On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
However, violence is not the only benchmark, as "A Very British Coup" makes clear. Trying to delegitimise an elected leader by claiming they are a 'Nazi' or a 'Fascist' or, indeed, a Russian spy can be as effective, if not more so, than raw violence.
In any event, you haven't really answered the point. You said the GOP is fascist and 2024 is the most important date for democracy since Overlord. So, are they truly fascist / Nazi - and therefore should be banned - or not?
Clearly you cannot read/comprehend.
I very clearly can and you very clearly can't debate. You remind me a bit of Socrates' quote at his trial "the most stupid people are those who believe they know everything when in fact they know nothing"
Here's what I wrote at 6.35pm
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
This is a weird conversation. Its not like we ban the BNP or National Front in the UK, so the assumption that every poster here would want fascists banned from standing is out of left field. Perfectly reasonable to want fascists to both be able to stand and to lose heavily.
Slightly problematic on several levels:
(1) In a number of politically active circles, it is seen as entirely legitimate - and indeed morally right - to use violence against fascists. By accepting it is normal discourse to allow a party to be branded a fascist gives certain groups a carte blanche to attack.
2. The actual comparison was with Overlord, which was against the Nazis. Who certainly are banned and should be.
BUT perhaps worth noting, that in lead-up to 1948 election, Harry Truman had his own issues, most especially re: Public Opinion. With many politicos, pundits and active voters, including many Democrats and Progressives (of that era) skeptical regarding the possibility and/or desirability of Truman's re-nomination AND re-election.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
Yeah who can forget that time Harperson led an armed militia to take over the Lords after Cameron won?
Who said she did, there have been plenty of left wing inspired protests over the years claiming the tories didnt win because labour+lib dem+green+snp got more votes that have turned violent.
The 2nd vote Remoaners tried to overturn a democratic vote. Brexit
Much as I dislike them, I wouldn’t call them ‘fascist’. Foolish idiots playing with fire is more like it
I don’t think Trump is your classical fascist either. ‘A dangerous, unhinged demagogue who menaces America and who will hopefully disappear’, yes, he’s definitely that.
Trump isn't a fascist but he is getting there. Unlike undemocratic Remainers, he strongly supports political violence, believes the state should function on personal loyalty to the right leader, views disagreement with the leader as treason, believes strength and will are the defining virtues of politics, celebrates the military and security services as paramount etc.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
However, violence is not the only benchmark, as "A Very British Coup" makes clear. Trying to delegitimise an elected leader by claiming they are a 'Nazi' or a 'Fascist' or, indeed, a Russian spy can be as effective, if not more so, than raw violence.
In any event, you haven't really answered the point. You said the GOP is fascist and 2024 is the most important date for democracy since Overlord. So, are they truly fascist / Nazi - and therefore should be banned - or not?
Clearly you cannot read/comprehend.
I very clearly can and you very clearly can't debate. You remind me a bit of Socrates' quote at his trial "the most stupid people are those who believe they know everything when in fact they know nothing"
Here's what I wrote at 6.35pm
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
This is a weird conversation. Its not like we ban the BNP or National Front in the UK, so the assumption that every poster here would want fascists banned from standing is out of left field. Perfectly reasonable to want fascists to both be able to stand and to lose heavily.
Slightly problematic on several levels:
(1) In a number of politically active circles, it is seen as entirely legitimate - and indeed morally right - to use violence against fascists. By accepting it is normal discourse to allow a party to be branded a fascist gives certain groups a carte blanche to attack.
2. The actual comparison was with Overlord, which was against the Nazis. Who certainly are banned and should be.
Look, if you want to ban fascists for standing there is a case for that. If others want to allow fascists to stand and lose there is a case for that. There are even some who want fascists to stand and win!
But there is not much case for assuming everyone else has to agree with your view that fascists must not be allowed to stand. Particularly when someone repeatedly says the opposite, they just have a different opinion to you!
Only 2 groups are still largely loyal to the Conservatives. Rural Right with whom the Conservatives are on 55% and English Traditionalists with whom the Conservatives are on 50%. Albeit some Tory leakage to RefUK with these groups.
The Traditionalist Left, disillusioned suburbanites and centrist Liberals who backed the Conservatives in 2019 now back Starmer Labour.
The Activist Left who were the only group to back Corbyn in 2019 are now 75% Labour
Interesting, and credit to HYUFD for pointing it out. The heavily Tory response in today's canvass that I mentioned on the last thread was precisely in the "Rural Right" category, and with two exceptions every single one was clearly over 50.
Those of us that live in genuinely rural areas are always nervous of Labour. I am a moderate and very much wanted to see the back of Johnson, and had Johnson still been PM I would have held my nose and voted Labour if necessary. If Labour is to have a chance in very rural areas it has a lot of work to do. But then again, Labour is essentially an urban party and I guess it doesn't care. Which is why we do not trust them.
The key word is trust. I think there are some groups amongst the floaters who may trust SKS but don't trust Labour. SKS' problem is (1) Sunak comes across as fairly decent to many of those people and (2) I suspect many RW voters in particular see Labour as dominated by graduate urban types who essentially despise what RW voters are about.
Yes, as a Blue Wall constituency chair I'm familiar with something like that view, though it's not in my experience so much lack of trust as lack of salience - voting Labour just isn't something that many rural voters think of as a natural option. A problem is that "rural" doesn't mean agricultural. Labour is doing rather well with farmers at the moment, because the current Defra team aren't seen as effective - Starmer went down very well at the NFU conference. But do we have much to offer a retired couple living in a hard-earned large house in Surrey? I'd like to think that they'd be up for voting Labour simply on the basis of wanting a decent society around them, but only a minority feel that way.
That's a very good point re the Surrey couple and you would have to say "not much". It is not so much though that Labour doesn't have much to offer more that Labour - to many - represent a threat to what they have. That's the issue.
Precisely. Some of them will have a cultural aversion to Labour but the major problem is with two things Labour ought to be doing in power which these voters will despise: taxing them a whole lot more, and forcing them to put up with new build houses.
There's no point in Starmer trying to win over the wealthy pensioner vote. He should display a little of the Tories' ruthlessness and govern in the interest of his own voter coalition - public sector workers, young people, low wage earners, and all those struggling families without inherited wealth to rescue them from a whole life sentence of astronomical rents - and present all the bills to additional rate taxpayers and the owners of valuable assets. It's past time to put an end to easy street for homeowners aged over 50 and the very rich, and the moral preaching of ceaseless toil and the icy cold blast of the free market for everyone else.
“Our study of GPT-4 is entirely phenomenological: We have focused on the surprising things that GPT-4 can do, but we do not address the fundamental questions of why and how it achieves such remarkable intelligence. How does it reason, plan, and create? Why does it exhibit such general and flexible intelligence when it is at its core merely the combination of simple algorithmic components—gradient descent and large-scale transformers with extremely large amounts of data? These questions are part of the mystery and fascinatoon of LLMs, which challenge our understanding of learning and cognition, fuel our curiosity, and motivate deeper research.
Key directions include ongoing research on the phenomenon of emergence in LLMs (see [WTB+22] for a recent survey). Yet, despite intense interest in questions about the capabilities of LLMs, progress to date has been quite limited with only toy models where some phenomenon of emergence is proved [BEG+22, ABC+22, JSL22]. One general hypothesis [OCS+20] is that the large amount of data (especially the diversity of the content) forces neural networks to learn generic and useful “neural circuits”, such as the ones discovered in [OEN+22, ZBB+22, LAG+22], while the large size of models provide enough redundancy and diversity for the neural circuits to specialize and fine-tune to specific tasks.”
Basically, sentience and intelligence might be emergent properties, which arise ‘naturally’ given enough complexity, data and information. The machines are coming to life as they grow
Which makes sense, as our own consciousness is an emergent property, which revealed itself as we got more complex, evolving from Protozoa to primitive fish to mammal and primate
Interesting stuff. I am open minded; but there are problems. In the empirical world things have causes (hence science) which can be uncovered, hypothesised and tested, verified (or falsified), on the basis of which laws and regularities can be formulated and predictions made. This I would describe as the world of 'how it works'.
With mental events (consciousness, sentience) there isn't a 'How It Works' available, nor, crucially, is it possible to formulate an empirically based possibility(s) - hypothesis - of "How It Works" within any physics known to us.
So either it is not an emergent property at all (BTW mental events are not properties, they are things, as we all know in our heads) or else they emerge by laws/physics of which we are 100% ignorant. And likely to remain so.
I see no problem at all. Consciousness obviously emerges somehow - it emerged in us, and in other higher animals, who in turn evolved from lower animals, who evolved from blobs of slime and acid, and rocks and water and sunlight
All living creatures process information so as to live. As the creatures evolve to become more complex they need to process MORE information, so their brains grow, and at some point on this road the brain gets big enough and is processing enough information it somehow becomes self aware. Conscious. Sentient
Why should computers, which are made of atoms and molecules just like us, not follow the same pattern? As they get bigger and process more information, there will be a moment when consciousness will evolve just as it evolved in animals. It’s not a unique miracle
The mystery of how and when consciousness arises at a particular moment abides. I agree with that. Is a chimp conscious? Of course. A dog? Yes. A gecko? Hmm. A bumblebee? Probably not. An amoeba? Almost certainly not. A virus?
Somewhere on that evolutionary progression consciousness emerged. So then the question is: what stage are computers at? Bumblebee? Gecko? Dog?
"Somehow" is the crucial problem word here. Which how (How It Works) is the question, not the answer.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
However, violence is not the only benchmark, as "A Very British Coup" makes clear. Trying to delegitimise an elected leader by claiming they are a 'Nazi' or a 'Fascist' or, indeed, a Russian spy can be as effective, if not more so, than raw violence.
In any event, you haven't really answered the point. You said the GOP is fascist and 2024 is the most important date for democracy since Overlord. So, are they truly fascist / Nazi - and therefore should be banned - or not?
Clearly you cannot read/comprehend.
I very clearly can and you very clearly can't debate. You remind me a bit of Socrates' quote at his trial "the most stupid people are those who believe they know everything when in fact they know nothing"
Here's what I wrote at 6.35pm
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
This is a weird conversation. Its not like we ban the BNP or National Front in the UK, so the assumption that every poster here would want fascists banned from standing is out of left field. Perfectly reasonable to want fascists to both be able to stand and to lose heavily.
Slightly problematic on several levels:
(1) In a number of politically active circles, it is seen as entirely legitimate - and indeed morally right - to use violence against fascists. By accepting it is normal discourse to allow a party to be branded a fascist gives certain groups a carte blanche to attack.
2. The actual comparison was with Overlord, which was against the Nazis. Who certainly are banned and should be.
Look, if you want to ban fascists for standing there is a case for that. If others want to allow fascists to stand and lose there is a case for that. There are even some who want fascists to stand and win!
But there is not much case for assuming everyone else has to agree with your view that fascists must not be allowed to stand. Particularly when someone repeatedly says the opposite, they just have a different opinion to you!
I don't want fascists to be banned, they should be allowed to stand and their arguments hammered.
I do want Nazis banned.
My argument is against using extreme language to define political parties because of the impact it has.
And I'm sure if some started accusing Labour of seeming to favour those who like terms such as "minor attracted"" and labelled them as such, you would be quick to accuse them of demonising their opponents.
Only 2 groups are still largely loyal to the Conservatives. Rural Right with whom the Conservatives are on 55% and English Traditionalists with whom the Conservatives are on 50%. Albeit some Tory leakage to RefUK with these groups.
The Traditionalist Left, disillusioned suburbanites and centrist Liberals who backed the Conservatives in 2019 now back Starmer Labour.
The Activist Left who were the only group to back Corbyn in 2019 are now 75% Labour
Interesting, and credit to HYUFD for pointing it out. The heavily Tory response in today's canvass that I mentioned on the last thread was precisely in the "Rural Right" category, and with two exceptions every single one was clearly over 50.
