Just cycled across Paris once more and once more survived, just.
Are you mad? It’s bad enough in a car .
Cycling in Paris is perfectly sensible with the right equipment
Images of Paris are easily out of date these days if you have not been for a few years. I haven't been, so I am going on reports from acquaintances and friends. The cycling situation has changed more in 5-6 years than London has in 20.
The latest - reportedly - is that larger SUVs parked on roads etc ("surface parking") are down by 2/3 over 12 months. That follows adjustments in parking fees.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
The most snobbish upper middle class voters who used to vote Tory as a mark to distinguish themselves from the working class and tend to live in the Home Counties or the poshest parts of London now since Brexit largely vote LD
Source please.
I’m acquainted with plenty of snobbish upper middle class voters who are sticking loyally to the Tory cause.
The campaign to tar Lib Dems as a bloc as some sort of basket of deplorables is to be regretted. It’s a symptom of our US-imported in-group out-group politics.
Tunbridge Wells, Esher and Walton, Winchester, Richmond Park, Twickenham, Maidenhead, Witney, Wells and Mendip Hills, Chichester, Henley, Didcot and Wantage, Chesham and Amersham, St Albans, Epsom and Ewell, Harrogate and Guildford.
All seats filled with upper middle class voters, even if not all snobs, that used to largely be solid Tory but which now have LD MPs
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
and tend to live in the Home Counties or the poshest parts of London now since Brexit largely vote LD
Source please.
I’m acquainted with plenty of snobbish upper middle class voters who are sticking loyally to the Tory cause.
The campaign to tar Lib Dems as a bloc as some sort of basket of deplorables is to be regretted. It’s a symptom of our US-imported in-group out-group politics.
Tunbridge Wells, Esher and Walton, Winchester, Richmond Park, Maidenhead, Henley, Didcot and Wantage, Chesham and Amersham, St Albans, Epsom and Ewell, Harrogate and Guildford.
All seats filled with upper middle class voters, even if not all snobs, that used to largely be solid Tory but which now have LD MPs
You’ve just classified the swing voters of those 12 seats as “ The most snobbish upper middle class voters who used to vote Tory as a mark to distinguish themselves from the working class”.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
No it’s not. But it’s depressing how quickly and reflexively you conflate working class and far right.
The far right is a moneyed elite movement, always has been.
I’m not conflating it, as I point out, others are doing so. Like the guy I was debating with on a local Facebook group this morning. A proud Lib Dem who calls working class people ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’
You’re jumping to two conclusions:
1. That gammon or flag shagger are jibes about class rather than attitude 2. That the actual flag protesters are working class.
I doubt your proud Lib Dem on Facebook used the term working class.
You’re right. The flag raisers are not working class. They popped down from Darrass Hall.
I have Darrass Hall down as "more money than taste". Perhaps I'm a snob as well .
That's where I would expect to find Charlie Mullins should he decide he likes the North East, and escapees from Geordie Shore.
The British Right's fetishizing of the working class can be fickle. A few years ago the trope of the obese, McDonalds-guzzling, welfare-scrounging chav woman with a buggy full of kids was common in right-wing circles - the ghastly personification of Blair's Britain. What's changed? Is it that the flag botherers are seen as a more manageable, forelock-tugging type?
Brexit, which sent the upper middle class liberal left and the white working class populist right
A genius strategy by your party, then? Looking at retaining just 17 seats in the latest poll.
I did vote Remain but accepted the result and of course Cameron campaigned for Remain too.
However had there been no EU referendum or Remain won UKIP and Farage would still have risen in the polls, they got 12% in 2015 even before Brexit and despite the promise of an EU referendum.
The only Tory leader who kept UKIP and Farage's parties down was Boris, removing him was a bigger factor in reviving Farage than Brexit even despite the Boriswave Reform never got over 5% before Boris' removal
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
No it’s not. But it’s depressing how quickly and reflexively you conflate working class and far right.
The far right is a moneyed elite movement, always has been.
Hitler wasn't especially monied, nor was Mussolini, nor was Nick Griffin nor is Tommy Robinson
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
It is impossible to ignore class politics in the UK, particularly England. The reality is that many middle class people define themselves against the working class. John Major's classless society and John Prescott's 'we're all middle class now' feels a long time ago.
Most Reform voters are middle class. Most Brexit voters were middle class. Much of the red wall is middle class, and retired on decent pensions.
Farage is upper middle class. So are Tice, Oakeshott, large chunks of the rest of the party and its backers. So is Elon Musk.
The far right use supposed working class imagery and mythology to lay claim to ownership of “the people”. They ignore thd minority working class, because in their mythical world the people are the white working class. They then create the enemy without (foreigners) and the enemy within (liberals). A tale as old as time.
No, most Reform voters are C2DE working class, with whom Reform are on 37% with Yougov.
Reform at the last election did best with C1 and C2 and less well with DE. Labour did worst with C2 and joint best with DE. It looks like the pattern is not dissimilar now.
Reform did better with DEs on 19% than C1s with whom they got just 13%, Reform did best with C2s yes on 20% to just 10% with ABs
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
and tend to live in the Home Counties or the poshest parts of London now since Brexit largely vote LD
Source please.
I’m acquainted with plenty of snobbish upper middle class voters who are sticking loyally to the Tory cause.
The campaign to tar Lib Dems as a bloc as some sort of basket of deplorables is to be regretted. It’s a symptom of our US-imported in-group out-group politics.
Tunbridge Wells, Esher and Walton, Winchester, Richmond Park, Maidenhead, Henley, Didcot and Wantage, Chesham and Amersham, St Albans, Epsom and Ewell, Harrogate and Guildford.
All seats filled with upper middle class voters, even if not all snobs, that used to largely be solid Tory but which now have LD MPs
You’ve just classified the swing voters of those 12 seats as “ The most snobbish upper middle class voters who used to vote Tory as a mark to distinguish themselves from the working class”.
Not sure that’s route 1 to winning them back.
I said 'even if not all snobs' but they see Farage as even more of an oik than Kinnock and Corbyn who they equally despised
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
No it’s not. But it’s depressing how quickly and reflexively you conflate working class and far right.
The far right is a moneyed elite movement, always has been.
I’m not conflating it, as I point out, others are doing so. Like the guy I was debating with on a local Facebook group this morning. A proud Lib Dem who calls working class people ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’
You’re jumping to two conclusions:
1. That gammon or flag shagger are jibes about class rather than attitude 2. That the actual flag protesters are working class.
I doubt your proud Lib Dem on Facebook used the term working class.
You’re right. The flag raisers are not working class. They popped down from Darrass Hall.
I have Darrass Hall down as "more money than taste". Perhaps I'm a snob as well .
That's where I would expect to find Charlie Mullins should he decide he likes the North East, and escapees from Geordie Shore.
Is it really an affected version of "Doris Hall", which was what the estate was called previously?
Soccer legend Andy Carroll used to live there.
Yes - it said retired and current footballers. I've never heard of Andy Carroll, but Wiki mentioned:
Several former professional footballers including Alan Shearer, Peter Beardsley, and Terry McDermott live on the estate along with many current players from both Newcastle United and Sunderland.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
No it’s not. But it’s depressing how quickly and reflexively you conflate working class and far right.
The far right is a moneyed elite movement, always has been.
I’m not conflating it, as I point out, others are doing so. Like the guy I was debating with on a local Facebook group this morning. A proud Lib Dem who calls working class people ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’
You’re jumping to two conclusions:
1. That gammon or flag shagger are jibes about class rather than attitude 2. That the actual flag protesters are working class.
I doubt your proud Lib Dem on Facebook used the term working class.
You’re right. The flag raisers are not working class. They popped down from Darrass Hall.
I have Darrass Hall down as "more money than taste". Perhaps I'm a snob as well .
That's where I would expect to find Charlie Mullins should he decide he likes the North East, and escapees from Geordie Shore.
Is it really an affected version of "Doris Hall", which was what the estate was called previously?
