The supposedly moderate Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has at last revealed himself as the fanatic he really is, with his wild calls for even more mass destruction of the jobs and livelihoods of Labour voters in a so-called ‘circuit-breaker’.
I am not surprised. Most people who report on politics in this country do not understand the subject, lacking the Marxist training which I had in my distant youth. They call Sir Keir ‘moderate’ because he is not Jeremy Corbyn. A fat lot they know.
Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, a wild Leftist, a man of clenched-fist salutes, street protests and red banners who probably dreams of storming Buckingham Palace at the head of a detachment of Red Guards. But he is one of the obvious, old-fashioned sort, steam-powered, coal-fired. You can see him a mile off and defeat him with ease. Sir Keir is much more dangerous. His fanaticism is as smooth as the moisturiser he applies daily to his handsome face. It is designed for the age of the internet.
But you will have to search hard for any major media mention of his stint, in his mid-20s, on the editorial board of a Trotskyist magazine called Socialist Alternatives. Its few issues can still be read on the internet. I have read them, though most of Sir Keir’s articles were written with the blunt end of a bread pudding, and are hard going.
Ah, you may say, this was just youthful folly. People change. He’s even taken a knighthood. Except Sir Keir has not changed much. This is the age he was born for.
In an interview with the New Statesman, he recently said: ‘I don’t think there are big issues on which I’ve changed my mind… The big issue we were grappling with then was how the Labour Party, or the Left generally, bound together the wider movement and its strands of equality – feminist politics, green politics, LGBT – which I thought was incredibly exciting, incredibly important. Broadly speaking, I think the Labour Party has done that very successfully.’
The sect he was mixed up with in the 1980s helped pioneer the New Left – Green mixed with Red, radical sexual politics. ‘Red must be made Green, and Green must be made Red,’ they said. This way of thinking has no time for the clapped-out yelling and posturing of the Corbynites.
It wants a cultural revolution which leaves all the buildings standing but changes everything that goes on inside them. It might find a huge economic and social convulsion, such as Johnson has visited on us, very convenient for that purpose."
In other fuck business vote Tory news, local town centre bars with no customers at all on a Friday night. "We literally have no chance of single households finishing work at 5pm, getting showered changed and going into town for two hours."
I wonder how many more examples of "us" and "them" the Tories can get away with before their new coalition falls apart and is unrecoverable for another 40 years
UK politics in the last few years has had a distinctly French Revolution feel, with fissiparous ideologues purging one another. By my estimation the referendum was the storming of the Bastille, leaving the EU was the execution of Louis XVI. I expect Robespierre to fall before the end of summer 2021.
Sounds interesting and raises the question who's been cast for the Bonaparte role? Gove, Priti, Nigel, Tommy, Toby Young?
First off, they have to be highly competent to fit the Napoleon role. That ought to narrow it down somewhat.
Time to put up a market? Next British Emperor instead of next UK PM?
The supposedly moderate Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has at last revealed himself as the fanatic he really is, with his wild calls for even more mass destruction of the jobs and livelihoods of Labour voters in a so-called ‘circuit-breaker’.
I am not surprised. Most people who report on politics in this country do not understand the subject, lacking the Marxist training which I had in my distant youth. They call Sir Keir ‘moderate’ because he is not Jeremy Corbyn. A fat lot they know.
Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, a wild Leftist, a man of clenched-fist salutes, street protests and red banners who probably dreams of storming Buckingham Palace at the head of a detachment of Red Guards. But he is one of the obvious, old-fashioned sort, steam-powered, coal-fired. You can see him a mile off and defeat him with ease. Sir Keir is much more dangerous. His fanaticism is as smooth as the moisturiser he applies daily to his handsome face. It is designed for the age of the internet.
But you will have to search hard for any major media mention of his stint, in his mid-20s, on the editorial board of a Trotskyist magazine called Socialist Alternatives. Its few issues can still be read on the internet. I have read them, though most of Sir Keir’s articles were written with the blunt end of a bread pudding, and are hard going.
Ah, you may say, this was just youthful folly. People change. He’s even taken a knighthood. Except Sir Keir has not changed much. This is the age he was born for.
In an interview with the New Statesman, he recently said: ‘I don’t think there are big issues on which I’ve changed my mind… The big issue we were grappling with then was how the Labour Party, or the Left generally, bound together the wider movement and its strands of equality – feminist politics, green politics, LGBT – which I thought was incredibly exciting, incredibly important. Broadly speaking, I think the Labour Party has done that very successfully.’
The sect he was mixed up with in the 1980s helped pioneer the New Left – Green mixed with Red, radical sexual politics. ‘Red must be made Green, and Green must be made Red,’ they said. This way of thinking has no time for the clapped-out yelling and posturing of the Corbynites.
It wants a cultural revolution which leaves all the buildings standing but changes everything that goes on inside them. It might find a huge economic and social convulsion, such as Johnson has visited on us, very convenient for that purpose."
I actually paid a year in advance to King's College gym near my office in January! Doh.
My local Kiss Gym has been open for a while although I'm not using it now. And my local ABC has only just reopened but now I suppose may close again.
The only thing I would say is that the process is actually healthy. if this makes gym-bunnies more politically engaged then that's a good thing. That demographic is now realising how this politics game works.
The more I read about Biden's policy, the less I like him. Pro-trade union, anti-school choice, let rip on immigration and removing some controls.
I know what I'd do if I were British. In America, I'd abstain and go 3rd party - I couldn't vote to endorse that.
As I was saying a while ago, it is one of the most left wing platforms American politics has seen for a long while. The idea that Biden has embraced the centre ground to defeat Trump is a fallacy.
That's the problem when both sides run to extremes it allows the more acceptable extreme to win by default.
A more moderate Labour Party may have stopped Thatcher in 1984 but thanks to Foot she won a landslide. Same Corbyn facilitated a major victory for Brexiteer Johnson's government.
Trump is so absolutely catastrophically unacceptable that it's allowing Biden a wide scope to win with.
Maxed out on Biden now. Received an automated "You seem to be betting a lot mate, you alright?" email today. Plenty of skin in the game now!
Should have waited a week at it will be more like Biden 1.8
This market is more bonkers than the Obama-Romney free money fest.
I've started thinking along those lines. The gap between the form and the odds is no so great and persistent it reminds me of some of the great betting mysteries the Site has witnessed - Obama/Romney, as you suggest, and more recently the case of Andrea Leadsome.
Not sure I can come up with any credible explanation for the puzzle before us now.
I wonder how many more examples of "us" and "them" the Tories can get away with before their new coalition falls apart and is unrecoverable for another 40 years
UK politics in the last few years has had a distinctly French Revolution feel, with fissiparous ideologues purging one another. By my estimation the referendum was the storming of the Bastille, leaving the EU was the execution of Louis XVI. I expect Robespierre to fall before the end of summer 2021.
Sounds interesting and raises the question who's been cast for the Bonaparte role? Gove, Priti, Nigel, Tommy, Toby Young?
I hesitate to ask who is going to be skewered in their bath.
I saw that waxwork at Madame Tussaud's when I was 8. The horror of it ...
I know, a Frenchman in a bath. It's just unnatural.
There's your problem, it's probably why there are so many clusters in gyms, and none of the measures you mention will fix it.
Any shared space with heavy breathing indoors is dangerous. In theory you can fix it with ventilation, but in a lot of buildings that won't be practical, and in any case British people still seem to be mainly ignoring that aspect of the thing for reasons I'm not clear about.
Because the government has duped a whole load of people into thinking that as long as they are 2m from anyone then they are safe.
The message should be to avoid indoor environments whenever possible. But it isn't.
I think this is the reason for the growth in cases across Europe as people start to socialize indoors as it gets colder and darker.
In Spain the second wave was earlier while it was still hot and sunny. I think here it was the big July and August tourist waves with the reunions and clubbing.
The more I read about Biden's policy, the less I like him. Pro-trade union, anti-school choice, let rip on immigration and removing some controls.
I know what I'd do if I were British. In America, I'd abstain and go 3rd party - I couldn't vote to endorse that.
What does "let rip on immigration and removing some controls mean"?
Of course being pro-immigration hasn't always been particularly controversial in America. Given that it is basically the foundation stone of the country.
And what's wrong with being "pro-trade union"? There is a perfectly respectable mainstream tradition of trade unionism. You wouldn't say that Germany was a left wing fringe country just because it has strong trade unions. In the UK the perception of the Union movement has become skewed since what happened in the 70s and the nature of most of it's modern day leadership. But there was a time when moderate trade union leaders were the only thing preventing the Labour Party from being completely captured by the lunatic fringes. I don't know what it's like in the US, or how closely the unions are aligned with party politics in the way they are in the UK.
Aren't the most liked posts the ones where I get owned
But, CHB, it's revealing posts like this which prove my point: you shouldn't worry about getting "owned" or not, and likes are the worst thing around for making someone feel shitty about what they have or haven't said.
You need to draw the strength from within yourself to say what you believe to be true, no matter what anyone else fires at you, and stick to it - no matter how makes likes you get, or how many likes those opposing you get.
Be convinced only by the quality of the counter-argument.
I actually paid a year in advance to King's College gym near my office in January! Doh.
My local Kiss Gym has been open for a while although I'm not using it now. And my local ABC has only just reopened but now I suppose may close again.
The only thing I would say is that the process is actually healthy. if this makes gym-bunnies more politically engaged then that's a good thing. That demographic is now realising how this politics game works.
A gym where the main exercise is kissing doesn't sound very socially distant. Interesting though.
If it was "too large" why the feck are people like Jo Johnson, Claire Fox or Lebedev there?
When people cannot even come up with a plausible excuse, it is a bad sign (like when politicians fall back on the 'I'm stupid' defence for some problem).
The argument seems to be that he deserves an undeserved peerage to compensate for the loss of a former undeserved peerage. Hard to get excited about, and his record over dealing with sex abuse by clergy is iffy.
I'm unconcerned whether he has one or not, but as their reason for not giving him one is a nonsense, it immediately raises questions about what the actual reason is.
Exactly right - and I was shouted down for saying the same.
I am sure it's not due to racism but the excuse they gave means I can totally see how people have got there.
