Zack Polanski once again going viral after. Question Time on twitter, with some of the plaudits from those I've often seen otherwise to be found on apolitical threads. I'm beginning to think that the Greens versus Reform is going to be a key contest, if not the most key confict itself, at the next election.
I'm Backing Zack.
Labour for entirely factional reasons has removed all similar Politicians, more fool them.
Clearly Kemi needed some sort of rabbit out of the hat and as the poll shows cutting Stamp Duty is welcomed by most voters. I don't expect it to see a dramatic change in the polls but it should get the Tories back up to 20%+. Even FON, the best pollster for Reform, had a 3% swing from Reform to Conservative yesterday.
The biggest boost to the Tories will be in London and the Home Counties where house prices are highest. Last night's local by elections were mainly not in those areas
Are you sure the voter has already forgotten your team was in Government between 2010 and 2024?
Labour are making a very good attempt at doing just that !!!!!!!!!!!
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
Polanski is following the lead of the NYC Democratic Mayoral candidate, reheated socialism Corbyn, Melenchon and Sanders style and hammer the rich with tax
Zohran Mamdani, and he could well end up as the winner. He’s the official Democratic candidate.
Yes, he’s talking about rent controls, free buses, and $30 minimum wage, as well as raised income taxes and corporation taxes.
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
Polanski is following the lead of the NYC Democratic Mayoral candidate, reheated socialism Corbyn, Melenchon and Sanders style and hammer the rich with tax
Yes. The good news is, is that it works. But I think there's a ceiling to it. It's a great approach for a minor party to coalesce around and the Greens will do better in 2029. I don't think it would work in a major party, but Labour kicking them out was foolish. All Labour is left with is reheated Reform policies and petty details, and nobody gets excited by that.
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
Polanski is following the lead of the NYC Democratic Mayoral candidate, reheated socialism Corbyn, Melenchon and Sanders style and hammer the rich with tax
I don't think it's quite that simple.
Mamdani in NYC and Polanski seem to be offering some new ideas of how to implement left-wing principles in our current times.
Corbyn always seemed to be sticking to policies established in the 1970s. There's a difference there.
So if Tucker is having a go at Trump he’s a sage, but the other 99% of the time he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist?
If he's losing the conspiracy nutters who else does he have? The Epstein stuff has holed him and I've also got videos of that Theo Von guy getting upset by ICE.
You’re right on the Epstein stuff, that’s gone down really badly with the base, they were told they’d be seeing the Epstein files and they haven’t turned up. The base are pretty pissed with Pam Bondi for her comments on “hate speech” as well.
The likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von are both pretty centrist comics, despite them both voting for Trump last time out. They’ve both made negative comments on execution of immigration raids, while being supportive of the concept. They’re a pretty good barometer for the general feeling in the country I think.
As for Tucker, everything he says needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Like so many journalists now working for himself and paid to have an opinion, he doesn’t make factual stuff up but often leaves out a lot of context, and also knows that the wildest opinions drive social media “engagement”.
I'm not convinced by your definition of "centrist". Back in September, you described Charlie Kirk as "a middle-of-the-road conservative Christian youth movement leader". Charlie Kirk absolutely did not deserve to die, but he was racist and anti-Semitic, so it seems odd to describe him as "middle-of-the-road", as it seems odd to describe Rogan as "centrist". I suggest that you are still so deep in a MAGA social media bubble that you are struggling to discern reality.
It's very confusing. When Leon calls me a "centrist dad" is he comparing me to JD Vance?
You're being assessed relative to the fun fair on the end of Clacton Pier.
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
The problem with the Greens is that they are antediluvian, and their policy proposals are crap.
I like "abolish landlords". It's a solution to the problem of too many wealthy rentiers. It's not the solution I would have picked, but it recognises the problem and implements a solution. It's much better than the learned helplessness of Labour,
Interesting polling. The tax cuts for millionaires thing hasn't cut through (even though that is kinda true*).
I wonder if it's the IHT effect? People are unrealistically optimistic and think they are likely to pay these taxes even though very few of us do.
*I personally think the policy is an excellent one from economic/housing market perspective, though the first order effect is highly regressive
Even the average house buyer pays Stamp Duty in London and the Home Counties.
I think this is mainly Kemi trying to save Tory seats in the all out London local elections next year and thus her job. North of Watford the Stamp Duty cut won't have much impact beyond the most expensive suburbs and villages
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
The problem with the Greens is that they are antediluvian, and their policy proposals are crap.
I like "abolish landlords". It's a solution to the problem of too many wealthy rentiers. It's not the solution I would have picked, but it recognises the problem and implements a solution. It's much better than the learned helplessness of Labour,
It’s not abolish landlords, it’s abolish certain landlords. You’d still rent from LHA’s and presumably the likes of Legal & General who build homes for long term rent.
Anyway it’s the wrong solution to the problem. Supply is needed where demand is highest. Build more where they’re needed. The record of both the London and Manchester mayor in that respect is lamentable
Go for Airbnb and second homes by all means but landlords provide a service, whatever type of landlord they are.
Zack Polanski once again going viral after. Question Time on twitter, with some of the plaudits from those I've often seen otherwise to be found on apolitical threads. I'm beginning to think that the Greens versus Reform is going to be a key contest, if not the most key confict itself, at the next election.
I'm Backing Zack.
Labour for entirely factional reasons has removed all similar Politicians, more fool them.
I’m convinced starmer aggressively pushing the left out has screwed labour long term and nobody paid much attention because the polls were wrong and everyone was too busy watching reform
Leftists taking their 5-10 per cent of the Labour core vote elsewhere won’t make the leftist parties win but can make Labour lose as well as make it harder for them by forcing them to defend safe seats
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
The problem with the Greens is that they are antediluvian, and their policy proposals are crap.
I like "abolish landlords". It's a solution to the problem of too many wealthy rentiers. It's not the solution I would have picked, but it recognises the problem and implements a solution. It's much better than the learned helplessness of Labour,
I don't. It's a solution that is much worse than the problem. Essentially, anybody who lets out property is to have it confiscated. That would simply mean that nobody would let out property.
Interesting polling. The tax cuts for millionaires thing hasn't cut through (even though that is kinda true*).
I wonder if it's the IHT effect? People are unrealistically optimistic and think they are likely to pay these taxes even though very few of us do.
*I personally think the policy is an excellent one from economic/housing market perspective, though the first order effect is highly regressive
Even the average house buyer pays Stamp Duty in London and the Home Counties.
I think this is mainly Kemi trying to save Tory seats in the all out London local elections next year and thus her job. North of Watford the Stamp Duty cut won't have much impact beyond the most expensive suburbs and villages
Or maybe because it is the right thing to do and benefits housing mobility and growth
My daughter has just had to pay £1,950 LTT on her purchase and every little helps following a divorce and becoming a single Mum, albeit with two older children
Of course it is devolved so not sure how the new Plaid led Senedd next May would view it
OT Japan: Koumeito which is the political wing of Soka Gakkai (sort of like Scientology but Buddhist) pulled out of the ruling coalition. They've been part of it for a couple of decades. They mainly care about tax cuts for religious cults but they also don't like militarism so they didn't really vibe with Sanae "Liz Truss but without the common sense" Takaichi.
Previously the LDP+Koumeito were a little bit short of a majority but they had two right/centrist parties they could play off against each other, Isshin (the ruling party of Osaka) and People's Democrats (the right-wing faction resulting from a schism in the main opposition party). Without Koumeito they only really have Isshin to make the numbers, it's not clear whether they can make a deal.
In principle you could now get a non-LDP coalition together with nobody too bonkers in it but it's a lot of cats to herd.
Some of these policies may be attention grabbers for the short term, to help establish themselves. Polanski is more cerebral than it currently appears, I think.
Zack Polanski once again going viral after. Question Time on twitter, with some of the plaudits from those I've often seen otherwise to be found on apolitical threads. I'm beginning to think that the Greens versus Reform is going to be a key contest, if not the most key confict itself, at the next election.
Reform will probably win, whether as largest party or a majority I'm not sure - but the next election is shaping up to be all about the collapse of the Labour vote.
Which is mad because the bigger story is the obliteration of the main party of government over the last two centuries. We've already got used to the idea of Conservative extinction.
What is a real worry is that the two extreme left and right parties, with incoherent policies, could be anywhere near government
I agree. There’s a lack of scrutiny on both of them. The greens is probably early and they have only just come out with their policies. All of which would appear to appeal to quite a narrow demographic but, at least, they have policies. Aside from controlled migration and protecting our borders we have nothing from Reform.
I think it's unlikely that Greens will mirror Reform, though not impossible. Reform currently have large support because a lot of voters have given up on rationality, caution, centrism and broad policy objectives. Bright people like Leon simply shrug and ignore when invited to deal with the actual realities of Reform objectives, or their talent pool, claiming they are content to bring down the building like Samson.
The major parties bear most blame for this by what Oborne calls 'The Rise of Political Lying'. You give up on the centre because they lie, evade, don't answer questions and don't act as grown ups.
Greens are Reform's mirror. But I doubt if more than about 15% of voters, from the 55% pool of those who will or might vote leftishly, will go for it. Labour will recover a bit, and the LDs (who won't join with Greens) are an option.
About September 2027 is the time to start making a realistic assessment and prognostications for a Spring 2029 election.
We all know the struggle the conservatives face, but I genuinely believe labour are facing the same existential threat, and possibly worse
The political forces, both here and elsewhere, are very much moving right and left leaving the tradional parties stranded
You only need to look at France, because that is happening right now with an impotent President who looks faintly ridiculous and powerless
There is no certainty that now 'the genie' is out of the bottle, the political movement is just a temporary blip rather than a long term fracture
You may be right, but there are differences. In the UK the closeness of the link between parliament, individual leadership (the PM) and government marks us out as distinct from both USA and France. So it is harder to have a radical and disruptive split between competing centres. Secondly, we have (so far) a greater respect for the separation of powers and the rule of law than many others. (I look forward to Reform's national approach to this!)
Take Reform's Kent, which should get more attention. It is saying, rather pathetically, it can't cut as it intended and needs lots more money to do it duties. Gosh. No surprise of course to centrists.
But here's the rub; this is what Reform have not said: 'Reform run Kent, and not the rule of law. Reform are the rule of law in Kent. We take no account of the statutory duties imposed on us and will cut exactly where we like, and challenge courts and government to stop us'.
Interesting polling. The tax cuts for millionaires thing hasn't cut through (even though that is kinda true*).
I wonder if it's the IHT effect? People are unrealistically optimistic and think they are likely to pay these taxes even though very few of us do.
*I personally think the policy is an excellent one from economic/housing market perspective, though the first order effect is highly regressive
Even the average house buyer pays Stamp Duty in London and the Home Counties.