Those of us that live in genuinely rural areas are always nervous of Labour. I am a moderate and very much wanted to see the back of Johnson, and had Johnson still been PM I would have held my nose and voted Labour if necessary. If Labour is to have a chance in very rural areas it has a lot of work to do. But then again, Labour is essentially an urban party and I guess it doesn't care. Which is why we do not trust them.
The key word is trust. I think there are some groups amongst the floaters who may trust SKS but don't trust Labour. SKS' problem is (1) Sunak comes across as fairly decent to many of those people and (2) I suspect many RW voters in particular see Labour as dominated by graduate urban types who essentially despise what RW voters are about.
Yes, as a Blue Wall constituency chair I'm familiar with something like that view, though it's not in my experience so much lack of trust as lack of salience - voting Labour just isn't something that many rural voters think of as a natural option. A problem is that "rural" doesn't mean agricultural. Labour is doing rather well with farmers at the moment, because the current Defra team aren't seen as effective - Starmer went down very well at the NFU conference. But do we have much to offer a retired couple living in a hard-earned large house in Surrey? I'd like to think that they'd be up for voting Labour simply on the basis of wanting a decent society around them, but only a minority feel that way.
That's a very good point re the Surrey couple and you would have to say "not much". It is not so much though that Labour doesn't have much to offer more that Labour - to many - represent a threat to what they have. That's the issue.
Precisely. Some of them will have a cultural aversion to Labour but the major problem is with two things Labour ought to be doing in power which these voters will despise: taxing them a whole lot more, and forcing them to put up with new build houses.
There's no point in Starmer trying to win over the wealthy pensioner vote. He should display a little of the Tories' ruthlessness and govern in the interest of his own voter coalition - public sector workers, young people, low wage earners, and all those struggling families without inherited wealth to rescue them from a whole life sentence of astronomical rents - and present all the bills to additional rate taxpayers and the owners of valuable assets. It's past time to put an end to easy street for homeowners aged over 50 and the very rich, and the moral preaching of ceaseless toil and the icy cold blast of the free market for everyone else.
Apart from labour hasnt cared about low wage earners and struggling families for a long time. Their voter core is public sector workers and the woker middle classes. If they did care places like hartlepool would not have been taken for granted for so many years. Before you say it no the tories don't give a shit either
Only 2 groups are still largely loyal to the Conservatives. Rural Right with whom the Conservatives are on 55% and English Traditionalists with whom the Conservatives are on 50%. Albeit some Tory leakage to RefUK with these groups.
The Traditionalist Left, disillusioned suburbanites and centrist Liberals who backed the Conservatives in 2019 now back Starmer Labour.
The Activist Left who were the only group to back Corbyn in 2019 are now 75% Labour
Interesting, and credit to HYUFD for pointing it out. The heavily Tory response in today's canvass that I mentioned on the last thread was precisely in the "Rural Right" category, and with two exceptions every single one was clearly over 50.
Those of us that live in genuinely rural areas are always nervous of Labour. I am a moderate and very much wanted to see the back of Johnson, and had Johnson still been PM I would have held my nose and voted Labour if necessary. If Labour is to have a chance in very rural areas it has a lot of work to do. But then again, Labour is essentially an urban party and I guess it doesn't care. Which is why we do not trust them.
"Those of us that live in genuinely rural areas are always nervous of Labour."
Sweeping generalisation there. I have lived in genuinely rural areas for the past 40 years and I am not particularly nervous of Labour; I'm more concerned about the hollowing out of public services over the past 13 years and the effect that has had on the rural community.
I also doubt whether the Porsche/BMW owners in Surrey stockbroker-belt that Nick Palmer cited earlier are particularly representative of rural communities.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
Yeah who can forget that time Harperson led an armed militia to take over the Lords after Cameron won?
Who said she did, there have been plenty of left wing inspired protests over the years claiming the tories didnt win because labour+lib dem+green+snp got more votes that have turned violent.
“Left wing” political violence in the U.K. comes from the Black Blok types. They are either wannabe Tankies who have an an idea that of they reduce society to chaos then everyone will vote Tankie. See Germany in the 1920s…
The other lot are the kind of wankers who flip a switch* and suddenly want to become investment bankers - usually he very worst kind.
We actually had one interview at one bank - we had endless fun with his social media out pourings.
Neither type of shit head has any kind of welcome in the Labour Party.
*Generally when they realise that (a) their trust fund isn’t that big or (b) they don’t have a trust fund
BUT perhaps worth noting, that in lead-up to 1948 election, Harry Truman had his own issues, most especially re: Public Opinion. With many politicos, pundits and active voters, including many Democrats and Progressives (of that era) skeptical regarding the possibility and/or desirability of Truman's re-nomination AND re-election.
Just sayin'
One of America's greatest Presidents in my view.
The map of the 1948 Presidential election is fascinating.
Republican candidate Dewey won almost the entire North East and Michigan and Oregon.
Truman as the Democrat nominee won almost the entire South (bar a few for Dixiecrat Thurmond) and West. Apart from Dewey winning the plains states and Indiana and Truman winning Massachussetts, Rhode Island, and California and Washington it is almost a complete reversal of now
Only 2 groups are still largely loyal to the Conservatives. Rural Right with whom the Conservatives are on 55% and English Traditionalists with whom the Conservatives are on 50%. Albeit some Tory leakage to RefUK with these groups.
The Traditionalist Left, disillusioned suburbanites and centrist Liberals who backed the Conservatives in 2019 now back Starmer Labour.
The Activist Left who were the only group to back Corbyn in 2019 are now 75% Labour
Interesting, and credit to HYUFD for pointing it out. The heavily Tory response in today's canvass that I mentioned on the last thread was precisely in the "Rural Right" category, and with two exceptions every single one was clearly over 50.
Those of us that live in genuinely rural areas are always nervous of Labour. I am a moderate and very much wanted to see the back of Johnson, and had Johnson still been PM I would have held my nose and voted Labour if necessary. If Labour is to have a chance in very rural areas it has a lot of work to do. But then again, Labour is essentially an urban party and I guess it doesn't care. Which is why we do not trust them.
The key word is trust. I think there are some groups amongst the floaters who may trust SKS but don't trust Labour. SKS' problem is (1) Sunak comes across as fairly decent to many of those people and (2) I suspect many RW voters in particular see Labour as dominated by graduate urban types who essentially despise what RW voters are about.
Yes, as a Blue Wall constituency chair I'm familiar with something like that view, though it's not in my experience so much lack of trust as lack of salience - voting Labour just isn't something that many rural voters think of as a natural option. A problem is that "rural" doesn't mean agricultural. Labour is doing rather well with farmers at the moment, because the current Defra team aren't seen as effective - Starmer went down very well at the NFU conference. But do we have much to offer a retired couple living in a hard-earned large house in Surrey? I'd like to think that they'd be up for voting Labour simply on the basis of wanting a decent society around them, but only a minority feel that way.
That's a very good point re the Surrey couple and you would have to say "not much". It is not so much though that Labour doesn't have much to offer more that Labour - to many - represent a threat to what they have. That's the issue.
Precisely. Some of them will have a cultural aversion to Labour but the major problem is with two things Labour ought to be doing in power which these voters will despise: taxing them a whole lot more, and forcing them to put up with new build houses.
There's no point in Starmer trying to win over the wealthy pensioner vote. He should display a little of the Tories' ruthlessness and govern in the interest of his own voter coalition - public sector workers, young people, low wage earners, and all those struggling families without inherited wealth to rescue them from a whole life sentence of astronomical rents - and present all the bills to additional rate taxpayers and the owners of valuable assets. It's past time to put an end to easy street for homeowners aged over 50 and the very rich, and the moral preaching of ceaseless toil and the icy cold blast of the free market for everyone else.
Quite so. People seem to forget that one of the points of our political system is that different parties appeal to different interest groups. If Labour suddenly became attractive to wealthy, retired, outright home-owners with conservative (small c) values, people like me would be wondering what the point of Labour was. It's not in the interests of such people to vote Labour, as it's likely they'll pay more taxes for the common good. Farm labourers, on the other hand....
Biden is of course the only Democrat to beat Trump and still polls best against him of Democrats. No President had failed to win their party's nomination after entering the primaries since LBJ either
Think Jimmy Carter had the toughest fight - against Ted Kennedy. He prevailed, as I recall, by refusing to engage and staying ensconced in the White House dealing with the hostage crisis. Of course, said crisis, and the failed rescue mission did for him against Reagan.
But the fight against Kennedy really weakened him. Teddy, for all his may flaws, had that Kennedy style and flair and he made Carter look pedestrian. This made him easy meat for Reagan.
The next Holyrood election is not due until 2026 but Panelbase’s findings will make for uncomfortable reading in Bute House and SNP headquarters.
In constituencies, 37 per cent of people said they would vote for the SNP, a fall of 6 points. Labour received 33 per cent support, up six points; the Conservatives 17 per cent, up one point; the Lib Dems 8 per cent, up one point; the Greens 5 per cent, up one point; with 4 per cent voting for other parties.
On the regional list, 31 per cent said they would vote SNP; Labour secured 27 per cent; the Tories 20 per cent; the Greens 10 per cent and the Lib Dems 6 per cent. Alba returned 5 per cent in a result that would see them return two MSPs, according to Curtice’s analysis
The SNP group would drop by 16 to 48 MSPs while Labour would go up by 15 to 37, the Conservatives would fall by five to 26 and the Greens and Lib Dems would each add two members to return ten and six MSPs respectively.
This would mean there would be a majority of unionist politicians in Holyrood for the first time since 2011.
Imagine the fun we could have with a Rainbow Alliance. Tory, Labour, LibDem all working together to shut out the SNP. It would be *chaos* but as long as they always pull back together to vote down the Nats it could be seriously entertaining...
You mean they don't do that? The Holyrood voting system was designed precisely for a Labour-LD alliance to keep the SNP out, and kick the Tories in the goolies at the same time.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
However, violence is not the only benchmark, as "A Very British Coup" makes clear. Trying to delegitimise an elected leader by claiming they are a 'Nazi' or a 'Fascist' or, indeed, a Russian spy can be as effective, if not more so, than raw violence.
In any event, you haven't really answered the point. You said the GOP is fascist and 2024 is the most important date for democracy since Overlord. So, are they truly fascist / Nazi - and therefore should be banned - or not?
Clearly you cannot read/comprehend.
I very clearly can and you very clearly can't debate. You remind me a bit of Socrates' quote at his trial "the most stupid people are those who believe they know everything when in fact they know nothing"
Here's what I wrote at 6.35pm
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
This is a weird conversation. Its not like we ban the BNP or National Front in the UK, so the assumption that every poster here would want fascists banned from standing is out of left field. Perfectly reasonable to want fascists to both be able to stand and to lose heavily.
Slightly problematic on several levels:
(1) In a number of politically active circles, it is seen as entirely legitimate - and indeed morally right - to use violence against fascists. By accepting it is normal discourse to allow a party to be branded a fascist gives certain groups a carte blanche to attack.
2. The actual comparison was with Overlord, which was against the Nazis. Who certainly are banned and should be.
Look, if you want to ban fascists for standing there is a case for that. If others want to allow fascists to stand and lose there is a case for that. There are even some who want fascists to stand and win!
But there is not much case for assuming everyone else has to agree with your view that fascists must not be allowed to stand. Particularly when someone repeatedly says the opposite, they just have a different opinion to you!
If you ban fascists from standing, that’s going to make things much harder for he rest of us.
If they are all lying down, they won’t be easy targets. FFS.
I’d have to get the butler to get the lower servants hall to call out the beaters to flush the Nazis out…. and those chaps want a per head tip.
Please don't spout bollocks nick you are better than that...not voting labour does not mean people don't want a decent society around them it merely means they don't agree with a socialist inspired idea of what a decent society is.
