, and we've now got a week's worth of deliverables to cram into four days. Which bank holidays do nothing to change.
Another blatant shoplifter. Marks and Spencer in Camden. Walked out with a huge bag of stuff. 1 minute ago
This cannot continue. Life was never like this
If Labour don’t get a grip then the voters will elect Nazis, let alone Reform
Life has been like this for a while. It’s getting worse, but it hasn’t gone from OK to OMG in 9 months. Retail has been demanding action since Covid and has been ignored ever since.
What I don’t get is how the Tories thought that we couldn’t afford law and order. They used to be the party of using law and order as a club to beat the proles into submission. Then they scrapped it - what did they expect would happen?
Yes, they cut Police numbers, sold off operational Police stations and did nothing to increase prison capacity.
Now they complain about failing law and order.
They bailed out just before the red lights started flashing really badly. Clever old them.
Never go anywhere "family-orientated" on a bank holiday Monday with kids.
I should now be working. I'm actually having a stiff drink.
We’ve had a nice walk in the local woods and I bumped into an old colleague and had a chat. We spent the rest of the day inside. A family orientated bank holiday is my idea of Hell.
Now retired, as I said earlier, I hate bank holidays.
My wife and I agreed it would have been easier to go to work today, and we've now got a week's worth of deliverables to cram into four days. Which bank holidays do nothing to change.
Fun.
My new firm is open on bank holidays so I have been working today as normal. It’s nice to be able to get through the inbox a bit.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
I hear you - there’s a growing and sizeable voter pool demanding at least that.
It raises some interesting challenges: 1. A lack of police. For all that “it’s obvious” that we have plenty of police but they’re all wasting their time doing woke shit, in reality we don’t have enough police. So we’re at basics - how do we get more police and quickly? 2. One option is recruit a load of specials. Fast track training could be done in 6 months or so if really compressed. Will need managing but would add more bodies out there where needed. 3. The next challenge is what do we do when we run out of cells? And capacity in the courts system? And capacity in the jails? Because in many places that is already reality.
That’s just law and order going after scrotes. Your war against the forrin is fine providing that you have a plan to replace them with Brits? Which you don’t. I know that “make the scroungers work for their benefits” gets trotted out, but said “scroungers” have issues preventing them from taking those jobs including capability, skills, childcare and transport. A blanket “just make it work” doesn’t address any of the detail barriers which are massive.
If we had a government of any persuasion put forward a plan, that would help. Otherwise it’s just vapourware, a pretty crayon picture offered to the uninformed as “common sense”.
I've told you one of my solutions
Modernised corporal punishment, for things like shoplifting, mugging, phone thieves. Taser them every day fior a week. Far far cheaper and wiser than jail - and arguably more humane - and they won't be doing the crime again in a hurry
That only bypasses the jail bit. The lack of police the lack of cells the lack of court time is still a major problem.
I assume that you envisage Home Secretary Yaxley-Lennon would want a justice process? Or is the idea to nick em, taser them on the street and then publicly flog them? Trial by mob is what the hard right want - and we saw them last year trying to round up anyone they could for their crime of being Muslim. On the streets of Acklam, about a mile from where I used to live in Thornaby
I get the perception there has been a lot more vehicle-based attacks recently, whether terrorism-related or not. Probably confirmation bias stimulated by social media, but it would be interesting to see the stats.
In Cardiff on Friday they put these bollards up over the river crossing whilst there was a rugby match on at the stadium. I did wonder if it was a security measure.
Never go anywhere "family-orientated" on a bank holiday Monday with kids.
I should now be working. I'm actually having a stiff drink.
We’ve had a nice walk in the local woods and I bumped into an old colleague and had a chat. We spent the rest of the day inside. A family orientated bank holiday is my idea of Hell.
Now retired, as I said earlier, I hate bank holidays.
My wife and I agreed it would have been easier to go to work today, and we've now got a week's worth of deliverables to cram into four days. Which bank holidays do nothing to change.
Fun.
My new firm is open on bank holidays so I have been working today as normal. It’s nice to be able to get through the inbox a bit.
Alas, we had the two little terrors to deal with and no childcare. Impossible to do anything.
We are thinking of punting out our mortgage by another 5 years to lower the repayments just so we can afford a live in lodger or some form of "au pair".
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
I hear you - there’s a growing and sizeable voter pool demanding at least that.
It raises some interesting challenges: 1. A lack of police. For all that “it’s obvious” that we have plenty of police but they’re all wasting their time doing woke shit, in reality we don’t have enough police. So we’re at basics - how do we get more police and quickly? 2. One option is recruit a load of specials. Fast track training could be done in 6 months or so if really compressed. Will need managing but would add more bodies out there where needed. 3. The next challenge is what do we do when we run out of cells? And capacity in the courts system? And capacity in the jails? Because in many places that is already reality.
That’s just law and order going after scrotes. Your war against the forrin is fine providing that you have a plan to replace them with Brits? Which you don’t. I know that “make the scroungers work for their benefits” gets trotted out, but said “scroungers” have issues preventing them from taking those jobs including capability, skills, childcare and transport. A blanket “just make it work” doesn’t address any of the detail barriers which are massive.