I notice that one major issue in the Sentamu matter hasn't been mentioned - a major chunk of the Church of England despises him, and what he stands for. I could quite easily see that being a factor in this.
I was told that back when there was a tiny, tiny chance of him becoming Archbishop of Canterbury (ice cube in hell) that the PM in question was told that a large chunk of the Synod would stage a revolt. If he got on the short list....
As you say - too much belief in God.... The ecumenical lot who think that the way to popularity in the modern world is for the CoE to stop with all that religion stuff.
I could easily see Welby vetoing a peerage - he would see it as shutting him up.
I seem to recall that there was a Yes Prime Minister one on this - a candidate for Canterbury ruled out for his belief in God. Versus something nice and safe - like believing in steam trains.
Nah, it's because (at the time) Sentamu was seen to be a bit too popular (populist?) and playing to the public gallery, which was resented by others in the Synod.
The most likely reason he's been deferred in this batch has nothing to do with his race and is because he went quite Remainy in the last couple of years.
The issue is, though, that that is an own goal by the Tories. If he had been elevated no-one would have noticed or commented. As it is, he is, so far as I am aware, both the first black Archbishop of York (or Canterbury) and the first that has retired from either post for quite some time to be denied a peerage when he left office. Jo Johnson is quite Remainery. While correleation doesn't imply causation a lot of people haven't got that memo and, inevitably, people will tie the two together. Yes, he's remanery, but has constantly spoken up about social issues, and is denied one while self-avowed drug user Ian Botham gets in for being pro-Brexit and winning an Ashes series 40 years ago. It's inexplicable PR. Insane.
The practical problem is that gyms are a massive covid risk, if anywhere is going to be forced to close - and the British like to do things with rules rather than voluntary action and common sense, since they hate freedom - they're absolutely top of the list. You might just be able to fix it with heroically expensive ventilation systems but in practice they're just going to faff around with sanitization and things.
The government could do more to give gyms money to compensate, but that won't satisfy the people who can't go to the gym. There's no way to satisfy these people consistent with public health, because they want to do something in the middle of a pandemic, and the thing they want to do spreads the pandemic.
I'd think that was true, so I do support closing gyms. But Alastair's wider point is true too. I'm a fairly conventional politician in some ways, and I think schools and unis and major factories are jolly important, but I've never even considered visiting a gym, any more than a boxing match or a German beer hall - they're all outside my cultural reference area, and at some level I (therefore?) instinctively think of them as less important or even, as Hillary Clinton might say, deplorable - why aren't the body-builders reading books or distributing political leaflets, eh? That kind of thinking does contribute to the cultural alienation which feeds issues like Brexit and politicians like Trump, and people like me need to get past ourselves. Thanks for the thought-provoking piece.
You write posts like this and you have the temerity to call me weird. Someone who was also avowed communist at the age of TEN and more concerned about Kennedy's foreign policy than his train set.
You are like an alien from outer space who has been lobotomized by David Icke, had surgery to look more like Trotsky and then converted to Scientology.
I'm looking for the post where he had the temerity to call you weird. I want to give it a 'like'
I've missed you Wodger.
The "like" button is the worst feature of the new version of this site. It looks like there's nothing that can be done about it but I think it's lowered the quality of the discussion on here.
It encourages each side to play to their own galleries to get the most "likes" - in other words, it plays to sentimentality rather than rationality and introduces narcissism into the equation.
The very best posts on this site get just 1-3 likes rather than 5-8 likes.
In the old days you'd get people like @Jonathan and @SouthamObserver sometimes replying to arguments of mine saying "excellent post", which is all the praise I'd ever want or need. I'd do the same for some of theirs, we all learnt something and had a really interesting exchange of views.
I really miss that.
There are people who actually post on this site monitoring the amount of "likes" you get? How do you even do that?
Oh, almost everyone does it. It's just hardly anyone admits to it.
It's like masturbation.
Well I admit it.
The masturbation I mean - not the "likes" thing. I`m not admitting to that.
I actually paid a year in advance to King's College gym near my office in January! Doh.
My local Kiss Gym has been open for a while although I'm not using it now. And my local ABC has only just reopened but now I suppose may close again.
The only thing I would say is that the process is actually healthy. if this makes gym-bunnies more politically engaged then that's a good thing. That demographic is now realising how this politics game works.
A gym where the main exercise is kissing doesn't sound very socially distant. Interesting though.
I wonder how many more examples of "us" and "them" the Tories can get away with before their new coalition falls apart and is unrecoverable for another 40 years
UK politics in the last few years has had a distinctly French Revolution feel, with fissiparous ideologues purging one another. By my estimation the referendum was the storming of the Bastille, leaving the EU was the execution of Louis XVI. I expect Robespierre to fall before the end of summer 2021.
Sounds interesting and raises the question who's been cast for the Bonaparte role? Gove, Priti, Nigel, Tommy, Toby Young?
First off, they have to be highly competent to fit the Napoleon role. That ought to narrow it down somewhat.
Time to put up a market? Next British Emperor instead of next UK PM?
We're nearly a decade from Napoleon coming to power. Right now, he's not even made a name for himself with his audacious Italian campaigns. Looking further ahead, looks like we'll be rejoining the EU in April 2040.
The supposedly moderate Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has at last revealed himself as the fanatic he really is, with his wild calls for even more mass destruction of the jobs and livelihoods of Labour voters in a so-called ‘circuit-breaker’.
I am not surprised. Most people who report on politics in this country do not understand the subject, lacking the Marxist training which I had in my distant youth. They call Sir Keir ‘moderate’ because he is not Jeremy Corbyn. A fat lot they know.
Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, a wild Leftist, a man of clenched-fist salutes, street protests and red banners who probably dreams of storming Buckingham Palace at the head of a detachment of Red Guards. But he is one of the obvious, old-fashioned sort, steam-powered, coal-fired. You can see him a mile off and defeat him with ease. Sir Keir is much more dangerous. His fanaticism is as smooth as the moisturiser he applies daily to his handsome face. It is designed for the age of the internet.
But you will have to search hard for any major media mention of his stint, in his mid-20s, on the editorial board of a Trotskyist magazine called Socialist Alternatives. Its few issues can still be read on the internet. I have read them, though most of Sir Keir’s articles were written with the blunt end of a bread pudding, and are hard going.
Ah, you may say, this was just youthful folly. People change. He’s even taken a knighthood. Except Sir Keir has not changed much. This is the age he was born for.
In an interview with the New Statesman, he recently said: ‘I don’t think there are big issues on which I’ve changed my mind… The big issue we were grappling with then was how the Labour Party, or the Left generally, bound together the wider movement and its strands of equality – feminist politics, green politics, LGBT – which I thought was incredibly exciting, incredibly important. Broadly speaking, I think the Labour Party has done that very successfully.’
The sect he was mixed up with in the 1980s helped pioneer the New Left – Green mixed with Red, radical sexual politics. ‘Red must be made Green, and Green must be made Red,’ they said. This way of thinking has no time for the clapped-out yelling and posturing of the Corbynites.
It wants a cultural revolution which leaves all the buildings standing but changes everything that goes on inside them. It might find a huge economic and social convulsion, such as Johnson has visited on us, very convenient for that purpose."
The supposedly moderate Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has at last revealed himself as the fanatic he really is, with his wild calls for even more mass destruction of the jobs and livelihoods of Labour voters in a so-called ‘circuit-breaker’.
I am not surprised. Most people who report on politics in this country do not understand the subject, lacking the Marxist training which I had in my distant youth. They call Sir Keir ‘moderate’ because he is not Jeremy Corbyn. A fat lot they know.
Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, a wild Leftist, a man of clenched-fist salutes, street protests and red banners who probably dreams of storming Buckingham Palace at the head of a detachment of Red Guards. But he is one of the obvious, old-fashioned sort, steam-powered, coal-fired. You can see him a mile off and defeat him with ease. Sir Keir is much more dangerous. His fanaticism is as smooth as the moisturiser he applies daily to his handsome face. It is designed for the age of the internet.
But you will have to search hard for any major media mention of his stint, in his mid-20s, on the editorial board of a Trotskyist magazine called Socialist Alternatives. Its few issues can still be read on the internet. I have read them, though most of Sir Keir’s articles were written with the blunt end of a bread pudding, and are hard going.
Ah, you may say, this was just youthful folly. People change. He’s even taken a knighthood. Except Sir Keir has not changed much. This is the age he was born for.
In an interview with the New Statesman, he recently said: ‘I don’t think there are big issues on which I’ve changed my mind… The big issue we were grappling with then was how the Labour Party, or the Left generally, bound together the wider movement and its strands of equality – feminist politics, green politics, LGBT – which I thought was incredibly exciting, incredibly important. Broadly speaking, I think the Labour Party has done that very successfully.’
The sect he was mixed up with in the 1980s helped pioneer the New Left – Green mixed with Red, radical sexual politics. ‘Red must be made Green, and Green must be made Red,’ they said. This way of thinking has no time for the clapped-out yelling and posturing of the Corbynites.
It wants a cultural revolution which leaves all the buildings standing but changes everything that goes on inside them. It might find a huge economic and social convulsion, such as Johnson has visited on us, very convenient for that purpose."
If it was "too large" why the feck are people like Jo Johnson, Claire Fox or Lebedev there?
When people cannot even come up with a plausible excuse, it is a bad sign (like when politicians fall back on the 'I'm stupid' defence for some problem).
The argument seems to be that he deserves an undeserved peerage to compensate for the loss of a former undeserved peerage. Hard to get excited about, and his record over dealing with sex abuse by clergy is iffy.
I'm unconcerned whether he has one or not, but as their reason for not giving him one is a nonsense, it immediately raises questions about what the actual reason is.
Exactly right - and I was shouted down for saying the same.
I am sure it's not due to racism but the excuse they gave means I can totally see how people have got there.
I notice that one major issue in the Sentamu matter hasn't been mentioned - a major chunk of the Church of England despises him, and what he stands for. I could quite easily see that being a factor in this.
I was told that back when there was a tiny, tiny chance of him becoming Archbishop of Canterbury (ice cube in hell) that the PM in question was told that a large chunk of the Synod would stage a revolt. If he got on the short list....