Yes, I didn't put it well. What I meant is that many prosperous retired couples in the Blue Wall see no particular personal benefit in voting Labour, and are not sufficiently persuaded that things like reduced poverty and shorter NHS waiting lists are very salient to them. Naturally they wish the country well and they may well have other ideas on what a decent society would look like, but principally I think they do routinely vote Tory because they think that means orderly, sensible government. Johnson and Truss are in different ways off-putting to that type of voter, because they seem to offer erratic and unpredictable government.
On topic, Biden would be trading at 1.20-1.25 were it not for his age.
People here simply can't believe someone that old would want it, or will survive to get it.
In fairness a lot of people in America, where we are repeatedly told it's perfectly normal for older people to stay fit and keep going, also seem to have trouble believing it, or did not want to believe it, and were talking about him standing down during his first term, let alone running for a second!
If he can stay at his current level of health for a couple more years he'd be a fine choice in my view, even if it is highly unusual even in america for both major (likely candidates) to be so old.
Only 2 groups are still largely loyal to the Conservatives. Rural Right with whom the Conservatives are on 55% and English Traditionalists with whom the Conservatives are on 50%. Albeit some Tory leakage to RefUK with these groups.
The Traditionalist Left, disillusioned suburbanites and centrist Liberals who backed the Conservatives in 2019 now back Starmer Labour.
The Activist Left who were the only group to back Corbyn in 2019 are now 75% Labour
Interesting, and credit to HYUFD for pointing it out. The heavily Tory response in today's canvass that I mentioned on the last thread was precisely in the "Rural Right" category, and with two exceptions every single one was clearly over 50.
Those of us that live in genuinely rural areas are always nervous of Labour. I am a moderate and very much wanted to see the back of Johnson, and had Johnson still been PM I would have held my nose and voted Labour if necessary. If Labour is to have a chance in very rural areas it has a lot of work to do. But then again, Labour is essentially an urban party and I guess it doesn't care. Which is why we do not trust them.
The key word is trust. I think there are some groups amongst the floaters who may trust SKS but don't trust Labour. SKS' problem is (1) Sunak comes across as fairly decent to many of those people and (2) I suspect many RW voters in particular see Labour as dominated by graduate urban types who essentially despise what RW voters are about.
Yes, as a Blue Wall constituency chair I'm familiar with something like that view, though it's not in my experience so much lack of trust as lack of salience - voting Labour just isn't something that many rural voters think of as a natural option. A problem is that "rural" doesn't mean agricultural. Labour is doing rather well with farmers at the moment, because the current Defra team aren't seen as effective - Starmer went down very well at the NFU conference. But do we have much to offer a retired couple living in a hard-earned large house in Surrey? I'd like to think that they'd be up for voting Labour simply on the basis of wanting a decent society around them, but only a minority feel that way.
That's a very good point re the Surrey couple and you would have to say "not much". It is not so much though that Labour doesn't have much to offer more that Labour - to many - represent a threat to what they have. That's the issue.
Please don't spout bollocks nick...not voting labour does not mean people does not mean people don't want
Please don't spout bollocks nick you are better than that...not voting labour does not mean people don't want a decent society around them it merely means they don't agree with a socialist inspired idea of what a decent society is.
Yes, I didn't put it well. What I meant is that many prosperous retired couples in the Blue Wall see no particular personal benefit in voting Labour, and are not sufficiently persuaded that things like reduced poverty and shorter NHS waiting lists are very salient to them. Naturally they wish the country well and they may well have other ideas on what a decent society would look like, but principally I think they do routinely vote Tory because they think that means orderly, sensible government. Johnson and Truss are in different ways off-putting to that type of voter, because they seem to offer erratic and unpredictable government.
I thought it quite unlike you so freely accept you phrased it badly rather than what you thought. Most sensible people either left or right want the same thing a better world even if we disagree on how to get there and to an extent what it looks like
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
Only 2 groups are still largely loyal to the Conservatives. Rural Right with whom the Conservatives are on 55% and English Traditionalists with whom the Conservatives are on 50%. Albeit some Tory leakage to RefUK with these groups.
The Traditionalist Left, disillusioned suburbanites and centrist Liberals who backed the Conservatives in 2019 now back Starmer Labour.
The Activist Left who were the only group to back Corbyn in 2019 are now 75% Labour
Interesting, and credit to HYUFD for pointing it out. The heavily Tory response in today's canvass that I mentioned on the last thread was precisely in the "Rural Right" category, and with two exceptions every single one was clearly over 50.
Those of us that live in genuinely rural areas are always nervous of Labour. I am a moderate and very much wanted to see the back of Johnson, and had Johnson still been PM I would have held my nose and voted Labour if necessary. If Labour is to have a chance in very rural areas it has a lot of work to do. But then again, Labour is essentially an urban party and I guess it doesn't care. Which is why we do not trust them.
"Those of us that live in genuinely rural areas are always nervous of Labour."
Sweeping generalisation there. I have lived in genuinely rural areas for the past 40 years and I am not particularly nervous of Labour; I'm more concerned about the hollowing out of public services over the past 13 years and the effect that has had on the rural community.
I also doubt whether the Porsche/BMW owners in Surrey stockbroker-belt that Nick Palmer cited earlier are particularly representative of rural communities.
In my experience it is not that people in rural areas are nervous of Labour, it's just not a common part of their political experience so don't factor them in. Obviously that's a broad generalisation, and at their height Labour have held plenty of rural seats, but it's just like how Tories do from time to time hold seats in some cities, but at the moment in some of them even those without Tory antipathy probably don't think about them much.
Wait until Dan finds out what the first American President(s) did to King George III.
Whohe anyway? Seriously.
A presenter on one of premier news channels.
Some people have been really weird over the Biden coronation news. Not even the most ardent monarchist on here cared.
Oh really? Thanks. Of course the Americans didn't help the arrangements for the funeral [edit: of QEII!] by insisting on bringing their own armoured division and then being late with it. So probably relief at this end that that complication isn't there.
Yes, as a Blue Wall constituency chair I'm familiar with something like that view, though it's not in my experience so much lack of trust as lack of salience - voting Labour just isn't something that many rural voters think of as a natural option. A problem is that "rural" doesn't mean agricultural. Labour is doing rather well with farmers at the moment, because the current Defra team aren't seen as effective - Starmer went down very well at the NFU conference. But do we have much to offer a retired couple living in a hard-earned large house in Surrey? I'd like to think that they'd be up for voting Labour simply on the basis of wanting a decent society around them, but only a minority feel that way.
That's a very good point re the Surrey couple and you would have to say "not much". It is not so much though that Labour doesn't have much to offer more that Labour - to many - represent a threat to what they have. That's the issue.
Maybe, though I'm not finding that on the doorstep - nobody seems to be eyeing me suspiciously and wondering if I want to introduce a wealth tax on homes (as in reality I might, but Starmer certainly would not). Starmer's managerial centrism is perfectly genuine in my view. The irony is that I'm not too keen on it, but some of the voters it's designed to attract seem to think that people like me can change him. We can't. So if you ever want a change from Conservative government that won't do anything drastic, it's probably a good moment to do it, as the left is neutralised and somewhat morosely acquiescent.
Only 2 groups are still largely loyal to the Conservatives. Rural Right with whom the Conservatives are on 55% and English Traditionalists with whom the Conservatives are on 50%. Albeit some Tory leakage to RefUK with these groups.
The Traditionalist Left, disillusioned suburbanites and centrist Liberals who backed the Conservatives in 2019 now back Starmer Labour.
The Activist Left who were the only group to back Corbyn in 2019 are now 75% Labour
Interesting, and credit to HYUFD for pointing it out. The heavily Tory response in today's canvass that I mentioned on the last thread was precisely in the "Rural Right" category, and with two exceptions every single one was clearly over 50.
Those of us that live in genuinely rural areas are always nervous of Labour. I am a moderate and very much wanted to see the back of Johnson, and had Johnson still been PM I would have held my nose and voted Labour if necessary. If Labour is to have a chance in very rural areas it has a lot of work to do. But then again, Labour is essentially an urban party and I guess it doesn't care. Which is why we do not trust them.
The key word is trust. I think there are some groups amongst the floaters who may trust SKS but don't trust Labour. SKS' problem is (1) Sunak comes across as fairly decent to many of those people and (2) I suspect many RW voters in particular see Labour as dominated by graduate urban types who essentially despise what RW voters are about.
Yes, as a Blue Wall constituency chair I'm familiar with something like that view, though it's not in my experience so much lack of trust as lack of salience - voting Labour just isn't something that many rural voters think of as a natural option. A problem is that "rural" doesn't mean agricultural. Labour is doing rather well with farmers at the moment, because the current Defra team aren't seen as effective - Starmer went down very well at the NFU conference. But do we have much to offer a retired couple living in a hard-earned large house in Surrey? I'd like to think that they'd be up for voting Labour simply on the basis of wanting a decent society around them, but only a minority feel that way.
That's a very good point re the Surrey couple and you would have to say "not much". It is not so much though that Labour doesn't have much to offer more that Labour - to many - represent a threat to what they have. That's the issue.
Precisely. Some of them will have a cultural aversion to Labour but the major problem is with two things Labour ought to be doing in power which these voters will despise: taxing them a whole lot more, and forcing them to put up with new build houses.
There's no point in Starmer trying to win over the wealthy pensioner vote. He should display a little of the Tories' ruthlessness and govern in the interest of his own voter coalition - public sector workers, young people, low wage earners, and all those struggling families without inherited wealth to rescue them from a whole life sentence of astronomical rents - and present all the bills to additional rate taxpayers and the owners of valuable assets. It's past time to put an end to easy street for homeowners aged over 50 and the very rich, and the moral preaching of ceaseless toil and the icy cold blast of the free market for everyone else.
Quite so. People seem to forget that one of the points of our political system is that different parties appeal to different interest groups. If Labour suddenly became attractive to wealthy, retired, outright home-owners with conservative (small c) values, people like me would be wondering what the point of Labour was. It's not in the interests of such people to vote Labour, as it's likely they'll pay more taxes for the common good. Farm labourers, on the other hand....
There is a significant Labour vote even in rural areas.
16% of Melton and Rutland Constituency voted for Corbyns Labour even in the debacle of Dec 2019. One in Six voters is a substantial minority even in Leics most rural constituency.
Indeed one argument for multimember STV is that such voters would be represented in Parliament, as would Liverpool Tories. STV would be good for smaller parties, but would also make the major parties more representative of the nation.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
The short version - sour grapes is not the same as seeking to overturn an election.
The violence is the difference. The nonsense legal challenges is the difference (legal challenges would be fine, but many many dozens were dismissed because they had no legal basis, it was just politics).
We saw this on January 6th and it's a surprise to still see it trotted out, but sour grapes is not the same thing as political and legal challenging of legitimacy and even violence and intimidation to overturn. It's not even slightly close.
People moan about FPTP when they lose an election under it. You get silly people like Caroline Lucas talking about how the Tories don't represent the country hours after they won an election proving they were the most popular party in the country, you get a handful of people showing up to a protest. That's just normal political reaction to a loss. It isn't working diligently and persistenty to misrepresent facts about electoral results, using nonsense lawsuits to undermine confidence in the result, seeking to bully officials into overturning democratic results, and when that doesn't work, to incite a mob.
As a fan of PR and someone who did not vote Tory at 2019 I like to point out to people they were by some distance the most popular political party in the UK overall, and have been for quite some time.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Have you ever been caught in the middle of one of those protests? I have and I can assure you murderous intent is there, what else do you call throwing petrol bombs. If we were the us do you think those protests would not have people with guns and willing to use them?