I think this is mainly Kemi trying to save Tory seats in the all out London local elections next year and thus her job. North of Watford the Stamp Duty cut won't have much impact beyond the most expensive suburbs and villages
Yes, it is a core core vote strategy aimed at the retired in the Stockbroker belt, but even there the yellow diamonds proliferate. Even in Berkshire the culture war stuff doesn't play well.
Zack Polanski once again going viral after. Question Time on twitter, with some of the plaudits from those I've often seen otherwise to be found on apolitical threads. I'm beginning to think that the Greens versus Reform is going to be a key contest, if not the most key confict itself, at the next election.
Reform will probably win, whether as largest party or a majority I'm not sure - but the next election is shaping up to be all about the collapse of the Labour vote.
Which is mad because the bigger story is the obliteration of the main party of government over the last two centuries. We've already got used to the idea of Conservative extinction.
What is a real worry is that the two extreme left and right parties, with incoherent policies, could be anywhere near government
I agree. There’s a lack of scrutiny on both of them. The greens is probably early and they have only just come out with their policies. All of which would appear to appeal to quite a narrow demographic but, at least, they have policies. Aside from controlled migration and protecting our borders we have nothing from Reform.
I think it's unlikely that Greens will mirror Reform, though not impossible. Reform currently have large support because a lot of voters have given up on rationality, caution, centrism and broad policy objectives. Bright people like Leon simply shrug and ignore when invited to deal with the actual realities of Reform objectives, or their talent pool, claiming they are content to bring down the building like Samson.
The major parties bear most blame for this by what Oborne calls 'The Rise of Political Lying'. You give up on the centre because they lie, evade, don't answer questions and don't act as grown ups.
Greens are Reform's mirror. But I doubt if more than about 15% of voters, from the 55% pool of those who will or might vote leftishly, will go for it. Labour will recover a bit, and the LDs (who won't join with Greens) are an option.
About September 2027 is the time to start making a realistic assessment and prognostications for a Spring 2029 election.
We all know the struggle the conservatives face, but I genuinely believe labour are facing the same existential threat, and possibly worse
The political forces, both here and elsewhere, are very much moving right and left leaving the tradional parties stranded
You only need to look at France, because that is happening right now with an impotent President who looks faintly ridiculous and powerless
There is no certainty that now 'the genie' is out of the bottle, the political movement is just a temporary blip rather than a long term fracture
You may be right, but there are differences. In the UK the closeness of the link between parliament, individual leadership (the PM) and government marks us out as distinct from both USA and France. So it is harder to have a radical and disruptive split between competing centres. Secondly, we have (so far) a greater respect for the separation of powers and the rule of law than many others. (I look forward to Reform's national approach to this!)
Take Reform's Kent, which should get more attention. It is saying, rather pathetically, it can't cut as it intended and needs lots more money to do it duties. Gosh. No surprise of course to centrists.
But here's the rub; this is what Reform have not said: 'Reform run Kent, and not the rule of law. Reform are the rule of law in Kent. We take no account of the statutory duties imposed on us and will cut exactly where we like, and challenge courts and government to stop us'.
UK is not USA. or France.
To ignore the evidence of divergence from the norm, not only here, but elsewhere is a form of denial
Zack Polanski once again going viral after. Question Time on twitter, with some of the plaudits from those I've often seen otherwise to be found on apolitical threads. I'm beginning to think that the Greens versus Reform is going to be a key contest, if not the most key confict itself, at the next election.
Reform will probably win, whether as largest party or a majority I'm not sure - but the next election is shaping up to be all about the collapse of the Labour vote.
Which is mad because the bigger story is the obliteration of the main party of government over the last two centuries. We've already got used to the idea of Conservative extinction.
What is a real worry is that the two extreme left and right parties, with incoherent policies, could be anywhere near government
I agree. There’s a lack of scrutiny on both of them. The greens is probably early and they have only just come out with their policies. All of which would appear to appeal to quite a narrow demographic but, at least, they have policies. Aside from controlled migration and protecting our borders we have nothing from Reform.
I think it's unlikely that Greens will mirror Reform, though not impossible. Reform currently have large support because a lot of voters have given up on rationality, caution, centrism and broad policy objectives. Bright people like Leon simply shrug and ignore when invited to deal with the actual realities of Reform objectives, or their talent pool, claiming they are content to bring down the building like Samson.
The major parties bear most blame for this by what Oborne calls 'The Rise of Political Lying'. You give up on the centre because they lie, evade, don't answer questions and don't act as grown ups.
Greens are Reform's mirror. But I doubt if more than about 15% of voters, from the 55% pool of those who will or might vote leftishly, will go for it. Labour will recover a bit, and the LDs (who won't join with Greens) are an option.
About September 2027 is the time to start making a realistic assessment and prognostications for a Spring 2029 election.
We all know the struggle the conservatives face, but I genuinely believe labour are facing the same existential threat, and possibly worse
The political forces, both here and elsewhere, are very much moving right and left leaving the tradional parties stranded
You only need to look at France, because that is happening right now with an impotent President who looks faintly ridiculous and powerless
There is no certainty that now 'the genie' is out of the bottle, the political movement is just a temporary blip rather than a long term fracture
You may be right, but there are differences. In the UK the closeness of the link between parliament, individual leadership (the PM) and government marks us out as distinct from both USA and France. So it is harder to have a radical and disruptive split between competing centres. Secondly, we have (so far) a greater respect for the separation of powers and the rule of law than many others. (I look forward to Reform's national approach to this!)
Take Reform's Kent, which should get more attention. It is saying, rather pathetically, it can't cut as it intended and needs lots more money to do it duties. Gosh. No surprise of course to centrists.
But here's the rub; this is what Reform have not said: 'Reform run Kent, and not the rule of law. Reform are the rule of law in Kent. We take no account of the statutory duties imposed on us and will cut exactly where we like, and challenge courts and government to stop us'.
UK is not USA. or France.
I think that we see in America that a written constitutions and the rule of law are no protection against an evil executive.
Jenrick made it clear that he wants politically appointed judges, and I dont think he meant ones appointed by Polanski.
So if Tucker is having a go at Trump he’s a sage, but the other 99% of the time he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist?
If he's losing the conspiracy nutters who else does he have? The Epstein stuff has holed him and I've also got videos of that Theo Von guy getting upset by ICE.
You’re right on the Epstein stuff, that’s gone down really badly with the base, they were told they’d be seeing the Epstein files and they haven’t turned up. The base are pretty pissed with Pam Bondi for her comments on “hate speech” as well.
The likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von are both pretty centrist comics, despite them both voting for Trump last time out. They’ve both made negative comments on execution of immigration raids, while being supportive of the concept. They’re a pretty good barometer for the general feeling in the country I think.
As for Tucker, everything he says needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Like so many journalists now working for himself and paid to have an opinion, he doesn’t make factual stuff up but often leaves out a lot of context, and also knows that the wildest opinions drive social media “engagement”.
I'm not convinced by your definition of "centrist". Back in September, you described Charlie Kirk as "a middle-of-the-road conservative Christian youth movement leader". Charlie Kirk absolutely did not deserve to die, but he was racist and anti-Semitic, so it seems odd to describe him as "middle-of-the-road", as it seems odd to describe Rogan as "centrist". I suggest that you are still so deep in a MAGA social media bubble that you are struggling to discern reality.
Oh dear.
Rogan said he’d never voted Republican before last year, and that he voted for Obama. He’s described himself as centre-left, but said that the Democrats had gone crazy over censorship and gender stuff.
Von is slightly to the right of Rogan, but has also described himself as pretty centrist.
Charlie Kirk was not racist, there’s no evidence whatsoever of that.
Rogan has supported vaccine misinformation, HIV denialism and denies climate change. He’s said Jews are “interested in money”. Are these centrist views?
As for Kirk, start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk#Race and work down. The man was deeply racist and an anti-Semite. He explicitly said the Great Replacement Theory conspiracy was true and he blamed Jews for it.
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
The problem with the Greens is that they are antediluvian, and their policy proposals are crap.
The Greens do believe in a prelapsarian paradise, perhaps something they share with Reform UK.
Reform only want to take us back to 1955. The Greens want to take us back to pre-industrial times.
Interesting polling. The tax cuts for millionaires thing hasn't cut through (even though that is kinda true*).
I wonder if it's the IHT effect? People are unrealistically optimistic and think they are likely to pay these taxes even though very few of us do.
*I personally think the policy is an excellent one from economic/housing market perspective, though the first order effect is highly regressive
Even the average house buyer pays Stamp Duty in London and the Home Counties.
I think this is mainly Kemi trying to save Tory seats in the all out London local elections next year and thus her job. North of Watford the Stamp Duty cut won't have much impact beyond the most expensive suburbs and villages
Yes, it is a core core vote strategy aimed at the retired in the Stockbroker belt, but even there the yellow diamonds proliferate. Even in Berkshire the culture war stuff doesn't play well.
71% of Lib Dems support so I assume it will be a manifesto commitment from them as well as abolishing IHT on farmers
Here's an interesting question I'll adapt from another message board I lurk on.
Which PBer, past or present, would make the most interesting subject for a Louis Theroux documentary?
Is this a message board that's more orange than the Donald ?
Indeed.
It's a shame that board is basically going through a very slow lingering death. I've been on it for about 12 years and there hasn't been much genuine new blood
Another case in point is that Polanski's drawing to attention today of Reformer Nathan Gill, and his links to both Farage and Russia, is already racking up the views and clicks.
Nothing daily from the Tories or Labour on these kinds of issues, while the Lib Dems share some of his objectives, but with not high enough a profile.
So if Tucker is having a go at Trump he’s a sage, but the other 99% of the time he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist?
If he's losing the conspiracy nutters who else does he have? The Epstein stuff has holed him and I've also got videos of that Theo Von guy getting upset by ICE.
You’re right on the Epstein stuff, that’s gone down really badly with the base, they were told they’d be seeing the Epstein files and they haven’t turned up. The base are pretty pissed with Pam Bondi for her comments on “hate speech” as well.
The likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von are both pretty centrist comics, despite them both voting for Trump last time out. They’ve both made negative comments on execution of immigration raids, while being supportive of the concept. They’re a pretty good barometer for the general feeling in the country I think.
As for Tucker, everything he says needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Like so many journalists now working for himself and paid to have an opinion, he doesn’t make factual stuff up but often leaves out a lot of context, and also knows that the wildest opinions drive social media “engagement”.
I'm not convinced by your definition of "centrist". Back in September, you described Charlie Kirk as "a middle-of-the-road conservative Christian youth movement leader". Charlie Kirk absolutely did not deserve to die, but he was racist and anti-Semitic, so it seems odd to describe him as "middle-of-the-road", as it seems odd to describe Rogan as "centrist". I suggest that you are still so deep in a MAGA social media bubble that you are struggling to discern reality.
Oh dear.
Rogan said he’d never voted Republican before last year, and that he voted for Obama. He’s described himself as centre-left, but said that the Democrats had gone crazy over censorship and gender stuff.
Von is slightly to the right of Rogan, but has also described himself as pretty centrist.