Soccer legend Andy Carroll used to live there.
Yes - it said retired and current footballers. I've never heard of Andy Carroll, but Wiki mentioned:
Several former professional footballers including Alan Shearer, Peter Beardsley, and Terry McDermott live on the estate along with many current players from both Newcastle United and Sunderland.
He was. It very good but Newcastle have a history of overpaying for average players
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
and tend to live in the Home Counties or the poshest parts of London now since Brexit largely vote LD
Source please.
I’m acquainted with plenty of snobbish upper middle class voters who are sticking loyally to the Tory cause.
The campaign to tar Lib Dems as a bloc as some sort of basket of deplorables is to be regretted. It’s a symptom of our US-imported in-group out-group politics.
Tunbridge Wells, Esher and Walton, Winchester, Richmond Park, Maidenhead, Henley, Didcot and Wantage, Chesham and Amersham, St Albans, Epsom and Ewell, Harrogate and Guildford.
All seats filled with upper middle class voters, even if not all snobs, that used to largely be solid Tory but which now have LD MPs
You’ve just classified the swing voters of those 12 seats as “ The most snobbish upper middle class voters who used to vote Tory as a mark to distinguish themselves from the working class”.
Not sure that’s route 1 to winning them back.
I said 'even if not all snobs' but they see Farage as even more of an oik than Kinnock and Corbyn who they equally despised
I don't think those voters' antipathy to Kinnock and Corbyn was that those individuals were to any extent oiks: rather, that they disliked Corbyn and Kinnock's proposals to rause taxes on them.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
and tend to live in the Home Counties or the poshest parts of London now since Brexit largely vote LD
Source please.
I’m acquainted with plenty of snobbish upper middle class voters who are sticking loyally to the Tory cause.
The campaign to tar Lib Dems as a bloc as some sort of basket of deplorables is to be regretted. It’s a symptom of our US-imported in-group out-group politics.
Tunbridge Wells, Esher and Walton, Winchester, Richmond Park, Maidenhead, Henley, Didcot and Wantage, Chesham and Amersham, St Albans, Epsom and Ewell, Harrogate and Guildford.
All seats filled with upper middle class voters, even if not all snobs, that used to largely be solid Tory but which now have LD MPs
You’ve just classified the swing voters of those 12 seats as “ The most snobbish upper middle class voters who used to vote Tory as a mark to distinguish themselves from the working class”.
Not sure that’s route 1 to winning them back.
I said 'even if not all snobs' but they see Farage as even more of an oik than Kinnock and Corbyn who they equally despised
I don't think those voters' antipathy to Kinnock and Corbyn was that those individuals were to any extent oiks: rather, that they disliked Corbyn and Kinnock's proposals to rause taxes on them.
That too but they weren't seen as of their class in the way that Cameron and May and Blair or even Major and Starmer and Davey were and most of the supporters of Farage or Corbyn and Kinnock were certainly not the type of people they would want to invite to dinner
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
I wouldn't say oh well, the last thing this country needs is a party more racist than Farage gaining traction.
Farage is bad enough as it is.
People trying to make this point seemingly have no recollection of the BNP in the mid naughties to early tens. Or of UKIP from 2017 until now. Or Britain First more recently. There have always been parties to the right of Farage, people just don’t remember them because they never get any votes when they try to compete
The BNP were awful but thankfully never gained that much traction.
UKIP post-2017 were a nothingburger. Britain First are a nothingburger.
Hopefully AdvanceUK remain another nothingburger too. If they gain traction, which was my comment, then that would be awful.
Yes, that’s the point I’m making - parties who take on Farage from the right have never got anywhere, and I don’t see why they’d start now. I suppose Lowe being an MP and Musk talking them up will help a little, but Farage usually counters this by saying he is a way of getting to grips with thorny issues without resorting to knuckle dragging.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
You shouldn't dismiss majority or minority views. You have to balance what you think is right with the need to get elected. This tension is alleviated if what you think is right happens to be popular. So much so that it's tempting to look at what's popular and adopt this as being what you think is right. It's a dog's life really.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
I wouldn't say oh well, the last thing this country needs is a party more racist than Farage gaining traction.
Farage is bad enough as it is.
People trying to make this point seemingly have no recollection of the BNP in the mid naughties to early tens. Or of UKIP from 2017 until now. Or Britain First more recently. There have always been parties to the right of Farage, people just don’t remember them because they never get any votes when they try to compete
The BNP were awful but thankfully never gained that much traction.
UKIP post-2017 were a nothingburger. Britain First are a nothingburger.
Hopefully AdvanceUK remain another nothingburger too. If they gain traction, which was my comment, then that would be awful.
Yes, that’s the point I’m making - parties who take on Farage from the right have never got anywhere, and I don’t see why they’d start now. I suppose Lowe being an MP and Musk talking them up will help a little, but Farage usually counters this by saying he is a way of getting to grips with thorny issues without resorting to knuckle dragging.
History does not necessarily repeat itself. One change is new media: and Musky Baby is currently criticising Farage whilst praising those harder right. Will that make much of a difference? Perhaps not; but Musk seems to think it will.
It’s a Western world phenomenon that in broad terms, the upper middle classes have shifted left, whereas the working classes have shifted right.
That shift has destroyed a number of traditional centre right parties, and it may destroy the Conservatives.
More a shift in cultural than economic terms though, the upper middle class would still vote centre right to keep out a hard left populist like Corbyn or Melenchon (Macron leans centre right economically) whereas Corbyn and Melenchon won lots of working class votes indeed more so than most recent Labour or Socialist leaders have
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
and tend to live in the Home Counties or the poshest parts of London now since Brexit largely vote LD
Source please.
I’m acquainted with plenty of snobbish upper middle class voters who are sticking loyally to the Tory cause.
The campaign to tar Lib Dems as a bloc as some sort of basket of deplorables is to be regretted. It’s a symptom of our US-imported in-group out-group politics.
Tunbridge Wells, Esher and Walton, Winchester, Richmond Park, Maidenhead, Henley, Didcot and Wantage, Chesham and Amersham, St Albans, Epsom and Ewell, Harrogate and Guildford.
All seats filled with upper middle class voters, even if not all snobs, that used to largely be solid Tory but which now have LD MPs
You’ve just classified the swing voters of those 12 seats as “ The most snobbish upper middle class voters who used to vote Tory as a mark to distinguish themselves from the working class”.
Not sure that’s route 1 to winning them back.
I said 'even if not all snobs' but they see Farage as even more of an oik than Kinnock and Corbyn who they equally despised
Farage isn't an oik! He went to Dulwich College and is posh as you like.
The British Right's fetishizing of the working class can be fickle. A few years ago the trope of the obese, McDonalds-guzzling, welfare-scrounging chav woman with a buggy full of kids was common in right-wing circles - the ghastly personification of Blair's Britain. What's changed? Is it that the flag botherers are seen as a more manageable, forelock-tugging type?
Brexit, which sent the upper middle class liberal left and the white working class populist right
A genius strategy by your party, then? Looking at retaining just 17 seats in the latest poll.
I did vote Remain but accepted the result and of course Cameron campaigned for Remain too.
However had there been no EU referendum or Remain won UKIP and Farage would still have risen in the polls, they got 12% in 2015 even before Brexit and despite the promise of an EU referendum.
The only Tory leader who kept UKIP and Farage's parties down was Boris, removing him was a bigger factor in reviving Farage than Brexit even despite the Boriswave Reform never got over 5% before Boris' removal
You can spend the rest of your political life bemoaning the removal of Boris Johnson but he’s not the first Conservative leader since Churchill to be forced out by the Party either explicitly or implicitly. It’s something your party has done frequently and often with electoral success.
If Badenoch is to emulate Iain Duncan-Smith (whose removal and replacement by Michael Howard ensured, if nothing else, the Conservatives would remain the credible alternative Government even in the event of a third Blair victory) and not even face the electorate as Party leader, that will be because, in Jenrick or Stride, your party has gambled on someone who can win enough seats to remain as leading opposition party next time.