“Our study of GPT-4 is entirely phenomenological: We have focused on the surprising things that GPT-4 can do, but we do not address the fundamental questions of why and how it achieves such remarkable intelligence. How does it reason, plan, and create? Why does it exhibit such general and flexible intelligence when it is at its core merely the combination of simple algorithmic components—gradient descent and large-scale transformers with extremely large amounts of data? These questions are part of the mystery and fascinatoon of LLMs, which challenge our understanding of learning and cognition, fuel our curiosity, and motivate deeper research.
Key directions include ongoing research on the phenomenon of emergence in LLMs (see [WTB+22] for a recent survey). Yet, despite intense interest in questions about the capabilities of LLMs, progress to date has been quite limited with only toy models where some phenomenon of emergence is proved [BEG+22, ABC+22, JSL22]. One general hypothesis [OCS+20] is that the large amount of data (especially the diversity of the content) forces neural networks to learn generic and useful “neural circuits”, such as the ones discovered in [OEN+22, ZBB+22, LAG+22], while the large size of models provide enough redundancy and diversity for the neural circuits to specialize and fine-tune to specific tasks.”
Basically, sentience and intelligence might be emergent properties, which arise ‘naturally’ given enough complexity, data and information. The machines are coming to life as they grow
Which makes sense, as our own consciousness is an emergent property, which revealed itself as we got more complex, evolving from Protozoa to primitive fish to mammal and primate
Interesting stuff. I am open minded; but there are problems. In the empirical world things have causes (hence science) which can be uncovered, hypothesised and tested, verified (or falsified), on the basis of which laws and regularities can be formulated and predictions made. This I would describe as the world of 'how it works'.
With mental events (consciousness, sentience) there isn't a 'How It Works' available, nor, crucially, is it possible to formulate an empirically based possibility(s) - hypothesis - of "How It Works" within any physics known to us.
So either it is not an emergent property at all (BTW mental events are not properties, they are things, as we all know in our heads) or else they emerge by laws/physics of which we are 100% ignorant. And likely to remain so.
I see no problem at all. Consciousness obviously emerges somehow - it emerged in us, and in other higher animals, who in turn evolved from lower animals, who evolved from blobs of slime and acid, and rocks and water and sunlight
All living creatures process information so as to live. As the creatures evolve to become more complex they need to process MORE information, so their brains grow, and at some point on this road the brain gets big enough and is processing enough information it somehow becomes self aware. Conscious. Sentient
Why should computers, which are made of atoms and molecules just like us, not follow the same pattern? As they get bigger and process more information, there will be a moment when consciousness will evolve just as it evolved in animals. It’s not a unique miracle
The mystery of how and when consciousness arises at a particular moment abides. I agree with that. Is a chimp conscious? Of course. A dog? Yes. A gecko? Hmm. A bumblebee? Probably not. An amoeba? Almost certainly not. A virus?
Somewhere on that evolutionary progression consciousness emerged. So then the question is: what stage are computers at? Bumblebee? Gecko? Dog?
"Somehow" is the crucial problem word here. Which how (How It Works) is the question, not the answer.
Well yes, but unless you believe that at this crucial moment, God intervened and zapped the divine spark into animal/human life, then it somehow happened. Increasing complexity of information and need to process it produced consciousness. And therefore it is not uniquely miraculous and is as likely to happen in computing machines as in kangaroos
Only 2 groups are still largely loyal to the Conservatives. Rural Right with whom the Conservatives are on 55% and English Traditionalists with whom the Conservatives are on 50%. Albeit some Tory leakage to RefUK with these groups.
The Traditionalist Left, disillusioned suburbanites and centrist Liberals who backed the Conservatives in 2019 now back Starmer Labour.
The Activist Left who were the only group to back Corbyn in 2019 are now 75% Labour
Interesting, and credit to HYUFD for pointing it out. The heavily Tory response in today's canvass that I mentioned on the last thread was precisely in the "Rural Right" category, and with two exceptions every single one was clearly over 50.
Those of us that live in genuinely rural areas are always nervous of Labour. I am a moderate and very much wanted to see the back of Johnson, and had Johnson still been PM I would have held my nose and voted Labour if necessary. If Labour is to have a chance in very rural areas it has a lot of work to do. But then again, Labour is essentially an urban party and I guess it doesn't care. Which is why we do not trust them.
The key word is trust. I think there are some groups amongst the floaters who may trust SKS but don't trust Labour. SKS' problem is (1) Sunak comes across as fairly decent to many of those people and (2) I suspect many RW voters in particular see Labour as dominated by graduate urban types who essentially despise what RW voters are about.
Yes, as a Blue Wall constituency chair I'm familiar with something like that view, though it's not in my experience so much lack of trust as lack of salience - voting Labour just isn't something that many rural voters think of as a natural option. A problem is that "rural" doesn't mean agricultural. Labour is doing rather well with farmers at the moment, because the current Defra team aren't seen as effective - Starmer went down very well at the NFU conference. But do we have much to offer a retired couple living in a hard-earned large house in Surrey? I'd like to think that they'd be up for voting Labour simply on the basis of wanting a decent society around them, but only a minority feel that way.
That's a very good point re the Surrey couple and you would have to say "not much". It is not so much though that Labour doesn't have much to offer more that Labour - to many - represent a threat to what they have. That's the issue.
Precisely. Some of them will have a cultural aversion to Labour but the major problem is with two things Labour ought to be doing in power which these voters will despise: taxing them a whole lot more, and forcing them to put up with new build houses.
There's no point in Starmer trying to win over the wealthy pensioner vote. He should display a little of the Tories' ruthlessness and govern in the interest of his own voter coalition - public sector workers, young people, low wage earners, and all those struggling families without inherited wealth to rescue them from a whole life sentence of astronomical rents - and present all the bills to additional rate taxpayers and the owners of valuable assets. It's past time to put an end to easy street for homeowners aged over 50 and the very rich, and the moral preaching of ceaseless toil and the icy cold blast of the free market for everyone else.
Quite so. People seem to forget that one of the points of our political system is that different parties appeal to different interest groups. If Labour suddenly became attractive to wealthy, retired, outright home-owners with conservative (small c) values, people like me would be wondering what the point of Labour was. It's not in the interests of such people to vote Labour, as it's likely they'll pay more taxes for the common good. Farm labourers, on the other hand....
If the only appeal Labour has to you is to hate the tribes you don’t like…
Hmm - “wealthy, retired, outright home-owners with conservative (small c) values” - fill the pot holes, improve the hospitals, make the rivers nicer, a criminal justice system that actually deals with crime.. I can think of plenty of ways to appeal to such folk from the Social Democrat end of things.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Have you ever been caught in the middle of one of those protests? I have and I can assure you murderous intent is there, what else do you call throwing petrol bombs. If we were the us do you think those protests would not have people with guns and willing to use them?
But they don't and they didn't. Nor do they have the explicit support of party leaders for their actions.
It's a tiny group of committed cranks, and a bunch of whiny journalists. Not coordinated, significant efforts to overturn elections.
Edit: Is there even the slightest prospect of Labour leading mobs to storm Parliament if they lose the next election? Not a chance. And because of the way our elections are counted and verified, the next day at the latest, they don't even have the opportunity for legal action even if they wanted.
I find election loser whinges frustrating, but the answer is not to pretend an absurdity that its analagous to what we are seeing in america.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Have you ever been caught in the middle of one of those protests? I have and I can assure you murderous intent is there, what else do you call throwing petrol bombs. If we were the us do you think those protests would not have people with guns and willing to use them?
But they don't and they didn't. Nor do they have the explicit support of party leaders for their actions.
It's a tiny group of committed cranks, and a bunch of whiny journalists. Not coordinated, significant efforts to overturn elections.
To be clear here I am not claiming labour is fascist. I am merely saying the fascist element we have in the country is on the left mainly
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
The short version - sour grapes is not the same as seeking to overturn an election.
The violence is the difference. The nonsense legal challenges is the difference (legal challenges would be fine, but many many dozens were dismissed because they had no legal basis, it was just politics).
We saw this on January 6th and it's a surprise to still see it trotted out, but sour grapes is not the same thing as political and legal challenging of legitimacy and even violence and intimidation to overturn. It's not even slightly close.
People moan about FPTP when they lose an election under it. You get silly people like Caroline Lucas talking about how the Tories don't represent the country hours after they won an election proving they were the most popular party in the country, you get a handful of people showing up to a protest. That's just normal political reaction to a loss. It isn't working diligently and persistenty to misrepresent facts about electoral results, using nonsense lawsuits to undermine confidence in the result, seeking to bully officials into overturning democratic results, and when that doesn't work, to incite a mob.
As a fan of PR and someone who did not vote Tory at 2019 I like to point out to people they were by some distance the most popular political party in the UK overall, and have been for quite some time.
Although, as I pointed out before, "A Very British Coup" also outlines a plausible scenario where you don't need to use violence to overturn an election.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Have you ever been caught in the middle of one of those protests? I have and I can assure you murderous intent is there, what else do you call throwing petrol bombs. If we were the us do you think those protests would not have people with guns and willing to use them?
I work in the City and have seen several of them.
I have absolutely no knowledge of the time some protestors broke into a trading floor and got filled on. No sir, none at all….
The violence is generally from a tiny number of twats who are upset at how little interest in violence there is from the rest of the crowd.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Have you ever been caught in the middle of one of those protests? I have and I can assure you murderous intent is there, what else do you call throwing petrol bombs. If we were the us do you think those protests would not have people with guns and willing to use them?
Which Britsh protests about election outcomes have had petrol bombs thrown, outside Northern Ireland?
There’s also a core Conservative vote in East Ham though it’s not growing and the Greens are emerging as the new alternative to Labour. Indeed, it would be no surprise if the Conservatives finished third in East Ham at the next election.
Only 2 groups are still largely loyal to the Conservatives. Rural Right with whom the Conservatives are on 55% and English Traditionalists with whom the Conservatives are on 50%. Albeit some Tory leakage to RefUK with these groups.
The Traditionalist Left, disillusioned suburbanites and centrist Liberals who backed the Conservatives in 2019 now back Starmer Labour.
The Activist Left who were the only group to back Corbyn in 2019 are now 75% Labour
Interesting, and credit to HYUFD for pointing it out. The heavily Tory response in today's canvass that I mentioned on the last thread was precisely in the "Rural Right" category, and with two exceptions every single one was clearly over 50.
Those of us that live in genuinely rural areas are always nervous of Labour. I am a moderate and very much wanted to see the back of Johnson, and had Johnson still been PM I would have held my nose and voted Labour if necessary. If Labour is to have a chance in very rural areas it has a lot of work to do. But then again, Labour is essentially an urban party and I guess it doesn't care. Which is why we do not trust them.
The key word is trust. I think there are some groups amongst the floaters who may trust SKS but don't trust Labour. SKS' problem is (1) Sunak comes across as fairly decent to many of those people and (2) I suspect many RW voters in particular see Labour as dominated by graduate urban types who essentially despise what RW voters are about.
Yes, as a Blue Wall constituency chair I'm familiar with something like that view, though it's not in my experience so much lack of trust as lack of salience - voting Labour just isn't something that many rural voters think of as a natural option. A problem is that "rural" doesn't mean agricultural. Labour is doing rather well with farmers at the moment, because the current Defra team aren't seen as effective - Starmer went down very well at the NFU conference. But do we have much to offer a retired couple living in a hard-earned large house in Surrey? I'd like to think that they'd be up for voting Labour simply on the basis of wanting a decent society around them, but only a minority feel that way.
That's a very good point re the Surrey couple and you would have to say "not much". It is not so much though that Labour doesn't have much to offer more that Labour - to many - represent a threat to what they have. That's the issue.
Precisely. Some of them will have a cultural aversion to Labour but the major problem is with two things Labour ought to be doing in power which these voters will despise: taxing them a whole lot more, and forcing them to put up with new build houses.