Charlie Kirk was not racist, there’s no evidence whatsoever of that.
"You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously."
So if Tucker is having a go at Trump he’s a sage, but the other 99% of the time he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist?
If he's losing the conspiracy nutters who else does he have? The Epstein stuff has holed him and I've also got videos of that Theo Von guy getting upset by ICE.
You’re right on the Epstein stuff, that’s gone down really badly with the base, they were told they’d be seeing the Epstein files and they haven’t turned up. The base are pretty pissed with Pam Bondi for her comments on “hate speech” as well.
The likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von are both pretty centrist comics, despite them both voting for Trump last time out. They’ve both made negative comments on execution of immigration raids, while being supportive of the concept. They’re a pretty good barometer for the general feeling in the country I think.
As for Tucker, everything he says needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Like so many journalists now working for himself and paid to have an opinion, he doesn’t make factual stuff up but often leaves out a lot of context, and also knows that the wildest opinions drive social media “engagement”.
I'm not convinced by your definition of "centrist". Back in September, you described Charlie Kirk as "a middle-of-the-road conservative Christian youth movement leader". Charlie Kirk absolutely did not deserve to die, but he was racist and anti-Semitic, so it seems odd to describe him as "middle-of-the-road", as it seems odd to describe Rogan as "centrist". I suggest that you are still so deep in a MAGA social media bubble that you are struggling to discern reality.
Oh dear.
Rogan said he’d never voted Republican before last year, and that he voted for Obama. He’s described himself as centre-left, but said that the Democrats had gone crazy over censorship and gender stuff.
Von is slightly to the right of Rogan, but has also described himself as pretty centrist.
Charlie Kirk was not racist, there’s no evidence whatsoever of that.
Rogan has supported vaccine misinformation, HIV denialism and denies climate change. He’s said Jews are “interested in money”. Are these centrist views?
As for Kirk, start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk#Race and work down. The man was deeply racist and an anti-Semite. He explicitly said the Great Replacement Theory conspiracy was true and he blamed Jews for it.
Many of Kirk's views were deeply repulsive. You don't graduate from Princeton, and get a law doctorate from Harvard, as Michelle Obama did, without possessing a lot of brainpower.
Here's an interesting question I'll adapt from another message board I lurk on.
Which PBer, past or present, would make the most interesting subject for a Louis Theroux documentary?
Is this a message board that's more orange than the Donald ?
Indeed.
It's a shame that board is basically going through a very slow lingering death. I've been on it for about 12 years and there hasn't been much genuine new blood
It’s a very 2000s style board (like this one TBH) and things have moved on. I’ve never regularly commented there.
OT Japan: Koumeito which is the political wing of Soka Gakkai (sort of like Scientology but Buddhist) pulled out of the ruling coalition. They've been part of it for a couple of decades. They mainly care about tax cuts for religious cults but they also don't like militarism so they didn't really vibe with Sanae "Liz Truss but without the common sense" Takaichi.
Previously the LDP+Koumeito were a little bit short of a majority but they had two right/centrist parties they could play off against each other, Isshin (the ruling party of Osaka) and People's Democrats (the right-wing faction resulting from a schism in the main opposition party). Without Koumeito they only really have Isshin to make the numbers, it's not clear whether they can make a deal.
In principle you could now get a non-LDP coalition together with nobody too bonkers in it but it's a lot of cats to herd.
Koumeito also get compared to the LibDems. NOT in their policies, but in a certain style of pavement politics.
Here's an interesting question I'll adapt from another message board I lurk on.
Which PBer, past or present, would make the most interesting subject for a Louis Theroux documentary?
Is this a message board that's more orange than the Donald ?
Indeed.
It's a shame that board is basically going through a very slow lingering death. I've been on it for about 12 years and there hasn't been much genuine new blood
It’s a very 2000s style board (like this one TBH) and things have moved on. I’ve never regularly commented there.
Old style forums and blogs are being squeezed out by social media, but I hope they survive. I think we're seeing saturation point, and may soon start to see people reducing smartphone time and social media doomscrolling. Hope so, anyway.
So if Tucker is having a go at Trump he’s a sage, but the other 99% of the time he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist?
If he's losing the conspiracy nutters who else does he have? The Epstein stuff has holed him and I've also got videos of that Theo Von guy getting upset by ICE.
You’re right on the Epstein stuff, that’s gone down really badly with the base, they were told they’d be seeing the Epstein files and they haven’t turned up. The base are pretty pissed with Pam Bondi for her comments on “hate speech” as well.
The likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von are both pretty centrist comics, despite them both voting for Trump last time out. They’ve both made negative comments on execution of immigration raids, while being supportive of the concept. They’re a pretty good barometer for the general feeling in the country I think.
As for Tucker, everything he says needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Like so many journalists now working for himself and paid to have an opinion, he doesn’t make factual stuff up but often leaves out a lot of context, and also knows that the wildest opinions drive social media “engagement”.
I'm not convinced by your definition of "centrist". Back in September, you described Charlie Kirk as "a middle-of-the-road conservative Christian youth movement leader". Charlie Kirk absolutely did not deserve to die, but he was racist and anti-Semitic, so it seems odd to describe him as "middle-of-the-road", as it seems odd to describe Rogan as "centrist". I suggest that you are still so deep in a MAGA social media bubble that you are struggling to discern reality.
Oh dear.
Rogan said he’d never voted Republican before last year, and that he voted for Obama. He’s described himself as centre-left, but said that the Democrats had gone crazy over censorship and gender stuff.
Von is slightly to the right of Rogan, but has also described himself as pretty centrist.
Charlie Kirk was not racist, there’s no evidence whatsoever of that.
"You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously."
Totally out of context, and referring to specific people who were saying they were diversity hires and proud of it.
Full quote: If we would have said three weeks ago [...] that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they're comin' out and they're saying it for us! They're comin' out and they're saying, "I'm only here because of affirmative action.
Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.
The internet is absolutely full of these, as there’s thousands of hours of recordings of Kirk speaking. I’ve yet to see any evidence that he was actually racist. He didn’t say that black women are stupid, he said that Joy Reid was stupid. Which she is.
The Reform accounts are going hard on Polanski and the trans issue, seeing it as a weak point, where he looks less straightforward.
I'm not sure that'll work, thoigh, because most people have material priorities. If he looks like the only left alternative and YourParty is still in the doldrums, it won't be the central issue.
Interesting polling. The tax cuts for millionaires thing hasn't cut through (even though that is kinda true*).
I wonder if it's the IHT effect? People are unrealistically optimistic and think they are likely to pay these taxes even though very few of us do.
*I personally think the policy is an excellent one from economic/housing market perspective, though the first order effect is highly regressive
Even the average house buyer pays Stamp Duty in London and the Home Counties.
I think this is mainly Kemi trying to save Tory seats in the all out London local elections next year and thus her job. North of Watford the Stamp Duty cut won't have much impact beyond the most expensive suburbs and villages
Yes, it is a core core vote strategy aimed at the retired in the Stockbroker belt, but even there the yellow diamonds proliferate. Even in Berkshire the culture war stuff doesn't play well.
Outside Surrey and Oxfordshire though most of London and the home counties was still mainly a Labour v Conservative battle at the last general election. The Stamp Duty cut proposal will boost the Conservatives in London in particular against Labour, especially as Reform are weakest in the capital so the Tories are still largely the main alternative on the right to Labour in London even if not now UK wide
"You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously."
It is a stupid, bigoted, comment, which does not read any better, in context.
The Reform accounts are going hard on Polanski and the trans issue, seeing it as a weak point, where he looks less straightforward.
I'm not sure that'll work, thoigh, because most people have material priorities.
Odd that Reform are going for him. I'd have thought it would be in their interest for him to stick around. It should be Labour piling in on him on the trans issue.
Here's an interesting question I'll adapt from another message board I lurk on.
Which PBer, past or present, would make the most interesting subject for a Louis Theroux documentary?
Is this a message board that's more orange than the Donald ?
Indeed.
It's a shame that board is basically going through a very slow lingering death. I've been on it for about 12 years and there hasn't been much genuine new blood
It’s a very 2000s style board (like this one TBH) and things have moved on. I’ve never regularly commented there.
Zack Polanski once again going viral after. Question Time on twitter, with some of the plaudits from those I've often seen otherwise to be found on apolitical threads. I'm beginning to think that the Greens versus Reform is going to be a key contest, if not the most key confict itself, at the next election.
Reform will probably win, whether as largest party or a majority I'm not sure - but the next election is shaping up to be all about the collapse of the Labour vote.
Which is mad because the bigger story is the obliteration of the main party of government over the last two centuries. We've already got used to the idea of Conservative extinction.
What is a real worry is that the two extreme left and right parties, with incoherent policies, could be anywhere near government
I agree. There’s a lack of scrutiny on both of them. The greens is probably early and they have only just come out with their policies. All of which would appear to appeal to quite a narrow demographic but, at least, they have policies. Aside from controlled migration and protecting our borders we have nothing from Reform.
I think it's unlikely that Greens will mirror Reform, though not impossible. Reform currently have large support because a lot of voters have given up on rationality, caution, centrism and broad policy objectives. Bright people like Leon simply shrug and ignore when invited to deal with the actual realities of Reform objectives, or their talent pool, claiming they are content to bring down the building like Samson.
The major parties bear most blame for this by what Oborne calls 'The Rise of Political Lying'. You give up on the centre because they lie, evade, don't answer questions and don't act as grown ups.
Greens are Reform's mirror. But I doubt if more than about 15% of voters, from the 55% pool of those who will or might vote leftishly, will go for it. Labour will recover a bit, and the LDs (who won't join with Greens) are an option.
About September 2027 is the time to start making a realistic assessment and prognostications for a Spring 2029 election.
We all know the struggle the conservatives face, but I genuinely believe labour are facing the same existential threat, and possibly worse
The political forces, both here and elsewhere, are very much moving right and left leaving the tradional parties stranded
You only need to look at France, because that is happening right now with an impotent President who looks faintly ridiculous and powerless
There is no certainty that now 'the genie' is out of the bottle, the political movement is just a temporary blip rather than a long term fracture
You may be right, but there are differences. In the UK the closeness of the link between parliament, individual leadership (the PM) and government marks us out as distinct from both USA and France. So it is harder to have a radical and disruptive split between competing centres. Secondly, we have (so far) a greater respect for the separation of powers and the rule of law than many others. (I look forward to Reform's national approach to this!)
Take Reform's Kent, which should get more attention. It is saying, rather pathetically, it can't cut as it intended and needs lots more money to do it duties. Gosh. No surprise of course to centrists.
But here's the rub; this is what Reform have not said: 'Reform run Kent, and not the rule of law. Reform are the rule of law in Kent. We take no account of the statutory duties imposed on us and will cut exactly where we like, and challenge courts and government to stop us'.
UK is not USA. or France.
I think that we see in America that a written constitutions and the rule of law are no protection against an evil executive.