At the moment, the polls say the Conservatives would be the fifth largest party in the next Commons.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
and tend to live in the Home Counties or the poshest parts of London now since Brexit largely vote LD
Source please.
I’m acquainted with plenty of snobbish upper middle class voters who are sticking loyally to the Tory cause.
The campaign to tar Lib Dems as a bloc as some sort of basket of deplorables is to be regretted. It’s a symptom of our US-imported in-group out-group politics.
Tunbridge Wells, Esher and Walton, Winchester, Richmond Park, Maidenhead, Henley, Didcot and Wantage, Chesham and Amersham, St Albans, Epsom and Ewell, Harrogate and Guildford.
All seats filled with upper middle class voters, even if not all snobs, that used to largely be solid Tory but which now have LD MPs
You’ve just classified the swing voters of those 12 seats as “ The most snobbish upper middle class voters who used to vote Tory as a mark to distinguish themselves from the working class”.
Not sure that’s route 1 to winning them back.
I said 'even if not all snobs' but they see Farage as even more of an oik than Kinnock and Corbyn who they equally despised
Farage isn't an oik! He went to Dulwich College and is posh as you like.
Culturally to North Londoners and indeed many in the Home Counties he is an oik
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
I wouldn't say oh well, the last thing this country needs is a party more racist than Farage gaining traction.
Farage is bad enough as it is.
People trying to make this point seemingly have no recollection of the BNP in the mid naughties to early tens. Or of UKIP from 2017 until now. Or Britain First more recently. There have always been parties to the right of Farage, people just don’t remember them because they never get any votes when they try to compete
The BNP were awful but thankfully never gained that much traction.
UKIP post-2017 were a nothingburger. Britain First are a nothingburger.
Hopefully AdvanceUK remain another nothingburger too. If they gain traction, which was my comment, then that would be awful.
Yes, that’s the point I’m making - parties who take on Farage from the right have never got anywhere, and I don’t see why they’d start now. I suppose Lowe being an MP and Musk talking them up will help a little, but Farage usually counters this by saying he is a way of getting to grips with thorny issues without resorting to knuckle dragging.
It might even help him. Lose some of the racist vote but for that reason look less toxic and divisive and gain a greater number of generally fed up roll-the-dicers.
Or of course not if he loses more of the first than he gains of the second.
Cunning operator, though, Farage. Anybody still doubting his skills has not been paying attention.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
and tend to live in the Home Counties or the poshest parts of London now since Brexit largely vote LD
Source please.
I’m acquainted with plenty of snobbish upper middle class voters who are sticking loyally to the Tory cause.
The campaign to tar Lib Dems as a bloc as some sort of basket of deplorables is to be regretted. It’s a symptom of our US-imported in-group out-group politics.
Tunbridge Wells, Esher and Walton, Winchester, Richmond Park, Maidenhead, Henley, Didcot and Wantage, Chesham and Amersham, St Albans, Epsom and Ewell, Harrogate and Guildford.
All seats filled with upper middle class voters, even if not all snobs, that used to largely be solid Tory but which now have LD MPs
You’ve just classified the swing voters of those 12 seats as “ The most snobbish upper middle class voters who used to vote Tory as a mark to distinguish themselves from the working class”.
Not sure that’s route 1 to winning them back.
I said 'even if not all snobs' but they see Farage as even more of an oik than Kinnock and Corbyn who they equally despised
Farage isn't an oik! He went to Dulwich College and is posh as you like.
Culturally to North Londoners and indeed many in the Home Counties he is an oik
I can’t think of anyone I know who thinks he’s an oik. Plenty think he’s a twat. But oik? Nope.
The British Right's fetishizing of the working class can be fickle. A few years ago the trope of the obese, McDonalds-guzzling, welfare-scrounging chav woman with a buggy full of kids was common in right-wing circles - the ghastly personification of Blair's Britain. What's changed? Is it that the flag botherers are seen as a more manageable, forelock-tugging type?
Brexit, which sent the upper middle class liberal left and the white working class populist right
A genius strategy by your party, then? Looking at retaining just 17 seats in the latest poll.
I did vote Remain but accepted the result and of course Cameron campaigned for Remain too.
However had there been no EU referendum or Remain won UKIP and Farage would still have risen in the polls, they got 12% in 2015 even before Brexit and despite the promise of an EU referendum.
The only Tory leader who kept UKIP and Farage's parties down was Boris, removing him was a bigger factor in reviving Farage than Brexit even despite the Boriswave Reform never got over 5% before Boris' removal
You can spend the rest of your political life bemoaning the removal of Boris Johnson but he’s not the first Conservative leader since Churchill to be forced out by the Party either explicitly or implicitly. It’s something your party has done frequently and often with electoral success.
If Badenoch is to emulate Iain Duncan-Smith (whose removal and replacement by Michael Howard ensured, if nothing else, the Conservatives would remain the credible alternative Government even in the event of a third Blair victory) and not even face the electorate as Party leader, that will be because, in Jenrick or Stride, your party has gambled on someone who can win enough seats to remain as leading opposition party next time.
At the moment, the polls say the Conservatives would be the fifth largest party in the next Commons.
Yet a Boris led party would be ahead in the polls again where no other potential Tory party leader would.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
and tend to live in the Home Counties or the poshest parts of London now since Brexit largely vote LD
Source please.
I’m acquainted with plenty of snobbish upper middle class voters who are sticking loyally to the Tory cause.
The campaign to tar Lib Dems as a bloc as some sort of basket of deplorables is to be regretted. It’s a symptom of our US-imported in-group out-group politics.
Tunbridge Wells, Esher and Walton, Winchester, Richmond Park, Maidenhead, Henley, Didcot and Wantage, Chesham and Amersham, St Albans, Epsom and Ewell, Harrogate and Guildford.
All seats filled with upper middle class voters, even if not all snobs, that used to largely be solid Tory but which now have LD MPs
You’ve just classified the swing voters of those 12 seats as “ The most snobbish upper middle class voters who used to vote Tory as a mark to distinguish themselves from the working class”.
Not sure that’s route 1 to winning them back.
I said 'even if not all snobs' but they see Farage as even more of an oik than Kinnock and Corbyn who they equally despised
Farage isn't an oik! He went to Dulwich College and is posh as you like.
Culturally to North Londoners and indeed many in the Home Counties he is an oik
I think the number of voters to whom that is electorally important - i.e. who would vote Farage if only he were slightly posher - is electorally insignificant.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
I wouldn't say oh well, the last thing this country needs is a party more racist than Farage gaining traction.
Farage is bad enough as it is.
People trying to make this point seemingly have no recollection of the BNP in the mid naughties to early tens. Or of UKIP from 2017 until now. Or Britain First more recently. There have always been parties to the right of Farage, people just don’t remember them because they never get any votes when they try to compete
The BNP were awful but thankfully never gained that much traction.
UKIP post-2017 were a nothingburger. Britain First are a nothingburger.
Hopefully AdvanceUK remain another nothingburger too. If they gain traction, which was my comment, then that would be awful.
Yes, that’s the point I’m making - parties who take on Farage from the right have never got anywhere, and I don’t see why they’d start now. I suppose Lowe being an MP and Musk talking them up will help a little, but Farage usually counters this by saying he is a way of getting to grips with thorny issues without resorting to knuckle dragging.
History does not necessarily repeat itself. One change is new media: and Musky Baby is currently criticising Farage whilst praising those harder right. Will that make much of a difference? Perhaps not; but Musk seems to think it will.
I don't think Musk thinks at all on the matter.
He's a hyperonline obsessive just venting his own opinion. I doubt he cares one way or another if he moves the dial in this country, he just spews his own opinion which happens to align with Robinson et al.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
I wouldn't say oh well, the last thing this country needs is a party more racist than Farage gaining traction.
Farage is bad enough as it is.