As you say - too much belief in God.... The ecumenical lot who think that the way to popularity in the modern world is for the CoE to stop with all that religion stuff.
I could easily see Welby vetoing a peerage - he would see it as shutting him up.
I seem to recall that there was a Yes Prime Minister one on this - a candidate for Canterbury ruled out for his belief in God. Versus something nice and safe - like believing in steam trains.
Nah, it's because (at the time) Sentamu was seen to be a bit too popular (populist?) and playing to the public gallery, which was resented by others in the Synod.
The most likely reason he's been deferred in this batch has nothing to do with his race and is because he went quite Remainy in the last couple of years.
The issue is, though, that that is an own goal by the Tories. If he had been elevated no-one would have noticed or commented. As it is, he is, so far as I am aware, both the first black Archbishop of York (or Canterbury) and the first that has retired from either post for quite some time to be denied a peerage when he left office. Jo Johnson is quite Remainery. While correleation doesn't imply causation a lot of people haven't got that memo and, inevitably, people will tie the two together. Yes, he's remanery, but has constantly spoken up about social issues, and is denied one while self-avowed drug user Ian Botham gets in for being pro-Brexit and winning an Ashes series 40 years ago. It's inexplicable PR. Insane.
I know, Boris rewards his mates/family and those who are loyal to him. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.
Sentamu is a hugely deserving character for the reasons you mention, in a way that say - Bercow - never will be and precedent be damned.
The supposedly moderate Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has at last revealed himself as the fanatic he really is, with his wild calls for even more mass destruction of the jobs and livelihoods of Labour voters in a so-called ‘circuit-breaker’.
I am not surprised. Most people who report on politics in this country do not understand the subject, lacking the Marxist training which I had in my distant youth. They call Sir Keir ‘moderate’ because he is not Jeremy Corbyn. A fat lot they know.
Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, a wild Leftist, a man of clenched-fist salutes, street protests and red banners who probably dreams of storming Buckingham Palace at the head of a detachment of Red Guards. But he is one of the obvious, old-fashioned sort, steam-powered, coal-fired. You can see him a mile off and defeat him with ease. Sir Keir is much more dangerous. His fanaticism is as smooth as the moisturiser he applies daily to his handsome face. It is designed for the age of the internet.
But you will have to search hard for any major media mention of his stint, in his mid-20s, on the editorial board of a Trotskyist magazine called Socialist Alternatives. Its few issues can still be read on the internet. I have read them, though most of Sir Keir’s articles were written with the blunt end of a bread pudding, and are hard going.
Ah, you may say, this was just youthful folly. People change. He’s even taken a knighthood. Except Sir Keir has not changed much. This is the age he was born for.
In an interview with the New Statesman, he recently said: ‘I don’t think there are big issues on which I’ve changed my mind… The big issue we were grappling with then was how the Labour Party, or the Left generally, bound together the wider movement and its strands of equality – feminist politics, green politics, LGBT – which I thought was incredibly exciting, incredibly important. Broadly speaking, I think the Labour Party has done that very successfully.’
The sect he was mixed up with in the 1980s helped pioneer the New Left – Green mixed with Red, radical sexual politics. ‘Red must be made Green, and Green must be made Red,’ they said. This way of thinking has no time for the clapped-out yelling and posturing of the Corbynites.
It wants a cultural revolution which leaves all the buildings standing but changes everything that goes on inside them. It might find a huge economic and social convulsion, such as Johnson has visited on us, very convenient for that purpose."
There's your problem, it's probably why there are so many clusters in gyms, and none of the measures you mention will fix it.
Any shared space with heavy breathing indoors is dangerous. In theory you can fix it with ventilation, but in a lot of buildings that won't be practical, and in any case British people still seem to be mainly ignoring that aspect of the thing for reasons I'm not clear about.
Because the government has duped a whole load of people into thinking that as long as they are 2m from anyone then they are safe.
The message should be to avoid indoor environments whenever possible. But it isn't.
I think this is the reason for the growth in cases across Europe as people start to socialize indoors as it gets colder and darker.
In Spain the second wave was earlier while it was still hot and sunny. I think here it was the big July and August tourist waves with the reunions and clubbing.
Yes the next challenge is Nov 1 when they all go to the cemetery with a picnic and mix with relatives and friends not seen for months.
The more I read about Biden's policy, the less I like him. Pro-trade union, anti-school choice, let rip on immigration and removing some controls.
I know what I'd do if I were British. In America, I'd abstain and go 3rd party - I couldn't vote to endorse that.
What does "let rip on immigration and removing some controls mean"?
Of course being pro-immigration hasn't always been particularly controversial in America. Given that it is basically the foundation stone of the country.
And what's wrong with being "pro-trade union"? There is a perfectly respectable mainstream tradition of trade unionism. You wouldn't say that Germany was a left wing fringe country just because it has strong trade unions. In the UK the perception of the Union movement has become skewed since what happened in the 70s and the nature of most of it's modern day leadership. But there was a time when moderate trade union leaders were the only thing preventing the Labour Party from being completely captured by the lunatic fringes. I don't know what it's like in the US, or how closely the unions are aligned with party politics in the way they are in the UK.
He will stop building "the wall" and open up immigration visas and loosen restrictions for many more who want admission to the USA.
There's no need to be an apologist for Biden's policy positions. And I don't think it's profitable for you and I to discuss the merits or dismerits of either - suffice to say, I vehemently disagree - but I know perfectly well how strongly I'd feel about that as a conservative were I living in the USA.
The more I read about Biden's policy, the less I like him. Pro-trade union, anti-school choice, let rip on immigration and removing some controls.
I know what I'd do if I were British. In America, I'd abstain and go 3rd party - I couldn't vote to endorse that.
As I was saying a while ago, it is one of the most left wing platforms American politics has seen for a long while. The idea that Biden has embraced the centre ground to defeat Trump is a fallacy.
That's the problem when both sides run to extremes it allows the more acceptable extreme to win by default.
A more moderate Labour Party may have stopped Thatcher in 1984 but thanks to Foot she won a landslide. Same Corbyn facilitated a major victory for Brexiteer Johnson's government.
Trump is so absolutely catastrophically unacceptable that it's allowing Biden a wide scope to win with.
That's also Starmer's calculation for 2024. Against Johnson, let alone any likely sucessor, Starmer can be both pretty left wing and more centrist than his opponent. That's a pretty sweet position to be in.
I wonder how many more examples of "us" and "them" the Tories can get away with before their new coalition falls apart and is unrecoverable for another 40 years
UK politics in the last few years has had a distinctly French Revolution feel, with fissiparous ideologues purging one another. By my estimation the referendum was the storming of the Bastille, leaving the EU was the execution of Louis XVI. I expect Robespierre to fall before the end of summer 2021.
Sounds interesting and raises the question who's been cast for the Bonaparte role? Gove, Priti, Nigel, Tommy, Toby Young?
First off, they have to be highly competent to fit the Napoleon role. That ought to narrow it down somewhat.
Time to put up a market? Next British Emperor instead of next UK PM?
We're nearly a decade from Napoleon coming to power. Right now, he's not even made a name for himself with his audacious Italian campaigns. Looking further ahead, looks like we'll be rejoining the EU in April 2040.
The supposedly moderate Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has at last revealed himself as the fanatic he really is, with his wild calls for even more mass destruction of the jobs and livelihoods of Labour voters in a so-called ‘circuit-breaker’.
I am not surprised. Most people who report on politics in this country do not understand the subject, lacking the Marxist training which I had in my distant youth. They call Sir Keir ‘moderate’ because he is not Jeremy Corbyn. A fat lot they know.
Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, a wild Leftist, a man of clenched-fist salutes, street protests and red banners who probably dreams of storming Buckingham Palace at the head of a detachment of Red Guards. But he is one of the obvious, old-fashioned sort, steam-powered, coal-fired. You can see him a mile off and defeat him with ease. Sir Keir is much more dangerous. His fanaticism is as smooth as the moisturiser he applies daily to his handsome face. It is designed for the age of the internet.
But you will have to search hard for any major media mention of his stint, in his mid-20s, on the editorial board of a Trotskyist magazine called Socialist Alternatives. Its few issues can still be read on the internet. I have read them, though most of Sir Keir’s articles were written with the blunt end of a bread pudding, and are hard going.
Ah, you may say, this was just youthful folly. People change. He’s even taken a knighthood. Except Sir Keir has not changed much. This is the age he was born for.
In an interview with the New Statesman, he recently said: ‘I don’t think there are big issues on which I’ve changed my mind… The big issue we were grappling with then was how the Labour Party, or the Left generally, bound together the wider movement and its strands of equality – feminist politics, green politics, LGBT – which I thought was incredibly exciting, incredibly important. Broadly speaking, I think the Labour Party has done that very successfully.’
The sect he was mixed up with in the 1980s helped pioneer the New Left – Green mixed with Red, radical sexual politics. ‘Red must be made Green, and Green must be made Red,’ they said. This way of thinking has no time for the clapped-out yelling and posturing of the Corbynites.
It wants a cultural revolution which leaves all the buildings standing but changes everything that goes on inside them. It might find a huge economic and social convulsion, such as Johnson has visited on us, very convenient for that purpose."
The more I read about Biden's policy, the less I like him. Pro-trade union, anti-school choice, let rip on immigration and removing some controls.
I know what I'd do if I were British. In America, I'd abstain and go 3rd party - I couldn't vote to endorse that.
As I was saying a while ago, it is one of the most left wing platforms American politics has seen for a long while. The idea that Biden has embraced the centre ground to defeat Trump is a fallacy.
An uplifting positive video, only nasty unionists unhappy at losing their last colony could see it negatively. Pity the dog food salesman does not have anything positive to say about his country , bit like "bitter and twisted Guernsey immigrant".
I don't think they are complaining about the contents of the video, just that it was released when Sturgeon had claimed she suspended the campaign.
They are not campaigning at all, as this clown knows if he is in Scotland. It is pure nastiness from a whining sad loser. Hopefully he takes his sorry arse out of Scotland when we are independent, we can well do without the likes of that pathetic lickspittle. Nothing but nastiness and negativity to add to the party. Fit him better to try and show absolutely anything positive about the union, but no they cannot.