If we had a government of any persuasion put forward a plan, that would help. Otherwise it’s just vapourware, a pretty crayon picture offered to the uninformed as “common sense”.
I've told you one of my solutions
Modernised corporal punishment, for things like shoplifting, mugging, phone thieves. Taser them every day fior a week. Far far cheaper and wiser than jail - and arguably more humane - and they won't be doing the crime again in a hurry
That only bypasses the jail bit. The lack of police the lack of cells the lack of court time is still a major problem.
I assume that you envisage Home Secretary Yaxley-Lennon would want a justice process? Or is the idea to nick em, taser them on the street and then publicly flog them? Trial by mob is what the hard right want - and we saw them last year trying to round up anyone they could for their crime of being Muslim. On the streets of Acklam, about a mile from where I used to live in Thornaby
Of course you still have trials, but they should be brisk, and at the end you get nasty corporal punishment - modern science can surely devise some truly unpleasant experiences which do no long term damage but DEFINITELY deter
This would work. You claim I have no solutions, but I do. I have offered one, solving quite a big issue - the expense and overcrowding of our prisons
And I'm just a dildo knapping travel hack. Surely the political class that actually have to think this stuff for a living can sort the rest
It's not like we have much choice. This needs to be sorted or we are heading, as a nation and a civilisation, to a dark dark place
Never go anywhere "family-orientated" on a bank holiday Monday with kids.
I should now be working. I'm actually having a stiff drink.
We’ve had a nice walk in the local woods and I bumped into an old colleague and had a chat. We spent the rest of the day inside. A family orientated bank holiday is my idea of Hell.
Now retired, as I said earlier, I hate bank holidays.
My wife and I agreed it would have been easier to go to work today, and we've now got a week's worth of deliverables to cram into four days. Which bank holidays do nothing to change.
Fun.
My new firm is open on bank holidays so I have been working today as normal. It’s nice to be able to get through the inbox a bit.
Alas, we had the two little terrors to deal with and no childcare. Impossible to do anything.
We are thinking of punting out our mortgage by another 5 years to lower the repayments just so we can afford a live in lodger or some form of "au pair".
This is killing us.
Kids are hard work! And yet I was being reassured earlier today on this very forum (not by you!) that poor people would be encouraged to have more kids for benefits. Kids bills not covered by UC and are as you point out a bit of hard work
Never go anywhere "family-orientated" on a bank holiday Monday with kids.
I should now be working. I'm actually having a stiff drink.
We’ve had a nice walk in the local woods and I bumped into an old colleague and had a chat. We spent the rest of the day inside. A family orientated bank holiday is my idea of Hell.
Now retired, as I said earlier, I hate bank holidays.
My wife and I agreed it would have been easier to go to work today, and we've now got a week's worth of deliverables to cram into four days. Which bank holidays do nothing to change.
Fun.
My new firm is open on bank holidays so I have been working today as normal. It’s nice to be able to get through the inbox a bit.
Alas, we had the two little terrors to deal with and no childcare. Impossible to do anything.
We are thinking of punting out our mortgage by another 5 years to lower the repayments just so we can afford a live in lodger or some form of "au pair".
This is killing us.
Kids are hard work! And yet I was being reassured earlier today on this very forum (not by you!) that poor people would be encouraged to have more kids for benefits. Kids bills not covered by UC and are as you point out a bit of hard work
And even when they are 59, 54 and 50 they can still be hard work !!!!!
Incredibly sad scenes in Liverpool. There were complaints about the limit on the size of the crowd at Arsenal today; however, these events are obvious targets. We don't know what's gone on here, but the bigger the parade route, the harder it is to protect.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
I hear you - there’s a growing and sizeable voter pool demanding at least that.
It raises some interesting challenges: 1. A lack of police. For all that “it’s obvious” that we have plenty of police but they’re all wasting their time doing woke shit, in reality we don’t have enough police. So we’re at basics - how do we get more police and quickly? 2. One option is recruit a load of specials. Fast track training could be done in 6 months or so if really compressed. Will need managing but would add more bodies out there where needed. 3. The next challenge is what do we do when we run out of cells? And capacity in the courts system? And capacity in the jails? Because in many places that is already reality.
That’s just law and order going after scrotes. Your war against the forrin is fine providing that you have a plan to replace them with Brits? Which you don’t. I know that “make the scroungers work for their benefits” gets trotted out, but said “scroungers” have issues preventing them from taking those jobs including capability, skills, childcare and transport. A blanket “just make it work” doesn’t address any of the detail barriers which are massive.
If we had a government of any persuasion put forward a plan, that would help. Otherwise it’s just vapourware, a pretty crayon picture offered to the uninformed as “common sense”.
I've told you one of my solutions
Modernised corporal punishment, for things like shoplifting, mugging, phone thieves. Taser them every day fior a week. Far far cheaper and wiser than jail - and arguably more humane - and they won't be doing the crime again in a hurry
I heard a jaw-dropping story (admittedly she is a brain-dead bimbo) about a girlfriend of one of the Dad's at my daughter's school.