People trying to make this point seemingly have no recollection of the BNP in the mid naughties to early tens. Or of UKIP from 2017 until now. Or Britain First more recently. There have always been parties to the right of Farage, people just don’t remember them because they never get any votes when they try to compete
The BNP were awful but thankfully never gained that much traction.
UKIP post-2017 were a nothingburger. Britain First are a nothingburger.
Hopefully AdvanceUK remain another nothingburger too. If they gain traction, which was my comment, then that would be awful.
Yes, that’s the point I’m making - parties who take on Farage from the right have never got anywhere, and I don’t see why they’d start now. I suppose Lowe being an MP and Musk talking them up will help a little, but Farage usually counters this by saying he is a way of getting to grips with thorny issues without resorting to knuckle dragging.
It might even help him. Lose some of the racist vote but for that reason look less toxic and divisive and gain a greater number of generally fed up roll-the-dicers.
Or of course not if he loses more of the first than he gains of the second.
Cunning operator, though, Farage. Anybody still doubting his skills has not been paying attention.
That’s exactly what the rise of Marion Marechal Le Pen did for the image of her now supposedly more moderate auntie.
It’s probably what the AfD need in order to break through into government - an even more neo-Nazi challenger.
The US is somewhat different because they have the personality cult of Trump, and the 2 party system.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
I work in Hartlepool, drivel like this is just the ususal class based snobbery
Blow it out your arse. I was on here calling Hartlepool for the Tories before their Labour MP quit.
This has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with snobs looking down on those less fortunate than themselves.
I lived in different parts of the red wall for 42 years. I had nothing growing up - we couldn't afford a proper football shirt for me to wear at school like all my mates had. I then went on to represent constituents in a seriously poor community.
And you think I'm a class snob because I abhor racism. Bless.
Youve sold out.
Youre now one of the snobs
I've sold out because I'm not painting "Die Pakis" on bus shelters or excusing the people who did?
Youve brought race in to it I didnt. I said youre a class snob.
It’s bizarre because previously Rochdale has been non judgemental and insightful on working class communities at a time when, on here, centrist dad types were dumping on them
He’s a Lib Dem now and been a PPC so a loathing of working class communities is hard wired into their DNA.
Projection there, perhaps. Not everyone has loathing of a group of people hard wired into their DNA.
Interestingly one of the handful of thoughtful Lib Dem MPs is starting a move to connect the Lib Dem’s with the working class.
Not sure how it will work.
On my local Facebook group Lib Dem members are calling people who put up,flags ‘gammons’ and ‘flag shaggers’. The hatred of working class communities, we don’t have a Gail’s or a Waitrose after all, really is in Lib Dem DNA.
and tend to live in the Home Counties or the poshest parts of London now since Brexit largely vote LD
Source please.
I’m acquainted with plenty of snobbish upper middle class voters who are sticking loyally to the Tory cause.
The campaign to tar Lib Dems as a bloc as some sort of basket of deplorables is to be regretted. It’s a symptom of our US-imported in-group out-group politics.
Tunbridge Wells, Esher and Walton, Winchester, Richmond Park, Maidenhead, Henley, Didcot and Wantage, Chesham and Amersham, St Albans, Epsom and Ewell, Harrogate and Guildford.
All seats filled with upper middle class voters, even if not all snobs, that used to largely be solid Tory but which now have LD MPs
You’ve just classified the swing voters of those 12 seats as “ The most snobbish upper middle class voters who used to vote Tory as a mark to distinguish themselves from the working class”.
Not sure that’s route 1 to winning them back.
I said 'even if not all snobs' but they see Farage as even more of an oik than Kinnock and Corbyn who they equally despised
Farage isn't an oik! He went to Dulwich College and is posh as you like.
Culturally to North Londoners and indeed many in the Home Counties he is an oik
I think the number of voters to whom that is electorally important - i.e. who would vote Farage if only he were slightly posher - is electorally insignificant.
It is his views and supporters they find oikish, not him so much, even though he is a non graduate
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
I find it hard to believe those rumours re Trump. News like that would surely leak more widely within a very short space of time.
FPT. This was posted in February
rottenborough Posts: 67,561 February 7 "Brian Stelter posted a December 9, 2017, quote from the New York Times:
"Before taking office, Mr. Trump told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals."
Stelter wrote: “I think about this quote a lot.” "
Heather Richardson email - 'Letters from an American'
When was the last time he took three consecutive days off?
I think the death rumour is pretty absurd (to tempt fate - cue an announcement that makes me look a fool).
Health may be realistic though - he's clearly had a few issues with the hand make-up and so on, is notoriously non-transparent about his health, and is in a difficult position to say "a few days off for a minor op" given the battering he dished out to Biden on the matter. That could realistically be played reasonably close to their chests, particularly if it's not under general anaesthetic, and he's doing light duties (the odd document signed etc).
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
True but unfortunately for Thatcher she was heading for defeat by Neil Kinnock in 1990 polls due to her stubborn commitment to the poll tax, so Tory MPs removed her and replaced her with Major who scrapped the poll tax and replaced it with council tax
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
Due to the tighter measures Sunak brought in mainly
Sure, Sunak's measures are part of the reason for the fall. It's an example of the Government reacting to public mood, if somewhat belatedly. But that doesn't fit Mortimer's narrative, which seeks to paint mass immigration as a constant imposed by the unlistening elites.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
I wouldn't say oh well, the last thing this country needs is a party more racist than Farage gaining traction.
Farage is bad enough as it is.
People trying to make this point seemingly have no recollection of the BNP in the mid naughties to early tens. Or of UKIP from 2017 until now. Or Britain First more recently. There have always been parties to the right of Farage, people just don’t remember them because they never get any votes when they try to compete
The BNP were awful but thankfully never gained that much traction.
UKIP post-2017 were a nothingburger. Britain First are a nothingburger.
Hopefully AdvanceUK remain another nothingburger too. If they gain traction, which was my comment, then that would be awful.
Yes, that’s the point I’m making - parties who take on Farage from the right have never got anywhere, and I don’t see why they’d start now. I suppose Lowe being an MP and Musk talking them up will help a little, but Farage usually counters this by saying he is a way of getting to grips with thorny issues without resorting to knuckle dragging.
History does not necessarily repeat itself. One change is new media: and Musky Baby is currently criticising Farage whilst praising those harder right. Will that make much of a difference? Perhaps not; but Musk seems to think it will.
I doubt it, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have made the comment you responded to. We have seen many times the difficulty Farage-led parties have had in getting respectable candidates on the ballot, I can’t imagine those to the right of Reform are going to present telegenic, social media savvy types to the public that the media won’t absolutely slaughter
But maybe. As you say, history does not necessarily repeat itself. Tomorrow might not be Sunday
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
I wouldn't say oh well, the last thing this country needs is a party more racist than Farage gaining traction.
Farage is bad enough as it is.
People trying to make this point seemingly have no recollection of the BNP in the mid naughties to early tens. Or of UKIP from 2017 until now. Or Britain First more recently. There have always been parties to the right of Farage, people just don’t remember them because they never get any votes when they try to compete
The BNP were awful but thankfully never gained that much traction.
UKIP post-2017 were a nothingburger. Britain First are a nothingburger.
Hopefully AdvanceUK remain another nothingburger too. If they gain traction, which was my comment, then that would be awful.
Yes, that’s the point I’m making - parties who take on Farage from the right have never got anywhere, and I don’t see why they’d start now. I suppose Lowe being an MP and Musk talking them up will help a little, but Farage usually counters this by saying he is a way of getting to grips with thorny issues without resorting to knuckle dragging.
It might even help him. Lose some of the racist vote but for that reason look less toxic and divisive and gain a greater number of generally fed up roll-the-dicers.
Or of course not if he loses more of the first than he gains of the second.
Cunning operator, though, Farage. Anybody still doubting his skills has not been paying attention.
That’s exactly what the rise of Marion Marechal Le Pen did for the image of her now supposedly more moderate auntie.