Releasing an advert like this isn't campaigning?
nope
I just can't see how it isn't campaigning. When the Brexit campaign was suspended after the death of Cox, can you imagine the outrage there would have been if either the official remain or leave twitter account continued posting videos when the campaign had been suspended?
They certainly ain't trying for independence any time soon.
It's also difficult to describe Mr Johnson, Mr Sunak and Mr Ross (in the latter's time off from footy) doing anything other than campaigning, certainly in Scotland - and in the former's case in England for much of the time (hard hats, yellow sarks, etc.)
All those mentioned, the Scottish regional Tories and the Labour party national and regional are campaigning on it on a daily basis, it is incessant. You would think the morons had nothing else to bother them. We even had Starmer say leonard would be FM, that makes Bozo sound intelligent.
I wonder how many more examples of "us" and "them" the Tories can get away with before their new coalition falls apart and is unrecoverable for another 40 years
UK politics in the last few years has had a distinctly French Revolution feel, with fissiparous ideologues purging one another. By my estimation the referendum was the storming of the Bastille, leaving the EU was the execution of Louis XVI. I expect Robespierre to fall before the end of summer 2021.
Sounds interesting and raises the question who's been cast for the Bonaparte role? Gove, Priti, Nigel, Tommy, Toby Young?
First off, they have to be highly competent to fit the Napoleon role. That ought to narrow it down somewhat.
Time to put up a market? Next British Emperor instead of next UK PM?
We're nearly a decade from Napoleon coming to power. Right now, he's not even made a name for himself with his audacious Italian campaigns. Looking further ahead, looks like we'll be rejoining the EU in April 2040.
So who will be Blighty's Talleyrand at the next Congress of Vienna, kowtowing to the next Metternich? Rory Stewart? Chuka Umunna? Layla Moran?
The more I read about Biden's policy, the less I like him. Pro-trade union, anti-school choice, let rip on immigration and removing some controls.
I know what I'd do if I were British. In America, I'd abstain and go 3rd party - I couldn't vote to endorse that.
What does "let rip on immigration and removing some controls mean"?
Of course being pro-immigration hasn't always been particularly controversial in America. Given that it is basically the foundation stone of the country.
And what's wrong with being "pro-trade union"? There is a perfectly respectable mainstream tradition of trade unionism. You wouldn't say that Germany was a left wing fringe country just because it has strong trade unions. In the UK the perception of the Union movement has become skewed since what happened in the 70s and the nature of most of it's modern day leadership. But there was a time when moderate trade union leaders were the only thing preventing the Labour Party from being completely captured by the lunatic fringes. I don't know what it's like in the US, or how closely the unions are aligned with party politics in the way they are in the UK.
He will stop building "the wall" and open up immigration visas and loosen restrictions for many more who want admission to the USA.
There's no need to be an apologist for Biden's policy positions. And I don't think it's profitable for you and I to discuss the merits or dismerits of either - suffice to say, I vehemently disagree - but I know perfectly well how strongly I'd feel about that as a conservative were I living in the USA.
Opening up immigration visas means legal migration. What's wrong with that?
Presumably high standards will be required for the legal migration it won't be free movement.
That shows a very divided public. And it's worth nothing this is one of the top things mentioned (unprompted) as a serious concern about SKS in the red wall seats.
I wonder how many more examples of "us" and "them" the Tories can get away with before their new coalition falls apart and is unrecoverable for another 40 years
UK politics in the last few years has had a distinctly French Revolution feel, with fissiparous ideologues purging one another. By my estimation the referendum was the storming of the Bastille, leaving the EU was the execution of Louis XVI. I expect Robespierre to fall before the end of summer 2021.
Sounds interesting and raises the question who's been cast for the Bonaparte role? Gove, Priti, Nigel, Tommy, Toby Young?
First off, they have to be highly competent to fit the Napoleon role. That ought to narrow it down somewhat.
Time to put up a market? Next British Emperor instead of next UK PM?
We're nearly a decade from Napoleon coming to power. Right now, he's not even made a name for himself with his audacious Italian campaigns. Looking further ahead, looks like we'll be rejoining the EU in April 2040.
So who will be Blighty's Talleyrand at the next Congress of Vienna, kowtowing to the next Metternich? Rory Stewart? Chuka Umunna? Layla Moran?
The practical problem is that gyms are a massive covid risk, if anywhere is going to be forced to close - and the British like to do things with rules rather than voluntary action and common sense, since they hate freedom - they're absolutely top of the list. You might just be able to fix it with heroically expensive ventilation systems but in practice they're just going to faff around with sanitization and things.
The government could do more to give gyms money to compensate, but that won't satisfy the people who can't go to the gym. There's no way to satisfy these people consistent with public health, because they want to do something in the middle of a pandemic, and the thing they want to do spreads the pandemic.
I'd think that was true, so I do support closing gyms. But Alastair's wider point is true too. I'm a fairly conventional politician in some ways, and I think schools and unis and major factories are jolly important, but I've never even considered visiting a gym, any more than a boxing match or a German beer hall - they're all outside my cultural reference area, and at some level I (therefore?) instinctively think of them as less important or even, as Hillary Clinton might say, deplorable - why aren't the body-builders reading books or distributing political leaflets, eh? That kind of thinking does contribute to the cultural alienation which feeds issues like Brexit and politicians like Trump, and people like me need to get past ourselves. Thanks for the thought-provoking piece.
You write posts like this and you have the temerity to call me weird. Someone who was also avowed communist at the age of TEN and more concerned about Kennedy's foreign policy than his train set.
You are like an alien from outer space who has been lobotomized by David Icke, had surgery to look more like Trotsky and then converted to Scientology.
I'm looking for the post where he had the temerity to call you weird. I want to give it a 'like'
I've missed you Wodger.
The "like" button is the worst feature of the new version of this site. It looks like there's nothing that can be done about it but I think it's lowered the quality of the discussion on here.
It encourages each side to play to their own galleries to get the most "likes" - in other words, it plays to sentimentality rather than rationality and introduces narcissism into the equation.
The very best posts on this site get just 1-3 likes rather than 5-8 likes.
In the old days you'd get people like @Jonathan and @SouthamObserver sometimes replying to arguments of mine saying "excellent post", which is all the praise I'd ever want or need. I'd do the same for some of theirs, we all learnt something and had a really interesting exchange of views.
I really miss that.
I find your premise to be a bit short on evidence and a little strange. The most 'liked' posts are almost certainly going to be ones which are jokes, and most people don't use the feature at all so the idea it has enouraged a deterioration of debate quality I think is perception more than reality.
Yes, many jokes are an exception. Usually because they're apolitical and unrelated to a position.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on the quality of the debate. Many of the best posters on here now post far less frequently, including Southam Observer, Charles, Sean Fear, David Herdson, Alastair Meeks, Tissue Price, and others. Others like Richard Nabavi and Jonathan post much less frequently.
Meanwhile, the trolling is high. I think that's pretty obvious to those with their eyes open.
Everyone to their own, nobody is forced to post or read, as they say if you don't like the heat of the kitchen get out of it. In my humble opinion you are talking balderdash.
I wonder how many more examples of "us" and "them" the Tories can get away with before their new coalition falls apart and is unrecoverable for another 40 years
UK politics in the last few years has had a distinctly French Revolution feel, with fissiparous ideologues purging one another. By my estimation the referendum was the storming of the Bastille, leaving the EU was the execution of Louis XVI. I expect Robespierre to fall before the end of summer 2021.
Sounds interesting and raises the question who's been cast for the Bonaparte role? Gove, Priti, Nigel, Tommy, Toby Young?
First off, they have to be highly competent to fit the Napoleon role. That ought to narrow it down somewhat.
Time to put up a market? Next British Emperor instead of next UK PM?
We're nearly a decade from Napoleon coming to power. Right now, he's not even made a name for himself with his audacious Italian campaigns. Looking further ahead, looks like we'll be rejoining the EU in April 2040.
So who will be Blighty's Talleyrand at the next Congress of Vienna, kowtowing to the next Metternich? Rory Stewart? Chuka Umunna? Layla Moran?
The practical problem is that gyms are a massive covid risk, if anywhere is going to be forced to close - and the British like to do things with rules rather than voluntary action and common sense, since they hate freedom - they're absolutely top of the list. You might just be able to fix it with heroically expensive ventilation systems but in practice they're just going to faff around with sanitization and things.
The government could do more to give gyms money to compensate, but that won't satisfy the people who can't go to the gym. There's no way to satisfy these people consistent with public health, because they want to do something in the middle of a pandemic, and the thing they want to do spreads the pandemic.
I'd think that was true, so I do support closing gyms. But Alastair's wider point is true too. I'm a fairly conventional politician in some ways, and I think schools and unis and major factories are jolly important, but I've never even considered visiting a gym, any more than a boxing match or a German beer hall - they're all outside my cultural reference area, and at some level I (therefore?) instinctively think of them as less important or even, as Hillary Clinton might say, deplorable - why aren't the body-builders reading books or distributing political leaflets, eh? That kind of thinking does contribute to the cultural alienation which feeds issues like Brexit and politicians like Trump, and people like me need to get past ourselves. Thanks for the thought-provoking piece.
You write posts like this and you have the temerity to call me weird. Someone who was also avowed communist at the age of TEN and more concerned about Kennedy's foreign policy than his train set.
You are like an alien from outer space who has been lobotomized by David Icke, had surgery to look more like Trotsky and then converted to Scientology.
I'm looking for the post where he had the temerity to call you weird. I want to give it a 'like'
I've missed you Wodger.
The "like" button is the worst feature of the new version of this site. It looks like there's nothing that can be done about it but I think it's lowered the quality of the discussion on here.
It encourages each side to play to their own galleries to get the most "likes" - in other words, it plays to sentimentality rather than rationality and introduces narcissism into the equation.
The very best posts on this site get just 1-3 likes rather than 5-8 likes.
In the old days you'd get people like @Jonathan and @SouthamObserver sometimes replying to arguments of mine saying "excellent post", which is all the praise I'd ever want or need. I'd do the same for some of theirs, we all learnt something and had a really interesting exchange of views.
I really miss that.
There are people who actually post on this site monitoring the amount of "likes" you get? How do you even do that?