Jenrick made it clear that he wants politically appointed judges, and I dont think he meant ones appointed by Polanski.
All true of course. I suggest (we shall no doubt find out) that the UK is better protected than some simply because of the close link between individual leader (the PM), government and parliament, + there being a long tradition of the independence of the courts.
As things stand a tyrannical executive can be disposed of with ease by any 325 MPs, and subject to the rule of law by the courts, all ultimately backed by an armed forces whose loyalty is not to any politician but to the crown.
Intelligent journalists might like to explore this issue with Mr Farage and friends, to see if they show any signs of Louis XIV/Trump derangement syndrome.
No system of course can cope with the collapse of all controls, or the disloyalty of armed force, or a voting public who want tyranny. That would be to provide magically an answer to the unanswerable question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes'.
Here's an interesting question I'll adapt from another message board I lurk on.
Which PBer, past or present, would make the most interesting subject for a Louis Theroux documentary?
Is this a message board that's more orange than the Donald ?
Indeed.
It's a shame that board is basically going through a very slow lingering death. I've been on it for about 12 years and there hasn't been much genuine new blood
It’s a very 2000s style board (like this one TBH) and things have moved on. I’ve never regularly commented there.
What is the name of this board please?
Based on the alleged style, probably George or Ralph.
< Odd that Reform are going for him. I'd have thought it would be in their interest for him to stick around. It should be Labour piling in on him on the trans issue. >
I think there are also a lot of right-populist and Russian bot accounts on twitter. Both their and Reform"s A.I. probably think they have identified the right point to pull him up on.
Here's an interesting question I'll adapt from another message board I lurk on.
Which PBer, past or present, would make the most interesting subject for a Louis Theroux documentary?
Is this a message board that's more orange than the Donald ?
Indeed.
It's a shame that board is basically going through a very slow lingering death. I've been on it for about 12 years and there hasn't been much genuine new blood
It’s a very 2000s style board (like this one TBH) and things have moved on. I’ve never regularly commented there.
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
The problem with the Greens is that they are antediluvian, and their policy proposals are crap.
I like "abolish landlords". It's a solution to the problem of too many wealthy rentiers. It's not the solution I would have picked, but it recognises the problem and implements a solution. It's much better than the learned helplessness of Labour,
No it is theft and basically communism and many want to rent privately and not from the state
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
The problem with the Greens is that they are antediluvian, and their policy proposals are crap.
I like "abolish landlords". It's a solution to the problem of too many wealthy rentiers. It's not the solution I would have picked, but it recognises the problem and implements a solution. It's much better than the learned helplessness of Labour,
It’s not abolish landlords, it’s abolish certain landlords. You’d still rent from LHA’s and presumably the likes of Legal & General who build homes for long term rent.
Anyway it’s the wrong solution to the problem. Supply is needed where demand is highest. Build more where they’re needed. The record of both the London and Manchester mayor in that respect is lamentable
Go for Airbnb and second homes by all means but landlords provide a service, whatever type of landlord they are.
No, we need new towns away from overheated London. The British economy is the most unbalanced of our peers since the demise of northern and Welsh coalfields, coastal ports and resorts, the Midlands industrial base, Aberdeen's oil and gas, the Glasgow shipyards and Edinburgh's services.
So if Tucker is having a go at Trump he’s a sage, but the other 99% of the time he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist?
If he's losing the conspiracy nutters who else does he have? The Epstein stuff has holed him and I've also got videos of that Theo Von guy getting upset by ICE.
You’re right on the Epstein stuff, that’s gone down really badly with the base, they were told they’d be seeing the Epstein files and they haven’t turned up. The base are pretty pissed with Pam Bondi for her comments on “hate speech” as well.
The likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von are both pretty centrist comics, despite them both voting for Trump last time out. They’ve both made negative comments on execution of immigration raids, while being supportive of the concept. They’re a pretty good barometer for the general feeling in the country I think.
As for Tucker, everything he says needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Like so many journalists now working for himself and paid to have an opinion, he doesn’t make factual stuff up but often leaves out a lot of context, and also knows that the wildest opinions drive social media “engagement”.
I'm not convinced by your definition of "centrist". Back in September, you described Charlie Kirk as "a middle-of-the-road conservative Christian youth movement leader". Charlie Kirk absolutely did not deserve to die, but he was racist and anti-Semitic, so it seems odd to describe him as "middle-of-the-road", as it seems odd to describe Rogan as "centrist". I suggest that you are still so deep in a MAGA social media bubble that you are struggling to discern reality.
Oh dear.
Rogan said he’d never voted Republican before last year, and that he voted for Obama. He’s described himself as centre-left, but said that the Democrats had gone crazy over censorship and gender stuff.
Von is slightly to the right of Rogan, but has also described himself as pretty centrist.
Charlie Kirk was not racist, there’s no evidence whatsoever of that.
"You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously."
Totally out of context, and referring to specific people who were saying they were diversity hires and proud of it.
Full quote: If we would have said three weeks ago [...] that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they're comin' out and they're saying it for us! They're comin' out and they're saying, "I'm only here because of affirmative action.
Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.
The internet is absolutely full of these, as there’s thousands of hours of recordings of Kirk speaking. I’ve yet to see any evidence that he was actually racist. He didn’t say that black women are stupid, he said that Joy Reid was stupid. Which she is.
It's odd isn't it, white vs black racism. Particularly when you think that we were all black once, and only lightened in skin colour when as our ancestors travelled out of Africa and further North, and needed to create more Vitamin D in our bodies. I also wonder whether West and Central Africans are more likely to be 'pure' Homo sapiens, given that most Europeans are likely to have some Neanderthal ancestry, and Asians some admixture of other Homo species.
So if Tucker is having a go at Trump he’s a sage, but the other 99% of the time he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist?
If he's losing the conspiracy nutters who else does he have? The Epstein stuff has holed him and I've also got videos of that Theo Von guy getting upset by ICE.
You’re right on the Epstein stuff, that’s gone down really badly with the base, they were told they’d be seeing the Epstein files and they haven’t turned up. The base are pretty pissed with Pam Bondi for her comments on “hate speech” as well.
The likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von are both pretty centrist comics, despite them both voting for Trump last time out. They’ve both made negative comments on execution of immigration raids, while being supportive of the concept. They’re a pretty good barometer for the general feeling in the country I think.
As for Tucker, everything he says needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Like so many journalists now working for himself and paid to have an opinion, he doesn’t make factual stuff up but often leaves out a lot of context, and also knows that the wildest opinions drive social media “engagement”.
I'm not convinced by your definition of "centrist". Back in September, you described Charlie Kirk as "a middle-of-the-road conservative Christian youth movement leader". Charlie Kirk absolutely did not deserve to die, but he was racist and anti-Semitic, so it seems odd to describe him as "middle-of-the-road", as it seems odd to describe Rogan as "centrist". I suggest that you are still so deep in a MAGA social media bubble that you are struggling to discern reality.
Oh dear.
Rogan said he’d never voted Republican before last year, and that he voted for Obama. He’s described himself as centre-left, but said that the Democrats had gone crazy over censorship and gender stuff.
Von is slightly to the right of Rogan, but has also described himself as pretty centrist.
Charlie Kirk was not racist, there’s no evidence whatsoever of that.
Rogan has supported vaccine misinformation, HIV denialism and denies climate change. He’s said Jews are “interested in money”. Are these centrist views?
As for Kirk, start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk#Race and work down. The man was deeply racist and an anti-Semite. He explicitly said the Great Replacement Theory conspiracy was true and he blamed Jews for it.
Many of Kirk's views were deeply repulsive. You don't graduate from Princeton, and get a law doctorate from Harvard, as Michelle Obama did, without possessing a lot of brainpower.
We hear lots about the casual and gratuitous use of 'racist' by the left. And ok there's some truth in that. But less discussed and at least equally prevalent is the opposite tendency on the right whereby unless a person goes round in a tee-shirt emblazoned with "KKK White Power!" they can't in fairness be described as a racist.
Zack Polanski once again going viral after. Question Time on twitter, with some of the plaudits from those I've often seen otherwise to be found on apolitical threads. I'm beginning to think that the Greens versus Reform is going to be a key contest, if not the most key confict itself, at the next election.
Reform will probably win, whether as largest party or a majority I'm not sure - but the next election is shaping up to be all about the collapse of the Labour vote.
Which is mad because the bigger story is the obliteration of the main party of government over the last two centuries. We've already got used to the idea of Conservative extinction.
What is a real worry is that the two extreme left and right parties, with incoherent policies, could be anywhere near government
I agree. There’s a lack of scrutiny on both of them. The greens is probably early and they have only just come out with their policies. All of which would appear to appeal to quite a narrow demographic but, at least, they have policies. Aside from controlled migration and protecting our borders we have nothing from Reform.
I think it's unlikely that Greens will mirror Reform, though not impossible. Reform currently have large support because a lot of voters have given up on rationality, caution, centrism and broad policy objectives. Bright people like Leon simply shrug and ignore when invited to deal with the actual realities of Reform objectives, or their talent pool, claiming they are content to bring down the building like Samson.
The major parties bear most blame for this by what Oborne calls 'The Rise of Political Lying'. You give up on the centre because they lie, evade, don't answer questions and don't act as grown ups.
Greens are Reform's mirror. But I doubt if more than about 15% of voters, from the 55% pool of those who will or might vote leftishly, will go for it. Labour will recover a bit, and the LDs (who won't join with Greens) are an option.
About September 2027 is the time to start making a realistic assessment and prognostications for a Spring 2029 election.
We all know the struggle the conservatives face, but I genuinely believe labour are facing the same existential threat, and possibly worse
The political forces, both here and elsewhere, are very much moving right and left leaving the tradional parties stranded
You only need to look at France, because that is happening right now with an impotent President who looks faintly ridiculous and powerless
There is no certainty that now 'the genie' is out of the bottle, the political movement is just a temporary blip rather than a long term fracture
You may be right, but there are differences. In the UK the closeness of the link between parliament, individual leadership (the PM) and government marks us out as distinct from both USA and France. So it is harder to have a radical and disruptive split between competing centres. Secondly, we have (so far) a greater respect for the separation of powers and the rule of law than many others. (I look forward to Reform's national approach to this!)
Take Reform's Kent, which should get more attention. It is saying, rather pathetically, it can't cut as it intended and needs lots more money to do it duties. Gosh. No surprise of course to centrists.
But here's the rub; this is what Reform have not said: 'Reform run Kent, and not the rule of law. Reform are the rule of law in Kent. We take no account of the statutory duties imposed on us and will cut exactly where we like, and challenge courts and government to stop us'.
UK is not USA. or France.
To ignore the evidence of divergence from the norm, not only here, but elsewhere is a form of denial
It would be impossible to disagree with you, which is why, as I say, you may be right.
The Reform accounts are going hard on Polanski and the trans issue, seeing it as a weak point, where he looks less straightforward.