There's no point in Starmer trying to win over the wealthy pensioner vote. He should display a little of the Tories' ruthlessness and govern in the interest of his own voter coalition - public sector workers, young people, low wage earners, and all those struggling families without inherited wealth to rescue them from a whole life sentence of astronomical rents - and present all the bills to additional rate taxpayers and the owners of valuable assets. It's past time to put an end to easy street for homeowners aged over 50 and the very rich, and the moral preaching of ceaseless toil and the icy cold blast of the free market for everyone else.
Quite so. People seem to forget that one of the points of our political system is that different parties appeal to different interest groups. If Labour suddenly became attractive to wealthy, retired, outright home-owners with conservative (small c) values, people like me would be wondering what the point of Labour was. It's not in the interests of such people to vote Labour, as it's likely they'll pay more taxes for the common good. Farm labourers, on the other hand....
If the only appeal Labour has to you is to hate the tribes you don’t like…
Hmm - “wealthy, retired, outright home-owners with conservative (small c) values” - fill the pot holes, improve the hospitals, make the rivers nicer, a criminal justice system that actually deals with crime.. I can think of plenty of ways to appeal to such folk from the Social Democrat end of things.
And whom do you tax to pay for all the nice things?
I see the Tedious Tactical Triangulator has sniffed the way the wind is blowing and is now saying that of course trans rights can’t override women’s rights.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Have you ever been caught in the middle of one of those protests? I have and I can assure you murderous intent is there, what else do you call throwing petrol bombs. If we were the us do you think those protests would not have people with guns and willing to use them?
Which Britsh protests about election outcomes have had petrol bombs thrown, outside Northern Ireland?
Well the one that swept over me certainly had petrol bombs, flares and hurled bricks deployed against the police. This was back in 92
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Have you ever been caught in the middle of one of those protests? I have and I can assure you murderous intent is there, what else do you call throwing petrol bombs. If we were the us do you think those protests would not have people with guns and willing to use them?
But they don't and they didn't. Nor do they have the explicit support of party leaders for their actions.
It's a tiny group of committed cranks, and a bunch of whiny journalists. Not coordinated, significant efforts to overturn elections.
Edit: Is there even the slightest prospect of Labour leading mobs to storm Parliament if they lose the next election? Not a chance. And because of the way our elections are counted and verified, the next day at the latest, they don't even have the opportunity for legal action even if they wanted.
I find election loser whinges frustrating, but the answer is not to pretend an absurdity that its analagous to what we are seeing in america.
"Not a chance' - Sigh. Pity. I'll get the butler to put the QF 1-pounder back in the gun room.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Without agreeing entirely with him, surely Pagan's point is that the immediate intent in both instances is the same - to undermine the validity of the winning candidate/party by claiming the electoral system has perverted democracy. The huge difference of course - and the reason Pagan is wrong in the final analysis - is that currently the official opposing sides in British politics do not regard use of violence as a valid tool. But that may not stay the same for ever. Indeed there have been times in the past when British political figures have attempted to bring down governments by means other than the ballot box. I would be concerned that, whilst we are a long way from the US lunacy, we are closer to that being attempted than we might think and the continual attempts to cast election victories as 'stolen' or otherwise invalid simply help to undermine respect for democracy.
Yes, as a Blue Wall constituency chair I'm familiar with something like that view, though it's not in my experience so much lack of trust as lack of salience - voting Labour just isn't something that many rural voters think of as a natural option. A problem is that "rural" doesn't mean agricultural. Labour is doing rather well with farmers at the moment, because the current Defra team aren't seen as effective - Starmer went down very well at the NFU conference. But do we have much to offer a retired couple living in a hard-earned large house in Surrey? I'd like to think that they'd be up for voting Labour simply on the basis of wanting a decent society around them, but only a minority feel that way.
That's a very good point re the Surrey couple and you would have to say "not much". It is not so much though that Labour doesn't have much to offer more that Labour - to many - represent a threat to what they have. That's the issue.
Maybe, though I'm not finding that on the doorstep - nobody seems to be eyeing me suspiciously and wondering if I want to introduce a wealth tax on homes (as in reality I might, but Starmer certainly would not). Starmer's managerial centrism is perfectly genuine in my view. The irony is that I'm not too keen on it, but some of the voters it's designed to attract seem to think that people like me can change him. We can't. So if you ever want a change from Conservative government that won't do anything drastic, it's probably a good moment to do it, as the left is neutralised and somewhat morosely acquiescent.
"He'll have to do, I suppose. Vote Starmer 2024."
"He did OK. Vote Starmer 2028."
For those of us who have just had enough of excitement, those are probably winning lines.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
The short version - sour grapes is not the same as seeking to overturn an election.
The violence is the difference. The nonsense legal challenges is the difference (legal challenges would be fine, but many many dozens were dismissed because they had no legal basis, it was just politics).
We saw this on January 6th and it's a surprise to still see it trotted out, but sour grapes is not the same thing as political and legal challenging of legitimacy and even violence and intimidation to overturn. It's not even slightly close.
People moan about FPTP when they lose an election under it. You get silly people like Caroline Lucas talking about how the Tories don't represent the country hours after they won an election proving they were the most popular party in the country, you get a handful of people showing up to a protest. That's just normal political reaction to a loss. It isn't working diligently and persistenty to misrepresent facts about electoral results, using nonsense lawsuits to undermine confidence in the result, seeking to bully officials into overturning democratic results, and when that doesn't work, to incite a mob.
As a fan of PR and someone who did not vote Tory at 2019 I like to point out to people they were by some distance the most popular political party in the UK overall, and have been for quite some time.
Although, as I pointed out before, "A Very British Coup" also outlines a plausible scenario where you don't need to use violence to overturn an election.
Yes, but it is a work of fiction. What happened on Jan 6 in Washington DC wasn't fiction.
“Our study of GPT-4 is entirely phenomenological: We have focused on the surprising things that GPT-4 can do, but we do not address the fundamental questions of why and how it achieves such remarkable intelligence. How does it reason, plan, and create? Why does it exhibit such general and flexible intelligence when it is at its core merely the combination of simple algorithmic components—gradient descent and large-scale transformers with extremely large amounts of data? These questions are part of the mystery and fascinatoon of LLMs, which challenge our understanding of learning and cognition, fuel our curiosity, and motivate deeper research.
Key directions include ongoing research on the phenomenon of emergence in LLMs (see [WTB+22] for a recent survey). Yet, despite intense interest in questions about the capabilities of LLMs, progress to date has been quite limited with only toy models where some phenomenon of emergence is proved [BEG+22, ABC+22, JSL22]. One general hypothesis [OCS+20] is that the large amount of data (especially the diversity of the content) forces neural networks to learn generic and useful “neural circuits”, such as the ones discovered in [OEN+22, ZBB+22, LAG+22], while the large size of models provide enough redundancy and diversity for the neural circuits to specialize and fine-tune to specific tasks.”
Basically, sentience and intelligence might be emergent properties, which arise ‘naturally’ given enough complexity, data and information. The machines are coming to life as they grow
Which makes sense, as our own consciousness is an emergent property, which revealed itself as we got more complex, evolving from Protozoa to primitive fish to mammal and primate
Interesting stuff. I am open minded; but there are problems. In the empirical world things have causes (hence science) which can be uncovered, hypothesised and tested, verified (or falsified), on the basis of which laws and regularities can be formulated and predictions made. This I would describe as the world of 'how it works'.
With mental events (consciousness, sentience) there isn't a 'How It Works' available, nor, crucially, is it possible to formulate an empirically based possibility(s) - hypothesis - of "How It Works" within any physics known to us.
So either it is not an emergent property at all (BTW mental events are not properties, they are things, as we all know in our heads) or else they emerge by laws/physics of which we are 100% ignorant. And likely to remain so.
I see no problem at all. Consciousness obviously emerges somehow - it emerged in us, and in other higher animals, who in turn evolved from lower animals, who evolved from blobs of slime and acid, and rocks and water and sunlight
All living creatures process information so as to live. As the creatures evolve to become more complex they need to process MORE information, so their brains grow, and at some point on this road the brain gets big enough and is processing enough information it somehow becomes self aware. Conscious. Sentient
Why should computers, which are made of atoms and molecules just like us, not follow the same pattern? As they get bigger and process more information, there will be a moment when consciousness will evolve just as it evolved in animals. It’s not a unique miracle
The mystery of how and when consciousness arises at a particular moment abides. I agree with that. Is a chimp conscious? Of course. A dog? Yes. A gecko? Hmm. A bumblebee? Probably not. An amoeba? Almost certainly not. A virus?
Somewhere on that evolutionary progression consciousness emerged. So then the question is: what stage are computers at? Bumblebee? Gecko? Dog?
"Somehow" is the crucial problem word here. Which how (How It Works) is the question, not the answer.
Well yes, but unless you believe that at this crucial moment, God intervened and zapped the divine spark into animal/human life, then it somehow happened. Increasing complexity of information and need to process it produced consciousness. And therefore it is not uniquely miraculous and is as likely to happen in computing machines as in kangaroos
Intelligent kangaroos is a horrible thought. They are basically animal bogons.
Rishi Sunak's net approval takes a fall compared to our last poll.
28% approve and 43% disapprove, giving him a net rating of -15%. This is down 7 points from Opinium's previous poll and essentially reverses the gains the PM saw in that poll.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
The short version - sour grapes is not the same as seeking to overturn an election.
The violence is the difference. The nonsense legal challenges is the difference (legal challenges would be fine, but many many dozens were dismissed because they had no legal basis, it was just politics).
We saw this on January 6th and it's a surprise to still see it trotted out, but sour grapes is not the same thing as political and legal challenging of legitimacy and even violence and intimidation to overturn. It's not even slightly close.
People moan about FPTP when they lose an election under it. You get silly people like Caroline Lucas talking about how the Tories don't represent the country hours after they won an election proving they were the most popular party in the country, you get a handful of people showing up to a protest. That's just normal political reaction to a loss. It isn't working diligently and persistenty to misrepresent facts about electoral results, using nonsense lawsuits to undermine confidence in the result, seeking to bully officials into overturning democratic results, and when that doesn't work, to incite a mob.
As a fan of PR and someone who did not vote Tory at 2019 I like to point out to people they were by some distance the most popular political party in the UK overall, and have been for quite some time.
Indeed and IF Starmer successfully navigates the sea of electoral hazard, I’m sure there will be those on the other side of the decision who will express their disappointment though it’s my experience when Conservatives lose they are too busy blaming each other.
There will of course be those who will accept the verdict of the electorate and wish the new Government well.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Without agreeing entirely with him, surely Pagan's point is that the immediate intent in both instances is the same - to undermine the validity of the winning candidate/party by claiming the electoral system has perverted democracy. The huge difference of course - and the reason Pagan is wrong in the final analysis - is that currently the official opposing sides in British politics do not regard use of violence as a valid tool. But that may not stay the same for ever. Indeed there have been times in the past when British political figures have attempted to bring down governments by means other than the ballot box. I would be concerned that, whilst we are a long way from the US lunacy, we are closer to that being attempted than we might think and the continual attempts to cast election victories as 'stolen' or otherwise invalid simply help to undermine respect for democracy.
I did point out I don't think labour is fascist but its a certain portion of the left that thinks violence is an answer to an election result they don't like which is showing facist tendencies and I agree its not labour instigating it.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
The short version - sour grapes is not the same as seeking to overturn an election.
The violence is the difference. The nonsense legal challenges is the difference (legal challenges would be fine, but many many dozens were dismissed because they had no legal basis, it was just politics).
We saw this on January 6th and it's a surprise to still see it trotted out, but sour grapes is not the same thing as political and legal challenging of legitimacy and even violence and intimidation to overturn. It's not even slightly close.