Oh, almost everyone does it. It's just hardly anyone admits to it.
The more I read about Biden's policy, the less I like him. Pro-trade union, anti-school choice, let rip on immigration and removing some controls.
I know what I'd do if I were British. In America, I'd abstain and go 3rd party - I couldn't vote to endorse that.
As I was saying a while ago, it is one of the most left wing platforms American politics has seen for a long while. The idea that Biden has embraced the centre ground to defeat Trump is a fallacy.
That's the problem when both sides run to extremes it allows the more acceptable extreme to win by default.
A more moderate Labour Party may have stopped Thatcher in 1984 but thanks to Foot she won a landslide. Same Corbyn facilitated a major victory for Brexiteer Johnson's government.
Trump is so absolutely catastrophically unacceptable that it's allowing Biden a wide scope to win with.
That's also Starmer's calculation for 2024. Against Johnson, let alone any likely sucessor, Starmer can be both pretty left wing and more centrist than his opponent. That's a pretty sweet position to be in.
Except that's the same naive delusion that considered Johnson to be an extremist in 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2019. Johnson isn't a hardcore extremist unless you're a Remain extremist yourself.
The practical problem is that gyms are a massive covid risk, if anywhere is going to be forced to close - and the British like to do things with rules rather than voluntary action and common sense, since they hate freedom - they're absolutely top of the list. You might just be able to fix it with heroically expensive ventilation systems but in practice they're just going to faff around with sanitization and things.
The government could do more to give gyms money to compensate, but that won't satisfy the people who can't go to the gym. There's no way to satisfy these people consistent with public health, because they want to do something in the middle of a pandemic, and the thing they want to do spreads the pandemic.
I'd think that was true, so I do support closing gyms. But Alastair's wider point is true too. I'm a fairly conventional politician in some ways, and I think schools and unis and major factories are jolly important, but I've never even considered visiting a gym, any more than a boxing match or a German beer hall - they're all outside my cultural reference area, and at some level I (therefore?) instinctively think of them as less important or even, as Hillary Clinton might say, deplorable - why aren't the body-builders reading books or distributing political leaflets, eh? That kind of thinking does contribute to the cultural alienation which feeds issues like Brexit and politicians like Trump, and people like me need to get past ourselves. Thanks for the thought-provoking piece.
You write posts like this and you have the temerity to call me weird. Someone who was also avowed communist at the age of TEN and more concerned about Kennedy's foreign policy than his train set.
You are like an alien from outer space who has been lobotomized by David Icke, had surgery to look more like Trotsky and then converted to Scientology.
I'm looking for the post where he had the temerity to call you weird. I want to give it a 'like'
I've missed you Wodger.
The "like" button is the worst feature of the new version of this site. It looks like there's nothing that can be done about it but I think it's lowered the quality of the discussion on here.
It encourages each side to play to their own galleries to get the most "likes" - in other words, it plays to sentimentality rather than rationality and introduces narcissism into the equation.
The very best posts on this site get just 1-3 likes rather than 5-8 likes.
In the old days you'd get people like @Jonathan and @SouthamObserver sometimes replying to arguments of mine saying "excellent post", which is all the praise I'd ever want or need. I'd do the same for some of theirs, we all learnt something and had a really interesting exchange of views.
I really miss that.
I find your premise to be a bit short on evidence and a little strange. The most 'liked' posts are almost certainly going to be ones which are jokes, and most people don't use the feature at all so the idea it has enouraged a deterioration of debate quality I think is perception more than reality.
Yes, many jokes are an exception. Usually because they're apolitical and unrelated to a position.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on the quality of the debate. Many of the best posters on here now post far less frequently, including Southam Observer, Charles, Sean Fear, David Herdson, Alastair Meeks, Tissue Price, and others. Others like Richard Nabavi and Jonathan post much less frequently.
Meanwhile, the trolling is high. I think that's pretty obvious to those with their eyes open.
Everyone to their own, nobody is forced to post or read, as they say if you don't like the heat of the kitchen get out of it. In my humble opinion you are talking balderdash.
Well, a lot of people (posters I really value) have got out of the kitchen.
Is pb.com more valuable for it?
Your argument is simply one that excuses a hostile environment.
There's your problem, it's probably why there are so many clusters in gyms, and none of the measures you mention will fix it.
Any shared space with heavy breathing indoors is dangerous. In theory you can fix it with ventilation, but in a lot of buildings that won't be practical, and in any case British people still seem to be mainly ignoring that aspect of the thing for reasons I'm not clear about.
Because the government has duped a whole load of people into thinking that as long as they are 2m from anyone then they are safe.
The message should be to avoid indoor environments whenever possible. But it isn't.
I think this is the reason for the growth in cases across Europe as people start to socialize indoors as it gets colder and darker.
In Spain the second wave was earlier while it was still hot and sunny. I think here it was the big July and August tourist waves with the reunions and clubbing.
Yes the next challenge is Nov 1 when they all go to the cemetery with a picnic and mix with relatives and friends not seen for months.
Our town has announced a 30 minute time on this and capacity limits today!
In 2016 the markets gave Trump a lower chance than the 538 model at the off.
The punters had their fingers burned last time out and are incredibly cautious this time. There's a lot of people like HYUFD out there who see a Trafalgar poll and have their biases confirmed. Whatever the polls say this time people are still scarred by 2016.
The more I read about Biden's policy, the less I like him. Pro-trade union, anti-school choice, let rip on immigration and removing some controls.
I know what I'd do if I were British. In America, I'd abstain and go 3rd party - I couldn't vote to endorse that.
There's a lot of questions about Biden but he remains the answer when the alternative is Trump.
Which is why he still may win handsomely. But, it provides a reason as well if he doesn't and, even if he does, why that halo may not last long.
Personally, I think he will be a very poor President but President Harris might be better from 2022 onwards.
The thing is, David, is he the sort of leader who can calm down the culture wars and move on from them?
I think the answer is already very clear: no.
It may still be he beats Trump handsomely, just because he's so heinous, but that isn't an answer.
I think he might be because while he is on the left (by USA standards, by UK standards he's not that different to Cameron or Johnson on most issues) he is polite and respectful about it.
The culture wars have gotten as bad as they have by trying to "own" the other side, he doesn't play into that.
He's consistently graceful and reasonable, when she's aggressive, hyper-partisan, rude and desperate to get a political gotcha moment. Even Channel4 would be ashamed of it.
In 2016 the markets gave Trump a lower chance than the 538 model at the off.
The punters had their fingers burned last time out and are incredibly cautious this time. There's a lot of people like HYUFD out there who see a Trafalgar poll and have their biases confirmed. Whatever the polls say this time people are still scarred by 2016.
Yeah, but if Biden wins a landslide (which is not even improbable) they'll get burned again.
There must be more mug punters out there than I would ever have imgined.
The 'westminster bubble' manages on the one hand to ignore the R o UK in understanding national politics and the R o Eup in understadning the Covid19. Some achievement.
The more I read about Biden's policy, the less I like him. Pro-trade union, anti-school choice, let rip on immigration and removing some controls.
I know what I'd do if I were British. In America, I'd abstain and go 3rd party - I couldn't vote to endorse that.
There's a lot of questions about Biden but he remains the answer when the alternative is Trump.
Which is why he still may win handsomely. But, it provides a reason as well if he doesn't and, even if he does, why that halo may not last long.
Personally, I think he will be a very poor President but President Harris might be better from 2022 onwards.
The thing is, David, is he the sort of leader who can calm down the culture wars and move on from them?
I think the answer is already very clear: no.
It may still be he beats Trump handsomely, just because he's so heinous, but that isn't an answer.
I think he might be because while he is on the left (by USA standards, by UK standards he's not that different to Cameron or Johnson on most issues) he is polite and respectful about it.
The culture wars have gotten as bad as they have by trying to "own" the other side, he doesn't play into that.
I don't agree Phillip, I think he's with Cameron or Johnson on *economic* issues, but to their Left on socio-cultural ones.
Even on domestic policy, Cameron would have very different views to Biden, say, on school choice.
In 2016 the markets gave Trump a lower chance than the 538 model at the off.
The punters had their fingers burned last time out and are incredibly cautious this time. There's a lot of people like HYUFD out there who see a Trafalgar poll and have their biases confirmed. Whatever the polls say this time people are still scarred by 2016.
Yeah, but if Biden wins a landslide (which is not even improbable) they'll get burned again.
There must be more mug punters out there than I would ever have imgined.
Someone posted on here last week, I think, that Betfair were seeing a lot of small punts on Trump, which would suggest the big players are still staying clear of him? That's my suspicion anyway. Like I say, HYUFD sets an incredibly high store by the 2016 Trafalgar polls in Michigan - and he's a political junkie. Whenever something like that comes in, as it did last week, it shifts the needle more than it should.
The practical problem is that gyms are a massive covid risk, if anywhere is going to be forced to close - and the British like to do things with rules rather than voluntary action and common sense, since they hate freedom - they're absolutely top of the list. You might just be able to fix it with heroically expensive ventilation systems but in practice they're just going to faff around with sanitization and things.
The government could do more to give gyms money to compensate, but that won't satisfy the people who can't go to the gym. There's no way to satisfy these people consistent with public health, because they want to do something in the middle of a pandemic, and the thing they want to do spreads the pandemic.
I'd think that was true, so I do support closing gyms. But Alastair's wider point is true too. I'm a fairly conventional politician in some ways, and I think schools and unis and major factories are jolly important, but I've never even considered visiting a gym, any more than a boxing match or a German beer hall - they're all outside my cultural reference area, and at some level I (therefore?) instinctively think of them as less important or even, as Hillary Clinton might say, deplorable - why aren't the body-builders reading books or distributing political leaflets, eh? That kind of thinking does contribute to the cultural alienation which feeds issues like Brexit and politicians like Trump, and people like me need to get past ourselves. Thanks for the thought-provoking piece.
You write posts like this and you have the temerity to call me weird. Someone who was also avowed communist at the age of TEN and more concerned about Kennedy's foreign policy than his train set.
You are like an alien from outer space who has been lobotomized by David Icke, had surgery to look more like Trotsky and then converted to Scientology.