It’s probably what the AfD need in order to break through into government - an even more neo-Nazi challenger.
The US is somewhat different because they have the personality cult of Trump, and the 2 party system.
A slightly counter-intuitive alternative to the usual 'splitting the vote' thinking.
Not on the left though. I can’t see this Corbyn party helping Labour if it takes off.
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Advance would need a lot more media attention , perhaps the BBC could step in . Given they’ve acted as the media arm of Reform for months they could help get the Advance message out aswell. I find it laughable that the BBC continues to be thought of as leftie woke .
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Well if Advance UK member Mark Zimmer is saying it, you have to sit up and take notice
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Advance would need a lot more media attention , perhaps the BBC could step in . Given they’ve acted as the media arm of Reform for months they could help get the Advance message out aswell. I find it laughable that the BBC continues to be thought of as leftie woke .
The Beeb is politically an odd marriage of a propaganda outlet for Reform on the main TV news bulletins, a reasonably balanced source with occasional soft-soaping of Reform on the R4 news programmes, and proper leftie-woke in the R4 arts, culture and “comedy” segments.
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Advance would need a lot more media attention , perhaps the BBC could step in . Given they’ve acted as the media arm of Reform for months they could help get the Advance message out aswell. I find it laughable that the BBC continues to be thought of as leftie woke .
For symmetry there really ought to be a party called “retreat”.
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Advance would need a lot more media attention , perhaps the BBC could step in . Given they’ve acted as the media arm of Reform for months they could help get the Advance message out aswell. I find it laughable that the BBC continues to be thought of as leftie woke .
For symmetry there really ought to be a party called “retreat”.
I'm looking for a Managed Decline party. I'd stand for them.
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Advance would need a lot more media attention , perhaps the BBC could step in . Given they’ve acted as the media arm of Reform for months they could help get the Advance message out aswell. I find it laughable that the BBC continues to be thought of as leftie woke .
For symmetry there really ought to be a party called “retreat”.
I'm looking for a Managed Decline party. I'd stand for them.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
True but unfortunately for Thatcher she was heading for defeat by Neil Kinnock in 1990 polls due to her stubborn commitment to the poll tax, so Tory MPs removed her and replaced her with Major who scrapped the poll tax and replaced it with council tax
It did not help Mrs Thatcher that she chose as her joint campaign managers one bloke fully occupied with a Scottish bank, leaving her fate in the hands of a lazy, drunken, Old Etonian shagger.
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Advance would need a lot more media attention , perhaps the BBC could step in . Given they’ve acted as the media arm of Reform for months they could help get the Advance message out aswell. I find it laughable that the BBC continues to be thought of as leftie woke .
For symmetry there really ought to be a party called “retreat”.
I'm looking for a Managed Decline party. I'd stand for them.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
I wouldn't say oh well, the last thing this country needs is a party more racist than Farage gaining traction.
Farage is bad enough as it is.
People trying to make this point seemingly have no recollection of the BNP in the mid naughties to early tens. Or of UKIP from 2017 until now. Or Britain First more recently. There have always been parties to the right of Farage, people just don’t remember them because they never get any votes when they try to compete
The BNP were awful but thankfully never gained that much traction.
UKIP post-2017 were a nothingburger. Britain First are a nothingburger.
Hopefully AdvanceUK remain another nothingburger too. If they gain traction, which was my comment, then that would be awful.
Yes, that’s the point I’m making - parties who take on Farage from the right have never got anywhere, and I don’t see why they’d start now. I suppose Lowe being an MP and Musk talking them up will help a little, but Farage usually counters this by saying he is a way of getting to grips with thorny issues without resorting to knuckle dragging.
It might even help him. Lose some of the racist vote but for that reason look less toxic and divisive and gain a greater number of generally fed up roll-the-dicers.
Or of course not if he loses more of the first than he gains of the second.
Cunning operator, though, Farage. Anybody still doubting his skills has not been paying attention.
That’s exactly what the rise of Marion Marechal Le Pen did for the image of her now supposedly more moderate auntie.
It’s probably what the AfD need in order to break through into government - an even more neo-Nazi challenger.
The US is somewhat different because they have the personality cult of Trump, and the 2 party system.
A slightly counter-intuitive alternative to the usual 'splitting the vote' thinking.
Not on the left though. I can’t see this Corbyn party helping Labour if it takes off.
No, that's not the same - the equivalent would be the Corbyn party getting established (like Reform) but then bring challenged by an even leftier party to the left.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
I wouldn't say oh well, the last thing this country needs is a party more racist than Farage gaining traction.
Farage is bad enough as it is.
People trying to make this point seemingly have no recollection of the BNP in the mid naughties to early tens. Or of UKIP from 2017 until now. Or Britain First more recently. There have always been parties to the right of Farage, people just don’t remember them because they never get any votes when they try to compete
The BNP were awful but thankfully never gained that much traction.
UKIP post-2017 were a nothingburger. Britain First are a nothingburger.
Hopefully AdvanceUK remain another nothingburger too. If they gain traction, which was my comment, then that would be awful.
Yes, that’s the point I’m making - parties who take on Farage from the right have never got anywhere, and I don’t see why they’d start now. I suppose Lowe being an MP and Musk talking them up will help a little, but Farage usually counters this by saying he is a way of getting to grips with thorny issues without resorting to knuckle dragging.
It might even help him. Lose some of the racist vote but for that reason look less toxic and divisive and gain a greater number of generally fed up roll-the-dicers.
Or of course not if he loses more of the first than he gains of the second.
Cunning operator, though, Farage. Anybody still doubting his skills has not been paying attention.
That’s exactly what the rise of Marion Marechal Le Pen did for the image of her now supposedly more moderate auntie.
It’s probably what the AfD need in order to break through into government - an even more neo-Nazi challenger.
The US is somewhat different because they have the personality cult of Trump, and the 2 party system.
A slightly counter-intuitive alternative to the usual 'splitting the vote' thinking.
Not on the left though. I can’t see this Corbyn party helping Labour if it takes off.
No, that's not the same - the equivalent would be the Corbyn party getting established (like Reform) but then bring challenged by an even leftier party to the left.
Yes, true. The 'detox' impact of a more extreme challenger potentially kicks in where you're perceived (by many) as extreme yourself. Only the most red-faced old reactionary haunting the gaming clubs of Mayfair would consider Starmer Labour to be extreme.
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Advance would need a lot more media attention , perhaps the BBC could step in . Given they’ve acted as the media arm of Reform for months they could help get the Advance message out aswell. I find it laughable that the BBC continues to be thought of as leftie woke .
GB news is the media arm of Reform arguably, the BBC certainly isn't even if they cover them
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Advance would need a lot more media attention , perhaps the BBC could step in . Given they’ve acted as the media arm of Reform for months they could help get the Advance message out aswell. I find it laughable that the BBC continues to be thought of as leftie woke .
For symmetry there really ought to be a party called “retreat”.
I'm looking for a Managed Decline party. I'd stand for them.
Sir Keir Starmer says hello.
He's just not a good manager.
Yes you need both, the decline and the skilled management of it. The first is the easy bit, the second requires a politician of the highest calibre.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
True but unfortunately for Thatcher she was heading for defeat by Neil Kinnock in 1990 polls due to her stubborn commitment to the poll tax, so Tory MPs removed her and replaced her with Major who scrapped the poll tax and replaced it with council tax
It did not help Mrs Thatcher that she chose as her joint campaign managers one bloke fully occupied with a Scottish bank, leaving her fate in the hands of a lazy, drunken, Old Etonian shagger.
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Advance would need a lot more media attention , perhaps the BBC could step in . Given they’ve acted as the media arm of Reform for months they could help get the Advance message out aswell. I find it laughable that the BBC continues to be thought of as leftie woke .
For symmetry there really ought to be a party called “retreat”.