People moan about FPTP when they lose an election under it. You get silly people like Caroline Lucas talking about how the Tories don't represent the country hours after they won an election proving they were the most popular party in the country, you get a handful of people showing up to a protest. That's just normal political reaction to a loss. It isn't working diligently and persistenty to misrepresent facts about electoral results, using nonsense lawsuits to undermine confidence in the result, seeking to bully officials into overturning democratic results, and when that doesn't work, to incite a mob.
As a fan of PR and someone who did not vote Tory at 2019 I like to point out to people they were by some distance the most popular political party in the UK overall, and have been for quite some time.
Although, as I pointed out before, "A Very British Coup" also outlines a plausible scenario where you don't need to use violence to overturn an election.
Yes, but it is a work of fiction. What happened on Jan 6 in Washington DC wasn't fiction.
Though at times, it appeared to be a Jamiroquai album release party gone wrong.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
The short version - sour grapes is not the same as seeking to overturn an election.
The violence is the difference. The nonsense legal challenges is the difference (legal challenges would be fine, but many many dozens were dismissed because they had no legal basis, it was just politics).
We saw this on January 6th and it's a surprise to still see it trotted out, but sour grapes is not the same thing as political and legal challenging of legitimacy and even violence and intimidation to overturn. It's not even slightly close.
People moan about FPTP when they lose an election under it. You get silly people like Caroline Lucas talking about how the Tories don't represent the country hours after they won an election proving they were the most popular party in the country, you get a handful of people showing up to a protest. That's just normal political reaction to a loss. It isn't working diligently and persistenty to misrepresent facts about electoral results, using nonsense lawsuits to undermine confidence in the result, seeking to bully officials into overturning democratic results, and when that doesn't work, to incite a mob.
As a fan of PR and someone who did not vote Tory at 2019 I like to point out to people they were by some distance the most popular political party in the UK overall, and have been for quite some time.
Although, as I pointed out before, "A Very British Coup" also outlines a plausible scenario where you don't need to use violence to overturn an election.
There are always ways. We don't (yet) see significant people attempting to use them. We do in america.
I see the Tedious Tactical Triangulator has sniffed the way the wind is blowing and is now saying that of course trans rights can’t override women’s rights.
Follow follow follow.
Starmer's government is going to be one great big waste of time.
Of course, it won't be as actively malevolent as a Tory government would be, but there appears to be zero chance of him having the determination to improve anything.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Without agreeing entirely with him, surely Pagan's point is that the immediate intent in both instances is the same - to undermine the validity of the winning candidate/party by claiming the electoral system has perverted democracy. The huge difference of course - and the reason Pagan is wrong in the final analysis - is that currently the official opposing sides in British politics do not regard use of violence as a valid tool. But that may not stay the same for ever. Indeed there have been times in the past when British political figures have attempted to bring down governments by means other than the ballot box. I would be concerned that, whilst we are a long way from the US lunacy, we are closer to that being attempted than we might think and the continual attempts to cast election victories as 'stolen' or otherwise invalid simply help to undermine respect for democracy.
One thing has been the way the UK supreme court has firmly batted away any attempts to get them to legislate.
There was a critical case, under the Coalition, where the attempt was made to get all government legislation to be controlled by human rights/equality legislation - so that the Supreme Court would have ended up in control of most of the budget. It was kicked out, very quickly.
I see the Tedious Tactical Triangulator has sniffed the way the wind is blowing and is now saying that of course trans rights can’t override women’s rights.
Follow follow follow.
Starmer's government is going to be one great big waste of time.
Of course, it won't be as actively malevolent as a Tory government would be, but there appears to be zero chance of him having the determination to improve anything.
I don't think Sunak/Hunt are actively malevolent - far from it.
But, yes, I agree: Starmer's "popularity" will last as long as it takes to eject the Tories, and then evaporate.
We'll see wishing for Sunak back very quickly, who I think history will be kind toward.
I see the Tedious Tactical Triangulator has sniffed the way the wind is blowing and is now saying that of course trans rights can’t override women’s rights.
Follow follow follow.
Starmer's government is going to be one great big waste of time.
Of course, it won't be as actively malevolent as a Tory government would be, but there appears to be zero chance of him having the determination to improve anything.
As I have said before here this is what worries me. Next election labour gets in. 5 years later things have got worse not better and I personally think that is nailed on regardless of who gets elected next. You think voters will go well we will give labour another term or do we think voters will say well that was a waste of time and turn to more radical parties. My worry is it will be the latter
Yes, as a Blue Wall constituency chair I'm familiar with something like that view, though it's not in my experience so much lack of trust as lack of salience - voting Labour just isn't something that many rural voters think of as a natural option. A problem is that "rural" doesn't mean agricultural. Labour is doing rather well with farmers at the moment, because the current Defra team aren't seen as effective - Starmer went down very well at the NFU conference. But do we have much to offer a retired couple living in a hard-earned large house in Surrey? I'd like to think that they'd be up for voting Labour simply on the basis of wanting a decent society around them, but only a minority feel that way.
That's a very good point re the Surrey couple and you would have to say "not much". It is not so much though that Labour doesn't have much to offer more that Labour - to many - represent a threat to what they have. That's the issue.
Maybe, though I'm not finding that on the doorstep - nobody seems to be eyeing me suspiciously and wondering if I want to introduce a wealth tax on homes (as in reality I might, but Starmer certainly would not). Starmer's managerial centrism is perfectly genuine in my view. The irony is that I'm not too keen on it, but some of the voters it's designed to attract seem to think that people like me can change him. We can't. So if you ever want a change from Conservative government that won't do anything drastic, it's probably a good moment to do it, as the left is neutralised and somewhat morosely acquiescent.
"He'll have to do, I suppose. Vote Starmer 2024."
"He did OK. Vote Starmer 2028."
For those of us who have just had enough of excitement, those are probably winning lines.
As for Sunak: right guy at the wrong time.
I don't think that's right.
The country needs change. Most people have suffered a huge drop in living standards. The public realm needs massive investment at a time when there's no money left. Steady as she goes, don't risk doing anything, simply isn't going to be enough.
I have received a message from @CorrectHorseBattery3 who says that he was sorry to have been banned but hopes he will be allowed to rejoin some day. For now, he sends his best wishes to all PBers.
Yes, as a Blue Wall constituency chair I'm familiar with something like that view, though it's not in my experience so much lack of trust as lack of salience - voting Labour just isn't something that many rural voters think of as a natural option. A problem is that "rural" doesn't mean agricultural. Labour is doing rather well with farmers at the moment, because the current Defra team aren't seen as effective - Starmer went down very well at the NFU conference. But do we have much to offer a retired couple living in a hard-earned large house in Surrey? I'd like to think that they'd be up for voting Labour simply on the basis of wanting a decent society around them, but only a minority feel that way.
That's a very good point re the Surrey couple and you would have to say "not much". It is not so much though that Labour doesn't have much to offer more that Labour - to many - represent a threat to what they have. That's the issue.
Maybe, though I'm not finding that on the doorstep - nobody seems to be eyeing me suspiciously and wondering if I want to introduce a wealth tax on homes (as in reality I might, but Starmer certainly would not). Starmer's managerial centrism is perfectly genuine in my view. The irony is that I'm not too keen on it, but some of the voters it's designed to attract seem to think that people like me can change him. We can't. So if you ever want a change from Conservative government that won't do anything drastic, it's probably a good moment to do it, as the left is neutralised and somewhat morosely acquiescent.
"He'll have to do, I suppose. Vote Starmer 2024."
"He did OK. Vote Starmer 2028."
For those of us who have just had enough of excitement, those are probably winning lines.
As for Sunak: right guy at the wrong time.
I don't think that's right.
The country needs change. Most people have suffered a huge drop in living standards. The public realm needs massive investment at a time when there's no money left. Steady as she goes, don't risk doing anything, simply isn't going to be enough.
It might need massive change, but that doesn't mean any massive change will be correct. If there is a lack of confidence in the change being offered, then steady as she goes becomes the winner by default.
In any case I think how people appear before an election does not necessarily speak as to how radical they may be afterwards. Plenty of people won elections by being as vague as possible. And you can get away with some radical stuff if people do not see you, and therefore your actions, as radical.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Without agreeing entirely with him, surely Pagan's point is that the immediate intent in both instances is the same - to undermine the validity of the winning candidate/party by claiming the electoral system has perverted democracy. The huge difference of course - and the reason Pagan is wrong in the final analysis - is that currently the official opposing sides in British politics do not regard use of violence as a valid tool. But that may not stay the same for ever. Indeed there have been times in the past when British political figures have attempted to bring down governments by means other than the ballot box. I would be concerned that, whilst we are a long way from the US lunacy, we are closer to that being attempted than we might think and the continual attempts to cast election victories as 'stolen' or otherwise invalid simply help to undermine respect for democracy.
I did point out I don't think labour is fascist but its a certain portion of the left that thinks violence is an answer to an election result they don't like which is showing facist tendencies and I agree its not labour instigating it.
I wasn't necessarily referring to Labour. Nor was I referring to any of the main parties at this time. I include the Reform Party in that.
But it is not inconceivable that a party could arise who do not hold the same views as currently prevail concerning the sanctity of democracy. I am not sure anyone 35 years ago would have predicted the January 6th events in the US. Things can change quite rapidly. And my point in agreement with you is that it is possible for the arguments pushed fairly innocently today - such as questioning the validity of a Government elected by FPTP - could be used in a few years to justify more aggressive actions by those who feel they are not being listened to.
I see the Tedious Tactical Triangulator has sniffed the way the wind is blowing and is now saying that of course trans rights can’t override women’s rights.
Follow follow follow.
Starmer's government is going to be one great big waste of time.
Of course, it won't be as actively malevolent as a Tory government would be, but there appears to be zero chance of him having the determination to improve anything.
As I have said before here this is what worries me. Next election labour gets in. 5 years later things have got worse not better and I personally think that is nailed on regardless of who gets elected next. You think voters will go well we will give labour another term or do we think voters will say well that was a waste of time and turn to more radical parties. My worry is it will be the latter
Only 2 groups are still largely loyal to the Conservatives. Rural Right with whom the Conservatives are on 55% and English Traditionalists with whom the Conservatives are on 50%. Albeit some Tory leakage to RefUK with these groups.
The Traditionalist Left, disillusioned suburbanites and centrist Liberals who backed the Conservatives in 2019 now back Starmer Labour.
The Activist Left who were the only group to back Corbyn in 2019 are now 75% Labour
Interesting, and credit to HYUFD for pointing it out. The heavily Tory response in today's canvass that I mentioned on the last thread was precisely in the "Rural Right" category, and with two exceptions every single one was clearly over 50.
Those of us that live in genuinely rural areas are always nervous of Labour. I am a moderate and very much wanted to see the back of Johnson, and had Johnson still been PM I would have held my nose and voted Labour if necessary. If Labour is to have a chance in very rural areas it has a lot of work to do. But then again, Labour is essentially an urban party and I guess it doesn't care. Which is why we do not trust them.
The key word is trust. I think there are some groups amongst the floaters who may trust SKS but don't trust Labour. SKS' problem is (1) Sunak comes across as fairly decent to many of those people and (2) I suspect many RW voters in particular see Labour as dominated by graduate urban types who essentially despise what RW voters are about.
Yes, as a Blue Wall constituency chair I'm familiar with something like that view, though it's not in my experience so much lack of trust as lack of salience - voting Labour just isn't something that many rural voters think of as a natural option. A problem is that "rural" doesn't mean agricultural. Labour is doing rather well with farmers at the moment, because the current Defra team aren't seen as effective - Starmer went down very well at the NFU conference. But do we have much to offer a retired couple living in a hard-earned large house in Surrey? I'd like to think that they'd be up for voting Labour simply on the basis of wanting a decent society around them, but only a minority feel that way.
That's a very good point re the Surrey couple and you would have to say "not much". It is not so much though that Labour doesn't have much to offer more that Labour - to many - represent a threat to what they have. That's the issue.