I'm looking for the post where he had the temerity to call you weird. I want to give it a 'like'
I've missed you Wodger.
The "like" button is the worst feature of the new version of this site. It looks like there's nothing that can be done about it but I think it's lowered the quality of the discussion on here.
It encourages each side to play to their own galleries to get the most "likes" - in other words, it plays to sentimentality rather than rationality and introduces narcissism into the equation.
The very best posts on this site get just 1-3 likes rather than 5-8 likes.
In the old days you'd get people like @Jonathan and @SouthamObserver sometimes replying to arguments of mine saying "excellent post", which is all the praise I'd ever want or need. I'd do the same for some of theirs, we all learnt something and had a really interesting exchange of views.
I really miss that.
I find your premise to be a bit short on evidence and a little strange. The most 'liked' posts are almost certainly going to be ones which are jokes, and most people don't use the feature at all so the idea it has enouraged a deterioration of debate quality I think is perception more than reality.
Yes, many jokes are an exception. Usually because they're apolitical and unrelated to a position.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on the quality of the debate. Many of the best posters on here now post far less frequently, including Southam Observer, Charles, Sean Fear, David Herdson, Alastair Meeks, Tissue Price, and others. Others like Richard Nabavi and Jonathan post much less frequently.
Meanwhile, the trolling is high. I think that's pretty obvious to those with their eyes open.
Everyone to their own, nobody is forced to post or read, as they say if you don't like the heat of the kitchen get out of it. In my humble opinion you are talking balderdash.
Well, a lot of people (posters I really value) have got out of the kitchen.
Is pb.com more valuable for it?
Your argument is simply one that excuses a hostile environment.
I don't see a lot of hostility on here, plenty of snowflakes mind you.
The practical problem is that gyms are a massive covid risk, if anywhere is going to be forced to close - and the British like to do things with rules rather than voluntary action and common sense, since they hate freedom - they're absolutely top of the list. You might just be able to fix it with heroically expensive ventilation systems but in practice they're just going to faff around with sanitization and things.
The government could do more to give gyms money to compensate, but that won't satisfy the people who can't go to the gym. There's no way to satisfy these people consistent with public health, because they want to do something in the middle of a pandemic, and the thing they want to do spreads the pandemic.
I'd think that was true, so I do support closing gyms. But Alastair's wider point is true too. I'm a fairly conventional politician in some ways, and I think schools and unis and major factories are jolly important, but I've never even considered visiting a gym, any more than a boxing match or a German beer hall - they're all outside my cultural reference area, and at some level I (therefore?) instinctively think of them as less important or even, as Hillary Clinton might say, deplorable - why aren't the body-builders reading books or distributing political leaflets, eh? That kind of thinking does contribute to the cultural alienation which feeds issues like Brexit and politicians like Trump, and people like me need to get past ourselves. Thanks for the thought-provoking piece.
You write posts like this and you have the temerity to call me weird. Someone who was also avowed communist at the age of TEN and more concerned about Kennedy's foreign policy than his train set.
You are like an alien from outer space who has been lobotomized by David Icke, had surgery to look more like Trotsky and then converted to Scientology.
I'm looking for the post where he had the temerity to call you weird. I want to give it a 'like'
I've missed you Wodger.
The "like" button is the worst feature of the new version of this site. It looks like there's nothing that can be done about it but I think it's lowered the quality of the discussion on here.
It encourages each side to play to their own galleries to get the most "likes" - in other words, it plays to sentimentality rather than rationality and introduces narcissism into the equation.
The very best posts on this site get just 1-3 likes rather than 5-8 likes.
In the old days you'd get people like @Jonathan and @SouthamObserver sometimes replying to arguments of mine saying "excellent post", which is all the praise I'd ever want or need. I'd do the same for some of theirs, we all learnt something and had a really interesting exchange of views.
I really miss that.
There are people who actually post on this site monitoring the amount of "likes" you get? How do you even do that?
Oh, almost everyone does it. It's just hardly anyone admits to it.
It's like masturbation.
Sunil admits to it fairly regularly.
Sunil's problem was admitting to it repeatedly.
Once was enough.
The strange thing was he used at as a way of expressing appreciation for various different posts, usually to do with polls but also to do with trains.
One of your biggest problems is how you're up for more conflict and fighting.
Where would you rank yourself in terms of conflict and fighting, amongst the people who post on here? Let's say on a scale of 1-10 where 1 is the least and 10 is the most.
Unionist desperation alert, dog food salesmen has surfaced, next we will have Carlotta and Agent Pish deployed
"First Minister telling lies" is clearly unremarkable.....as ever Malc avoids the substance
I thought the idiot was talking about campaigning for independence. Plenty of lies from the FM but only against her own side. Hague is an absolute plank, a sad loser with nothing positive to say about his own side, gnashing his teeth at the fact that the independence side have a positive attitude and a hope for a better Scotland whilst all he can do is denigrate the country , claim we are too poor and stupid and so only him and his mates down south can show how the country can be run. I am too polite to print what I really think of the useless little whining bellend on here.
The more I read about Biden's policy, the less I like him. Pro-trade union, anti-school choice, let rip on immigration and removing some controls.
I know what I'd do if I were British. In America, I'd abstain and go 3rd party - I couldn't vote to endorse that.
There's a lot of questions about Biden but he remains the answer when the alternative is Trump.
Which is why he still may win handsomely. But, it provides a reason as well if he doesn't and, even if he does, why that halo may not last long.
Personally, I think he will be a very poor President but President Harris might be better from 2022 onwards.
The thing is, David, is he the sort of leader who can calm down the culture wars and move on from them?
I think the answer is already very clear: no.
It may still be he beats Trump handsomely, just because he's so heinous, but that isn't an answer.
I think he might be because while he is on the left (by USA standards, by UK standards he's not that different to Cameron or Johnson on most issues) he is polite and respectful about it.
The culture wars have gotten as bad as they have by trying to "own" the other side, he doesn't play into that.
I don't agree Phillip, I think he's with Cameron or Johnson on *economic* issues, but to their Left on socio-cultural ones.
Even on domestic policy, Cameron would have very different views to Biden, say, on school choice.
Very different.
School choice is framed completely differently in the USA with their history of segregation followed by bussing. However our equivalent on school choice would be allowing new Grammar Schools and Cameron ran away from that issue.
On other socio cultural issues Cameron legalised gay marriage (which Johnson outside of Parliament supported and took part in a Pride march) etc
On other socio cultural issues like the environment both Cameron and Johnson have made Green issues a priority. From Cameron's huskies to Johnson's wind farms taking the skin off a rice pudding both have embraced environmental issues from a 'vote blue go green' perspective.
On non European international relations issues like Iran they're quite similar too.
I think one of the worries in Lombardy is that it got a huge dose of the Asian version of the virus rather than the newer mutated European one which has a couple of tiny differences in mechanism leading to a small but significant chance of reinfection.
The more I read about Biden's policy, the less I like him. Pro-trade union, anti-school choice, let rip on immigration and removing some controls.
I know what I'd do if I were British. In America, I'd abstain and go 3rd party - I couldn't vote to endorse that.
There's a lot of questions about Biden but he remains the answer when the alternative is Trump.
Which is why he still may win handsomely. But, it provides a reason as well if he doesn't and, even if he does, why that halo may not last long.
Personally, I think he will be a very poor President but President Harris might be better from 2022 onwards.
The thing is, David, is he the sort of leader who can calm down the culture wars and move on from them?
I think the answer is already very clear: no.
It may still be he beats Trump handsomely, just because he's so heinous, but that isn't an answer.
Why not? Corbyn was so heinous we voted for Johnson. (Well, not me personally; I took the coward's way out and voted LibDem but you take my point.)
And look at how that's turning out barely 11 months later..
Yes the Tories still lead in most polls even after bland, kneeling, abstain from every debate, Captain Hindsight SKS took over. 🤷♂️
At the time it was widely predicted (at least on here) that it would crash his personal brand. It hasn't harmed it. He's got four years until an election - why risk any political capital whatsoever on fights he can't win?
The spy legislation is a case in point. Given his history at the Bar, had Labour not abstained but voted against that would have given the Tories massive "Lefty Lawyer tries to Shackle James Bond" type headlines. And for what? The legislation would have passed anyway and allowed Johnson something to attack SKS with that resonates with the public. Better to abstain and pick a better battle that he might win later. He's ahead in most "Best PM" polls and he needs to drag the party up to his level of popularity. Given where they started from under Corbyn that will take a lot of time.
The supposedly moderate Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has at last revealed himself as the fanatic he really is, with his wild calls for even more mass destruction of the jobs and livelihoods of Labour voters in a so-called ‘circuit-breaker’.
I am not surprised. Most people who report on politics in this country do not understand the subject, lacking the Marxist training which I had in my distant youth. They call Sir Keir ‘moderate’ because he is not Jeremy Corbyn. A fat lot they know.
Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, a wild Leftist, a man of clenched-fist salutes, street protests and red banners who probably dreams of storming Buckingham Palace at the head of a detachment of Red Guards. But he is one of the obvious, old-fashioned sort, steam-powered, coal-fired. You can see him a mile off and defeat him with ease. Sir Keir is much more dangerous. His fanaticism is as smooth as the moisturiser he applies daily to his handsome face. It is designed for the age of the internet.
But you will have to search hard for any major media mention of his stint, in his mid-20s, on the editorial board of a Trotskyist magazine called Socialist Alternatives. Its few issues can still be read on the internet. I have read them, though most of Sir Keir’s articles were written with the blunt end of a bread pudding, and are hard going.
Ah, you may say, this was just youthful folly. People change. He’s even taken a knighthood. Except Sir Keir has not changed much. This is the age he was born for.
In an interview with the New Statesman, he recently said: ‘I don’t think there are big issues on which I’ve changed my mind… The big issue we were grappling with then was how the Labour Party, or the Left generally, bound together the wider movement and its strands of equality – feminist politics, green politics, LGBT – which I thought was incredibly exciting, incredibly important. Broadly speaking, I think the Labour Party has done that very successfully.’
The sect he was mixed up with in the 1980s helped pioneer the New Left – Green mixed with Red, radical sexual politics. ‘Red must be made Green, and Green must be made Red,’ they said. This way of thinking has no time for the clapped-out yelling and posturing of the Corbynites.