I'm not sure that'll work, thoigh, because most people have material priorities. If he looks like the only left alternative and YourParty is still in the doldrums, it won't be the central issue.
Your party held a rally last night and Zarah Sultana apologised profusely for the membership cock up.
Surely Your Party is dead in the water now as the Greens have stolen a march on them.
They’re probably better merging and the Greens going all in on Corbyn style hard left politics. Gaza/Trans/Landlordism/wealth tax etc etc.
It will alienate the Home Counties greens but they will reap dividends in the inner cities.
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
Polanski is following the lead of the NYC Democratic Mayoral candidate, reheated socialism Corbyn, Melenchon and Sanders style and hammer the rich with tax
Zohran Mamdani, and he could well end up as the winner. He’s the official Democratic candidate.
Yes, he’s talking about rent controls, free buses, and $30 minimum wage, as well as raised income taxes and corporation taxes.
And that would be very damaging for the New York city economy with many of the richest and highest earning and corporate HQs moving to lower tax Dallas, Houston or Miami and Atlanta etc
Zack Polanski once again going viral after. Question Time on twitter, with some of the plaudits from those I've often seen otherwise to be found on apolitical threads. I'm beginning to think that the Greens versus Reform is going to be a key contest, if not the most key confict itself, at the next election.
Reform will probably win, whether as largest party or a majority I'm not sure - but the next election is shaping up to be all about the collapse of the Labour vote.
Which is mad because the bigger story is the obliteration of the main party of government over the last two centuries. We've already got used to the idea of Conservative extinction.
What is a real worry is that the two extreme left and right parties, with incoherent policies, could be anywhere near government
I agree. There’s a lack of scrutiny on both of them. The greens is probably early and they have only just come out with their policies. All of which would appear to appeal to quite a narrow demographic but, at least, they have policies. Aside from controlled migration and protecting our borders we have nothing from Reform.
I think it's unlikely that Greens will mirror Reform, though not impossible. Reform currently have large support because a lot of voters have given up on rationality, caution, centrism and broad policy objectives. Bright people like Leon simply shrug and ignore when invited to deal with the actual realities of Reform objectives, or their talent pool, claiming they are content to bring down the building like Samson.
The major parties bear most blame for this by what Oborne calls 'The Rise of Political Lying'. You give up on the centre because they lie, evade, don't answer questions and don't act as grown ups.
Greens are Reform's mirror. But I doubt if more than about 15% of voters, from the 55% pool of those who will or might vote leftishly, will go for it. Labour will recover a bit, and the LDs (who won't join with Greens) are an option.
About September 2027 is the time to start making a realistic assessment and prognostications for a Spring 2029 election.
We all know the struggle the conservatives face, but I genuinely believe labour are facing the same existential threat, and possibly worse
The political forces, both here and elsewhere, are very much moving right and left leaving the tradional parties stranded
You only need to look at France, because that is happening right now with an impotent President who looks faintly ridiculous and powerless
There is no certainty that now 'the genie' is out of the bottle, the political movement is just a temporary blip rather than a long term fracture
You may be right, but there are differences. In the UK the closeness of the link between parliament, individual leadership (the PM) and government marks us out as distinct from both USA and France. So it is harder to have a radical and disruptive split between competing centres. Secondly, we have (so far) a greater respect for the separation of powers and the rule of law than many others. (I look forward to Reform's national approach to this!)
Take Reform's Kent, which should get more attention. It is saying, rather pathetically, it can't cut as it intended and needs lots more money to do it duties. Gosh. No surprise of course to centrists.
But here's the rub; this is what Reform have not said: 'Reform run Kent, and not the rule of law. Reform are the rule of law in Kent. We take no account of the statutory duties imposed on us and will cut exactly where we like, and challenge courts and government to stop us'.
UK is not USA. or France.
To ignore the evidence of divergence from the norm, not only here, but elsewhere is a form of denial
It would be impossible to disagree with you, which is why, as I say, you may be right.
"Jewish donors have been the No. 1 funding mechanism of radical open-border, neoliberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and nonprofits. This is a beast created by secular Jews and now they're coming for Jews, and they're like, "What on Earth happened?"
"And it's not just the colleges. It's the nonprofits, it's the movies, it's Hollywood, it's all of it."
And in another episode:
"Jews have been some of the largest funders of cultural Marxist ideas and supporters of those ideas over the last 30 or 40 years.
[…]
"Until you cleanse that ideology from the hierarchy in the academic elite of the West, there will not be a safe future. I'm not going to say Israel won't exist, but Israel will be in jeopardy as long as the Western children, children of the West, are being taught, with primarily Jewish dollars, subsidizing it, to view everything through oppressor oppressed dynamic. Until you shed that ideology, you will not be able to build the case for Israel, because they view Israel as an oppressor."
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
The problem with the Greens is that they are antediluvian, and their policy proposals are crap.
I like "abolish landlords". It's a solution to the problem of too many wealthy rentiers. It's not the solution I would have picked, but it recognises the problem and implements a solution. It's much better than the learned helplessness of Labour,
It’s not abolish landlords, it’s abolish certain landlords. You’d still rent from LHA’s and presumably the likes of Legal & General who build homes for long term rent.
Anyway it’s the wrong solution to the problem. Supply is needed where demand is highest. Build more where they’re needed. The record of both the London and Manchester mayor in that respect is lamentable
Go for Airbnb and second homes by all means but landlords provide a service, whatever type of landlord they are.
No, we need new towns away from overheated London. The British economy is the most unbalanced of our peers since the demise of northern and Welsh coalfields, coastal ports and resorts, the Midlands industrial base, Aberdeen's oil and gas, the Glasgow shipyards and Edinburgh's services.
Do both. Yes we need new towns too and to rebalance the economy and grow the regions.
Sadly we have a govt that talks growth and does nothing to enable it.
The Reform accounts are going hard on Polanski and the trans issue, seeing it as a weak point, where he looks less straightforward.
I'm not sure that'll work, thoigh, because most people have material priorities. If he looks like the only left alternative and YourParty is still in the doldrums, it won't be the central issue.
Your party held a rally last night and Zarah Sultana apologised profusely for the membership cock up.
Surely Your Party is dead in the water now as the Greens have stolen a march on them.
They’re probably better merging and the Greens going all in on Corbyn style hard left politics. Gaza/Trans/Landlordism/wealth tax etc etc.
It will alienate the Home Counties greens but they will reap dividends in the inner cities.
And no longer the "Green" party as ecologism and environmental sustainability is downgraded to page 39 of any manifesto.
The Reform accounts are going hard on Polanski and the trans issue, seeing it as a weak point, where he looks less straightforward.
I'm not sure that'll work, thoigh, because most people have material priorities. If he looks like the only left alternative and YourParty is still in the doldrums, it won't be the central issue.
Your party held a rally last night and Zarah Sultana apologised profusely for the membership cock up.
Surely Your Party is dead in the water now as the Greens have stolen a march on them.
They’re probably better merging and the Greens going all in on Corbyn style hard left politics. Gaza/Trans/Landlordism/wealth tax etc etc.
It will alienate the Home Counties greens but they will reap dividends in the inner cities.
And no longer the "Green" party as ecologism and environmental sustainability is downgraded to page 39 of any manifesto.
Indeed. That’s one subject matter that seems notable by its absence with them at the moment,
Some of these policies may be attention grabbers for the short term, to help establish themselves. Polanski is more cerebral than it currently appears, I think.
Hand up, I don't like him despite thinking Labour lacks radicalism. He strikes me as slick and shallow. But if we're going the populist route I'd rather his version of it than Farage's.
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
The problem with the Greens is that they are antediluvian, and their policy proposals are crap.
I like "abolish landlords". It's a solution to the problem of too many wealthy rentiers. It's not the solution I would have picked, but it recognises the problem and implements a solution. It's much better than the learned helplessness of Labour,
No it is theft and basically communism and many want to rent privately and not from the state
So if Tucker is having a go at Trump he’s a sage, but the other 99% of the time he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist?
If he's losing the conspiracy nutters who else does he have? The Epstein stuff has holed him and I've also got videos of that Theo Von guy getting upset by ICE.
You’re right on the Epstein stuff, that’s gone down really badly with the base, they were told they’d be seeing the Epstein files and they haven’t turned up. The base are pretty pissed with Pam Bondi for her comments on “hate speech” as well.
The likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von are both pretty centrist comics, despite them both voting for Trump last time out. They’ve both made negative comments on execution of immigration raids, while being supportive of the concept. They’re a pretty good barometer for the general feeling in the country I think.
As for Tucker, everything he says needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Like so many journalists now working for himself and paid to have an opinion, he doesn’t make factual stuff up but often leaves out a lot of context, and also knows that the wildest opinions drive social media “engagement”.
I'm not convinced by your definition of "centrist". Back in September, you described Charlie Kirk as "a middle-of-the-road conservative Christian youth movement leader". Charlie Kirk absolutely did not deserve to die, but he was racist and anti-Semitic, so it seems odd to describe him as "middle-of-the-road", as it seems odd to describe Rogan as "centrist". I suggest that you are still so deep in a MAGA social media bubble that you are struggling to discern reality.
Oh dear.
Rogan said he’d never voted Republican before last year, and that he voted for Obama. He’s described himself as centre-left, but said that the Democrats had gone crazy over censorship and gender stuff.
Von is slightly to the right of Rogan, but has also described himself as pretty centrist.
Charlie Kirk was not racist, there’s no evidence whatsoever of that.
Rogan has supported vaccine misinformation, HIV denialism and denies climate change. He’s said Jews are “interested in money”. Are these centrist views?
As for Kirk, start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk#Race and work down. The man was deeply racist and an anti-Semite. He explicitly said the Great Replacement Theory conspiracy was true and he blamed Jews for it.
Many of Kirk's views were deeply repulsive. You don't graduate from Princeton, and get a law doctorate from Harvard, as Michelle Obama did, without possessing a lot of brainpower.
We hear lots about the casual and gratuitous use of 'racist' by the left. And ok there's some truth in that. But less discussed and at least equally prevalent is the opposite tendency on the right whereby unless a person goes round in a tee-shirt emblazoned with "KKK White Power!" they can't in fairness be described as a racist.
Worse than the racism, IMHO, is the mendacity of his claim.
So if Tucker is having a go at Trump he’s a sage, but the other 99% of the time he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist?
If he's losing the conspiracy nutters who else does he have? The Epstein stuff has holed him and I've also got videos of that Theo Von guy getting upset by ICE.
You’re right on the Epstein stuff, that’s gone down really badly with the base, they were told they’d be seeing the Epstein files and they haven’t turned up. The base are pretty pissed with Pam Bondi for her comments on “hate speech” as well.
The likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von are both pretty centrist comics, despite them both voting for Trump last time out. They’ve both made negative comments on execution of immigration raids, while being supportive of the concept. They’re a pretty good barometer for the general feeling in the country I think.