She's apparently a personal trainer but as fake-tan as hell and looks like a stripper. Arse like a Kardashian in skin-tight black leggings and botox lips; yes, it's as bad as it sounds.
The Dad has the kids every other weekend, divorced from him previous wife, and shacked up with her. She's been telling his kids (my wife is friends with his old wife) that it's fine to take things from shops: you just take the tag off and then take it with you.
Yes, hell hath no fury and all that but I've met this girlfriend, and she really is like that - dumb as hell. Didn't know the difference between UK and GB. Thought another mother and daughter, who aren't exactly oil paintings, but help look after the kids for the ex-wife some evenings were a lesbian couple and, err, asked the daughter if that was the case. Cringe.
But my main takeaway is that not only is there a cadre of professional shoplifters who now plague shops as a way of life, but this behaviour is now bleeding into everyday life amongst some as a perfectly acceptable way to behave: and telling children as such.
Never go anywhere "family-orientated" on a bank holiday Monday with kids.
I should now be working. I'm actually having a stiff drink.
We’ve had a nice walk in the local woods and I bumped into an old colleague and had a chat. We spent the rest of the day inside. A family orientated bank holiday is my idea of Hell.
Now retired, as I said earlier, I hate bank holidays.
My wife and I agreed it would have been easier to go to work today, and we've now got a week's worth of deliverables to cram into four days. Which bank holidays do nothing to change.
Fun.
My new firm is open on bank holidays so I have been working today as normal. It’s nice to be able to get through the inbox a bit.
Alas, we had the two little terrors to deal with and no childcare. Impossible to do anything.
We are thinking of punting out our mortgage by another 5 years to lower the repayments just so we can afford a live in lodger or some form of "au pair".
This is killing us.
Kids are hard work! And yet I was being reassured earlier today on this very forum (not by you!) that poor people would be encouraged to have more kids for benefits. Kids bills not covered by UC and are as you point out a bit of hard work
And even when they are 59, 54 and 50 they can still be hard work !!!!!
My wife is still organising her sisters - as the eldest she got the job of looking after them. Dad was a drill instructor in the Peruvian Army.
Never go anywhere "family-orientated" on a bank holiday Monday with kids.
I should now be working. I'm actually having a stiff drink.
We’ve had a nice walk in the local woods and I bumped into an old colleague and had a chat. We spent the rest of the day inside. A family orientated bank holiday is my idea of Hell.
Now retired, as I said earlier, I hate bank holidays.
My wife and I agreed it would have been easier to go to work today, and we've now got a week's worth of deliverables to cram into four days. Which bank holidays do nothing to change.
Fun.
My new firm is open on bank holidays so I have been working today as normal. It’s nice to be able to get through the inbox a bit.
Alas, we had the two little terrors to deal with and no childcare. Impossible to do anything.
We are thinking of punting out our mortgage by another 5 years to lower the repayments just so we can afford a live in lodger or some form of "au pair".
This is killing us.
Kids are hard work! And yet I was being reassured earlier today on this very forum (not by you!) that poor people would be encouraged to have more kids for benefits. Kids bills not covered by UC and are as you point out a bit of hard work
They're hard work when you both work full-time and have no help!
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
I hear you - there’s a growing and sizeable voter pool demanding at least that.
It raises some interesting challenges: 1. A lack of police. For all that “it’s obvious” that we have plenty of police but they’re all wasting their time doing woke shit, in reality we don’t have enough police. So we’re at basics - how do we get more police and quickly? 2. One option is recruit a load of specials. Fast track training could be done in 6 months or so if really compressed. Will need managing but would add more bodies out there where needed. 3. The next challenge is what do we do when we run out of cells? And capacity in the courts system? And capacity in the jails? Because in many places that is already reality.
That’s just law and order going after scrotes. Your war against the forrin is fine providing that you have a plan to replace them with Brits? Which you don’t. I know that “make the scroungers work for their benefits” gets trotted out, but said “scroungers” have issues preventing them from taking those jobs including capability, skills, childcare and transport. A blanket “just make it work” doesn’t address any of the detail barriers which are massive.
If we had a government of any persuasion put forward a plan, that would help. Otherwise it’s just vapourware, a pretty crayon picture offered to the uninformed as “common sense”.
I've told you one of my solutions
Modernised corporal punishment, for things like shoplifting, mugging, phone thieves. Taser them every day fior a week. Far far cheaper and wiser than jail - and arguably more humane - and they won't be doing the crime again in a hurry
That only bypasses the jail bit. The lack of police the lack of cells the lack of court time is still a major problem.
I assume that you envisage Home Secretary Yaxley-Lennon would want a justice process? Or is the idea to nick em, taser them on the street and then publicly flog them? Trial by mob is what the hard right want - and we saw them last year trying to round up anyone they could for their crime of being Muslim. On the streets of Acklam, about a mile from where I used to live in Thornaby
Of course you still have trials, but they should be brisk, and at the end you get nasty corporal punishment - modern science can surely devise some truly unpleasant experiences which do no long term damage but DEFINITELY deter
This would work. You claim I have no solutions, but I do. I have offered one, solving quite a big issue - the expense and overcrowding of our prisons
And I'm just a dildo knapping travel hack. Surely the political class that actually have to think this stuff for a living can sort the rest
It's not like we have much choice. This needs to be sorted or we are heading, as a nation and a civilisation, to a dark dark place
Summary corporal punishment? That does indeed sound like we're heading to a dark, dark place.