It wants a cultural revolution which leaves all the buildings standing but changes everything that goes on inside them. It might find a huge economic and social convulsion, such as Johnson has visited on us, very convenient for that purpose."
The practical problem is that gyms are a massive covid risk, if anywhere is going to be forced to close - and the British like to do things with rules rather than voluntary action and common sense, since they hate freedom - they're absolutely top of the list. You might just be able to fix it with heroically expensive ventilation systems but in practice they're just going to faff around with sanitization and things.
The government could do more to give gyms money to compensate, but that won't satisfy the people who can't go to the gym. There's no way to satisfy these people consistent with public health, because they want to do something in the middle of a pandemic, and the thing they want to do spreads the pandemic.
I'd think that was true, so I do support closing gyms. But Alastair's wider point is true too. I'm a fairly conventional politician in some ways, and I think schools and unis and major factories are jolly important, but I've never even considered visiting a gym, any more than a boxing match or a German beer hall - they're all outside my cultural reference area, and at some level I (therefore?) instinctively think of them as less important or even, as Hillary Clinton might say, deplorable - why aren't the body-builders reading books or distributing political leaflets, eh? That kind of thinking does contribute to the cultural alienation which feeds issues like Brexit and politicians like Trump, and people like me need to get past ourselves. Thanks for the thought-provoking piece.
You write posts like this and you have the temerity to call me weird. Someone who was also avowed communist at the age of TEN and more concerned about Kennedy's foreign policy than his train set.
You are like an alien from outer space who has been lobotomized by David Icke, had surgery to look more like Trotsky and then converted to Scientology.
I'm looking for the post where he had the temerity to call you weird. I want to give it a 'like'
I've missed you Wodger.
The "like" button is the worst feature of the new version of this site. It looks like there's nothing that can be done about it but I think it's lowered the quality of the discussion on here.
It encourages each side to play to their own galleries to get the most "likes" - in other words, it plays to sentimentality rather than rationality and introduces narcissism into the equation.
The very best posts on this site get just 1-3 likes rather than 5-8 likes.
In the old days you'd get people like @Jonathan and @SouthamObserver sometimes replying to arguments of mine saying "excellent post", which is all the praise I'd ever want or need. I'd do the same for some of theirs, we all learnt something and had a really interesting exchange of views.
I really miss that.
I find your premise to be a bit short on evidence and a little strange. The most 'liked' posts are almost certainly going to be ones which are jokes, and most people don't use the feature at all so the idea it has enouraged a deterioration of debate quality I think is perception more than reality.
Yes, many jokes are an exception. Usually because they're apolitical and unrelated to a position.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on the quality of the debate. Many of the best posters on here now post far less frequently, including Southam Observer, Charles, Sean Fear, David Herdson, Alastair Meeks, Tissue Price, and others. Others like Richard Nabavi and Jonathan post much less frequently.
Meanwhile, the trolling is high. I think that's pretty obvious to those with their eyes open.
Well thank you for the passive aggressive insult about those presumably with their eyes closed, that will certainly elevate matters.
The supposedly moderate Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has at last revealed himself as the fanatic he really is, with his wild calls for even more mass destruction of the jobs and livelihoods of Labour voters in a so-called ‘circuit-breaker’.
I am not surprised. Most people who report on politics in this country do not understand the subject, lacking the Marxist training which I had in my distant youth. They call Sir Keir ‘moderate’ because he is not Jeremy Corbyn. A fat lot they know.
Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, a wild Leftist, a man of clenched-fist salutes, street protests and red banners who probably dreams of storming Buckingham Palace at the head of a detachment of Red Guards. But he is one of the obvious, old-fashioned sort, steam-powered, coal-fired. You can see him a mile off and defeat him with ease. Sir Keir is much more dangerous. His fanaticism is as smooth as the moisturiser he applies daily to his handsome face. It is designed for the age of the internet.
But you will have to search hard for any major media mention of his stint, in his mid-20s, on the editorial board of a Trotskyist magazine called Socialist Alternatives. Its few issues can still be read on the internet. I have read them, though most of Sir Keir’s articles were written with the blunt end of a bread pudding, and are hard going.
Ah, you may say, this was just youthful folly. People change. He’s even taken a knighthood. Except Sir Keir has not changed much. This is the age he was born for.
In an interview with the New Statesman, he recently said: ‘I don’t think there are big issues on which I’ve changed my mind… The big issue we were grappling with then was how the Labour Party, or the Left generally, bound together the wider movement and its strands of equality – feminist politics, green politics, LGBT – which I thought was incredibly exciting, incredibly important. Broadly speaking, I think the Labour Party has done that very successfully.’
The sect he was mixed up with in the 1980s helped pioneer the New Left – Green mixed with Red, radical sexual politics. ‘Red must be made Green, and Green must be made Red,’ they said. This way of thinking has no time for the clapped-out yelling and posturing of the Corbynites.
It wants a cultural revolution which leaves all the buildings standing but changes everything that goes on inside them. It might find a huge economic and social convulsion, such as Johnson has visited on us, very convenient for that purpose."
The more I read about Biden's policy, the less I like him. Pro-trade union, anti-school choice, let rip on immigration and removing some controls.
I know what I'd do if I were British. In America, I'd abstain and go 3rd party - I couldn't vote to endorse that.
There's a lot of questions about Biden but he remains the answer when the alternative is Trump.
Which is why he still may win handsomely. But, it provides a reason as well if he doesn't and, even if he does, why that halo may not last long.
Personally, I think he will be a very poor President but President Harris might be better from 2022 onwards.
The thing is, David, is he the sort of leader who can calm down the culture wars and move on from them?
I think the answer is already very clear: no.
It may still be he beats Trump handsomely, just because he's so heinous, but that isn't an answer.
I think that he might well calm down the culture wars a bit by being a bit of a blancmange who achieves very little. Even that will be an improvement on Trump throwing kerosene on the bbq every day with his twitter account. I think its difficult to overstate how much damage Trump has done to the impression of the US as a serious country.
Plural vote is more cautious, and increasingly out of line with the other prediction sites. It is an interesting combination of polling data and media search data. It gives Biden a 72% chance.
The practical problem is that gyms are a massive covid risk, if anywhere is going to be forced to close - and the British like to do things with rules rather than voluntary action and common sense, since they hate freedom - they're absolutely top of the list. You might just be able to fix it with heroically expensive ventilation systems but in practice they're just going to faff around with sanitization and things.
The government could do more to give gyms money to compensate, but that won't satisfy the people who can't go to the gym. There's no way to satisfy these people consistent with public health, because they want to do something in the middle of a pandemic, and the thing they want to do spreads the pandemic.
I'd think that was true, so I do support closing gyms. But Alastair's wider point is true too. I'm a fairly conventional politician in some ways, and I think schools and unis and major factories are jolly important, but I've never even considered visiting a gym, any more than a boxing match or a German beer hall - they're all outside my cultural reference area, and at some level I (therefore?) instinctively think of them as less important or even, as Hillary Clinton might say, deplorable - why aren't the body-builders reading books or distributing political leaflets, eh? That kind of thinking does contribute to the cultural alienation which feeds issues like Brexit and politicians like Trump, and people like me need to get past ourselves. Thanks for the thought-provoking piece.
You write posts like this and you have the temerity to call me weird. Someone who was also avowed communist at the age of TEN and more concerned about Kennedy's foreign policy than his train set.
You are like an alien from outer space who has been lobotomized by David Icke, had surgery to look more like Trotsky and then converted to Scientology.
I'm looking for the post where he had the temerity to call you weird. I want to give it a 'like'
I've missed you Wodger.
The "like" button is the worst feature of the new version of this site. It looks like there's nothing that can be done about it but I think it's lowered the quality of the discussion on here.
It encourages each side to play to their own galleries to get the most "likes" - in other words, it plays to sentimentality rather than rationality and introduces narcissism into the equation.
The very best posts on this site get just 1-3 likes rather than 5-8 likes.
In the old days you'd get people like @Jonathan and @SouthamObserver sometimes replying to arguments of mine saying "excellent post", which is all the praise I'd ever want or need. I'd do the same for some of theirs, we all learnt something and had a really interesting exchange of views.
I really miss that.
There are people who actually post on this site monitoring the amount of "likes" you get? How do you even do that?
Oh, almost everyone does it. It's just hardly anyone admits to it.
It's like masturbation.
Well I admit it.
The masturbation I mean - not the "likes" thing. I`m not admitting to that.
I’m just disturbed at the thought of Casino getting sexual gratification that way.
He's consistently graceful and reasonable, when she's aggressive, hyper-partisan, rude and desperate to get a political gotcha moment. Even Channel4 would be ashamed of it.
The Kiwi accents are rather charming though.
I know very little of New Zealand politics, but it was an awfully aggressive stance for a broadcaster, I'd have assumed it was a debate between two political parties. Usually broadcasters qualify the more aggressive stance with caveats like 'Some say that you have X' or the like.
The practical problem is that gyms are a massive covid risk, if anywhere is going to be forced to close - and the British like to do things with rules rather than voluntary action and common sense, since they hate freedom - they're absolutely top of the list. You might just be able to fix it with heroically expensive ventilation systems but in practice they're just going to faff around with sanitization and things.
The government could do more to give gyms money to compensate, but that won't satisfy the people who can't go to the gym. There's no way to satisfy these people consistent with public health, because they want to do something in the middle of a pandemic, and the thing they want to do spreads the pandemic.
I'd think that was true, so I do support closing gyms. But Alastair's wider point is true too. I'm a fairly conventional politician in some ways, and I think schools and unis and major factories are jolly important, but I've never even considered visiting a gym, any more than a boxing match or a German beer hall - they're all outside my cultural reference area, and at some level I (therefore?) instinctively think of them as less important or even, as Hillary Clinton might say, deplorable - why aren't the body-builders reading books or distributing political leaflets, eh? That kind of thinking does contribute to the cultural alienation which feeds issues like Brexit and politicians like Trump, and people like me need to get past ourselves. Thanks for the thought-provoking piece.