As for Tucker, everything he says needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Like so many journalists now working for himself and paid to have an opinion, he doesn’t make factual stuff up but often leaves out a lot of context, and also knows that the wildest opinions drive social media “engagement”.
I'm not convinced by your definition of "centrist". Back in September, you described Charlie Kirk as "a middle-of-the-road conservative Christian youth movement leader". Charlie Kirk absolutely did not deserve to die, but he was racist and anti-Semitic, so it seems odd to describe him as "middle-of-the-road", as it seems odd to describe Rogan as "centrist". I suggest that you are still so deep in a MAGA social media bubble that you are struggling to discern reality.
Oh dear.
Rogan said he’d never voted Republican before last year, and that he voted for Obama. He’s described himself as centre-left, but said that the Democrats had gone crazy over censorship and gender stuff.
Von is slightly to the right of Rogan, but has also described himself as pretty centrist.
Charlie Kirk was not racist, there’s no evidence whatsoever of that.
Rogan has supported vaccine misinformation, HIV denialism and denies climate change. He’s said Jews are “interested in money”. Are these centrist views?
As for Kirk, start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk#Race and work down. The man was deeply racist and an anti-Semite. He explicitly said the Great Replacement Theory conspiracy was true and he blamed Jews for it.
Many of Kirk's views were deeply repulsive. You don't graduate from Princeton, and get a law doctorate from Harvard, as Michelle Obama did, without possessing a lot of brainpower.
We hear lots about the casual and gratuitous use of 'racist' by the left. And ok there's some truth in that. But less discussed and at least equally prevalent is the opposite tendency on the right whereby unless a person goes round in a tee-shirt emblazoned with "KKK White Power!" they can't in fairness be described as a racist.
Don’t worry, the vast majority of us on the centre right think the KKK are racist. Pretty much any organised group of the right is very quick to disassociate themselves from anyone who crosses the line, including groups such as Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point.
Personally my line would be Nigel Farage on the right and Jeremy Corbyn on the left, both of whom are not racist but have been known to associate with those who are.
< Odd that Reform are going for him. I'd have thought it would be in their interest for him to stick around. It should be Labour piling in on him on the trans issue. >
I think there are also a lot of right-populist and Russian bot accounts on twitter. Both their and Reform"s A.I. probably think they have identified the right point to pull him up on.
Yes, the pile on from trolls and Reform's puppetmasters show that they are beginning to wake up to the threat that Polanski brings. Raising the profile of Reform's Russian bribery conviction and plans to tax the oligarchs has them worried.
Support for Trans rights is much higher than Green polling, so not a very effective attack line. It might play well the Red Wall, but not in Green targets. Being seen as the enemy of Reform is going to do Polanski as much harm as throwing Brer rabbit in to the briar patch.
"Jewish donors have been the No. 1 funding mechanism of radical open-border, neoliberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and nonprofits. This is a beast created by secular Jews and now they're coming for Jews, and they're like, "What on Earth happened?"
"And it's not just the colleges. It's the nonprofits, it's the movies, it's Hollywood, it's all of it."
And in another episode:
"Jews have been some of the largest funders of cultural Marxist ideas and supporters of those ideas over the last 30 or 40 years.
[…]
"Until you cleanse that ideology from the hierarchy in the academic elite of the West, there will not be a safe future. I'm not going to say Israel won't exist, but Israel will be in jeopardy as long as the Western children, children of the West, are being taught, with primarily Jewish dollars, subsidizing it, to view everything through oppressor oppressed dynamic. Until you shed that ideology, you will not be able to build the case for Israel, because they view Israel as an oppressor."
'De mortuis nil nisi bonum' and all that but two things stand out about this man to me: Firstly that a range of his opinions are profoundly disturbing.
Secondly, and unnoticed and intellectually important is this: he majored on free and open debate and discussion. But in fact his entire emphasis is on him, Kirk, persuading his audience that he is right with no emphasis at all on the the thought that he could learn from them or be wrong.
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
The problem with the Greens is that they are antediluvian, and their policy proposals are crap.
The Greens do believe in a prelapsarian paradise, perhaps something they share with Reform UK.
Reform only want to take us back to 1955. The Greens want to take us back to pre-industrial times.
Reform are Mussolini on the politics and Argentina on the economics. Not sure that's a great combo either.
So if Tucker is having a go at Trump he’s a sage, but the other 99% of the time he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist?
If he's losing the conspiracy nutters who else does he have? The Epstein stuff has holed him and I've also got videos of that Theo Von guy getting upset by ICE.
You’re right on the Epstein stuff, that’s gone down really badly with the base, they were told they’d be seeing the Epstein files and they haven’t turned up. The base are pretty pissed with Pam Bondi for her comments on “hate speech” as well.
The likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von are both pretty centrist comics, despite them both voting for Trump last time out. They’ve both made negative comments on execution of immigration raids, while being supportive of the concept. They’re a pretty good barometer for the general feeling in the country I think.
As for Tucker, everything he says needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Like so many journalists now working for himself and paid to have an opinion, he doesn’t make factual stuff up but often leaves out a lot of context, and also knows that the wildest opinions drive social media “engagement”.
I'm not convinced by your definition of "centrist". Back in September, you described Charlie Kirk as "a middle-of-the-road conservative Christian youth movement leader". Charlie Kirk absolutely did not deserve to die, but he was racist and anti-Semitic, so it seems odd to describe him as "middle-of-the-road", as it seems odd to describe Rogan as "centrist". I suggest that you are still so deep in a MAGA social media bubble that you are struggling to discern reality.
Oh dear.
Rogan said he’d never voted Republican before last year, and that he voted for Obama. He’s described himself as centre-left, but said that the Democrats had gone crazy over censorship and gender stuff.
Von is slightly to the right of Rogan, but has also described himself as pretty centrist.
Charlie Kirk was not racist, there’s no evidence whatsoever of that.
Rogan has supported vaccine misinformation, HIV denialism and denies climate change. He’s said Jews are “interested in money”. Are these centrist views?
As for Kirk, start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk#Race and work down. The man was deeply racist and an anti-Semite. He explicitly said the Great Replacement Theory conspiracy was true and he blamed Jews for it.
Many of Kirk's views were deeply repulsive. You don't graduate from Princeton, and get a law doctorate from Harvard, as Michelle Obama did, without possessing a lot of brainpower.
We hear lots about the casual and gratuitous use of 'racist' by the left. And ok there's some truth in that. But less discussed and at least equally prevalent is the opposite tendency on the right whereby unless a person goes round in a tee-shirt emblazoned with "KKK White Power!" they can't in fairness be described as a racist.
Don’t worry, the vast majority of us on the centre right think the KKK are racist. Pretty much any organised group of the right is very quick to disassociate themselves from anyone who crosses the line, including groups such as Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point.
Personally my line would be Nigel Farage on the right and Jeremy Corbyn on the left, both of whom are not racist but have been known to associate with those who are.
In my employment lawyer experience there’s no sharp dividing line between “racist” and “not racist” people. There’s a spectrum between, say, stereotypically assuming the Irish person in a round ordered the Guinness (one I was guilty of once), and joining Combat 18.
E.g. Corbyn’s not “a racist”, but his reaction to the Mear One mural in Hackney was, even inadvertently. And he hangs out with some who perform even more unsavoury actions.
"Jewish donors have been the No. 1 funding mechanism of radical open-border, neoliberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and nonprofits. This is a beast created by secular Jews and now they're coming for Jews, and they're like, "What on Earth happened?"
"And it's not just the colleges. It's the nonprofits, it's the movies, it's Hollywood, it's all of it."
And in another episode:
"Jews have been some of the largest funders of cultural Marxist ideas and supporters of those ideas over the last 30 or 40 years.
[…]
"Until you cleanse that ideology from the hierarchy in the academic elite of the West, there will not be a safe future. I'm not going to say Israel won't exist, but Israel will be in jeopardy as long as the Western children, children of the West, are being taught, with primarily Jewish dollars, subsidizing it, to view everything through oppressor oppressed dynamic. Until you shed that ideology, you will not be able to build the case for Israel, because they view Israel as an oppressor."
'De mortuis nil nisi bonum' and all that but two things stand out about this man to me: Firstly that a range of his opinions are profoundly disturbing.
Secondly, and unnoticed and intellectually important is this: he majored on free and open debate and discussion. But in fact his entire emphasis is on him, Kirk, persuading his audience that he is right with no emphasis at all on the the thought that he could learn from them or be wrong.
Socrates he was not.
One thing that doing a Masters' really helped to clarify, for me, was to identify when people are arguing in bad faith. Kirk frequently argued in bad faith.
Charlie Kirk also called Zelenskyy a "gangster" and a "CIA puppet", while Rogan has been more direct about Zelenskyy, saying, "Fuck you, man." Kirk long opposed support for Ukraine. He said Crimea "has always been part of Russia". But maybe that was all out of context?
Also if the Greens really get rolling with Polanski I wonder if they might take some votes off Reform. The type of voter I'm thinking of is generally hacked off with mainstream politics, has had it with the 'uniparty' of LabCon, therefore ready to roll the dice, throw a rock in the pond, shake things up, bla bla, but (key differentiator) doesn't have a massive downer on immigrants and isn't even a teeny bit racist. Perhaps this voter group (they need a name but I can't think of a good one right now) will prefer populist left to populist right provided the leader grabs their attention.
The person who booked Alan Carr on Celebrity Traitors.
Enjoying it?
Not my cup of tea, but if they'd had a DS9 version I can't help but think Garak would win every single time.
Loving it.
Alan Carr has the subtlety of me and he's brilliant at using it.
I was thinking about Garak this morning and whether to put this line into a report
Garak: When the Klingons attacked the station, Gul Dukat and I were fighting side by side. At one point, he turned his back to me, and I must admit that for a moment, he made a very tempting target.
Have Megyn Kelly spending 45 minutes putting Charlie Kirk quotes about race and gender into context. With videos, which come across differently to transcripts.
Personally I didn’t agree with everything he’s ever said, for example joining a Twitter pile-in on Ukraine, but racist he wasn’t. Unlike most on here I actually watched some of his videos before he was killed.
The Reform accounts are going hard on Polanski and the trans issue, seeing it as a weak point, where he looks less straightforward.
I'm not sure that'll work, thoigh, because most people have material priorities. If he looks like the only left alternative and YourParty is still in the doldrums, it won't be the central issue.
Your party held a rally last night and Zarah Sultana apologised profusely for the membership cock up.
Surely Your Party is dead in the water now as the Greens have stolen a march on them.
They’re probably better merging and the Greens going all in on Corbyn style hard left politics. Gaza/Trans/Landlordism/wealth tax etc etc.
It will alienate the Home Counties greens but they will reap dividends in the inner cities.
Zarah Sultana needs to defect from YP to the Greens, and leave the Gaza Independents to form their own party with Corbyn as a vague muttering figurehead, a task he can perform remarkably well, whilst they do all the hard work.