The tactical withdrawal party. At least there’d be no chance of Boris joining.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Advance would need a lot more media attention , perhaps the BBC could step in . Given they’ve acted as the media arm of Reform for months they could help get the Advance message out aswell. I find it laughable that the BBC continues to be thought of as leftie woke .
For symmetry there really ought to be a party called “retreat”.
I'm looking for a Managed Decline party. I'd stand for them.
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Advance would need a lot more media attention , perhaps the BBC could step in . Given they’ve acted as the media arm of Reform for months they could help get the Advance message out aswell. I find it laughable that the BBC continues to be thought of as leftie woke .
For symmetry there really ought to be a party called “retreat”.
I'm looking for a Managed Decline party. I'd stand for them.
The Conservatives?
Ha, sadly not. I spotted no management from them when they were in. Total shambles. They delivered on the decline front though tbf.
It does feel as if Reform are starting to look a bit old hat while AdavnceUK are now the coming thing:
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Advance would need a lot more media attention , perhaps the BBC could step in . Given they’ve acted as the media arm of Reform for months they could help get the Advance message out aswell. I find it laughable that the BBC continues to be thought of as leftie woke .
For symmetry there really ought to be a party called “retreat”.
I'm looking for a Managed Decline party. I'd stand for them.
The Conservatives?
Ha, sadly not. I spotted no management from them when they were in. Total shambles. They delivered on the decline front though tbf.
"Are you an asylum seeker and are you considering buying an armoured car, a snowmobile or a timeshare using your Home Office pre-paid cash card? If so, think again, for these are just some of the luxuries on a list of banned items and activities drawn up by the government. [...] Officials have drawn up the extensive list of hundreds of banned items and activities in response to reports that some asylum seekers were using their weekly allowance to gamble. The money is pre-loaded on to cards called Aspen cards, which can be used at cashpoints, and some retailers including those who sell national lottery tickets and scratchcards."
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
I wouldn't say oh well, the last thing this country needs is a party more racist than Farage gaining traction.
Farage is bad enough as it is.
People trying to make this point seemingly have no recollection of the BNP in the mid naughties to early tens. Or of UKIP from 2017 until now. Or Britain First more recently. There have always been parties to the right of Farage, people just don’t remember them because they never get any votes when they try to compete
The BNP were awful but thankfully never gained that much traction.
UKIP post-2017 were a nothingburger. Britain First are a nothingburger.
Hopefully AdvanceUK remain another nothingburger too. If they gain traction, which was my comment, then that would be awful.
Yes, that’s the point I’m making - parties who take on Farage from the right have never got anywhere, and I don’t see why they’d start now. I suppose Lowe being an MP and Musk talking them up will help a little, but Farage usually counters this by saying he is a way of getting to grips with thorny issues without resorting to knuckle dragging.
I don't like him, but he's not stupid and has proven his staying power.
It’s a Western world phenomenon that in broad terms, the upper middle classes have shifted left, whereas the working classes have shifted right.
That shift has destroyed a number of traditional centre right parties, and it may destroy the Conservatives.
More a shift in cultural than economic terms though, the upper middle class would still vote centre right to keep out a hard left populist like Corbyn or Melenchon (Macron leans centre right economically) whereas Corbyn and Melenchon won lots of working class votes indeed more so than most recent Labour or Socialist leaders have
I do wonder if there is significant latent demand for an unashamedly left-of-centre economically, culturally conservative (particularly on immigration) party in the UK.
It's the opposite of what I'd vote for, but I think it aligns with a lot of voters.
There are elements of Labour and Reform that come close to this, and even Boris in the Tories it you count Brexit support and ignore the subsequent open borders. But both are uncomfortable fully embracing the second half of equation.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
Yes, I recognise that there is a bit more to it - and yet historically, time and time again: the more workers there are, the worse off workers are. (I'm talking about workers in the sense of 'anyone who works for a living' sense rather than a class war sense here.) My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
It’s a Western world phenomenon that in broad terms, the upper middle classes have shifted left, whereas the working classes have shifted right.
That shift has destroyed a number of traditional centre right parties, and it may destroy the Conservatives.
More a shift in cultural than economic terms though, the upper middle class would still vote centre right to keep out a hard left populist like Corbyn or Melenchon (Macron leans centre right economically) whereas Corbyn and Melenchon won lots of working class votes indeed more so than most recent Labour or Socialist leaders have
I do wonder if there is significant latent demand for an unashamedly left-of-centre economically, culturally conservative (particularly on immigration) party in the UK.
It's the opposite of what I'd vote for, but I think it aligns with a lot of voters.
There are elements of Labour and Reform that come close to this, and even Boris in the Tories it you count Brexit support and ignore the subsequent open borders. But both are uncomfortable fully embracing the second half of equation.
It exists, in Islamist form. That’s what George Galloway and his outfit are all about.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
Yes, I recognise that there is a bit more to it - and yet historically, time and time again: the more workers there are, the worse off workers are. (I'm talking about workers in the sense of 'anyone who works for a living' sense rather than a class war sense here.) My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
In which case Japan would be booming, with rising wages, and everyone happy.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
Yes, I recognise that there is a bit more to it - and yet historically, time and time again: the more workers there are, the worse off workers are. (I'm talking about workers in the sense of 'anyone who works for a living' sense rather than a class war sense here.) My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
In which case Japan would be booming, with rising wages, and everyone happy.
Which is not the case.
And Singapore and Switzerland would be skint with sullen workers.
It's not a zero sum game. Indeed the correlation is that successful economies with high standards of living for their workers attract immigrants keen to improve themselves.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
Yes, I recognise that there is a bit more to it - and yet historically, time and time again: the more workers there are, the worse off workers are. (I'm talking about workers in the sense of 'anyone who works for a living' sense rather than a class war sense here.) My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
In which case Japan would be booming, with rising wages, and everyone happy.
Which is not the case.
And Singapore and Switzerland would be skint with sullen workers.
It's not a zero sum game. Indeed the correlation is that successful economies with high standards of living for their workers attract immigrants keen to improve themselves.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
Yes, I recognise that there is a bit more to it - and yet historically, time and time again: the more workers there are, the worse off workers are. (I'm talking about workers in the sense of 'anyone who works for a living' sense rather than a class war sense here.) My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
In which case Japan would be booming, with rising wages, and everyone happy.
Which is not the case.
And Singapore and Switzerland would be skint with sullen workers.
It's not a zero sum game. Indeed the correlation is that successful economies with high standards of living for their workers attract immigrants keen to improve themselves.
So why are they coming here then?
Well: there's essentially no labour black market in Switzerland. (And the same is true of Norway.)
In both countries, people who enable the undocumented (whether through employing them, housing them, etc.) are subject to harsh penalties. The consequence of which is that it is very hard to be an illegal immigrant there. (There are no Albanian car washes in either country.)
One of the real pulls of the UK is how easy it is to work without documentation, so even if your asylum application looks like it's going to get rejected you can disappear into the black market. That makes the UK a very attractive destination.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
Yes, I recognise that there is a bit more to it - and yet historically, time and time again: the more workers there are, the worse off workers are. (I'm talking about workers in the sense of 'anyone who works for a living' sense rather than a class war sense here.) My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
In which case Japan would be booming, with rising wages, and everyone happy.
Which is not the case.
And Singapore and Switzerland would be skint with sullen workers.
It's not a zero sum game. Indeed the correlation is that successful economies with high standards of living for their workers attract immigrants keen to improve themselves.
So why are they coming here then?
Well: there's essentially no labour black market in Switzerland. (And the same is true of Norway.)
In both countries, people who enable the undocumented (whether through employing them, housing them, etc.) are subject to harsh penalties. The consequence of which is that it is very hard to be an illegal immigrant there. (There are no Albanian car washes in either country.)
One of the real pulls of the UK is how easy it is to work without documentation, so even if your asylum application looks like it's going to get rejected you can disappear into the black market. That makes the UK a very attractive destination.