Never go anywhere "family-orientated" on a bank holiday Monday with kids.
I should now be working. I'm actually having a stiff drink.
We’ve had a nice walk in the local woods and I bumped into an old colleague and had a chat. We spent the rest of the day inside. A family orientated bank holiday is my idea of Hell.
Now retired, as I said earlier, I hate bank holidays.
My wife and I agreed it would have been easier to go to work today, and we've now got a week's worth of deliverables to cram into four days. Which bank holidays do nothing to change.
Fun.
My new firm is open on bank holidays so I have been working today as normal. It’s nice to be able to get through the inbox a bit.
Alas, we had the two little terrors to deal with and no childcare. Impossible to do anything.
We are thinking of punting out our mortgage by another 5 years to lower the repayments just so we can afford a live in lodger or some form of "au pair".
This is killing us.
It's worth it, tho
The other day I had to collect my eldest from St Andrews Uni and bring her back to London, on her 19th birthday, after her first year at uni. I had to drive all the way up and all the way back, on my own (she doesn't drive). Took 3 knackering days
ANYWAY we had a lot of time to chat. It was weirdly great. And at one point she turned to me and said
"I really like St Andrews. I've made a lot of friends. I am happy there, Dad"
The sense of relief and gladness was almost euphoric. She is launched on the world, she is finding hserself, she is happy. That's all you can ever possibly want. Happy kids
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
I hear you - there’s a growing and sizeable voter pool demanding at least that.
It raises some interesting challenges: 1. A lack of police. For all that “it’s obvious” that we have plenty of police but they’re all wasting their time doing woke shit, in reality we don’t have enough police. So we’re at basics - how do we get more police and quickly? 2. One option is recruit a load of specials. Fast track training could be done in 6 months or so if really compressed. Will need managing but would add more bodies out there where needed. 3. The next challenge is what do we do when we run out of cells? And capacity in the courts system? And capacity in the jails? Because in many places that is already reality.
That’s just law and order going after scrotes. Your war against the forrin is fine providing that you have a plan to replace them with Brits? Which you don’t. I know that “make the scroungers work for their benefits” gets trotted out, but said “scroungers” have issues preventing them from taking those jobs including capability, skills, childcare and transport. A blanket “just make it work” doesn’t address any of the detail barriers which are massive.
If we had a government of any persuasion put forward a plan, that would help. Otherwise it’s just vapourware, a pretty crayon picture offered to the uninformed as “common sense”.
I've told you one of my solutions
Modernised corporal punishment, for things like shoplifting, mugging, phone thieves. Taser them every day fior a week. Far far cheaper and wiser than jail - and arguably more humane - and they won't be doing the crime again in a hurry
That only bypasses the jail bit. The lack of police the lack of cells the lack of court time is still a major problem.
I assume that you envisage Home Secretary Yaxley-Lennon would want a justice process? Or is the idea to nick em, taser them on the street and then publicly flog them? Trial by mob is what the hard right want - and we saw them last year trying to round up anyone they could for their crime of being Muslim. On the streets of Acklam, about a mile from where I used to live in Thornaby
Of course you still have trials, but they should be brisk, and at the end you get nasty corporal punishment - modern science can surely devise some truly unpleasant experiences which do no long term damage but DEFINITELY deter
This would work. You claim I have no solutions, but I do. I have offered one, solving quite a big issue - the expense and overcrowding of our prisons
And I'm just a dildo knapping travel hack. Surely the political class that actually have to think this stuff for a living can sort the rest
It's not like we have much choice. This needs to be sorted or we are heading, as a nation and a civilisation, to a dark dark place
Welcome to 'bargaining' in the downfall of the West 5 stages of grief Leon. I remember it fondly. I've recently departed depression and am in acceptance. It's over man, it's over
Never go anywhere "family-orientated" on a bank holiday Monday with kids.
I should now be working. I'm actually having a stiff drink.
We’ve had a nice walk in the local woods and I bumped into an old colleague and had a chat. We spent the rest of the day inside. A family orientated bank holiday is my idea of Hell.
Now retired, as I said earlier, I hate bank holidays.
My wife and I agreed it would have been easier to go to work today, and we've now got a week's worth of deliverables to cram into four days. Which bank holidays do nothing to change.
Fun.
My new firm is open on bank holidays so I have been working today as normal. It’s nice to be able to get through the inbox a bit.
Alas, we had the two little terrors to deal with and no childcare. Impossible to do anything.
We are thinking of punting out our mortgage by another 5 years to lower the repayments just so we can afford a live in lodger or some form of "au pair".
This is killing us.