Precisely. Some of them will have a cultural aversion to Labour but the major problem is with two things Labour ought to be doing in power which these voters will despise: taxing them a whole lot more, and forcing them to put up with new build houses.
There's no point in Starmer trying to win over the wealthy pensioner vote. He should display a little of the Tories' ruthlessness and govern in the interest of his own voter coalition - public sector workers, young people, low wage earners, and all those struggling families without inherited wealth to rescue them from a whole life sentence of astronomical rents - and present all the bills to additional rate taxpayers and the owners of valuable assets. It's past time to put an end to easy street for homeowners aged over 50 and the very rich, and the moral preaching of ceaseless toil and the icy cold blast of the free market for everyone else.
Quite so. People seem to forget that one of the points of our political system is that different parties appeal to different interest groups. If Labour suddenly became attractive to wealthy, retired, outright home-owners with conservative (small c) values, people like me would be wondering what the point of Labour was. It's not in the interests of such people to vote Labour, as it's likely they'll pay more taxes for the common good. Farm labourers, on the other hand....
If the only appeal Labour has to you is to hate the tribes you don’t like…
Hmm - “wealthy, retired, outright home-owners with conservative (small c) values” - fill the pot holes, improve the hospitals, make the rivers nicer, a criminal justice system that actually deals with crime.. I can think of plenty of ways to appeal to such folk from the Social Democrat end of things.
And whom do you tax to pay for all the nice things?
Many years ago, a relative, a rich American who lived next to Wentworth golf course in a ridiculous house, ditched his tax lawyers, when the top rate of tax (plus NI) went to below 50%. He did so, because "I like schools, hospitals and roads, so any less than half and I'll just pay it".
One thing that grates with such people is the proud declarations of spending money. Not proud declarations of say, reducing waiting lists in the NHS, or proud declarations building a new town hall...
In their world, people who blag about spending money, as opposed to doing things, are usually wasting it.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Have you ever been caught in the middle of one of those protests? I have and I can assure you murderous intent is there, what else do you call throwing petrol bombs. If we were the us do you think those protests would not have people with guns and willing to use them?
Which Britsh protests about election outcomes have had petrol bombs thrown, outside Northern Ireland?
Well the one that swept over me certainly had petrol bombs, flares and hurled bricks deployed against the police. This was back in 92
I am sorry, but I remember 1992 quite well but cannot find in either my memory or Google any reference to petrol bombs being thrown at police over the election result. Which city was it?
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Without agreeing entirely with him, surely Pagan's point is that the immediate intent in both instances is the same - to undermine the validity of the winning candidate/party by claiming the electoral system has perverted democracy. The huge difference of course - and the reason Pagan is wrong in the final analysis - is that currently the official opposing sides in British politics do not regard use of violence as a valid tool. But that may not stay the same for ever. Indeed there have been times in the past when British political figures have attempted to bring down governments by means other than the ballot box. I would be concerned that, whilst we are a long way from the US lunacy, we are closer to that being attempted than we might think and the continual attempts to cast election victories as 'stolen' or otherwise invalid simply help to undermine respect for democracy.
I did point out I don't think labour is fascist but its a certain portion of the left that thinks violence is an answer to an election result they don't like which is showing facist tendencies and I agree its not labour instigating it.
I wasn't necessarily referring to Labour. Nor was I referring to any of the main parties at this time. I include the Reform Party in that.
But it is not inconceivable that a party could arise who do not hold the same views as currently prevail concerning the sanctity of democracy. I am not sure anyone 35 years ago would have predicted the January 6th events in the US. Things can change quite rapidly. And my point in agreement with you is that it is possible for the arguments pushed fairly innocently today - such as questioning the validity of a Government elected by FPTP - could be used in a few years to justify more aggressive actions by those who feel they are not being listened to.
The country is becoming more polarised just as the US is. We aren't there yet but I can see it coming if we don't derail it soon
In term of the UK’s preferred Prime Minister, Keir Starmer retakes his lead, beating Sunak by 3 points.
Sunak and Starmer continue to exchange leads on this question, as they have been doing week-by-week recently.
They should just agree to alternate being PM on a week by week basis. To hear Corbynites tell it we'd not notice any difference.
All hail Keir Sunak. All hail Rishi Starmer.
Within that cynicism lies a truth. You would barely notice the difference between them. The only difference would be having the appalling Rayner on our screens. Its like a female version of the revolting Prescott .
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
I don't really see how you think it's so much of our business who they vote for. Or how you seem to have taken the attack on the Capitol so personally. This lack of a sense of geography is why we have thickos defacing the cenotaph following an occurrence of US police brutality.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Without agreeing entirely with him, surely Pagan's point is that the immediate intent in both instances is the same - to undermine the validity of the winning candidate/party by claiming the electoral system has perverted democracy. The huge difference of course - and the reason Pagan is wrong in the final analysis - is that currently the official opposing sides in British politics do not regard use of violence as a valid tool. But that may not stay the same for ever. Indeed there have been times in the past when British political figures have attempted to bring down governments by means other than the ballot box. I would be concerned that, whilst we are a long way from the US lunacy, we are closer to that being attempted than we might think and the continual attempts to cast election victories as 'stolen' or otherwise invalid simply help to undermine respect for democracy.
I did point out I don't think labour is fascist but its a certain portion of the left that thinks violence is an answer to an election result they don't like which is showing facist tendencies and I agree its not labour instigating it.
I wasn't necessarily referring to Labour. Nor was I referring to any of the main parties at this time. I include the Reform Party in that.
But it is not inconceivable that a party could arise who do not hold the same views as currently prevail concerning the sanctity of democracy. I am not sure anyone 35 years ago would have predicted the January 6th events in the US. Things can change quite rapidly. And my point in agreement with you is that it is possible for the arguments pushed fairly innocently today - such as questioning the validity of a Government elected by FPTP - could be used in a few years to justify more aggressive actions by those who feel they are not being listened to.
From last year.
J.L. Partners poll of 8,004 UK adults for @ukonward
% support for running the UK with "a strong leader who doesn't have to bother with parliament/elections"
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
Yeah who can forget that time Harperson led an armed militia to take over the Lords after Cameron won?
If she did, it would about put her in as much charge of the UK as taking over the Capitol put that group in charge of the US. That is to say 'not'.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
Yeah who can forget that time Harperson led an armed militia to take over the Lords after Cameron won?
If she did, it would about put her in as much charge of the UK as taking over the Capitol put that group in charge of the US. That is to say 'not'.
That's because they did not succeed in what they attempted, they simply delayed it. It doesn't lessen the severity of the attempt, nor would someone here far more pointlessly trying to take over the Lords by force.
Unless we should also immediately release anyone convicted of attempted murder on the basis they didn't succeed.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Without agreeing entirely with him, surely Pagan's point is that the immediate intent in both instances is the same - to undermine the validity of the winning candidate/party by claiming the electoral system has perverted democracy. The huge difference of course - and the reason Pagan is wrong in the final analysis - is that currently the official opposing sides in British politics do not regard use of violence as a valid tool. But that may not stay the same for ever. Indeed there have been times in the past when British political figures have attempted to bring down governments by means other than the ballot box. I would be concerned that, whilst we are a long way from the US lunacy, we are closer to that being attempted than we might think and the continual attempts to cast election victories as 'stolen' or otherwise invalid simply help to undermine respect for democracy.
I did point out I don't think labour is fascist but its a certain portion of the left that thinks violence is an answer to an election result they don't like which is showing facist tendencies and I agree its not labour instigating it.
I wasn't necessarily referring to Labour. Nor was I referring to any of the main parties at this time. I include the Reform Party in that.
But it is not inconceivable that a party could arise who do not hold the same views as currently prevail concerning the sanctity of democracy. I am not sure anyone 35 years ago would have predicted the January 6th events in the US. Things can change quite rapidly. And my point in agreement with you is that it is possible for the arguments pushed fairly innocently today - such as questioning the validity of a Government elected by FPTP - could be used in a few years to justify more aggressive actions by those who feel they are not being listened to.
The country is becoming more polarised just as the US is. We aren't there yet but I can see it coming if we don't derail it soon
I seem to live in a different country, one where the two main parties have 75% of the electorate between them, and have little major difference between their political policies on nearly every issue.
Wait until Dan finds out what the first American President(s) did to King George III.
Has a US President ever attended the coronation of a British Monarch?
No. This is the norm.
Plus if President Biden went to the coronation then protocol would require the King to go to Biden's reinaugration in 2025 in return, or nightmare of nighmares for the Palace, Trump's second inaugration.
Stick to sending Ambassadors, or at most the Vice President and Prince of Wales
My unfashionable view is that in the UK we are past the peak of the culture wars. We just aren’t the US.
I hope you are right. It does feel like some of the more ridiculous fights are being pushed back on, and such arguments can remain on the fringes as the rest of the country tries to find a middle way between radicalist moralising crusades and absurdist countering fearmongering.
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Without agreeing entirely with him, surely Pagan's point is that the immediate intent in both instances is the same - to undermine the validity of the winning candidate/party by claiming the electoral system has perverted democracy. The huge difference of course - and the reason Pagan is wrong in the final analysis - is that currently the official opposing sides in British politics do not regard use of violence as a valid tool. But that may not stay the same for ever. Indeed there have been times in the past when British political figures have attempted to bring down governments by means other than the ballot box. I would be concerned that, whilst we are a long way from the US lunacy, we are closer to that being attempted than we might think and the continual attempts to cast election victories as 'stolen' or otherwise invalid simply help to undermine respect for democracy.
I did point out I don't think labour is fascist but its a certain portion of the left that thinks violence is an answer to an election result they don't like which is showing facist tendencies and I agree its not labour instigating it.
I wasn't necessarily referring to Labour. Nor was I referring to any of the main parties at this time. I include the Reform Party in that.
But it is not inconceivable that a party could arise who do not hold the same views as currently prevail concerning the sanctity of democracy. I am not sure anyone 35 years ago would have predicted the January 6th events in the US. Things can change quite rapidly. And my point in agreement with you is that it is possible for the arguments pushed fairly innocently today - such as questioning the validity of a Government elected by FPTP - could be used in a few years to justify more aggressive actions by those who feel they are not being listened to.
From last year.
J.L. Partners poll of 8,004 UK adults for @ukonward
% support for running the UK with "a strong leader who doesn't have to bother with parliament/elections"
Indeed. I think one of the great failings of our education system over many many decades is that we do not teach young adults the processes, benefits and occasional pitfalls of democracy. In Britain it has always been something left to others to elucidate and the growth of social media as an influence is drowning out the arguments. .
On topic. Biden has to win next year, next year's election will be as pivotal for humanity as Operation Overlord.
The fascist GOP and Trump need to be annihilated.
On that logic @TSE, you are in favour of the GOP being declared a proscribed organisation and legally banned from next year's election? Ditto Trump.
And, if you are not in favour, why not, given the language you have just used?
If there is a threat to democracy, it's people like yourself who believe only they have the right answer when it comes to what is and isn't allowed.
Your line of thinking - and those of a similar ilk - is the far greater threat to democracy than the buffoon Trump.
You absolute roaster.
'Buffoon Trump', trying to downplay his tyranny.
We got the beer hall putsch in 2021 thanks to that 'buffoon'.
I want them defeated at the ballot box, which is why I said they need to be annihilated.
For someone who proclaims their absolute immodestly, you are not very good at answering the question. Although, as a lawyer, I guess you may not be trying to give a straight answer.
You were the one who referenced next year as the most important date for democracy since Operation Overlord ie the D-Day landings against the Nazis. You called the GOP fascists. Your language and analogies clearly scream you think them equivalent to Fascists and / or Nazis, in which case why not ban them?
You clearly want them banned so why don't you stop being a coward and state what you truly want, as opposed to hiding behind some nominal fence-sitting behaviour because you realise it's a step too far.