On the other hand, they're serving a usual function. No one else is making some of the kind of perfectly valid case that Polanski was making on QT, that billionaires are helping place all the blame on minorities from structural social and economic issues since Thatcherism.
Neither Starmer, or particularly the Lib Dens, are drawing attention to this reality, and YourParty seems not be functioning yet.
The result is that the public sense of who to hold accountable is gradually being drawn further and further to the right, so he's a useful corrective.
The problem with the Greens is that they are antediluvian, and their policy proposals are crap.
I like "abolish landlords". It's a solution to the problem of too many wealthy rentiers. It's not the solution I would have picked, but it recognises the problem and implements a solution. It's much better than the learned helplessness of Labour,
No it is theft and basically communism and many want to rent privately and not from the state
Charlie Kirk also called Zelenskyy a "gangster" and a "CIA puppet", while Rogan has been more direct about Zelenskyy, saying, "Fuck you, man." Kirk long opposed support for Ukraine. He said Crimea "has always been part of Russia". But maybe that was all out of context?
Here's an interesting question I'll adapt from another message board I lurk on.
Which PBer, past or present, would make the most interesting subject for a Louis Theroux documentary?
Is this a message board that's more orange than the Donald ?
Indeed.
It's a shame that board is basically going through a very slow lingering death. I've been on it for about 12 years and there hasn't been much genuine new blood
It’s a very 2000s style board (like this one TBH) and things have moved on. I’ve never regularly commented there.
What is the name of this board please?
Roobarbs.😉
I believe you may be fibbing me. Would you care for an actual answer?
The person who booked Alan Carr on Celebrity Traitors.
Enjoying it?
Not my cup of tea, but if they'd had a DS9 version I can't help but think Garak would win every single time.
Loving it.
Alan Carr has the subtlety of me and he's brilliant at using it.
I was thinking about Garak this morning and whether to put this line into a report
Garak: When the Klingons attacked the station, Gul Dukat and I were fighting side by side. At one point, he turned his back to me, and I must admit that for a moment, he made a very tempting target.
Odo: You'd shoot a man in the back?
Garak: Well, it's the safest way, isn't it?
I always liked his take on the Boy Who Cried Wolf. I know you'll remember but for those who don't:
Bashir was confused when Garak disputed the traditional moral of the story and asked what else it could possibly be. Garak replied it was never to tell the same lie twice.
Also if the Greens really get rolling with Polanski I wonder if they might take some votes off Reform. The type of voter I'm thinking of is generally hacked off with mainstream politics, has had it with the 'uniparty' of LabCon, therefore ready to roll the dice, throw a rock in the pond, shake things up, bla bla, but (key differentiator) doesn't have a massive downer on immigrants and isn't even a teeny bit racist. Perhaps this voter group (they need a name but I can't think of a good one right now) will prefer populist left to populist right provided the leader grabs their attention.
Yes, I've seen a lot of exactly this kind of thing about Polanski on twitter in the last couple of weeks, not only from the left, but particularly and interestingly, also from some right-leaning voters who agreed with some of his independent stance, such as on the Manchester terrorist attack.
"Jewish donors have been the No. 1 funding mechanism of radical open-border, neoliberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and nonprofits. This is a beast created by secular Jews and now they're coming for Jews, and they're like, "What on Earth happened?"
"And it's not just the colleges. It's the nonprofits, it's the movies, it's Hollywood, it's all of it."
And in another episode:
"Jews have been some of the largest funders of cultural Marxist ideas and supporters of those ideas over the last 30 or 40 years.
[…]
"Until you cleanse that ideology from the hierarchy in the academic elite of the West, there will not be a safe future. I'm not going to say Israel won't exist, but Israel will be in jeopardy as long as the Western children, children of the West, are being taught, with primarily Jewish dollars, subsidizing it, to view everything through oppressor oppressed dynamic. Until you shed that ideology, you will not be able to build the case for Israel, because they view Israel as an oppressor."
'De mortuis nil nisi bonum' and all that but two things stand out about this man to me: Firstly that a range of his opinions are profoundly disturbing.
Secondly, and unnoticed and intellectually important is this: he majored on free and open debate and discussion. But in fact his entire emphasis is on him, Kirk, persuading his audience that he is right with no emphasis at all on the the thought that he could learn from them or be wrong.
Socrates he was not.
You mean the Socrates who claimed he was just having a debate when he attacked broad based democracy.
The Socrates who, a large group of his pupils were so enthusiastic about following the dictatorial system of another state (traditional enemy of Athens) that they formed a Quisling government when said enemy defeated Athens?
Said pupils then illegally arrested and murdered opponents and launched a systemic campaign against immigrants within Athens?
So if Tucker is having a go at Trump he’s a sage, but the other 99% of the time he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist?
If he's losing the conspiracy nutters who else does he have? The Epstein stuff has holed him and I've also got videos of that Theo Von guy getting upset by ICE.
You’re right on the Epstein stuff, that’s gone down really badly with the base, they were told they’d be seeing the Epstein files and they haven’t turned up. The base are pretty pissed with Pam Bondi for her comments on “hate speech” as well.
The likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von are both pretty centrist comics, despite them both voting for Trump last time out. They’ve both made negative comments on execution of immigration raids, while being supportive of the concept. They’re a pretty good barometer for the general feeling in the country I think.
As for Tucker, everything he says needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Like so many journalists now working for himself and paid to have an opinion, he doesn’t make factual stuff up but often leaves out a lot of context, and also knows that the wildest opinions drive social media “engagement”.
I'm not convinced by your definition of "centrist". Back in September, you described Charlie Kirk as "a middle-of-the-road conservative Christian youth movement leader". Charlie Kirk absolutely did not deserve to die, but he was racist and anti-Semitic, so it seems odd to describe him as "middle-of-the-road", as it seems odd to describe Rogan as "centrist". I suggest that you are still so deep in a MAGA social media bubble that you are struggling to discern reality.
Oh dear.
Rogan said he’d never voted Republican before last year, and that he voted for Obama. He’s described himself as centre-left, but said that the Democrats had gone crazy over censorship and gender stuff.
Von is slightly to the right of Rogan, but has also described himself as pretty centrist.
Charlie Kirk was not racist, there’s no evidence whatsoever of that.
he was on record as saying black people aren't as intelligent as white people
The Reform accounts are going hard on Polanski and the trans issue, seeing it as a weak point, where he looks less straightforward.
I'm not sure that'll work, thoigh, because most people have material priorities. If he looks like the only left alternative and YourParty is still in the doldrums, it won't be the central issue.
Your party held a rally last night and Zarah Sultana apologised profusely for the membership cock up.
Surely Your Party is dead in the water now as the Greens have stolen a march on them.
They’re probably better merging and the Greens going all in on Corbyn style hard left politics. Gaza/Trans/Landlordism/wealth tax etc etc.
It will alienate the Home Counties greens but they will reap dividends in the inner cities.
Sultana wants to leave NATO on the grounds that it's imperialist.
So if Tucker is having a go at Trump he’s a sage, but the other 99% of the time he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist?
If he's losing the conspiracy nutters who else does he have? The Epstein stuff has holed him and I've also got videos of that Theo Von guy getting upset by ICE.
You’re right on the Epstein stuff, that’s gone down really badly with the base, they were told they’d be seeing the Epstein files and they haven’t turned up. The base are pretty pissed with Pam Bondi for her comments on “hate speech” as well.
The likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von are both pretty centrist comics, despite them both voting for Trump last time out. They’ve both made negative comments on execution of immigration raids, while being supportive of the concept. They’re a pretty good barometer for the general feeling in the country I think.
As for Tucker, everything he says needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Like so many journalists now working for himself and paid to have an opinion, he doesn’t make factual stuff up but often leaves out a lot of context, and also knows that the wildest opinions drive social media “engagement”.
I'm not convinced by your definition of "centrist". Back in September, you described Charlie Kirk as "a middle-of-the-road conservative Christian youth movement leader". Charlie Kirk absolutely did not deserve to die, but he was racist and anti-Semitic, so it seems odd to describe him as "middle-of-the-road", as it seems odd to describe Rogan as "centrist". I suggest that you are still so deep in a MAGA social media bubble that you are struggling to discern reality.
Oh dear.
Rogan said he’d never voted Republican before last year, and that he voted for Obama. He’s described himself as centre-left, but said that the Democrats had gone crazy over censorship and gender stuff.
Von is slightly to the right of Rogan, but has also described himself as pretty centrist.
Charlie Kirk was not racist, there’s no evidence whatsoever of that.
Rogan has supported vaccine misinformation, HIV denialism and denies climate change. He’s said Jews are “interested in money”. Are these centrist views?
As for Kirk, start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk#Race and work down. The man was deeply racist and an anti-Semite. He explicitly said the Great Replacement Theory conspiracy was true and he blamed Jews for it.
Many of Kirk's views were deeply repulsive. You don't graduate from Princeton, and get a law doctorate from Harvard, as Michelle Obama did, without possessing a lot of brainpower.
We hear lots about the casual and gratuitous use of 'racist' by the left. And ok there's some truth in that. But less discussed and at least equally prevalent is the opposite tendency on the right whereby unless a person goes round in a tee-shirt emblazoned with "KKK White Power!” they can't in fairness be described as a racist.
And even then..
On a parochial but related note there’s a weird push by one of the more gammony hacks on the Herald to reframe the Orange Order as a poor persecuted lot who are trying to reach out to other faiths. Presumably that reaching out involves beating their drums outside Catholic churches.
The person who booked Alan Carr on Celebrity Traitors.
Enjoying it?
Not my cup of tea, but if they'd had a DS9 version I can't help but think Garak would win every single time.
Loving it.
Alan Carr has the subtlety of me and he's brilliant at using it.
I was thinking about Garak this morning and whether to put this line into a report
Garak: When the Klingons attacked the station, Gul Dukat and I were fighting side by side. At one point, he turned his back to me, and I must admit that for a moment, he made a very tempting target.
Odo: You'd shoot a man in the back?
Garak: Well, it's the safest way, isn't it?
I always liked his take on the Boy Who Cried Wolf. I know you'll remember but for those who don't:
Bashir was confused when Garak disputed the traditional moral of the story and asked what else it could possibly be. Garak replied it was never to tell the same lie twice.
Have Megyn Kelly spending 45 minutes putting Charlie Kirk quotes about race and gender into context. With videos, which come across differently to transcripts.
Personally I didn’t agree with everything he’s ever said, for example joining a Twitter pile-in on Ukraine, but racist he wasn’t. Unlike most on here I actually watched some of his videos before he was killed.
Let's face it, you're happy in your cess pit. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck......
So if Tucker is having a go at Trump he’s a sage, but the other 99% of the time he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist?
If he's losing the conspiracy nutters who else does he have? The Epstein stuff has holed him and I've also got videos of that Theo Von guy getting upset by ICE.