It's worth it, tho
The other day I had to collect my eldest from St Andrews Uni and bring her back to London, on her 19th birthday, after her first year at uni. I had to drive all the way up and all the way back, on my own (she doesn't drive). Took 3 knackering days
ANYWAY we had a lot of time to chat. It was weirdly great. And at one point she turned to me and said
"I really like St Andrews. I've made a lot of friends. I am happy there, Dad"
The sense of relief and gladness was almost euphoric. She is launched on the world, she is finding hserself, she is happy. That's all you can ever possibly want. Happy kids
I've long thought the questioner who asks whether kids are 'worth it' makes a category error.
Life with kids and life without kids simply aren't comparable. They exist on different scales of value.
(It is possible that this is simply me deluding myself that what I have given up for a 5 year old and a 2 year old is worth it!)
Christ. That sounds very much like a terror attack, or at least an attempt at mass murder - it sounds deliberate and determined. This wasn't some drunk footie fan taking a wrong turning - IF that report is reliable
Never go anywhere "family-orientated" on a bank holiday Monday with kids.
I should now be working. I'm actually having a stiff drink.
We’ve had a nice walk in the local woods and I bumped into an old colleague and had a chat. We spent the rest of the day inside. A family orientated bank holiday is my idea of Hell.
Now retired, as I said earlier, I hate bank holidays.
My wife and I agreed it would have been easier to go to work today, and we've now got a week's worth of deliverables to cram into four days. Which bank holidays do nothing to change.
Fun.
My new firm is open on bank holidays so I have been working today as normal. It’s nice to be able to get through the inbox a bit.
We can nowwork Bank Holidays, as long as you've got something to do.
One person got bollocked for working the last Bank Holiday then booking half the week to overhead.
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
I hear you - there’s a growing and sizeable voter pool demanding at least that.
It raises some interesting challenges: 1. A lack of police. For all that “it’s obvious” that we have plenty of police but they’re all wasting their time doing woke shit, in reality we don’t have enough police. So we’re at basics - how do we get more police and quickly? 2. One option is recruit a load of specials. Fast track training could be done in 6 months or so if really compressed. Will need managing but would add more bodies out there where needed. 3. The next challenge is what do we do when we run out of cells? And capacity in the courts system? And capacity in the jails? Because in many places that is already reality.
That’s just law and order going after scrotes. Your war against the forrin is fine providing that you have a plan to replace them with Brits? Which you don’t. I know that “make the scroungers work for their benefits” gets trotted out, but said “scroungers” have issues preventing them from taking those jobs including capability, skills, childcare and transport. A blanket “just make it work” doesn’t address any of the detail barriers which are massive.
If we had a government of any persuasion put forward a plan, that would help. Otherwise it’s just vapourware, a pretty crayon picture offered to the uninformed as “common sense”.
I've told you one of my solutions
Modernised corporal punishment, for things like shoplifting, mugging, phone thieves. Taser them every day fior a week. Far far cheaper and wiser than jail - and arguably more humane - and they won't be doing the crime again in a hurry
That only bypasses the jail bit. The lack of police the lack of cells the lack of court time is still a major problem.
I assume that you envisage Home Secretary Yaxley-Lennon would want a justice process? Or is the idea to nick em, taser them on the street and then publicly flog them? Trial by mob is what the hard right want - and we saw them last year trying to round up anyone they could for their crime of being Muslim. On the streets of Acklam, about a mile from where I used to live in Thornaby
Of course you still have trials, but they should be brisk, and at the end you get nasty corporal punishment - modern science can surely devise some truly unpleasant experiences which do no long term damage but DEFINITELY deter
This would work. You claim I have no solutions, but I do. I have offered one, solving quite a big issue - the expense and overcrowding of our prisons
And I'm just a dildo knapping travel hack. Surely the political class that actually have to think this stuff for a living can sort the rest
It's not like we have much choice. This needs to be sorted or we are heading, as a nation and a civilisation, to a dark dark place
Welcome to 'bargaining' in the downfall of the West 5 stages of grief Leon. I remember it fondly. I've recently departed depression and am in acceptance. It's over man, it's over
Christ. That sounds very much like a terror attack, or at least an attempt at mass murder - it sounds deliberate and determined. This wasn't some drunk footie fan taking a wrong turning - IF that report is reliable
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
I hear you - there’s a growing and sizeable voter pool demanding at least that.
It raises some interesting challenges: 1. A lack of police. For all that “it’s obvious” that we have plenty of police but they’re all wasting their time doing woke shit, in reality we don’t have enough police. So we’re at basics - how do we get more police and quickly? 2. One option is recruit a load of specials. Fast track training could be done in 6 months or so if really compressed. Will need managing but would add more bodies out there where needed. 3. The next challenge is what do we do when we run out of cells? And capacity in the courts system? And capacity in the jails? Because in many places that is already reality.
That’s just law and order going after scrotes. Your war against the forrin is fine providing that you have a plan to replace them with Brits? Which you don’t. I know that “make the scroungers work for their benefits” gets trotted out, but said “scroungers” have issues preventing them from taking those jobs including capability, skills, childcare and transport. A blanket “just make it work” doesn’t address any of the detail barriers which are massive.