By its very nature working illegally is hard to accurately study, but aren't the majority of our illegal workers here on other visas or simply overstayers. The USA too I believe.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
Yes, I recognise that there is a bit more to it - and yet historically, time and time again: the more workers there are, the worse off workers are. (I'm talking about workers in the sense of 'anyone who works for a living' sense rather than a class war sense here.) My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
In the literature on the recent Afghan War, it was pointed out that GDP is not a good index to promote quality of life and access loyalty to the state, but Net Household Income was. We concentrate on the former but not the latter.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
Yes, I recognise that there is a bit more to it - and yet historically, time and time again: the more workers there are, the worse off workers are. (I'm talking about workers in the sense of 'anyone who works for a living' sense rather than a class war sense here.) My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
In which case Japan would be booming, with rising wages, and everyone happy.
Which is not the case.
And Singapore and Switzerland would be skint with sullen workers.
It's not a zero sum game. Indeed the correlation is that successful economies with high standards of living for their workers attract immigrants keen to improve themselves.
So why are they coming here then?
Because we have an economy that generates jobs and has a high standard of living.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
Yes, I recognise that there is a bit more to it - and yet historically, time and time again: the more workers there are, the worse off workers are. (I'm talking about workers in the sense of 'anyone who works for a living' sense rather than a class war sense here.) My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
In the literature on the recent Afghan War, it was pointed out that GDP is not a good index to promote quality of life and access loyalty to the state, but Net Household Income was. We concentrate on the former but not the latter.
I agree, with one proviso.
The key thing to understand is that the purpose of GDP was to measure the taxable output of the economy. How much activity is there that the government could potentially tax, and therefore how much debt can it support. (It's funny: when I was a kid, GNP was much more quoted.)
For individual wellbeing, as you say, net household income is probably a more useful measure. And it's one where - for example - rising housing costs can cause significant negative impacts. (While - by contrast - rising housing costs cause GDP to rise.)
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
Yes, I recognise that there is a bit more to it - and yet historically, time and time again: the more workers there are, the worse off workers are. (I'm talking about workers in the sense of 'anyone who works for a living' sense rather than a class war sense here.) My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
In which case Japan would be booming, with rising wages, and everyone happy.
Which is not the case.
And Singapore and Switzerland would be skint with sullen workers.
It's not a zero sum game. Indeed the correlation is that successful economies with high standards of living for their workers attract immigrants keen to improve themselves.
So why are they coming here then?
Well: there's essentially no labour black market in Switzerland. (And the same is true of Norway.)
In both countries, people who enable the undocumented (whether through employing them, housing them, etc.) are subject to harsh penalties. The consequence of which is that it is very hard to be an illegal immigrant there. (There are no Albanian car washes in either country.)
One of the real pulls of the UK is how easy it is to work without documentation, so even if your asylum application looks like it's going to get rejected you can disappear into the black market. That makes the UK a very attractive destination.
By its very nature working illegally is hard to accurately study, but aren't the majority of our illegal workers here on other visas or simply overstayers. The USA too I believe.
Around the world, the majority of the undocumented/illegal workers are people who entered the country illegally and then stayed. It's not that hard to get a tourist visa to the US or the UK.
After seeing VA R in action today it is clear that the officials are, as a de minimus utterly incompetent The game is set up to.protect the big clubs.
One of the pleasures of being back in the Championship is no VAR.
While I have seen many appalling decisions over the years, by and large these cancel out over the season and the game flows better.
VAR can work, but shouldn't take more than 30 seconds. If it takes longer than that then it isn't a "clear and obvious error" and the referee's decision should stand.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
Yes, I recognise that there is a bit more to it - and yet historically, time and time again: the more workers there are, the worse off workers are. (I'm talking about workers in the sense of 'anyone who works for a living' sense rather than a class war sense here.) My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
In the literature on the recent Afghan War, it was pointed out that GDP is not a good index to promote quality of life and access loyalty to the state, but Net Household Income was. We concentrate on the former but not the latter.
That doesn't explain how happy the Scandinavians are though. They have relatively low household income due to all the tax.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
Yes, I recognise that there is a bit more to it - and yet historically, time and time again: the more workers there are, the worse off workers are. (I'm talking about workers in the sense of 'anyone who works for a living' sense rather than a class war sense here.) My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
In the literature on the recent Afghan War, it was pointed out that GDP is not a good index to promote quality of life and access loyalty to the state, but Net Household Income was. We concentrate on the former but not the latter.
I agree, with one proviso.
The key thing to understand is that the purpose of GDP was to measure the taxable output of the economy. How much activity is there that the government could potentially tax, and therefore how much debt can it support. (It's funny: when I was a kid, GNP was much more quoted.)
For individual wellbeing, as you say, net household income is probably a more useful measure. And it's one where - for example - rising housing costs can cause significant negative impacts. (While - by contrast - rising housing costs cause GDP to rise.)
Net household income is indeed a better measure, but equally important for the average household is inequality, so median is better than mean. Household income is a very skewed distribution.
This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.
Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.
RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.
We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.
Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.
If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.
In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.
Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.
Can this be translated into English ?
Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.
More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.
Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.
Oh well.
The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.
The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.
If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.
This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.
Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.
I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'. Unspoofable.
Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?
Even more unspoofable
Really?
How about "the Centrist Mindset is to assume that everybody will come around to the latest mad idea being proposed by the NU10k Process State at the behest of the Treasury Mindset"?
You could try that. That should get a laugh. It's good.
Those who keep being dismissive of the views of the majority will continue to tank in the polls
Politics doesn’t work like that.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
Yes, well if you think about it, that's a remarkably stupid view to take really isn't it? It is every bit as lacking in nuance and heedless of the actual issue as the ignorance you accuse others of, but more so, because it is fundamentally anti-logical.
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
You may be surprised but I don’t wholly accept your line.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
Interesting dissertation and bits I agree with - but I'd query 'immigration has been good for the country economically' - I think we need to distinguish between 'good for Britain' and 'good for British workers' - historically, my understanding is tbat the British masses have done best when their labour is most valuable, which corresponds to when there is least competition for it.
The problem is that there are lots of second and third order effects (in both directions) which are hard to control for.
Yes, I recognise that there is a bit more to it - and yet historically, time and time again: the more workers there are, the worse off workers are. (I'm talking about workers in the sense of 'anyone who works for a living' sense rather than a class war sense here.) My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
In the literature on the recent Afghan War, it was pointed out that GDP is not a good index to promote quality of life and access loyalty to the state, but Net Household Income was. We concentrate on the former but not the latter.
That doesn't explain how happy the Scandinavians are though. They have relatively low household income due to all the tax.
Yes, but they get more covered by that income, so less individual expenditure on health, schools, even commuting. They tend to be less unequal too. Household inequality is a great driver of grievance and political discontent.
I can only speak as I find but for those claiming economic and societal collapse is somehow imminent, I offer my visits to Matlock on Thursday and Belper yesterday.
Shops and eateries busy and bustling - both young and mostly old spending and having a good time.
Atypical? Probably but in Belper flags abound - Pride flags, union flags, the St George’s Cross, even the Derbyshire county flag. If flying the flag is an expression of joy, the residents of Belper must be very happy.
That doesn't explain how happy the Scandinavians are though. They have relatively low household income due to all the tax.
I was 18 years in Denmark - there are certainly people who don't like the high level of taxation (hence the relative success of the far right), but it was much less of a talking point than in Britain, and generally society was felt to be working quite well, which on the whole (I think) isn't the case in Britain.
There is an American view that Western Europeans are blindly complacent about their systems given the persistently higher GDP per head in the US. However, even allowing for the selectivity of reporting (bad news is much preferred by the press), it doesn't seem true that the US has generally higher satisfaction levels.
Comments
The latest - reportedly - is that larger SUVs parked on roads etc ("surface parking") are down by 2/3 over 12 months. That follows adjustments in parking fees.
All seats filled with upper middle class voters, even if not all snobs, that used to largely be solid Tory but which now have LD MPs
Not sure that’s route 1 to winning them back.