Oh, and maybe have a reasonable argument as opposed to going all Gammon when you are challenged.
I prefer fascists to lose at the ballot box and or convicted of crimes they are guilty of.
If only you got this angry at Trump and the GOP trying to steal the 2020 election.
I did. But two wrongs don't make a right. In any event, what I did or did not do doesn't really excuse that type of language you used.
As I said, you are now backtracking and saying you want them defeated at the ballot box but your original language made it clear you would much rather see them proscribed and banned. If I hear someone saying "Black people are criminals" and then trying to backtrack by saying "yeah but what I really meant is.." it's clear where their sentiments lie.
One of the benchmarks for fascism is trying to overturn legitimate elections with violence.
The events subsequent to the 2020 election met that threshold.
Ah you mean like the left wing protests we often get in the uk when tories win that often devolve into violence?
That reads like another 1 April joke.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Does it really when every time the tories win there is a screed of articles in places like the guardian claiming the tories didn't really win because adding up all the votes for other parties add up to more than the tory vote percentage. How is that different from what happened in the us and the protests that turned violent are incited by such articles
You are equating writing a newspaper article discussing the alleged problems with the current voting system and advocating a legal change… with a bunch of people with murderous intent and weapons trying to overturn an election?
Without agreeing entirely with him, surely Pagan's point is that the immediate intent in both instances is the same - to undermine the validity of the winning candidate/party by claiming the electoral system has perverted democracy. The huge difference of course - and the reason Pagan is wrong in the final analysis - is that currently the official opposing sides in British politics do not regard use of violence as a valid tool. But that may not stay the same for ever. Indeed there have been times in the past when British political figures have attempted to bring down governments by means other than the ballot box. I would be concerned that, whilst we are a long way from the US lunacy, we are closer to that being attempted than we might think and the continual attempts to cast election victories as 'stolen' or otherwise invalid simply help to undermine respect for democracy.
I did point out I don't think labour is fascist but its a certain portion of the left that thinks violence is an answer to an election result they don't like which is showing facist tendencies and I agree its not labour instigating it.
I wasn't necessarily referring to Labour. Nor was I referring to any of the main parties at this time. I include the Reform Party in that.
But it is not inconceivable that a party could arise who do not hold the same views as currently prevail concerning the sanctity of democracy. I am not sure anyone 35 years ago would have predicted the January 6th events in the US. Things can change quite rapidly. And my point in agreement with you is that it is possible for the arguments pushed fairly innocently today - such as questioning the validity of a Government elected by FPTP - could be used in a few years to justify more aggressive actions by those who feel they are not being listened to.
The country is becoming more polarised just as the US is. We aren't there yet but I can see it coming if we don't derail it soon
I don't think it is. Despite the brickbats it's mainly civil on here.
Gary Lineker and Brexit are the only areas where it's not.
Comments
(1) In a number of politically active circles, it is seen as entirely legitimate - and indeed morally right - to use violence against fascists. By accepting it is normal discourse to allow a party to be branded a fascist gives certain groups a carte blanche to attack.
2. The actual comparison was with Overlord, which was against the Nazis. Who certainly are banned and should be.
Who said she did, there have been plenty of left wing inspired protests over the years claiming the tories didnt win because labour+lib dem+green+snp got more votes that have turned violent.
But there is not much case for assuming everyone else has to agree with your view that fascists must not be allowed to stand. Particularly when someone repeatedly says the opposite, they just have a different opinion to you!
There's no point in Starmer trying to win over the wealthy pensioner vote. He should display a little of the Tories' ruthlessness and govern in the interest of his own voter coalition - public sector workers, young people, low wage earners, and all those struggling families without inherited wealth to rescue them from a whole life sentence of astronomical rents - and present all the bills to additional rate taxpayers and the owners of valuable assets. It's past time to put an end to easy street for homeowners aged over 50 and the very rich, and the moral preaching of ceaseless toil and the icy cold blast of the free market for everyone else.
I do want Nazis banned.
My argument is against using extreme language to define political parties because of the impact it has.
And I'm sure if some started accusing Labour of seeming to favour those who like terms such as "minor attracted"" and labelled them as such, you would be quick to accuse them of demonising their opponents.
Sweeping generalisation there. I have lived in genuinely rural areas for the past 40 years and I am not particularly nervous of Labour; I'm more concerned about the hollowing out of public services over the past 13 years and the effect that has had on the rural community.
I also doubt whether the Porsche/BMW owners in Surrey stockbroker-belt that Nick Palmer cited earlier are particularly representative of rural communities.
“Left wing” political violence in the U.K. comes from the Black Blok types. They are either wannabe Tankies who have an an idea that of they reduce society to chaos then everyone will vote Tankie. See Germany in the 1920s…
The other lot are the kind of wankers who flip a switch* and suddenly want to become investment bankers - usually he very worst kind.
We actually had one interview at one bank - we had endless fun with his social media out pourings.
Neither type of shit head has any kind of welcome in the Labour Party.
*Generally when they realise that (a) their trust fund isn’t that big or (b) they don’t have a trust fund
Republican candidate Dewey won almost the entire North East and Michigan and Oregon.
Truman as the Democrat nominee
won almost the entire South (bar a few for Dixiecrat Thurmond) and West. Apart from Dewey winning the plains states and Indiana and Truman winning Massachussetts, Rhode Island, and California and Washington it is almost a complete reversal of now
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_United_States_presidential_election
If they are all lying down, they won’t be easy targets. FFS.
I’d have to get the butler to get the lower servants hall to call out the beaters to flush the Nazis out…. and those chaps want a per head tip.
If he can stay at his current level of health for a couple more years he'd be a fine choice in my view, even if it is highly unusual even in america for both major (likely candidates) to be so old.
Fringe protests does not even remotely relate to what we saw after the 2020 election. The other side knew and accepted they had lost, and there wasn't even a hint some other outcome would have occurred.
Some people have been really weird over the Biden coronation news. Not even the most ardent monarchist on here cared.
16% of Melton and Rutland Constituency voted for Corbyns Labour even in the debacle of Dec 2019. One in Six voters is a substantial minority even in Leics most rural constituency.
Indeed one argument for multimember STV is that such voters would be represented in Parliament, as would Liverpool Tories. STV would be good for smaller parties, but would also make the major parties more representative of the nation.
The violence is the difference. The nonsense legal challenges is the difference (legal challenges would be fine, but many many dozens were dismissed because they had no legal basis, it was just politics).
We saw this on January 6th and it's a surprise to still see it trotted out, but sour grapes is not the same thing as political and legal challenging of legitimacy and even violence and intimidation to overturn. It's not even slightly close.
People moan about FPTP when they lose an election under it. You get silly people like Caroline Lucas talking about how the Tories don't represent the country hours after they won an election proving they were the most popular party in the country, you get a handful of people showing up to a protest. That's just normal political reaction to a loss. It isn't working diligently and persistenty to misrepresent facts about electoral results, using nonsense lawsuits to undermine confidence in the result, seeking to bully officials into overturning democratic results, and when that doesn't work, to incite a mob.
As a fan of PR and someone who did not vote Tory at 2019 I like to point out to people they were by some distance the most popular political party in the UK overall, and have been for quite some time.
Hmm - “wealthy, retired, outright home-owners with conservative (small c) values” - fill the pot holes, improve the hospitals, make the rivers nicer, a criminal justice system that actually deals with crime.. I can think of plenty of ways to appeal to such folk from the Social Democrat end of things.
It's a tiny group of committed cranks, and a bunch of whiny journalists. Not coordinated, significant efforts to overturn elections.
Edit:
Is there even the slightest prospect of Labour leading mobs to storm Parliament if they lose the next election? Not a chance. And because of the way our elections are counted and verified, the next day at the latest, they don't even have the opportunity for legal action even if they wanted.
I find election loser whinges frustrating, but the answer is not to pretend an absurdity that its analagous to what we are seeing in america.
I have absolutely no knowledge of the time some protestors broke into a trading floor and got filled on. No sir, none at all….
The violence is generally from a tiny number of twats who are upset at how little interest in violence there is from the rest of the crowd.
There’s also a core Conservative vote in East Ham though it’s not growing and the Greens are emerging as the new alternative to Labour. Indeed, it would be no surprise if the Conservatives finished third in East Ham at the next election.
Follow follow follow.
"He did OK. Vote Starmer 2028."
For those of us who have just had enough of excitement, those are probably winning lines.
As for Sunak: right guy at the wrong time.
Con 29% (nc)
Lab 44% (nc)
Lib Dems 9% (+1)
Green 5% (-1)
Reform UK 7% (nc)
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1642240470037282818
Rishi Sunak's net approval takes a fall compared to our last poll.
28% approve and 43% disapprove, giving him a net rating of -15%. This is down 7 points from Opinium's previous poll and essentially reverses the gains the PM saw in that poll.
There will of course be those who will accept the verdict of the electorate and wish the new Government well.
This is down 2 points from Opinium’s previous poll.
In term of the UK’s preferred Prime Minister, Keir Starmer retakes his lead, beating Sunak by 3 points.
Sunak and Starmer continue to exchange leads on this question, as they have been doing week-by-week recently.
Of course, it won't be as actively malevolent as a Tory government would be, but there appears to be zero chance of him having the determination to improve anything.
All hail Keir Sunak. All hail Rishi Starmer.
Labour 35%
SNP 33%
There was a critical case, under the Coalition, where the attempt was made to get all government legislation to be controlled by human rights/equality legislation - so that the Supreme Court would have ended up in control of most of the budget. It was kicked out, very quickly.
But, yes, I agree: Starmer's "popularity" will last as long as it takes to eject the Tories, and then evaporate.
We'll see wishing for Sunak back very quickly, who I think history will be kind toward.
The country needs change. Most people have suffered a huge drop in living standards. The public realm needs massive investment at a time when there's no money left. Steady as she goes, don't risk doing anything, simply isn't going to be enough.
I'm laughing at the likes of those who frotagged themselves silly about Sunak taking the lead in this metric/SKS fans please explain.
It's all about leader ratings, best PM has an incumbency bias.
FYI - Morning thread is about how the Tories could remain largest party at the next GE.
There's some interesting nuggets out there.
In any case I think how people appear before an election does not necessarily speak as to how radical they may be afterwards. Plenty of people won elections by being as vague as possible. And you can get away with some radical stuff if people do not see you, and therefore your actions, as radical.
I think one was a short arse who could fit in the pocket of the other.
But it is not inconceivable that a party could arise who do not hold the same views as currently prevail concerning the sanctity of democracy. I am not sure anyone 35 years ago would have predicted the January 6th events in the US. Things can change quite rapidly. And my point in agreement with you is that it is possible for the arguments pushed fairly innocently today - such as questioning the validity of a Government elected by FPTP - could be used in a few years to justify more aggressive actions by those who feel they are not being listened to.
One thing that grates with such people is the proud declarations of spending money. Not proud declarations of say, reducing waiting lists in the NHS, or proud declarations building a new town hall...
In their world, people who blag about spending money, as opposed to doing things, are usually wasting it.
J.L. Partners poll of 8,004 UK adults for @ukonward
% support for running the UK with "a strong leader who doesn't have to bother with parliament/elections"
All: 46%
18-34s: 61%
35-54s: 49%
Over-55s: 29%
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/09/11/if-young-voters-actually-voted-then-be-afraid/
I honestly don't know what he needs to do to secure your support, short of reversing Brexit.
@TheScreamingEagles will you consider allowing Horse back?
Unless we should also immediately release anyone convicted of attempted murder on the basis they didn't succeed.
I was on the side of the plotters, against a PM who wished to make this country a satellite of the Soviet Union.
Stick to sending Ambassadors, or at most the Vice President and Prince of Wales
Gary Lineker and Brexit are the only areas where it's not.