If we had a government of any persuasion put forward a plan, that would help. Otherwise it’s just vapourware, a pretty crayon picture offered to the uninformed as “common sense”.
I've told you one of my solutions
Modernised corporal punishment, for things like shoplifting, mugging, phone thieves. Taser them every day fior a week. Far far cheaper and wiser than jail - and arguably more humane - and they won't be doing the crime again in a hurry
That only bypasses the jail bit. The lack of police the lack of cells the lack of court time is still a major problem.
I assume that you envisage Home Secretary Yaxley-Lennon would want a justice process? Or is the idea to nick em, taser them on the street and then publicly flog them? Trial by mob is what the hard right want - and we saw them last year trying to round up anyone they could for their crime of being Muslim. On the streets of Acklam, about a mile from where I used to live in Thornaby
Of course you still have trials, but they should be brisk, and at the end you get nasty corporal punishment - modern science can surely devise some truly unpleasant experiences which do no long term damage but DEFINITELY deter
This would work. You claim I have no solutions, but I do. I have offered one, solving quite a big issue - the expense and overcrowding of our prisons
And I'm just a dildo knapping travel hack. Surely the political class that actually have to think this stuff for a living can sort the rest
It's not like we have much choice. This needs to be sorted or we are heading, as a nation and a civilisation, to a dark dark place
Welcome to 'bargaining' in the downfall of the West 5 stages of grief Leon. I remember it fondly. I've recently departed depression and am in acceptance. It's over man, it's over
Never go anywhere "family-orientated" on a bank holiday Monday with kids.
I should now be working. I'm actually having a stiff drink.
We’ve had a nice walk in the local woods and I bumped into an old colleague and had a chat. We spent the rest of the day inside. A family orientated bank holiday is my idea of Hell.
Now retired, as I said earlier, I hate bank holidays.
My wife and I agreed it would have been easier to go to work today, and we've now got a week's worth of deliverables to cram into four days. Which bank holidays do nothing to change.
Fun.
My new firm is open on bank holidays so I have been working today as normal. It’s nice to be able to get through the inbox a bit.
Alas, we had the two little terrors to deal with and no childcare. Impossible to do anything.
We are thinking of punting out our mortgage by another 5 years to lower the repayments just so we can afford a live in lodger or some form of "au pair".
This is killing us.
It's worth it, tho
The other day I had to collect my eldest from St Andrews Uni and bring her back to London, on her 19th birthday, after her first year at uni. I had to drive all the way up and all the way back, on my own (she doesn't drive). Took 3 knackering days
ANYWAY we had a lot of time to chat. It was weirdly great. And at one point she turned to me and said
"I really like St Andrews. I've made a lot of friends. I am happy there, Dad"
The sense of relief and gladness was almost euphoric. She is launched on the world, she is finding hserself, she is happy. That's all you can ever possibly want. Happy kids
I've long thought the questioner who asks whether kids are 'worth it' makes a category error.
Life with kids and life without kids simply aren't comparable. They exist on different scales of value.
(It is possible that this is simply me deluding myself that what I have given up for a 5 year old and a 2 year old is worth it!)
Maybe that's why some have compared it to Brexit. They are two different routes and in the end so different and life changing, no sensible comparison can be made between life with kids and life without, ditto the UK with Brexit, or the UK with no Brexit
That said, most people I know who've had kids do believe it is very much worth it, in the end (but this may be confirmation bias). And there is a definite regret discernible in my friends who have not had kids. A couple of them talk about it, and it is painful for them
Police confirming a white man has been arrested. Hmmm, do they always give the race of the arrested perpetrator?
No but they don’t want the usual suspects on social media from trying to inflame the situation . An eye witness says the driver was beeping his horn which seems strange .
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
The voters think they want someone who will tell them the truth. Unfortunately, they’re not prepared to pay for the truth.
I want a hard right government that tasers shoplifters and litterers and phone thieves, that sends the Boriswave home tomorrow, which reduces net migration to zero, abolishes the right to asylum and sends the boat people to Rockall
You'll want it until said hard right government impinges on something you value (as they inevitably will) and then you'll be back on here loudly attacking them.
Hard right governments tend to be tough on people who take lots of illegal drugs.
Police confirming a white man has been arrested. Hmmm, do they always give the race of the arrested perpetrator?
They certainly did not after Southport, did they?
Trying to forestall the far-right stoking riots, I would guess. Can't say I blame them after Southport.
Edit:
"Police confirm 53-year-old 'white British man' has been arrested Merseyside police has released a new statement which confirms the suspect to be a “53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area”
Christ. That sounds very much like a terror attack, or at least an attempt at mass murder - it sounds deliberate and determined. This wasn't some drunk footie fan taking a wrong turning - IF that report is reliable
You're all not going to believe me but I promise you this is true...... Chatting whilst out today to a vague/not well known acquaintance at an event and politics came up via some lame joke I told about the current state of the Tories. I've no idea this guys allegiances but he jumped in, unbidden, with 'Boris back. That's what I want to see' I'm half expecting to find out someone here paid him to say it to me!