You’re right on the Epstein stuff, that’s gone down really badly with the base, they were told they’d be seeing the Epstein files and they haven’t turned up. The base are pretty pissed with Pam Bondi for her comments on “hate speech” as well.
The likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von are both pretty centrist comics, despite them both voting for Trump last time out. They’ve both made negative comments on execution of immigration raids, while being supportive of the concept. They’re a pretty good barometer for the general feeling in the country I think.
As for Tucker, everything he says needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Like so many journalists now working for himself and paid to have an opinion, he doesn’t make factual stuff up but often leaves out a lot of context, and also knows that the wildest opinions drive social media “engagement”.
I'm not convinced by your definition of "centrist". Back in September, you described Charlie Kirk as "a middle-of-the-road conservative Christian youth movement leader". Charlie Kirk absolutely did not deserve to die, but he was racist and anti-Semitic, so it seems odd to describe him as "middle-of-the-road", as it seems odd to describe Rogan as "centrist". I suggest that you are still so deep in a MAGA social media bubble that you are struggling to discern reality.
Oh dear.
Rogan said he’d never voted Republican before last year, and that he voted for Obama. He’s described himself as centre-left, but said that the Democrats had gone crazy over censorship and gender stuff.
Von is slightly to the right of Rogan, but has also described himself as pretty centrist.
Charlie Kirk was not racist, there’s no evidence whatsoever of that.
"You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously."
Totally out of context, and referring to specific people who were saying they were diversity hires and proud of it.
Full quote: If we would have said three weeks ago [...] that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they're comin' out and they're saying it for us! They're comin' out and they're saying, "I'm only here because of affirmative action.
Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.
The internet is absolutely full of these, as there’s thousands of hours of recordings of Kirk speaking. I’ve yet to see any evidence that he was actually racist. He didn’t say that black women are stupid, he said that Joy Reid was stupid. Which she is.
Ketanji Brown Jackson ? Are you really defending Kirk's absurd suggestion ?
Comments
Well, they did quit. And went to other parties. And promoted left-populist policies. Which appear to be popular. Who knew?
Yes, he’s talking about rent controls, free buses, and $30 minimum wage, as well as raised income taxes and corporation taxes.
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/25/zohran-mamdani-platform-policies-issues/84350898007/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Guaidó
Mamdani in NYC and Polanski seem to be offering some new ideas of how to implement left-wing principles in our current times.
Corbyn always seemed to be sticking to policies established in the 1970s. There's a difference there.
I think this is mainly Kemi trying to save Tory seats in the all out London local elections next year and thus her job. North of Watford the Stamp Duty cut won't have much impact beyond the most expensive suburbs and villages
Anyway it’s the wrong solution to the problem. Supply is needed where demand is highest. Build more where they’re needed. The record of both the London and Manchester mayor in that respect is lamentable
Go for Airbnb and second homes by all means but landlords provide a service, whatever type of landlord they are.
Leftists taking their 5-10 per cent of the Labour core vote elsewhere won’t make the leftist parties win but can make Labour lose as well as make it harder for them by forcing them to defend safe seats
My daughter has just had to pay £1,950 LTT on her purchase and every little helps following a divorce and becoming a single Mum, albeit with two older children
Of course it is devolved so not sure how the new Plaid led Senedd next May would view it
Previously the LDP+Koumeito were a little bit short of a majority but they had two right/centrist parties they could play off against each other, Isshin (the ruling party of Osaka) and People's Democrats (the right-wing faction resulting from a schism in the main opposition party). Without Koumeito they only really have Isshin to make the numbers, it's not clear whether they can make a deal.
In principle you could now get a non-LDP coalition together with nobody too bonkers in it but it's a lot of cats to herd.
Take Reform's Kent, which should get more attention. It is saying, rather pathetically, it can't cut as it intended and needs lots more money to do it duties. Gosh. No surprise of course to centrists.
But here's the rub; this is what Reform have not said: 'Reform run Kent, and not the rule of law. Reform are the rule of law in Kent. We take no account of the statutory duties imposed on us and will cut exactly where we like, and challenge courts and government to stop us'.
UK is not USA. or France.
Jenrick made it clear that he wants politically appointed judges, and I dont think he meant ones appointed by Polanski.
As for Kirk, start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk#Race and work down. The man was deeply racist and an anti-Semite. He explicitly said the Great Replacement Theory conspiracy was true and he blamed Jews for it.
Nothing daily from the Tories or Labour on these kinds of issues, while the Lib Dems share some of his objectives, but with not high enough a profile.
Charlie Kirk, The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023
There'splenty of it, if you just look:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk-quotes-beliefs
https://x.com/ShahrarAli/status/1976549522924081194
"Peru's President Dina Boluarte removed from office amid soaring crime - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1edw3x6vl2o
https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2025/09/fact-check-kirk-said-four-specific-black-women-lacked-brain-processing-power.html
Totally out of context, and referring to specific people who were saying they were diversity hires and proud of it.
Full quote:
If we would have said three weeks ago [...] that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they're comin' out and they're saying it for us! They're comin' out and they're saying, "I'm only here because of affirmative action.
Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.
The internet is absolutely full of these, as there’s thousands of hours of recordings of Kirk speaking. I’ve yet to see any evidence that he was actually racist. He didn’t say that black women are stupid, he said that Joy Reid was stupid. Which she is.
I'm not sure that'll work, thoigh, because most people have material priorities. If he looks like the only left alternative and YourParty is still in the doldrums, it won't be the central issue.
It is a stupid, bigoted, comment, which does not read any better, in context.
As things stand a tyrannical executive can be disposed of with ease by any 325 MPs, and subject to the rule of law by the courts, all ultimately backed by an armed forces whose loyalty is not to any politician but to the crown.
Intelligent journalists might like to explore this issue with Mr Farage and friends, to see if they show any signs of Louis XIV/Trump derangement syndrome.
No system of course can cope with the collapse of all controls, or the disloyalty of armed force, or a voting public who want tyranny. That would be to provide magically an answer to the unanswerable question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes'.
I think there are also a lot of right-populist and Russian bot accounts on twitter. Both their and Reform"s A.I. probably think they have identified the right point to pull him up on.
Though the problem with trying her is that the special prison for Peruvian ex-presidents is full.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbadillo_Prison
I also wonder whether West and Central Africans are more likely to be 'pure' Homo sapiens, given that most Europeans are likely to have some Neanderthal ancestry, and Asians some admixture of other Homo species.
Surely Your Party is dead in the water now as the Greens have stolen a march on them.
They’re probably better merging and the Greens going all in on Corbyn style hard left politics. Gaza/Trans/Landlordism/wealth tax etc etc.
It will alienate the Home Counties greens but they will reap dividends in the inner cities.
damaging for the New York city
economy with many of the
richest and highest earning and corporate HQs
moving to lower tax Dallas, Houston or Miami and Atlanta etc
"Jewish donors have been the No. 1 funding mechanism of radical open-border, neoliberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and nonprofits. This is a beast created by secular Jews and now they're coming for Jews, and they're like, "What on Earth happened?"
"And it's not just the colleges. It's the nonprofits, it's the movies, it's Hollywood, it's all of it."
And in another episode:
"Jews have been some of the largest funders of cultural Marxist ideas and supporters of those ideas over the last 30 or 40 years.
[…]
"Until you cleanse that ideology from the hierarchy in the academic elite of the West, there will not be a safe future. I'm not going to say Israel won't exist, but Israel will be in jeopardy as long as the Western children, children of the West, are being taught, with primarily Jewish dollars, subsidizing it, to view everything through oppressor oppressed dynamic. Until you shed that ideology, you will not be able to build the case for Israel, because they view Israel as an oppressor."
The above is from Snopes, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/charlie-kirk-jewish-money-quote/
When Elon Musk said "Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them," Kirk defended Musk and said this was accurate. See https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-defends-elon-musks-antisemitism-some-largest-financiers-left-wing-anti
Sadly we have a govt that talks growth and does nothing to enable it.
Indeed. That’s one subject matter that seems notable by its absence with them at the moment,
Proper tea is theft.
Personally my line would be Nigel Farage on the right and Jeremy Corbyn on the left, both of whom are not racist but have been known to associate with those who are.
What context are we missing here, @Sandpit ?
Support for Trans rights is much higher than Green polling, so not a very effective attack line. It might play well the Red Wall, but not in Green targets. Being seen as the enemy of Reform is going to do Polanski as much harm as throwing Brer rabbit in to the briar patch.
Secondly, and unnoticed and intellectually important is this: he majored on free and open debate and discussion. But in fact his entire emphasis is on him, Kirk, persuading his audience that he is right with no emphasis at all on the the thought that he could learn from them or be wrong.
Socrates he was not.
E.g. Corbyn’s not “a racist”, but his reaction to the Mear One mural in Hackney was, even inadvertently. And he hangs out with some who perform even more unsavoury actions.
The person who booked Alan Carr on Celebrity Traitors.
https://x.com/ginadavidsonlbc/status/1976607736348692984
https://www.gva.be/regio/antwerpen/regio-antwerpen/antwerpen/aanslag-met-drone-op-premier-de-wever-verijdeld-in-deurne-explosief-aangetroffen-drie-verdachten-opgepakt/96427388.html
Not my cup of tea, but if they'd had a DS9 version I can't help but think Garak would win every single time.
https://youtu.be/7gY-IsZdx8o
Alan Carr has the subtlety of me and he's brilliant at using it.
I was thinking about Garak this morning and whether to put this line into a report
Garak: When the Klingons attacked the station, Gul Dukat and I were fighting side by side. At one point, he turned his back to me, and I must admit that for a moment, he made a very tempting target.
Odo: You'd shoot a man in the back?
Garak: Well, it's the safest way, isn't it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL94p1i4-QA
He really wasn’t racist.
Personally I didn’t agree with everything he’s ever said, for example joining a Twitter pile-in on Ukraine, but racist he wasn’t. Unlike most on here I actually watched some of his videos before he was killed.
It would be fun to watch her giving Theroux a good grilling.
See also https://tomharwood.substack.com/p/your-partys-identity-crisis
Bashir was confused when Garak disputed the traditional moral of the story and asked what else it could possibly be. Garak replied it was never to tell the same lie twice.
"I haven't voted for years, but he has my vote."
The Socrates who, a large group of his pupils were so enthusiastic about following the dictatorial system of another state (traditional enemy of Athens) that they formed a Quisling government when said enemy defeated Athens?
Said pupils then illegally arrested and murdered opponents and launched a systemic campaign against immigrants within Athens?
That Socrates?
Curiously she's never said that about Russia.
And even then..
On a parochial but related note there’s a weird push by one of the more gammony hacks on the Herald to reframe the Orange Order as a poor persecuted lot who are trying to reach out to other faiths. Presumably that reaching out involves beating their drums outside Catholic churches.
https://x.com/kmckenna63/status/1974722680315355546?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck......
Are you really defending Kirk's absurd suggestion ?
She's a damn sight smarter than Kirk was.