And verily he went straight to the first hole to cheat a birdie. Blessed be the caddies.
https://x.com/newswire_us/status/1961783389163339814?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
However had there been no EU referendum or Remain won UKIP and Farage would still have risen in the polls, they got 12% in 2015 even before Brexit and despite the promise of an EU referendum.
The only Tory leader who kept UKIP and Farage's parties down was Boris, removing him was a bigger factor in reviving Farage than Brexit even despite the Boriswave Reform never got over 5% before Boris' removal
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49978-how-britain-voted-in-the-2024-general-election
Several former professional footballers including Alan Shearer, Peter Beardsley, and Terry McDermott live on the estate along with many current players from both Newcastle United and Sunderland.
..
That shift has destroyed a number of traditional centre right parties, and it may destroy the Conservatives.
Spennymoor Town FC
@SpennymoorTown
Fair play to all the Moors fans who we hear have just arrived safely in Oxford for this afternoon’s game.
Unfortunately, we are playing AFC Telford United today… 🫣
See you soon!
If Badenoch is to emulate Iain Duncan-Smith (whose removal and replacement by Michael Howard ensured, if nothing else, the Conservatives would remain the credible alternative Government even in the event of a third Blair victory) and not even face the electorate as Party leader, that will be because, in Jenrick or Stride, your party has gambled on someone who can win enough seats to remain as leading opposition party next time.
At the moment, the polls say the Conservatives would be the fifth largest party in the next Commons.
Or of course not if he loses more of the first than he gains of the second.
Cunning operator, though, Farage. Anybody still doubting his skills has not been paying attention.
A MiC poll in May for example found a Johnson led Tories would be on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour and 15% for the LDs and 8% for the Greens
https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/media/rpahhzfk/more-in-common-post-election-briefing-3.pdf
Like Lenin's tomb...
He's a hyperonline obsessive just venting his own opinion. I doubt he cares one way or another if he moves the dial in this country, he just spews his own opinion which happens to align with Robinson et al.
It’s probably what the AfD need in order to break through into government - an even more neo-Nazi challenger.
The US is somewhat different because they have the personality cult of Trump, and the 2 party system.
Margaret Thatcher, even when faced with polls showing a majority disagreed with her (Poll Tax) went out and argued her case. She would use interviews, speeches, whatever to put her argument to the British people.
I’ve always believed a majority is the largest number of people wrong about any given issue at any given time. Argument and debate are how ideas are advanced and evolve. Simply saying “the people want this. We must do it” is absurd. That’s the politics of the mob. That’s how you end up with a crowd burning down a house which they think is full of asylum seekers and killing an innocent family - that is literally where you end up if you appease populism.
Before anyone gets upset, that hasn’t happened here YET. I honestly think it will if we don’t tell the “patriots” who think they control the streets the facts of life.
But maybe. As you say, history does not necessarily repeat itself. Tomorrow might not be Sunday
Very clever people will tell you that our asylum and immigration policy is a piece of toss. They can do the sums to show you. But it has taken the public (in their wisdom) showing their displeasure to get them to do anything about it. The public have been the wise ones - the politicians have been the stupid ones.
Other observers are also sceptical about Reform’s ability to control the discontent. “I can see a situation where individual houses start being protested against and it could turn nasty,” says Mark Zimmer, a former Reform candidate and now a member of Ben Habib’s Advance UK. “Reform and the other actors jumping on it don’t understand the fire they’re playing with.”
https://unherd.com/2025/08/the-rise-of-britains-forever-protests/
Of course, much of this is a function of Reform now having considerable local power and being judged (unsympathetically) accordingly. But where will it all end it the crucial question.
Not on the left though. I can’t see this Corbyn party helping Labour if it takes off.
He's just not a good manager.
“More of the same”.
“When do we want it?”
“In due course”.
At least there’d be no chance of Boris joining.
Immigration has been good for this country in the past - the coming of Freedom of Movement changed that as did other geopolitical changes which basically allowed millions who were trapped within their own borders to “escape” to other parts of the world and naturally they came to a) where the money was and b) where they could reach.
The other aspect has been the socio-cultural. Not for the first time, incomers have found a degree of comfort by sticking together - people like people like themselves. The inevitability of concentrations of ethnic groups partly gives the economic lie to multi-culturalism though I suspect enough money will buy you place anywhere.
I live in an area where white British people are a minority and in places like Green Street and Forest Gate, a tiny minority (5%). Yet it’s my experience the one thing which unites everyone is capitalism. Making enough money via working hard for the family and children and wanting them to have a better life - what’s wrong with that? It’s no different to when people left the fields for the factories.
Are there, among the illegals, bad apples? Yes, as there were among those who came under Freedom of Movement and when incidents occur involving immigrants, the perpetrators need to be found and deported. Those who seek to enter Britain illegally need to be found and deported - I think most have always supported that line but the debate about the 4% of illegals is driving the debate about the benefits or otherwise of the 96% who come here legally but it suits those with an agenda hostile to all who are not “British” by their definition to treat all migrants, both legal and illegal, the same.
"Are you an asylum seeker and are you considering buying an armoured car, a snowmobile or a timeshare using your Home Office pre-paid cash card? If so, think again, for these are just some of the luxuries on a list of banned items and activities drawn up by the government.
[...]
Officials have drawn up the extensive list of hundreds of banned items and activities in response to reports that some asylum seekers were using their weekly allowance to gamble. The money is pre-loaded on to cards called Aspen cards, which can be used at cashpoints, and some retailers including those who sell national lottery tickets and scratchcards."
Spoiler: the explanation is banal.
It's the opposite of what I'd vote for, but I think it aligns with a lot of voters.
There are elements of Labour and Reform that come close to this, and even Boris in the Tories it you count Brexit support and ignore the subsequent open borders. But both are uncomfortable fully embracing the second half of equation.
My concern is we focus too much on the headline figure for the whole economy, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well off most individuals are.
Which is not the case.
It's not a zero sum game. Indeed the correlation is that successful economies with high standards of living for their workers attract immigrants keen to improve themselves.
@MarkBrooksArt
MAGA after seeing Trump’s bruised hand.
https://x.com/MarkBrooksArt/status/1960026103130591300
In both countries, people who enable the undocumented (whether through employing them, housing them, etc.) are subject to harsh penalties. The consequence of which is that it is very hard to be an illegal immigrant there. (There are no Albanian car washes in either country.)
One of the real pulls of the UK is how easy it is to work without documentation, so even if your asylum application looks like it's going to get rejected you can disappear into the black market. That makes the UK a very attractive destination.
accessloyalty to the state, but Net Household Income was. We concentrate on the former but not the latter.The game is set up to.protect the big clubs.
The key thing to understand is that the purpose of GDP was to measure the taxable output of the economy. How much activity is there that the government could potentially tax, and therefore how much debt can it support. (It's funny: when I was a kid, GNP was much more quoted.)
For individual wellbeing, as you say, net household income is probably a more useful measure. And it's one where - for example - rising housing costs can cause significant negative impacts. (While - by contrast - rising housing costs cause GDP to rise.)
While I have seen many appalling decisions over the years, by and large these cancel out over the season and the game flows better.
VAR can work, but shouldn't take more than 30 seconds. If it takes longer than that then it isn't a "clear and obvious error" and the referee's decision should stand.
I can only speak as I find but for those claiming economic and societal collapse is somehow imminent, I offer my visits to Matlock on Thursday and Belper yesterday.
Shops and eateries busy and bustling - both young and mostly old spending and having a good time.
Atypical? Probably but in Belper flags abound - Pride flags, union flags, the St George’s Cross, even the Derbyshire county flag. If flying the flag is an expression of joy, the residents of Belper must be very happy.
There is an American view that Western Europeans are blindly complacent about their systems given the persistently higher GDP per head in the US. However, even allowing for the selectivity of reporting (bad news is much preferred by the press), it doesn't seem true that the US has generally higher satisfaction levels.