Can't say I'm surprised. The idea of Boris is still attractive, and everyone likes it at first. The catch is the Max Hastings (?) point- sooner or later he betrays everyone and everyone eventually regrets dealing with him. Unfortunately, for all the gifts the good fairy gave him, the bad fairy made him a selfish lying shit; he can't help himself.
It's not difficult to see that some people haven't reached that betrayal point yet. It's an individual thing. But I suspect we're well past the tipping point.
When Boris was PM I had a heated discussion about him with some of his admirers. I was outnumbered and in the end cooler heads present suggested we put it aside and talk about something else. But those admirers have now moved on to Reform and are contemptuous of Boris. Yes, there are probably still some in the Boris zone, but it's emptying and I doubt those who leave will ever return.
There'll always be a market for Boris's kind of feel-good, Panglossian spin on modern Britain, and what better figurehead for it than Mr Eponymous Wave himself?
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
The voters don’t want a feel good guy any more. They want something more like General Pinochet
Pussy Pinochets not enough, Papa Doc incoming. It's the Last Days of Rome again in the West. We will be electing absolute fruitcake psychopaths in short order.
Why the displacement? Why say “We will be electing…” when what you mean is “I want to elect…”?
Christ. That sounds very much like a terror attack, or at least an attempt at mass murder - it sounds deliberate and determined. This wasn't some drunk footie fan taking a wrong turning - IF that report is reliable
My uncle once crashed his car in a ditch because he passed out after a coughing fit. There was that strange story of a car ramming into a school which was put down to an epileptic fit. Who knows?
Another one from the ‘I came into politics to do nice stuff and not take difficult decisions’
Get onto the Bank of England. Fire up the printer.
We have had seventeen years of difficult decisions and it always seemed to be "take money from poor people and working people and don't tax the rich or pensioners". Can we stop making difficult decisions please?
Comments
This cannot continue. Life was never like this
If Labour don’t get a grip then the voters will elect Nazis, let alone Reform
His former admirers may have deserted him, but he can find new supporters among the metropolitan Labour voters who are so disenchanted with Starmer's Reform act.
Newcastle I’m not sure. Gallowgate or Eek or dixiedean may know.
It would be quite interesting, not in a Steve ‘interesting’ Davis way, to see what a standard pint costs around the country in a non spoons pub.
Get a feel for regional variances.
Police are responding to an incident near the Liverpool Football Club parade after reports of a car collision with a number of pedestrians.
The incident happened as thousands of fans lined the streets of the city to celebrate Liverpool's Premier League title victory.
A police spokesperson said: "We are currently dealing with reports of a road traffic collision in Liverpool city centre.
"We were contacted at just after 6pm today, Monday 26 May, following reports a car had been in collision with a number of pedestrians on Water Street.
It's on Dale Street.
It's the Last Days of Rome again in the West. We will be electing absolute fruitcake psychopaths in short order.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn5xnlkegz0t
We all know his shtick, silly hair, bumbling manner, charming humour, annoying laziness, Greek. We've been there done that, maybe enjoyed it - and then paid the price. Also he is now, quite frankly, quite old. It's harder to pull off the funny man with mad hair stuff when the hair is all falling out
It would be an act of utter desperation and be seen as such, and rejected by voters
What I don’t get is how the Tories thought that we couldn’t afford law and order. They used to be the party of using law and order as a club to beat the proles into submission. Then they scrapped it - what did they expect would happen?
I think we should all just have a moment away from our politics, and just say a silent prayer for all those affected
Again, this is why I am willing if not eager to risk Reform. Who actually talks about shoplifting? Farage does, he did it when he started his campaign in Clacton
This is one of those basic quality of life issues which impacts everyone and destroys social trust, very quickly. It's like Labour and the Tories don't understand this. Get the fucking coppers out there "forcibly" arresting these people. Everywhere. Take every copper who spends his time monitoring social media hate crimes and put him on the street, enforcing the law that really matters
Now they complain about failing law and order.
Unless you essentially ban people from driving you are always going to have this risk. Society has decided that risk is acceptable.
It raises some interesting challenges:
1. A lack of police. For all that “it’s obvious” that we have plenty of police but they’re all wasting their time doing woke shit, in reality we don’t have enough police. So we’re at basics - how do we get more police and quickly?
2. One option is recruit a load of specials. Fast track training could be done in 6 months or so if really compressed. Will need managing but would add more bodies out there where needed.
3. The next challenge is what do we do when we run out of cells? And capacity in the courts system? And capacity in the jails? Because in many places that is already reality.
That’s just law and order going after scrotes. Your war against the forrin is fine providing that you have a plan to replace them with Brits? Which you don’t. I know that “make the scroungers work for their benefits” gets trotted out, but said “scroungers” have issues preventing them from taking those jobs including capability, skills, childcare and transport. A blanket “just make it work” doesn’t address any of the detail barriers which are massive.
If we had a government of any persuasion put forward a plan, that would help. Otherwise it’s just vapourware, a pretty crayon picture offered to the uninformed as “common sense”.