You write posts like this and you have the temerity to call me weird. Someone who was also avowed communist at the age of TEN and more concerned about Kennedy's foreign policy than his train set.
You are like an alien from outer space who has been lobotomized by David Icke, had surgery to look more like Trotsky and then converted to Scientology.
I'm looking for the post where he had the temerity to call you weird. I want to give it a 'like'
I've missed you Wodger.
The "like" button is the worst feature of the new version of this site. It looks like there's nothing that can be done about it but I think it's lowered the quality of the discussion on here.
It encourages each side to play to their own galleries to get the most "likes" - in other words, it plays to sentimentality rather than rationality and introduces narcissism into the equation.
The very best posts on this site get just 1-3 likes rather than 5-8 likes.
In the old days you'd get people like @Jonathan and @SouthamObserver sometimes replying to arguments of mine saying "excellent post", which is all the praise I'd ever want or need. I'd do the same for some of theirs, we all learnt something and had a really interesting exchange of views.
I really miss that.
There are people who actually post on this site monitoring the amount of "likes" you get? How do you even do that?
Oh, almost everyone does it. It's just hardly anyone admits to it.
It's like masturbation.
Well I admit it.
The masturbation I mean - not the "likes" thing. I`m not admitting to that.
I’m just disturbed at the thought of Casino getting sexual gratification that way.
I think that he might well calm down the culture wars a bit by being a bit of a blancmange who achieves very little. Even that will be an improvement on Trump throwing kerosene on the bbq every day with his twitter account. I think its difficult to overstate how much damage Trump has done to the impression of the US as a serious country.
Agree - there's a lot more to "not Trump" than there was to "not Bush".
Dull, moderate administrative competence will be a huge upgrade.
Well it's not as like they will admit to it leading to higher taxation even if it is the case, and pretty sure it was said last time and they still got 45%. Just focus on the positive vision stuff and hope 5% of people feel differently than last time, and it's quite possible, nay probable.
The more I read about Biden's policy, the less I like him. Pro-trade union, anti-school choice, let rip on immigration and removing some controls.
I know what I'd do if I were British. In America, I'd abstain and go 3rd party - I couldn't vote to endorse that.
What does "let rip on immigration and removing some controls mean"?
Of course being pro-immigration hasn't always been particularly controversial in America. Given that it is basically the foundation stone of the country.
And what's wrong with being "pro-trade union"? There is a perfectly respectable mainstream tradition of trade unionism. You wouldn't say that Germany was a left wing fringe country just because it has strong trade unions. In the UK the perception of the Union movement has become skewed since what happened in the 70s and the nature of most of it's modern day leadership. But there was a time when moderate trade union leaders were the only thing preventing the Labour Party from being completely captured by the lunatic fringes. I don't know what it's like in the US, or how closely the unions are aligned with party politics in the way they are in the UK.
He will stop building "the wall" and open up immigration visas and loosen restrictions for many more who want admission to the USA.
There's no need to be an apologist for Biden's policy positions. And I don't think it's profitable for you and I to discuss the merits or dismerits of either - suffice to say, I vehemently disagree - but I know perfectly well how strongly I'd feel about that as a conservative were I living in the USA.
But these sound like pretty mainstream left win positions. They are hardly extreme left wing positions. Biden is a Democrat. It can hardly be a surprise to discover that he is campaigning on core Democrat principles.
You sound like you are complaining not that he has an extreme position that you couldn't possibly vote for, but simply that he is not a Republican/Conservative.
< The thing is, David, is he the sort of leader who can calm down the culture wars and move on from them?
I think the answer is already very clear: no.
It may still be he beats Trump handsomely, just because he's so heinous, but that isn't an answer.
I think that he might well calm down the culture wars a bit by being a bit of a blancmange who achieves very little. Even that will be an improvement on Trump throwing kerosene on the bbq every day with his twitter account. I think its difficult to overstate how much damage Trump has done to the impression of the US as a serious country.
The way he is working with McCain's widow and other Republicans with a smile shows he is trying to calm things down at least rather than ramping it up to "own" the other side.
The culture wars will never entirely end, they are in fact in moderation a very good thing. That's what politics should be doing, debating the big issues. But the toxic own your enemy and lock em up nature of Trump and his followers (and Sanders, BLM extremists etc too) needs to go.
Biden isn't a centrist but he isn't a toxic own everyone and burn them to the ground extremist.
Many culture warriors today on all sides act like Conan the Barbarian: The best thing in life is to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women. Biden doesn't play into that.
Comments
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/only-two-customers-bills-pay-19124648
I actually paid a year in advance to King's College gym near my office in January! Doh.
My local Kiss Gym has been open for a while although I'm not using it now. And my local ABC has only just reopened but now I suppose may close again.
The only thing I would say is that the process is actually healthy. if this makes gym-bunnies more politically engaged then that's a good thing. That demographic is now realising how this politics game works.
A more moderate Labour Party may have stopped Thatcher in 1984 but thanks to Foot she won a landslide. Same Corbyn facilitated a major victory for Brexiteer Johnson's government.
Trump is so absolutely catastrophically unacceptable that it's allowing Biden a wide scope to win with.
Not sure I can come up with any credible explanation for the puzzle before us now.
Of course being pro-immigration hasn't always been particularly controversial in America. Given that it is basically the foundation stone of the country.
And what's wrong with being "pro-trade union"? There is a perfectly respectable mainstream tradition of trade unionism. You wouldn't say that Germany was a left wing fringe country just because it has strong trade unions. In the UK the perception of the Union movement has become skewed since what happened in the 70s and the nature of most of it's modern day leadership. But there was a time when moderate trade union leaders were the only thing preventing the Labour Party from being completely captured by the lunatic fringes. I don't know what it's like in the US, or how closely the unions are aligned with party politics in the way they are in the UK.
You need to draw the strength from within yourself to say what you believe to be true, no matter what anyone else fires at you, and stick to it - no matter how makes likes you get, or how many likes those opposing you get.
Be convinced only by the quality of the counter-argument.
The masturbation I mean - not the "likes" thing. I`m not admitting to that.
Looking further ahead, looks like we'll be rejoining the EU in April 2040.
Sentamu is a hugely deserving character for the reasons you mention, in a way that say - Bercow - never will be and precedent be damned.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/sport/articles-reports/2020/10/16/do-fans-support-premier-league-players-knee-blm
There's no need to be an apologist for Biden's policy positions. And I don't think it's profitable for you and I to discuss the merits or dismerits of either - suffice to say, I vehemently disagree - but I know perfectly well how strongly I'd feel about that as a conservative were I living in the USA.
Keeping quiet about it is one thing but, once people cotton onto what's going on, there will be political conflict over it if the flame has been lit.
Presumably high standards will be required for the legal migration it won't be free movement.
Lombardy, which became the global epicentre of the virus back in February, has seen a surge in cases, with more than 2,000 infections a day.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8852331/Italy-close-high-schools-enforce-10pm-curfew-highest-daily-toll-Covid-infections.html
I think the answer is already very clear: no.
It may still be he beats Trump handsomely, just because he's so heinous, but that isn't an answer.
Once was enough.
Is pb.com more valuable for it?
Your argument is simply one that excuses a hostile environment.
The culture wars have gotten as bad as they have by trying to "own" the other side, he doesn't play into that.
The Kiwi accents are rather charming though.
There must be more mug punters out there than I would ever have imgined.
Even on domestic policy, Cameron would have very different views to Biden, say, on school choice.
Very different.
You need to seek professional help.
Some people.
LibDem though... did they have a leader? One forgets.
I think I prefer the ‘like’ button.
Let's say on a scale of 1-10 where 1 is the least and 10 is the most.
Hague is an absolute plank, a sad loser with nothing positive to say about his own side, gnashing his teeth at the fact that the independence side have a positive attitude and a hope for a better Scotland whilst all he can do is denigrate the country , claim we are too poor and stupid and so only him and his mates down south can show how the country can be run.
I am too polite to print what I really think of the useless little whining bellend on here.
On other socio cultural issues Cameron legalised gay marriage (which Johnson outside of Parliament supported and took part in a Pride march) etc
On other socio cultural issues like the environment both Cameron and Johnson have made Green issues a priority. From Cameron's huskies to Johnson's wind farms taking the skin off a rice pudding both have embraced environmental issues from a 'vote blue go green' perspective.
On non European international relations issues like Iran they're quite similar too.
The spy legislation is a case in point. Given his history at the Bar, had Labour not abstained but voted against that would have given the Tories massive "Lefty Lawyer tries to Shackle James Bond" type headlines. And for what? The legislation would have passed anyway and allowed Johnson something to attack SKS with that resonates with the public. Better to abstain and pick a better battle that he might win later. He's ahead in most "Best PM" polls and he needs to drag the party up to his level of popularity. Given where they started from under Corbyn that will take a lot of time.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1317758865543483394
I think the answer is already very clear: no.
It may still be he beats Trump handsomely, just because he's so heinous, but that isn't an answer.
I think that he might well calm down the culture wars a bit by being a bit of a blancmange who achieves very little. Even that will be an improvement on Trump throwing kerosene on the bbq every day with his twitter account. I think its difficult to overstate how much damage Trump has done to the impression of the US as a serious country.
https://twitter.com/plural_vote/status/1317608273785229312?s=09
The “likes” thing, I mean...
- higher social security net in the UK
- abortion.
See you later.
Patti put it far better.
https://twitter.com/garywhiter/status/1313722109475123201
Dull, moderate administrative competence will be a huge upgrade.
You sound like you are complaining not that he has an extreme position that you couldn't possibly vote for, but simply that he is not a Republican/Conservative.
Scumbags.
The culture wars will never entirely end, they are in fact in moderation a very good thing. That's what politics should be doing, debating the big issues. But the toxic own your enemy and lock em up nature of Trump and his followers (and Sanders, BLM extremists etc too) needs to go.
Biden isn't a centrist but he isn't a toxic own everyone and burn them to the ground extremist.
Many culture warriors today on all sides act like Conan the Barbarian: The best thing in life is to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women. Biden doesn't play into that.
We are using on average 70-75% of UK Government and 50-55% of NHS capacity on a daily basis.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18785241.covid-border-checks-call-new-concerns-raised-scotlands-testing-fails/