I am going to tidy my flat, it is preferable
I an surprised you even asked the question
So we reprioritise resources and crack down. Would need to be random places not blanket as lack of bodies. Then you hit the lack of cells - where do you stick them once arrested? How do you process them through the courts? Where do you jail them?
I’m not saying that something can’t be done - I agree that a clamp down is long long overdue. But *how* with specifics is critical. A significant part of my consulting function is advising the “why can’t we” dreamers that the blue sky has to interface with the ground. Operational issues may not be of interest to them whilst dreaming but solutions are needed or they remain as dreams and nothing else.
It's the same as saying "society has allowed people to own kitchen knives, therefore we have accepted things like the Southport Attacks"
Its asinine, bizarre and absurd. And insulting to the victims in Southport, and, tragically, today in Liverpool
I get the perception there has been a lot more vehicle-based attacks recently, whether terrorism-related or not. Probably confirmation bias stimulated by social media, but it would be interesting to see the stats.
For example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg7737z9j8o, https://www.scotland.police.uk/what-s-happening/news/2025/may/sentencing-after-car-deliberately-driven-at-man-in-strathmartine-road-dundee-last-july/, https://www.scotsman.com/news/crime/attempted-murder-stirling-fallin-ford-fiesta-driver-5128685, https://www.malverngazette.co.uk/news/25162981.attempted-murder-arrest-car-driven-man-malvern/
Modernised corporal punishment, for things like shoplifting, mugging, phone thieves. Taser them every day fior a week. Far far cheaper and wiser than jail - and arguably more humane - and they won't be doing the crime again in a hurry
We left after an hour, the whole family being utterly stressed by the experience!
Fun.
I assume that you envisage Home Secretary Yaxley-Lennon would want a justice process? Or is the idea to nick em, taser them on the street and then publicly flog them? Trial by mob is what the hard right want - and we saw them last year trying to round up anyone they could for their crime of being Muslim. On the streets of Acklam, about a mile from where I used to live in Thornaby
We are thinking of punting out our mortgage by another 5 years to lower the repayments just so we can afford a live in lodger or some form of "au pair".
This is killing us.
This would work. You claim I have no solutions, but I do. I have offered one, solving quite a big issue - the expense and overcrowding of our prisons
And I'm just a dildo knapping travel hack. Surely the political class that actually have to think this stuff for a living can sort the rest
It's not like we have much choice. This needs to be sorted or we are heading, as a nation and a civilisation, to a dark dark place
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/26/man-arrested-car-crowd-liverpool-fc-football-fans
She's apparently a personal trainer but as fake-tan as hell and looks like a stripper. Arse like a Kardashian in skin-tight black leggings and botox lips; yes, it's as bad as it sounds.
The Dad has the kids every other weekend, divorced from him previous wife, and shacked up with her. She's been telling his kids (my wife is friends with his old wife) that it's fine to take things from shops: you just take the tag off and then take it with you.
Yes, hell hath no fury and all that but I've met this girlfriend, and she really is like that - dumb as hell. Didn't know the difference between UK and GB. Thought another mother and daughter, who aren't exactly oil paintings, but help look after the kids for the ex-wife some evenings were a lesbian couple and, err, asked the daughter if that was the case. Cringe.
But my main takeaway is that not only is there a cadre of professional shoplifters who now plague shops as a way of life, but this behaviour is now bleeding into everyday life amongst some as a perfectly acceptable way to behave: and telling children as such.
The other day I had to collect my eldest from St Andrews Uni and bring her back to London, on her 19th birthday, after her first year at uni. I had to drive all the way up and all the way back, on my own (she doesn't drive). Took 3 knackering days
ANYWAY we had a lot of time to chat. It was weirdly great. And at one point she turned to me and said
"I really like St Andrews. I've made a lot of friends. I am happy there, Dad"
The sense of relief and gladness was almost euphoric. She is launched on the world, she is finding hserself, she is happy. That's all you can ever possibly want. Happy kids
I remember it fondly. I've recently departed depression and am in acceptance.
It's over man, it's over
The casualties were worse than the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Simply horrific.
Why isn't this more widely known?
Life with kids and life without kids simply aren't comparable. They exist on different scales of value.
(It is possible that this is simply me deluding myself that what I have given up for a 5 year old and a 2 year old is worth it!)
One person got bollocked for working the last Bank Holiday then booking half the week to overhead.
Game Over, Man!
That said, most people I know who've had kids do believe it is very much worth it, in the end (but this may be confirmation bias). And there is a definite regret discernible in my friends who have not had kids. A couple of them talk about it, and it is painful for them
https://x.com/manutd/status/1926750141186208234?s=61
I am going to do a kettlebell work out. Yes
‘Lessons will be learned’
They meant it.
Edit:
"Police confirm 53-year-old 'white British man' has been arrested
Merseyside police has released a new statement which confirms the suspect to be a “53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2025/may/26/liverpool-car-collision-pedestrians-premier-league-football-parade
Definitely trying to forestall a reaction. And who can blame them?
In both instances, it's for reasons of "community relations".